GM mosquito resistant to malaria parasites - New Scientist 05-22-2002. The GM mosquito that stops malaria  - South China Morning Post
Gene Researchers Create Malaria-Resistant Mosquito  - Yahoo! Headlines
GM mosquito could prevent malaria spread  - Ananova [Google Technology News]

So, whay aren't ehy creating a super mosquito that will create a malaria vaccine in it's belly instead?

7:09:17 PM    

Neurotypical brains have better things to do. Larry Welkowitz on neurotypical brains: ... [Jon's Radio]

While I'm not a high level geek, I agree with Larry's sentiment. Get it to work, don't mystify me with buzzwords, and for gosh sakes, keep it simple. All that matters is that the majority of the time, the tool works. Forget dial tone reliability, people want the reliability of hammer.

6:35:47 PM    

Big Blimp That Apparently Couldn't. Sixty-five years after the Hindenburg exploded and effectively ended the era of the zeppelin, Carl von Gablenz's dream of lighter-than-air transportation is crashing and burning as well. By Edmund L. Andrews. [New York Times: Business]

I remember reading about this company in Wired a while ago. Sorry to see that their vision will not likely come to fruition. The only solution that I can think of to keep the blimp form shooting skyward after dropping it's cargo is to teather it to the loading dock, and run some massive pelitier coolers to compress the helium, negating some of it's lifting ability until it is time to lift off again. I Am Not An Engineer.

10:02:55 AM    

Bacteria signpost gold deposits. Gold prospectors could use changes in soil bugs to uncover new reserves of the precious metal [New Scientist]

Given that there are life forms that can live on petrochemicals, why shouldn't there be baccili that are indicators of gold in an area? I wonder if the same holds true for the prospecting of other minerals.

If we can determine the likelyhood of finding diamonds by the makeup of the geology of a region (coal seam near an formerly active volcano, so you have a high pressure/temperature field in which to "grow" the diamonds) couldn't we apply the same criteria to finding gold? Likewise, what baccili serve as flags for diamonds? Time will tell.

9:45:13 AM