Octavia Butler was an intriguing, original writer whose death on Saturday will measurably impoverish American speculative fiction. I remember reading Wild Seed with mouth agape, discovering for the first time that fantasy didn’t have to be about Europeans with swords. Here’s the obit from her home town paper.

Colombia is taking a new approach toward eradicating cocaine plants — rather than spray with insecticide from the air, they’re sending in workers, guarded by soldiers, to rip it out by hand. Unfortunately, the rebels have been attacking the escorts and scaring away the workers.

Web 2.0, that is, according to Dion Hinchcliffe.

Seems that space is becoming a premium off-planet as well as on. Bill Ailor, director of the US Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies, wants space-faring nations to instigate some sort of air-traffic control system before a major collision incident occurs.

Good news for the nearsighted! Ophthalmologists in Dallas are to start fitting patients with a new type of implanted contact lens. These collamer lenses work in conjuction with the patient’s natural lens, bending light to compensate for the blurriness of myopia.