Yay! - astronauts inside the Dragon spacecraft. (NASA / May 26, 2012)
The first commercial spacecraft to dock with the ISS has now been boarded by astronauts and had it’s cargo unloaded, thus beginning a news awesome chapter in space travel.
SPAAAACE!
Ok, let’s just agree right now – medical science is cool.. and even more cool when it saves the life of youngsters who haven’t really had much of a chance at life yet.
So, this story reported in Reuters has me smiling: Doctors at Rome’s Bambino Gesu hospital implanted a tiny little artificial heart into the kid until a donor was found.
The tiny titanium pump weighs only 11 grams and can handle a blood flow of 1.5 liters a minute. An artificial heart for adults weighs 900 grams.
I wonder how long it will be before we manage to create heart replacement pumps that can be trusted to work on a permanent basis?
Nasa video of the SpaceX Dragon capsule closing in on the ISS… Awesome
Oh wow.. this is just one of the most awesomest sciency things I’ve ever heard.
So, you’ve heard of stem cells? Those cells that can be thought of as building blocks, and that potentially will allow us to grow whole new organs or limbs for use in transplants? They are, as I like to think, damn cool biology stuff.
Well, stem cells can get bad press, because the easiest and most heard of method of making them is to create an embryo.. but hold on a gosh-darned-tooting second I hear you cry.. what about all those awkward ethical questions?!?!
Do not fret! I say, because stem cells can be made from skin cells! Also, researchers at Technion Israel Institute of Technology have managed to turn those stem cells into beating heart muscle! Awesome!
source – http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/3081/20120523/can-skin-cells-help-heal-your-heart.htm
When I see sciencey things I think to myself… wow. Occasionally I see something so awesome I just HAVE to share it with everyone else, beceuse.. well, it’s like, the law or something. I haven’t really thought that thought through very thoroughly but let’s just leave it there.
Anyway, this is one of those second things, and I know it’s rather lame and superfluous but it’s also rather awesome too..
Scientists at MIT have invented a food-safe coating that can be applied to glass or plastic containers that is super-hydrophobic.
What that means is.. tell you what, here, have a video:
The ketchup does not stick to the bottle!
Now, I don’t know the amount of ketchup or mayo that could be saved if this coating was applied to all containers, but I’m going to imagine it could be measured in olympic swimming pools, or possibly areas the size of Wales.
Science, isn’t it awesome?
Medication is apparently a perfectly viable way to treat depression and anxiety, provided it is accompanied by appropriate therapy…
It wasn’t long after this current episode of psychological issues began that I was advised that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy may be helpful to me. Unfortunatly though it was close to four months between my first visit to a GP and my referral to a CBT counsellor actually completing. During this time I was visiting my GP and a mental health nurse regularly, but the lack of any actual coherant counselling regimen was, I think, noticeable.
Here’s the beginning of the prologue of my in-progress novel:
The place where the thirteen High Judges met was not a place at all, in the strictest sense. That the table seemed to be circular and wooden, and that the floor appeared as though ancient dark slate tiles had been laid there centuries before was mere illusion.
The first of Joseph D’Lacey’s Snake Eyes pair of novellas, A Man of Will and Experience tells a tale where the fractured and many-layered psyche of the main character is as much an antagonist as any of the ‘spiders’ or plant-zombies he encounters.
Beginning in a dream, transitioning to a very-normal world and a hyper-normal protaginist, the reader is presented with an intriguing dilemma of a character who has noticed something that nobody else has.
The mystery gradually unfolds and soon the story begins to move from layer to layer, but whether we are transitioning from reality to fantasy or vice versa is never clear.
Authors need to read. Learning by example is one of the most fundamental and seemingly obvious pieces of advice anyone can give an aspiring author like myself, for a huge number of reasons.
In a previous post I explored a few of my writing heroes, but a list of favourite writers, like a list of favourite books or films is never truly exhaustive, and so I figured I’d pick up that thread and continue running with it, like a deranged kitten of some sort.
Yesterday was interesting, and I pushed myself a little further than my mental state usually has allowed me to recently, and yet I came out relatively unscathed, which is good.
I often come across as being somewhat introverted, particularly when I’m presented with an unfamiliar situation or new people, however that’s all a false impression – I’m not actually; I actually thrive in circumstances where I need to be more outgoing. What I actually am is thoughtful and anxious, and like to plan my actions ahead, more impulsive and less thoughtful people oftentimes mistake that as being introverted.