Category Archives: Blog

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We can rebuild you! Injectable artificial bone paste developed

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cross-section of a human hip boneI’m lucky enough to have never needed one (touch wood), but I’m told that bone grafts are extremely painful procedures that invite the risk of further damage to surrounding areas. So I can see the logic behind RegenTec’s injectable artificial bone compound, which will be pretty handy stuff if it works as it’s supposed to:

The technology’s superiority over existing alternatives is the novel hardening process and strength of the bond, said Quirk. Older products heat up as they harden, killing surrounding cells, whereas ‘injectable bone’ hardens at body temperature – without generating heat – making a very porous, biodegradable structure.

Putting on our science-fictional speculative hats for a moment, what sort of uses might the street find for this stuff? I’ll start with back-alley cosmetic surgeons offering quick-to-heal height increases. [image by patrix]

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Warbot cheesecake! Qinetiq’s pin-up calendar

‘Tis the season for receiving tacky promotional items from companies with whom you do business. Here at Futurismic Towers we’ve received a few nice emails from publishers, writers and readers (thanks, folks!), but our undisguised envy is saved for the guys and gals at Wired’s Danger Room blog, who are evidently on far classier mailing lists than we’ll ever be. Some day, maybe we too will receive warbot manufacturer Qinetiq’s super-tasteful promotional calendar…

More delightful robocheesecake over at Danger Room. Yes, it is a slow news week.

Blog

Seed vault for plant preservation

An interesting article on the Millennium Seed Bank project here at Physorg. It seems thematically linked to the Long Now Foundation’s Rosetta Disk (intended as a very long term record of current written languages). The Millennium Seed Bank “seeks to develop a global seed conservation network, capable of safeguarding wild plant species:”

The futuristic facility, with its low-slung steel and glass structure over the vaults, is seen by scientists as an insurance policy against nature and human folly. It is a quiet place, where young scientists in white smocks spend hours cleaning seeds by hand, using microscopes, scalpels, forceps, and tiny brushes.

[image from Arria Belli on flickr]

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Gary Gibson’s six months with a Sony Reader

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Sony ebook Reader deviceBeen considering splashing out on an ebook reader? If so, you’ll be wanting the opinions of someone who isn’t just shilling for the company. While the Kindle seems to get the bulk of the blog coverage, there’s another big-brand competitor out there – and Scots science fiction novelist Gary Gibson seems to be a convert to the church of Sony Reader:

The answer is a very vigorous thumbs-up. I love the bloody thing, despite its many faults. God knows there are enough of them; it crashed from time to time, necessitating sticking a pin in the back to get it to laboriously reboot. Changing pages can occasionally also be a bit slow. It doesn’t come near the stated 7000-pages-before-needing-a-recharge stated in all of Sony’s advertising. And that’s just the hardware. There are endless problems to do with file formats – .lit, .mobi, .epub, and .on and .on and .on. […]

And yet, it’s still the greatest thing. The words are an absolute delight on the screen. It’s remarkably like reading words on paper. The text is clear and sharp. The machine is stunningly sleek and portable. And my reading has gone through the roof; I’ve read more books in the past six months than I’m usually likely to get through in a couple of years, if that. […]

I’ve made a point of being the first to describe the many discouraging issues concerning the technology. I suspect machines like this are really for the hardcore reader like myself; critics are right to point out these are not devices for the kind of people who might read one or two books in a year while on holiday. But for people who like to read, they’re an absolute godsend.

I expect I’m going to wait until the next generation of netbooks have full ebook functionality (I’ve been rammed into penury by sporadic displays of early-adopter syndrome before, a habit I doubtless acquired from my father), but if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t buy a new computer ever eighteen months, but who does tend to read a lot of books… well, are you tempted? Or are you going to stick with print on pulp until it’s pried from your cold dead hands [image by shimgray]

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Equal rights for apes?

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The Great Ape Project is a pressure group demanding a basic set of rights for hominids – and, as a side-effect, throwing up some questions about where the boundaries of rights for other living things should lie. [image by Frank Wouters]

Some countries already have legislation banning certain types of invasive experiments on apes, but GAP’s platform would also ban their exploitation for entertainment purposes as well as their use by profit-making ventures in general. After all, we wouldn’t allow a fellow human to be exploited (‘reality’ television shows notwithstanding – apparently people volunteer for those, and you can’t effectively legislate against stupidity).

Not everyone is keen on GAP’s rights-based approach, though, because it could lead to a moral ‘slippery slope’: once you’ve decided that apes need parity of rights, how can you then deny them to lesser mammals?