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New Look! Wheee!!!
New year, new look. The O*W*C site has just undergone Phase I of a massive makeover. The site isn’t fully functional yet, but I wanted to get the skeleton out there. The things that get the most traffic–chat room, boards, and blog–are all up and running, and the rest of the site will come online…
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The Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006
The #1 picture just left me speechless. It’s now my desktop :-)Link
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And if My Grandmother Had Three Speeds, She’d be a Vibrator
A “speculative paper”–and here “speculative” should be read as “pulling stuff out of their asses”–released by the British government frets that robots might someday be smart enough to demand emancipation, raising the prospect that they’ll have to be treated as citizens (and sue if they’re denied that right). Should they prove successful, the paper said,…
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Science in 2006
This article, “From On High to Lowbrows,” discusses some of the scientific highlights of 2006.(Is anybody besides me really, really shocked that 2006 is almost over?)
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A Look at Past Futures
Graham Sleight’s column “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” from Locus Magazine looks at classic works from a contemporary perspective.Link
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“Virtual Family Dinners” Help Elderly Shut-Ins
Technology company Accenture is working on a prototype video system that will allow geographically scattered families to get together virtually as often as they’d like. They’re aiming for technology that’s easy for even those who might be intimidated by computers, and which will automatically check to see which family members are available for a visit…
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Changes to the ISFDB
They’ve opened the ISFDB for editing by the general public. They would like to recruit beta testers for this effort.The ISFDB is a community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content…
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Team Films Live Giant Squid
A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live–possibly for the first time–and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed.Link
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Life Imitates Snow Crash…Again
I’ve previously written about Snow Crash-like technology coming to the real world. Now Google Earth is getting in on the act. Check it out at Technovelgy.com
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Print a New Hip Joint
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh have created a unique ink-jet printing system that uses “bio-ink” to lay down a pattern of cells that will differentiate into a designed pattern of both bone and muscle cells. They begin with a layer of nurturing proteins as a base, then use a robotic inkjet-style…