Well, I said I’d finish the Science Centre sustainability stuff today or die trying–and I’m still here. Finished it and sent it off; hope it makes some sort of sense. I also worked on Razor Wind a bit and, of course, edited my science column for the newspaper and for the blog and my online …
New small rocky or icy planets discovered
American astronomers report they’ve discovered two Neptune-sized rocky or icy planets outside our solar system…one step closer to finding Earth-like planets.
Gene doping
With the Olympics over, organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency are turning their attention to Beijing, four years down the road, and asking, “What new ways will athletes find to cheat between now and then?” The answer they’re coming up with is gene doping: performance enhancement achieved by the direct manipulation of athletes’ genes. The …
It won’t replace Doom 3…
…but it’s now possible to play mental ping-pong–good old Pong, with the paddles controlled solely by brainwaves. Considering it requires two MRI machines, though, it seems unlikely to appear in your local arcade.
New advance in gene therapy for brain diseases
This caught me eye, since today’s science column touched on gene therapy: researchers have come up with a better vector for delivering gene therapy into the brain: a virus normally found in insects.
Writing Diary: August 30, 2004
Today was a CBC science column day, so that was what I spent my morning on. This week’s topic (in honor of the Olympics being over): gene doping. There’s more than one way to skin that performance-enhancement cat! This afternoon I went to Second Cup and wrote several pages in Razor Wind, then it was …
Reading Writing Diary: August 29, 2004
I didn’t provide a writing diary for Thursday and Friday because there was nothing much to say. Thursday my brother Jim from Edmonton arrived to take away the family piano (by prior arrangement!) and brought Mom with him from Weyburn, so Thursday night was a family night. Friday I drove my Mom back to Weyburn …
Reading & Writing Diary: August 29, 2004
I didn’t provide a writing diary for Thursday and Friday because there was nothing much to say. Thursday my brother Jim from Edmonton arrived to take away the family piano (by prior arrangement!) and brought Mom with him from Weyburn, so Thursday night was a family night. Friday I drove my Mom back to Weyburn …
Laser shoots down mortar rounds
Imagine a laser weapon that can shoot down incoming mortar rounds. Sounds like SF, doesn’t it? But, imagine no longer.
A treatment for tinnitus?
If you, like me, suffer from tinnitus–a.k.a. “a ringing in the ears”–you may be intrigued by this new tinnitus drug study. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis think a drug called gabapentin, already approved for seizure disorders and chronic nerve pain, may help severe tinnitus sufferers. Although I have tinnitus, it …
Going up?
An effort has been launched to establish an annual competition for space-elevator technologies, similar to the Ansari X Prize. Cool!
Extrasolar planet announcement August 31
NASA is promising the announcement of the discovery of “a new class of planets” beyond our solar system at a press conference on August 31. Best guess? They’ve found something closer to Earth-sized than anything found yet–even that “super-Earth” planet I blogged about a couple of days ago.
My latest live walk and vlog
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