Quentin Crisp. Resident Alien.
Christopher Isherwood. Down There on a Visit.
Seth Lloyd. Programming the Universe.

( Books borrowed )

Alfred Bester. The Rat Race.
Ray Bradbury. Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Minister Faust. The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad.
Jack Repcheck. Copernicus' Secret.

( Books borrowed )

Posted another suck-it-and-see, this time in response to the Climate Sceptics Party brochure that came through the letterbox today. Most of their claims are just irrelevant ("Humans are 18% carbon... carbon dioxide is NOT a poisonous gas.") but there was one I'd never heard before: "Many other factors, such as solar activity, El Nino and lunar orbital cycles, ( Read more... )

Battle of the sexes - one gene keeps us either male or female, scientists find

DNA's guardian gene found in placozoans. The common genetic heritage of life on Earth ever fills me with glee. We share genes with yeast, starfish, you name it - the same basic toolkit, recycled and remodelled over and over again.

Homosexual selection: The power of ( Read more... )

(a) It's 32 degrees ( Read more... )

Monash University tackles global warming sceptics' arguments.

The full document is here: Responses to Questions & Objections on Climate Change

Click to view

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18238-why-theres-no-sign-of-a-climate-conspiracy-in-hacked-emails.html
Why there's no sign of a climate conspiracy in hacked emails
New Scientist, 4 December 2009"You can't ( Read more... )

Library FAIL. I'll go tomorrow morning. In the meantime I think I'll post some news from the world of SCIENCE here, in between efforts at unearthing the household from its current layer of filth.

Cervical cancer vaccine reminds girls of sexual risks rather than promoting promiscuity.

Bans 'do not cut abortion rate' (but contraceptive access does ( Read more... )

As I type these words, a tiny camera is bravely swimming through my insides, snapping a photo a couple of times a second. I even got to watch the start of its journey, as it made its way from my stomach to the start of my small intestine - weird, but not as icky as you might think. There are electrodes taped all over my tum and they're connected to ( Read more... )