This story was floating around early this year, but appears to have resurfaced again, despite its classic science fiction vibes – a Californian scientist believes that cultural shifts in human behaviour could be due to the presence of a cat parasite called Toxoplasma. Toxoplasma makes its hosts, usually rats, more active and less cautious and hence more likely to be eaten by a cat, where it can complete its lifecycle. Could it be that dormant Toxoplasma trapped in the dead-end host of a human body still creates a change in behaviour, leading to changes in human culture such as an increase in neurotic behaviours?
EXIT WITHOUT SAVING by Ruth Nestvold
Futurismic‘s resident purveyor of gender- and identity-bending fiction, Ruth Nestvold, brings us a story about the dangers of escaping your own skin – “Exit Without Saving”.
Exit Without Saving
by Ruth Nestvold
Spending credit illegally was difficult, but there were ways, if you were clever. There were always ways. Using a morph unit illegally was even more difficult, but to Mallory it was worth the risk.
Friends like Lorraine made it possible. Lorraine was a lab technician for Softec, and she was both clever and greedy; to make a little extra on the side, she allowed Mallory to use the units during off hours. Mallory had no idea if any of the other morph agents were also clandestine customers — Lorraine could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.
“I don’t understand why they don’t market these things for entertainment purposes,” Lorraine said as she adjusted the download cap on Mallory’s head. Continue reading EXIT WITHOUT SAVING by Ruth Nestvold
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
Many Russians can’t afford a luxurious adventure holiday abroad, which may be why Persey Tours’ original business model failed. But they soon struck on a better idea – instead of selling you a holiday, they sell you the mementos and paraphenalia that you would have picked up on the holiday, at a fraction of the cost. They have even supplied a fuel-station owner with keepsakes from a fictional ride to the moon on a non-existant Russian space-shuttle.
The Eyes Have It
Sometimes, Mother Nature comes up with a great solution that takes human technology thousands of years to replicate. A new breed of artificial lens is controlled in much the same may as a human eye, by an artificial muscle that squeezes it into different configurations. The ability to focus a lens in this way, without direct control by electronics, will enable them to be deployed in situations where current solutions are no use – for instance, biosensors and medical imaging equipment.
So Much Data, So Little Bandwidth
Scientists on Earth may miss out on a large chunk of data from space probes like Cassini over the next half year, thanks to a failed set of bearings on a huge dish antenna based near Madrid. The ‘scope will need repairing, which will take until early 2007, and that knocks out one third of NASA’s ‘Deep Space Network’, which normally allows us to watch space in any direction at any time. Not all of the data will be lost, but probe mission planners will have to choose carefully and set priorities on the omost important objectives.