Category: Uncategorized
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Within an evolution lab in the shadow of the Ohio State Stadium, an NSF-sponsored group of academics and computer scientists assemble to grow the latest branches of the Tree of Life. Branches range from diatoms to dragonflies. The energy level is high. An opening session on “Learning to Detect Basal Tubules of Nematocysts” draws a…
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All that plastic you’ve heard about in the North Pacific Gyre–where does it go? Barnacles seem to eat it, according to Miriam Goldstein and Deborah Goodwin. The figure shows (A) barnacles growing all over a buoy, (B) a barnacle closeup, with its shell and muscular peduncle; (C) bits of plastic isolated from the barnacle’s gut.…
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The Helix and the Hard Road presents my Wiscon interview with Mike Levy, as well as a long out-of-print piece about my first book sale back in 1979. (Quaker meets publisher–a story in itself.) Available from Aqueduct Press, the full book also includes lovely poetry from Jo Walton. My portion is now here for…
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Once in a while we meet a neighbor creature we didn’t know existed. This praying mantis appeared tonight on our house door, at least four inches long. Its belly was emerald green, and its eyes two shiny black balls. Mantises are voracious predators; they usually capture other insects, but are known to catch lizards and…
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MUST see–Smart self-assembling M-blocks that jump over each other to build a larger structure. Daniela Rus and her students at MIT designed robotic cubes with no external parts. Inside each cube is a flywheel that throws its weight around, generating angular momentum. The momentum propels the cube in a programmed direction. But the cube has…
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I don’t generally quote The Daily News, but in this case the image that’s sweeping the country sums up what America thinks. According to the National Science Foundation, we at Kenyon can keep paying my technician and students–but the government doesn’t guarantee to reimburse us. And the National Institutes of Health advises us to “check…
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In the rainforest of Venezuela and Brazil rise high mesas called “tepui,” where many unique creatures are found. These creatures were thought to evolve in isolation, perhaps including many “ancient” forms. They are found atop the unique table-like tepuis that rise above the clouds. The tepui ecosystems may have influenced Avatar as well as Arthur…
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So this is the new MakerBot at Kenyon’s Science Complex. The blue-and-white thing looks blurred because it is vibrating so fast, printing out the pink polyedron. The pink stuff enters as a fiber of plastic down the right-hand tube, which comes from a coil of pink plastic behind. We plan to use this machine to…
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So the government undertakes a multimillion dollar program to investigate mysterious messengers from an uncharted world. Sound like the X-files? Actually it’s NIH, the National Institutes of Health. And the mystery messengers are within our own body, tiny particles called exRNA or extracellular RNA. Molecules of RNA that are made within a cell, copied from…
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Fred Pohl, author of Space Merchants, Gateway, and much more, alas has moved on to a universe next door. Our hearts go out to Betty Hull, whose determination completed the Gateways anthology to celebrate Pohl’s ninetieth birthday.
Joan Slonczewski 