It’s the most powerful eruption in the universe (that we’ve observed, anyway)–and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has taken its picture.
A wireless blog
Also a bit of a writing diary. I reached “The End” of Excalibur Reforged again yesterday, and today I’ve been doing some final touching up and giving some though to the story arc for the rest of the putative series of books. I’m uncertain how detailed I need to make the outlines for future books, …
Frankenstein’s Earthsea
Ursula K. LeGuin writes more about the TV adapation of Earthsea. She was, um, unimpressed–to put it mildly.
Margaret Atwood invents long-distance autographing machine
I just hope someday my books are in enough demand that I’ll have occasion to use something like this. It sounds like something out of science fiction–which, of course, Margaret Atwood does not write.
Cat copies
I had a great cat growing up. I got Tiger (original name, eh?) when he was a kitten, and he lived to be almost 18 (by which time I had long since left home and my parents were wondering why they were still looking after my cat). Tiger was a wonderful pet–gentle, affectionate, and yet …
First look at Lost in Translation cover art
Five Star has published its winter catalogue online, which has given me my first look at the cover art for my upcoming novel Lost in Translation (due out in late February). The artist is Alan M. Clark. UPDATE, March 1: Oops. Turns out the cover artist is actually Jill Bauman. It’s not quite what I …
Iapetus up close
We’re starting to see the first close-up views of Saturn’s moon Iapetus from Cassini’s current flyby. Cool! Speaking of cool, it’s -31 C here at the moment, after a weekend that saw us get 30 cm of snow or so. Not surprisingly, there’s a wind-chill warning in effect–wind chill will probably reach -45 C (that’s …
Frank Kelly Freas (1922-2005)
Frank Kelly Freas has passed away. He was the artist guest of honor at the first SF convention I ever went to (RocKon, in Little Rock, ca. 1979) and I still have an autographed poster of one of his paintings somewhere. Sad news.
Is human head hair the same as animal fur?
Oddly enough, no one seems to have asked that question (although I’ve wondered it myself from time to time) of the scientific community…until now. Oh, yeah, and by the way: Happy New Year!
Gollum on the couch
Sméagol gets psychoanalyzed.
An idea whose time has come around and around and around…
It’s artificial gravity research (in the good old-fashioned spin-the-astronaut-in-the-cylinder kind of way, not in the might-as-well-be-magic Star Trekish kind of way), and it’s being taken seriously at last.
Non-viral gene therapy
Gene therapy holds enormous promise, but it’s been plagued by occasional fatalities in test subjects that may be due to the fact that currently modified genes are inserted into cells using viruses. A new method using nanoparticles could eliminate that hazard.
My latest live walk and vlog
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