As long as I’m blogging… Here’s today’s Science Fiction Headline of the Day: “Self-replicating robots on the loose in NY.”

I emerge from self-imposed blogging silence because this is news too good not to tell others about: scientists have figured out a biopolishing method that makes scratchy wool feel silky smooth. I’ve never much liked wool, ever since I was a kid, because it itches. Now, all that may be about to change. Yay!

Those of us old enough to remember Paul McCartney as a young man will also remember the fascination we all had with colour televisions. Colour gave even programs like My Mother the Car added sparkle, and as for Star Trek…well! Objectively speaking, though, colours are just certain wavelengths of light. Light, in turn, is merely …

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Look for very little new here for the next week. Deadline difficulties. I’ll probably post my weekly science column tomorrow, and that’ll be about it for a few days. But I’ll be back!

Here’s the detailed schedule for “Six Impossible Things,” the two-week tour of Canadian speculative fiction being hosted by Nalo Hopkinson for CBC’s Between the Covers. Looks like I’m leading things off; my story “Strange Harvest” will air on Monday, May 16, with Terence M. Green’s “Room 1786.” Between the Covers airs weekday afternoons at 2:30 …

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I love airplanes. (I don’t actually enjoy flying very much, but I love the look of the craft that make it possible.) Check out this fascinating gallery of early aircraft designs. The remarkable thing is that, even though they’re from the early 20th century, many of them still look futuristic. And if you’re wondering why …

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My book Genetics Demystified is listed on Amazon…and I haven’t turned it in, yet (though I will, soon). And (par for the course) the “About the Author” bit misspells my name. As did the Globe Theatre in its program for Twelfth Night. As did the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan in its …

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Check out this gallery of paleontological art from the Smithsonian. Fascinating to anyone with an interest in museum art–either the subject matter, or the techniques used to make it.

Check out this inexpensive one-person vacuum elevator, which can be “slotted into an existing building with a minimum of fuss.” Very futuristic.

Science fiction headline of the day: “Disintegrator Plus™: Harnessing the Power of Plasma”. Yes, it’s a home disintegrator, the dream of all little SF-reading boys everywhere come true at last. *Sniff.* I’m getting all misty-eyed…

I just dabble with my occasional “Science Fiction headline of the day” feature. Technovelgy.com has built a whole section of his (highly recommended) Web site around it.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have come up with a new–and much faster–way to create an accurate 3D model of an urban landscape. The new technique will be used by the military first, but soon enough car rental agencies, emergency workers, urban planners and, you can bet, computer game developers will be finding …

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