Chinese scientists have inserted scorpion and moth genes into canola to make them poisonous to insects. The anti-GMO crowd is going to love that.

Beverley’s Flower 1 Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. Actually, we have lots of friends with beautiful gardens. Here’s a late-afternoon shot of a lovely flower in yet another Regina garden.

A Saskatchewan Garden Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. Summer may be deadly (see earlier post), but it has its rewards, too. Some friends of ours have a most beautiful garden, which we were in on Saturday morning. It’s almost enough to make me want to take up gardening myself. Almost.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, over a 20-year period, from 1979 to 1999, more people in the U.S. died from extreme heat than from hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes combined.

A University of South Floriday psychologist and his students are working on ways for people who are paralyzed but fully conscious to communicate via a brain computer interface, using brain waves alone to operate a virtual keyboard. So far the method is slow–about one character every 26 seconds–but if you have no other means of …

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Lighting the Canada Summer Games Torch Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. We attended the opening ceremonies of the Canada Summer Games at Taylor Field here in Regina yesterday; here’s the big moment when the torch was lit. I’m glad we went, although proceedings were perhaps a little too drawn-out, especially for those of us attending …

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, certainly one of my favorite books of the last year, has won the Hugo Award for Best Novel at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. The complete list is here

…namely, 989 people playing accordians simultaneously. The mind boggles.

What will the plugged-in fashionista of the next few years be wearing? Perhaps one of these cyberfashions, ranging from MP3-playing sunglasses to various “body area network” garments and wearable computers. (Via TechnologyReview.com.)

Vaccine developr Acambis says it believes it may be able to develop a universal influenza vaccine that would work on both the A and B strains and wouldn’t have to be changed every year…and might even provide protection against a pandemic strain. Let’s hope they’re right. (Via Futurepundit.)

Here’s a fantastic (literally) collection of posters for (almost) all of the movies featured on the late, lamentedMST3K, more properly known as Mystery Science Theater 3000. Were I a 10-year-old boy again, I’d be dying to see some of these. Actually, come to think of it, I still am! (Via Drawn.)

The finalists for the populist Quill Awards have been announced. In the SF and fantasy category, the nominees are: The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower Stephen King, Michael Whelan (Illustrator) 1880418622 Scribner/Grant Going Postal Terry Pratchett 0060013133 HarperCollins Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel Susanna Clarke Bloomsbury 1582344167 Shadow of the Giant Orson …

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