Growing Your Own Replacement Parts

By | |
Comments Off on Growing Your Own Replacement Parts

 

This is simply incredible. Watch the video about Claudia Castillo growing a replacement to part of her windpipe with her own stem cells. She didn’t grow the complete tube, but nevertheless…

Ms Castillo, who was born in Colombia, had suffered a tuberculosis infection that ravaged her airways, leaving her unable to do simple domestic tasks. Disease had caused her windpipe, or trachea, to collapse just at the point where it entered her lung. Without the pioneering operation in June, the lung would have been removed. Today she again has a normal life and is able to look after her two children. She can walk up stairs without getting breathless and has even been dancing.

Oh, my. Can you believe this? What the future holds for all the folks with damaged parts…

And does this mean as we age, we’ll be able to swap out the old for new? How will that affect aging? This is simply incredible.

Dawn of the Pirate

By | |
Comments Off on Dawn of the Pirate

So reads the headline at Drudge.

Here is Abdul Hassan, 39. A Somali pirate nicknamed “the one who never sleeps.” Hassan is part of a pirate group called the Central Regional Coast Guard. It was formed three years ago, has 350 men in its ranks and about 100 speedboats.

Zing, zing, zing, zing, zing!

There are some wonderful stories waiting to be told about this. Sure, there is the terrorist angle. But what about the angle of someone of value they stumble across on the ship? What about the kid who knows these pirates and decides to make a buck turning them in? What about the guys sent in to find out who the heck is backing these guys?

What about Hassan himself? Somali is so poor. With one job he made $350,000. Here are some great articles.

A fascinating MUST READ pictorial of Somali pirates. 

A map of pirate attacks in 2008.

An article about a tanker just taken by pirates.

An article indicating just how much money pirates are making (more than $100m just this year) by taking ships and demanding ransoms.

“26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss” by Kij Johnson

By | |
Comments Off on “26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss” by Kij Johnson

Why is Kij smiling?

Because she knows how the blasted monkeys do it!

And she’s not telling, neither. Neener-neener.

I just read Johnson’s story and enjoyed it. I enjoyed the inexplicable trick, the narrator, the transport to this odd and wonderful traveling troupe, and dang it, even the ending. Furthermore, there are moments in the story that capture the wonderousness of these fellow animals so well that they shine like jewels.

I always wanted a monkey friend. You can read about someone who has 26 of them.

 It’s on her website, free, just waiting to be enjoyed. Kind of like a delicous mango or bananna.
.
.
.
.

Base Jumping & Wingsuits

By | |
Comments Off on Base Jumping & Wingsuits

Dude.

What else is there to say? (btw, this is the best clip I’ve seen)

 

One more…

ma-ma.

I would be so freaking tempted IF I had the skinny body of 20 years ago. As it is those little wings probably wouldn’t do a thing and I’d drop like a stone. Yeeeeehaaaaaaasplat.

“Clockwork Chickadee” by Mary Robinette Kowal

By | |
Comments Off on “Clockwork Chickadee” by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer and a dang good story teller. I ran across her “Clockwork Chickadee” this last summer and forgot to blog about it. Then she won the Campbell Award. And I thought to blog it again. Now it’s November and you see what it means to run on “Brown time.” But however belated my review, this story is marvelous. The images have stuck in my mind since that first reading. And the chickadee, well, let me share the beginning with you.

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. 

I am an impatient reader: if the story doesn’t grab me within the first few lines, I usually pass. I’m trying very hard not to be so demanding and extend this to two pages (no, I do not have the fortitude some readers do to extend this to twenty, forty, or sixty pages). But sometimes I slip back into my old ways. However, with Clockwork Chickadee I didn’t need to remember to be patient. I just read and read and read some more.  

For those who care about story, you’ll notice it doesn’t run on the normal fuel of sympathy and suspense. This is a curiosity story. And Kowal does it so well.

Here’s the text version. But if you have no time to read, that’s no problem. Listen to the audio version right now or download it to your iPod or MP3 player and listen while you’re out and about.

Enjoy!