I’m busy today doing lots of things to get ready to take off to Phoenix for the Space Access Conference tomorrow, and I’ll be there until Sunday. I may post from there, depending on what kind of internet access I have, but make no promises.
No More Blogspotwatch
For long-time readers, note that I’ve taken down blogspotwatch. It hadn’t been working properly in months, and I think that the need for it lay in a past era.
Making Males Superfluous
I don’t know whether or not Heather does, but apparently Mickey has two mommies.
Kono, in an email, said the procedure might be useful with animals for agricultural and scientific purposes. When asked if he saw any reason to produce human babies this way, he dismissed the question as “senseless.”
Some lizards and many other animals reproduce with only maternal genes, but mammals do not. Lab experiments in mice had produced embryos and fetuses, but no successful births.
Actually, for reasons stated in the article, this doesn’t mean that human parthenogenesis is just around the corner, but I suspect that it is inevitable. At some point, we’re going to have to work out the sociological implications.
HTML Problems
Not here, as far as I know, but I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that some blogs are coming up totally FUBAR in Mozilla (Firebird .7), though they appear OK in Explorer. I’m not sure, but I think they’re all blogspot sites. Here’s an example (one that’s a regular read for me).
I don’t have the time or the inclination to dig through the source to figure out what the problem is, but if anyone else is interested, they might want to tell the site owners, so that they’ll be more accessible to the rest of the non-Microsoft universe. The problem seems to start right after the words “Advertise on the world’s biggest nanoblog!” which makes me suspect that there’s a blogads problem.
[Update on Wednesday morning]
I just checked Nanobot again, and it’s OK this morning.
<shrug>
Avast, Me Hearties
I haven’t had time to read it, but the Cap’n of the Clueless has what looks like an interesting post on warfare in space.
I’ve always found it a little ironic that in Star Trek, and most other science fiction, the model of the interplanetary/interstellar military is the navy. That makes sense, because we generally, or at least popularly, think of spaceships rather than spaceplanes, and the relatively slow maneuvers and docking, and indeed the nature of outer space itself, make the ocean a much more apt analogy than the air.
Yet in this current time-space continuum, the Pentagon has assigned space to the Air Force, and they’ve made notably little progress with it. I suspect that once we solve the earth-to-orbit problem, and the atmosphere becomes a temporary hindrance on the way to the rest of the universe, that the naval model will in fact prevail.
More Preemption?
Trent Telenko has a thought-provoking post (along with a lot of good comments) on just how high the foreign-policy stakes are in this election.
I’ll Finally Come Into Style
Phil Bowermaster says that, in the future, I’ll be the one who has the hip look.
I’ll Finally Come Into Style
Phil Bowermaster says that, in the future, I’ll be the one who has the hip look.
I’ll Finally Come Into Style
Phil Bowermaster says that, in the future, I’ll be the one who has the hip look.
X-Prize Progress
Leonard David has a good roundup of X-Prize progress.
Last month, the X Prize rocketship race garnered the support and participation of the Champ Car World Series — an organization steeped in checker flag competitions of open-wheel speedsters around the globe. The seven-figure sponsorship includes having the Champ Car World Series logo placed on all X Prize vehicles. The series will also be the primary corporate sponsor of the X Prize flights…
…”I find it interesting that everyone says the X Prize expires at the end of the year when in actual fact the