It may not be a question you’ve ever asked yourself, but it’s certainly germane to any number of science fiction writers. Turns out you’ve got about 10 seconds of consciousness, and if air pressure and oxygen are restored within a minute and a half, you can be revived without serious consequences. Beyond that, what with …
At least, I think this is a Buddha riding a lion, mainly because when I Googled “Buddha riding a lion” I ended up here, which explains that “the mystical lion…symbolizes the guardian of Buddhist doctrines.” In any event, a very nice hand-carved piece, part of the “things I found in my mother-in-law’s house” series. More …
“Animal intelligence” continues to lead the pack of search terms bringing people to my main site, and you could lump that together with “animal emotions” for a truly commanding lead. Making a first appearance is a seasonal favorite, “flying reindeer.” Good old “spider goat” is still on the list, and other old favorites. Here are …
The mystery of a Stradivarius’s extraordinary sound has been solved, and it all comes down to the chemicals used to treat the wood, probably to ward off worms. The unique acoustical results were most likely a happy accident.
…I finished my Janis Joplin biography for Enslow Publishers Monday and emailed it in the same day. Yesterday was mostly a science column-and-revising-Untitled Science Fiction Novel day. More revising today (I’m up to about page 80 of almost 500–still a long way to go–and I’ve already added 3,000 words. Gulp.). Boring stuff like cleaning my …
Scientists have successfully levitated small animals using sound waves.
More photos here.
It’s the strangest mental phenomena most of us ever experience: the feeling that we’ve already done or seen something that we’re really doing or seeing for the first time. This week an interesting new aspect of the phenomenon came to light: for the first time, researchers have reported a case of a blind person experiencing …
The Glenn and Helen Show podcasts a long interview with Orson Scott Card, which naturally caught my eye…er, ear…since I recently wrote a biography of him. Card talks about his new book, Empire, which is about a new U.S. civil war, and about division in American politics. Warning: May raise your blood pressure if you …
They’ve made it self-erasable (it fades in about a day) and re-usable.
More photos here.
Carol Pinchefsky at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show has some thoughts. It’s an interesting article all the way through, and I think she hits on some interesting possibilities, but I found it hard to finish, having run across this little fact part of the way down the page: The reasons are varied but inarguable …
