…have been grown from stem cells. They’re tiny, for now, but this seems like a huge breakthrough. And good news for alcoholics, among others.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Artificial Red Blood Cells
…that may perform better than natural ones. That would be a life saver in many cases.
Herd Immunity
This is good news, if true. It could explain why it hasn’t been worse, and probably won’t get worse.
Shackleton
We watched a documentary about the expedition last night. I was struck for the first time by the parallels with Apollo 13: A near disaster from which they recovered only through ingenuity and endurance (the ship was aptly named).
I only mentioned him in the book in terms of the probably apocryphal ad in the Times of London. If I ever do a new edition, I’ll probably talk more about that, as I did with Magellan.
Peter Thiel
A long but interesting article on how he’s attempting to transform society in an actual useful direction.
Climate Versus Covid Models
Cloudy with a chance of politics.
More than a chance.
Space Force To The Rescue
This is the sort of thing that should be done with a Space Guard, not a Space Force. Of course, if Starship happens, it will be moot.
SN4
Elon explains.
So it was a GSE problem, and had nothing to do with the vehicle-design itself, which seems like good news.
[Update a while later]
It’s been a decade since the first Falcon 9 flight. They’ve come quite a ways.
[Thursday-morning update]
SpaceX says that a first orbital flight could still happen this year.
[Bumped]
The Latest On Masks
The New England Journal of Medicine says that wearing them outside medical facilities offers little protection.
Yesterday’s Launch
Something to finish the weekend with.
FWIW, Amiko is married to Scott Kelly, who is the Kelly twin who spent a year at ISS.