Cotton: it’s what’s for dinner

Or, at least, it could be soon: “The exciting finding is that we have been able to reduce gossypol – which is a very toxic compound – from cottonseed to a level that is considered safe for consumption,” said Dr. Keerti Rathore, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station plant biotechnologist. “In terms of human nutrition, it has …

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Heck, I do this all the time:

Not the getting-lost-in-the-woods-while-picking-mushrooms part, but the using-an-electronic-device’s-glowing-screen-as-a-flashlight part.

The first sentence I wrote Sunday…

The members of the band didn’t think Simon understood their music. Janis Joplinning, still… 5,137 words today. I’m sick of the 1960s.

The first sentence I wrote Saturday…

Janis wrote in her scrapbook, “For awhile it was Country Brother and the Holding Fish.” Number of words today: 3,520. I’m not sure how many are left to go.

"Animal intelligence" leads the search-term pack

A new leader in search terms bringing people to my main website this week: “animal intelligence” takes the top spot. Physics of football still ranks high, though, and if you throw in “soccer science” and “science of soccer,” it takes first place. On the other hand, there’s also “animal emotions” on the list, so it’s …

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The first sentence I wrote today…

Darby Slick of the Great Society, who saw Big Brother play in late July, said, “It was nearly impossible not to stare constantly at her. She pranced, she strutted, she shrieked, she whispered. The word of mouth was, a star is born.” Janis Joplinning continues…

A word of warning to NaNoWriMo contestants…

…from A.C. Crispin at the Writer Beware blog: “…I know that a significant percentage of the writers who participate in writing novels in November, are going to wind up getting SCAMMED in December, January, February, March, etc., when they submit their novels to scam publishers like American Book Publishers, or PublishAmerica, or scam literary agents …

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Transit of Mercury: The Movie

I think it’s probably impossible for us to truly understand the size of a star, even an ordinary, not particularly big star like our sun. Check out this page from NASA with images from the recent transit of Mercury across the face of the sun. In particular, take time to download the movie. Watch the …

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Photo of the Recent Past: Snowy Statue

More photos here.

The first sentence I wrote today…

Jack Smith said, “I mean she got so straight, people didn’t like being around her! She was downright dull.” Focusing on Janis Joplin still…

Good news for fighting viral pandemics:

A 60-second test for virus infections. Best bit: “You could actually apply it to a person walking off a plane and know if they’re infected.”

I coulda been a (NaNoWriMo) contender!

All this talk about National Novel Writing Month (for example, this local news story about a participant, one of 72 in Saskatchewan), got me to wondering just how many words I wrote in the final 30 days of working on the first draft of my new novel. I typed THE END on November 14. On …

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