Rare Dava Sobel Sighting
<I>The Age</I> profiles Dava Sobel, author of <I>Longitude</I> (very highly recommended), <I>Galileo's Daughter</I> (ditto), and now <I>Planets</I>.
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Pop Quiz
Okay, <I>not</I> a pop quiz, but a test of your ability to differentiate the famous musicians from the unknowns.
Who Watches the Watch-Cat?
Bagheera is no shirker. A little heat wave doesn't deter her from her daily duty of making sure our block is thoroughly observed—especially those good-for-nothing squirrels.
Huck's Still On Strike
Huckleberry continues his lie-down strike, protesting his exclusion from the air-conditioned bedroom.
Baked Seaweed Capacitors
French researchers have constructed "supercapacitors" from burnt-to-a-crisp seaweed.
Tom Brosseau
<i><b>Empty Houses Are Lonely</i></b><br>
FatCat Records
Even Elizabeth
I have to say that I'm a wee bit disappointed.
The Earth Dies!
<I>Bad Astronomy</I> (gotta love that name) hosts a video animation of what would happen if a 500-mile wide asteroid hit the Earth. Yes, I could have embedded the <I>YouTube</I> video here, but I found <I>BA</I>'s comments worthwhile.
Parasite Rex?
Has <I>Toxoplasma gondii</I> affected human culture? Maybe so, claims Kevin Lafferty. Toxoplasma guru Karl Zimmer points us toward Lafferty's just published paper and tells us what to look for.
New York Spo-Dee-O-Dee
Just prior to the morning hour at which most liquor stores open, Don Byron and I are sitting outdoors at a sidewalk cafe on a steamy Park Avenue South (Technology Gulch)when a scene breaks out on the sidewalk.
Byron (head turns and he murmurs): "Oh my god."
A stringy–haired, smelly, obviously intoxicated woman staggers after a younger, taller man who's also worse for wear, and hollers in a drunken growl: "I got my own phone now. Yes it is. It works you used it."
Byron (laughing): "It's the metropolitan wino scene. You know what I mean? You know the scene in Firenze, now here it is in New York. It has all the elements: the dirty clothes, the ruddy skin, the formaldehyde lips."