Links for 07-09-2007
The rising cost of food, biomachinery, extinction events, the environmental collapse of Angkor Wat, ultrasound surgery, Bill Gibson interview …
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1 – Days of cheap food are over, say suppliers as ingredient costs soar
“Superstore groups prepare to stomach higher prices because of far east demand and biofuel incentives.” Think positive – obesity should fall in tandem.
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2 – Through the Looking Glass – William Gibson interview
“I can work with this,” he says, thinking of recent turns of events. “I like the sheer sort of neo-Stalinist denial of reality. That’s what makes it work. It’s interesting. I’d like to see it get less interesting. But I don’t know that it necessarily will
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3 – Muscular films promise bodyparts and biomachines
“Thin sheets of polymer coated with living muscle could be used to test new drugs, repair damaged body parts, or even create life-like bio-machines, researchers say.”
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4 – Breakup event in the main asteroid belt likely caused dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago
“The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt.”
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5 – Pink Floyd’s tour production manual
“We are happy to exclusively present the Pink Floyd North American 1994 Production manual and contract.” Blimey.
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6 – Angkor — Medieval ‘Hydraulic City’ — Unwittingly Engineered Its Environmental Collapse
“… extensive land clearing for rice fields supporting up to a million people living beyond Angkor’s walled city produced serious ecological problems, including deforestation, topsoil degradation and erosion.”
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7 – Star Trek medical device uses ultrasound to seal punctured lungs
“High-intensity focused ultrasound is now being investigated for a number of different treatments. It promises “bloodless surgery” with no scalpels or sutures in sight.”
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8 – U.K. approves human-animal hybrids
“Britain’s fertility regulator has decided in principle to allow scientists to create human-animal hybrid embryos for research purposes, as experts downplayed ethical concerns.” Jolly good show.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
We’ve already got the needleless injection for insulin users so this ultrasound job comes across as perfectly feasible.