That’s the good news. The bad news is that it was launched in 1977, and it’s taken it almost three decades to get there, so it won’t be dropping by other solar systems for a while yet. I’m talking, of course, about Voyager 1.
Download your brain by 2050?
The most amazing thing about this story? Not that we might be able to download the contents of our brains into computers by 2050, but that the author failed to reference Robert J. Sawyer‘s new book Mindscan, which is about exactly that kind of thing, in exactly that kind of timeframe. But, of course, he’s …
Earth-grown Martian plants
NASA-funded scientists are experimenting with genetically engineering plants that could grow on Mars. And “Designer Plants on Mars” is my science fiction headline of the day…so far, anyway.
2020 is closer than you think…
…and it has robots in it.
Robo-baby
Maybe prospective parents should be issued one of these. It beats that old high-school “treat this egg like a baby” drill. (Via Medgadget.)
Willett’s Law of Non-Fiction Writing
In honor of my turning in of the last materials required for my book Genetics Demystified, I present: Willett’s First Law of Non-Fiction Writing No non-fiction book outline survives contact with the actual content. In any event, the book is done, and thus, though I still have a million other things crying out for attention, …
Particle accelerator helping to uncover Archimedes’s words
Here’s another story on using modern technology to uncover the secrets concealed in an ancient manuscript. In this case the technology is a particle accelerator, and the document is the Archimedes Palimpsest, thought to be a 10th century copy of an original long-lost Archimedes manuscript which was copied over by a later scribe. I saw …
Go south, young blogger!
As far south as you can go, in this case: 75 Degrees South, a.k.a. Antarctica.
Dr. Jones to uncover Ark of the Covenant?
No, really, that’s what this story says, although personally I’d take it with a grain of salt as large as you’d get if the Dead Sea evaporated completely. Here’s Dr. Jones’s own Web site.
A smile from the Queen
Queen Elizabeth II smiles as she accepts flowers from my daughter, Alice, May 18, 2005, in front of the Legislative Building in Regina, Saskatchewan. See previous post for details!
Waiting for the Queen
My almost-four-year-old daughter Alice waits in the rain for her chance to give flowers to Queen Elizabeth yesterday morning, May 18. Alice and I and a family friend made the trek around the end of the lake Wednesday morning to see Queen Elizabeth be officially welcomed to Canada. We took flowers, more in the faint …
Live performances from dead pianists
A remarkable concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, this Thursday, May 19, will feature Glenn Gould performing excerpts from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and the great French pianist Alfred Cortot playing a Chopin Prelude, on a nine-foot Yamaha grand piano. What’s remarkable about it is that Gould died in 1982 and Cortot in 1962. But the performances …
My latest live walk and vlog
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