The pace that medical technology advances is truly astounding — witness this story of repairing the heart valve without opening the chest.

Off the coast of west Africa are a fleet of fishing boats that are more rust than metal yet still crewed. “These ships seldom, or ever, visit a port. They’re re-supplied, refuelled, re-crewed and transhipped (unloaded) at sea.” The Greenpeace style is a bit breathless for my taste, but nonetheless an interesting read.

Chevy’s decided to get all “viral” on us by recruiting users to mix advertisements for its new Chevy Tahoe. Thing is, there’s nothing saying the ads have to be complimentary. (The linked ads are kind of lame — but the concept’s worth a giggle.)

There’s nothing like inflammatory rhetoric to get the blood flowing, but holocaust doesn’t actually seem such an inappropriate term to describe widespread deaths of coral reefs in the Caribbean and Indian and Pacific oceans. In the Caribbean, sustained record water temperatures weakened the coral, and a disease called “the white plague” dealt the death blow.

School kids in the United Kingdom were able to sidestep British legal restrictions on importing and exporting weapons for use in torture with “a letterhead, a mobile phone, an email address, and a little money.” What’s most interesting about this story from my perspective is not the merit of the law itself, but how it demonstrates the power of communications technology to route around government.