We’d all like to think our names are unique, but they generally aren’t. Consider “Ed Willett.” Not only is there an Ed Willett who’s some kind of government commissioner in Australia, there’s also this Ed Willett, part of the “World Chamber Music” duo known as Chance. Fortunately, he doesn’t look a thing like me. I …
OK, maybe not as earth-shaking as “Garbo talks,” but still… I didn’t know this was online until I stumbled over it today. Here’s a clip of me describing the premise of my novel Spirit Singer from Jillian “The BookChick” Bell’s CJTR program Saskatchewan Books Go Public.
Yes, yes, I know, the only true solution to greenhouse warming of the planet is a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. But while we’re working on that–and the only way we’re going to achieve it, realistically, is with a switch to alternative forms of energy–it seems to me to make a lot of sense to …
Ever wonder why herds, flocks, gaggles, murders, etc., etc., of various animals manage to stay together while moving all over the place? A new study at Princeton University may have the answer–and may point the way to understanding how humans move in crowds.
Maybe! Scientists have discovered where the missing half of “normal matter” in the universe may be hiding. Of course, “normal” matter only makes up four percent of the universe’s entire matter-energy budget. Twenty-three percent comes from “dark” matter–we still don’t know what that is–and the rest from “dark energy”–which we have even less of a …
Well, this is good news for those of us whose pictures can no longer be filed under the heading “Chicken, Spring”: The long-held belief that older people perform slower and worse than younger people has been proven wrong. In a study published today in Neuron, psychologists from McMaster University discovered that the ageing process actually …
Here’s another story on the new method of adding computer-generated images to video in real time. It includes a link to an 80MB AVI video showing the system in action…and now so have I.
Scientists have created an obedient measles virus that targets cancer cells, and not healthy cells. Sounds promising, though a human therapy is still years away…
This sounds promising: a new approach to battling viral infections that could eliminate (or at least lessen) the problem of viruses adapting to the drug over time. The focus is on smallpox, but it sounds like it could work with any virus.
Oh, yeah, this is going to be a BIG seller: a nagging computer that keeps track of your daily activities and then alters a five-years-in-the-future digital image of yourself to show you how fat/flabby/wrinkled/stooped your current lifestyle is likely to make you. Yeah, people are going to LOVE that.
A new technology could make it possible to combine computer-generated images with live TV images on the fly.
Paradoxically enough, sometimes “big science” involves very small objects. Particle accelerators are one good example. Another is the burgeoning field of nanotechnology: the technology of very small things. January was a very big month for very small things at the University of Toronto, with two related announcements about a new breakthrough that could give us …
