Flies, Yeast and Pumpkins
I was going to cover some aspect of poetry, but I'm short of time. I do
suggest you wander over to Jimmy's
place and read the usual hilarious treatment of BAP (thanks RHE for the
URL). My favorite part so far is Ashbery beating the drum and wondering
why he's never been Poet Laureate.
I received the latest issue of the MIT Technology Review with a sticker
telling me that it's the last issue I'm privy to until I re-up.
Interesting articles included: studios are beginning to insert subliminal
messages like "Illegal Copy" into films which don't appear at theatres, but pop
up in illicit copies. DARPA (the people who brought you the Internet) have
funded the invention of an ultrasonic tourniquet that detects a broken blood
vessel (typically, from a battlefield injury) and seals it with ultrasound-based
heat. I've always been skeptical of the whole Ethanol-in-your-gasoline
thing that has made ADM rich, as I've read that it takes more energy and
generates more pollution to manufacture corn-based ethanol than what it saves in
your tank. It turns out that lots of scientists know this and recommend
using prairie grass or soybeans instead. Google has started a program to
warn you when they give your a site in response that they know could infect your
computer with malware. Carbon sequestrian science is the field of study in
which they believe that carbon dioxide could be stored underground in vast
chambers (like abandoned mines), but it could have a large positive impact on
lots of things we worry about (like global warming). The Hundred Dollar
Laptop is actually happening. Founded by members of the MIT Media Lab and
supported by many large electronics firms (e.g., AMD) the goal is to produce
millions of these laptops that can connect to the Internet, include hand-powered
crank battery regenerators, and be successfully targeted to 3d World consumers
(imagine trading a goat for a computer). The sequencing of the human
genome was just the start. You need to know a lot more about how genes are
expressed and evolutionary signatures to sort out why flies, yeasts, pumpkins
and us turn out so differently. NASA has developed a whole new array of
boom-based cameras to help Shuttle pilots to determine if their craft is
damaged. The rest of the issue is devoted to Young Innovators of science
and technology. They're mainly American and I love that their surnames
range from Singh to Liao to Paninski to McGonigal to Argyris to Shendure to
Voight to Maliakal Coe-Sullivan.
More on poetry tomorrow. Really, I promise.