Category: Uncategorized
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Well as Jeanne pointed out, 3D printers have lots of applications not described in The Highest Frontier. But Sinterhab, the moonbase from a 3D printer, looks just like the pits at my Lunar Circuit in Mare Crisium. What is “sinter” and why is it important? The big problem with building anything on the moon is…
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So the word is out that your $1,895 faux fur-trimmed coat from Neiman Marcus might not really be faux. In fact, the faux might be actual mink fur–or else raccoon, rabbit, or something called a raccoon dog (above). Interestingly, none of the numerous reports I saw on this story actually pictured a raccoon dog. A…
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It’s inspiring now and then to hear how a mistreated ecosystem can recover. The famous marshes of Iraq were destroyed under the previous regime, and now they are recovering. Let this not serve any propaganda for the war, lest we note all the marshes Americans have drained during the past decade. Draining tidal marshes was…
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While the Colorado River no longer reaches the sea, and India’s water table drains away into our soft drinks bottled there, perhaps we’ll get a new source of drinking water–Mars? Not unless you’re a microbe. Still, NASA finds evidence that drinkable water existed on Mars at one time–and might still, deep below the rock. The…
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As we age, what if we could grow new teeth? British researchers claim to have done just that–well sort of, with help from mouse cells. What they did was to combine cells from adult gum tissue with mouse cells. The mouse cells were embryonic tooth mesenchyme. “Mesenchyme” are undifferentiated cells from the mesoderm, one of…
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Just returned from a great time discussing books in Katonah, when what emerges–the latest CDC warning about superbugs, aka “nightmare bacteria.” See this video about bacteria that are resistant to literally every known antibiotic. What do do about them? Robots spray the hospital room with 35% hydrogen peroxide. (Humans cannot withstand that concentration in the…
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For out last lab before break, the microbiology class visits our local hospital lab. That’s the place where all your specimens go (urine, blood etc.) after you put them on the counter, or into the little window where they disappear. Like Alice through the looking-glass, on the other side we find another world where hundreds…
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What do you suppose a flower looks like to a bee? If the bee is using electricity, this is it. Anne Leonard at the University of Nevada says that bees detect the negative electrical charge surrounding a flower. Furthermore, the bee has positive charge–s0 when it lands on the flower, it picks up the negatively…
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The Katonah Library Science Fiction Book Club has arranged for me to visit on Saturday, March 2, at 1:30. We will be discussing The Highest Frontier. Visitors are welcome!
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Sorry you couldn’t be there–but Boskone was awesome! Thanks to Laurie Mann and trusty volunteers, we had the best events I can remember. Our panel “Breasts and Other Ways Animals Feed Their Young” was a runaway success, for young and old. Thanks to Priscilla Olson and Frank Wu, we learned amazing facts about marsupials with…
Joan Slonczewski 