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.

Huckleberry continues his lie-down strike, protesting his exclusion from the air-conditioned bedroom.

French researchers have constructed "supercapacitors" from burnt-to-a-crisp seaweed.

<i><b>Empty Houses Are Lonely</i></b><br>
FatCat Records

I have to say that I'm a wee bit disappointed.

<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.

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.

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&#150haired, 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."