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Frogs embryos turned into xenobots
Using blobs of skin cells from frog embryos, scientists have grown creatures unlike anything else on Earth, a new study reports. These microscopic “living machines” can swim, sweep up debris and heal themselves after a gash. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/frog-skin-cells-self-made-living-machines-xenobots/amp?__twitter_impression=true The possibilities are endless…
X-Rays from Uranus!
The gag practically writes itself… …but seriously, this is neat. One source of the X-Rays is the Sun (it also bounces off of Jupiter and Saturn). But there may be yet another source…perhaps the rings of Uranus or the planet itself. And no, it’s not really pink. That’s just a Chandra X-ray image. Shame, really. […]
Space elevators, revisited (and even possible)
“Technical-wise, it’s kind of ready” (Prof. George Zhu of York University) https://academictimes.com/far-from-science-fiction-space-elevators-may-be-nearing-deployment/?fbclid=IwAR0owexz5xK1IW9ye4FxiocqnrL7DgroSeRaqtgbNwpDVx4RIDVLZSuLWXc The possibilities…the tether doesn’t actually have to touch the ground. Basically, you put up a satellite with two tethers (one for things going up, one for things going down) and then have a rocket sent up and attach to the tether. The tether […]
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Tag Archives: haafu
Ten Years of Taking Leave
Looking back, it’s amazing to me now that I dared to even apply for a year of paternity leave while living in a foreign country. But I’ve never regretted the decision. As I told an audience of university students and … Continue reading
The Joy of Reading
We were eager to have books readily available for our kids…and not just available, but in a location where the kids could choose the books they wanted, when they wanted. So we arranged for the cubbyhole built into the staircase in the living room, and we had two small bookcases put into the kids’ play room.
It was up to us to provide the materials… Continue reading
On the Pond
This past Sunday, my wife, daughter, and I joined in an outdoor barbecue at a prefectural park originally built for a Japanese emperor. Sounds impressive, I guess…Taisho Tenno wasn’t a particularly long-lived emperor by modern standards, and was in poor … Continue reading