Canadian researchers have developed vaccines for Ebola and Marburg that have been shown to work in non-human primates–amazing news that could mean I’ll have to write an updated version of my children’s book Ebola Virus.
Breathing underwater without air tanks
An Israeli inventor has developed a breathing apparatus that will allow divers to breathe underwater without having to wear oxygen tanks. Instead, they’ll be able to simply draw on the oxygen dissolved in the water–just like fish do. (Via Technovelgy.)
Blimp me!
I hope that blimps really are making a comeback, not least because “blimp” is simply, without question, a funny word. Blimp. Blimp? Blimp! See what I mean? Although the kind of blimps I long for are more the long-gone zeppelins, fabulous cruise ships of the sky. Until they return, I’ll have to make do with …
Why don’t you take her for a spin?
It’s a whole new way to experience music: the Expression Synthesis Project allows users to put their own expressive stamp on a piece of music without being able to play a musical instrument–as long as they can drive a car: “ESP starts with a piece of music (in) the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) format…The …
New commenting system installed
Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to Hassenpfeffer.
The past view of the future
Check out these predictions for the coming century by the Ladies Home Journal of 1900. Not bad, really, except maybe for that bit about cities being free of all noise, home deliveries via pneumatic tubes, electricity being used to stimulate plant growth, and the claim that air-ships will not be able to compete with surface …
More on that T-Rex tissue
The first-ever tissue recovered from a dinosaur fossil–cells and blood vessels from a Tyrannosaurus Rex known as MOR 1125–provides further evidence of a strong link between dinosaurs and birds.
Genetically modified bacteria to clean up the environment
It’s an idea sure to cause conflicting emotions in many a green-blooded environmentalist.
Where’s Tiger (or Fido, or Rover, or…)?
When I was a kid, my pet cat Tiger mysteriously disappeared, only to just as mysteriously re-appear two weeks later. If I’d had this, maybe I could have found him!
Copying consciousness
Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer is intrigued by the mystery of human consciousness. He’s written about it in various ways over the course of his career, and the thought-provoking premise of his latest novel, Mindscan, is that in 40 years humans will be able to download their consciousness into android bodies. Interestingly, Ian …
What could be better than a swallowable camera?
Why, a swallowable camera with legs, of course–the better to see your intestinal track with, my dear. (Via Howard Lovy’s Nanobot.)
An update on SETI
Here’s an interesting update on the current state of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) art, which has apparently rather more benefited than not by losing government funding. (Via Transterrestrial Musings.)
My latest live walk and vlog
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