Honey just might be helpful in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Something something joke about sweet!  Thanks, bees!

But if that doesn’t work, hey at least vampires were (are?) on to something!  Young blood apparently IS better for you!

The US Air Force is looking for a better Space Fence.  Tracking all the junk floating around our planet is complicated, and the legal issues around cleaning it up are even more so.  In other news, I plan to start a company specializing in space janitorial services. That’s as far as I’ve gotten in the planning though.

Scientists have created the first living organism from artificial DNA!  We now have a lab-created half-synthetic organism that can replicate itself (as long as it has help from its scientist buddies). Self-replicating synthetic organisms not found in nature? What could possibly go wrong!  Science is awesome!  And terrifying!

Speaking of which, some cool first steps towards a computer simulation of the human body.  Could theoretically be useful for predictive/preemptive medical treatment for when, say, a self-replicating synthetic organism not found in nature somehow enters your bloodstream.

I’ll be sitting down with the fine folks who run Carolina Book Beat tomorrow morning from 10-11AM to talk about books and writing and things! You can tune into WCOM 103.5 or catch it later at http://wcomfm.org/

It’ll be my first ever radio appearance, so who knows what might happen!  Shenanigans!  Hijinks!  Nervous mumbling and spilling of beverages on the console!

As part of NASA’s SpaceApps Challenge to create wearable technology for future space travelers, Team Reno decided to make a functional Pip-Boy 3000 of Fallout 3 fame.  Further evidence of science-fiction inspiring reality!

Scientists have developed an “off-switch” for neural activity!  Which could be helpful for things like studying and/or treating epilepsy! Or making that annoying person at work stop talking to you!  Maybe not that.  But hopefully!

It’s conventional wisdom in engineering that you can’t improve both stability AND maneuverability.  Just don’t tell the glass knifefish that!   Cool research that could have impact on design and control systems, particularly for robots.

An ad campaign from a Swedish energy company used an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to simulate what it’d be like to live real-life with lag.  This will not be a revelation to anyone who’s ever had a couple of beers.

Here’s a pen that lets you doodle in the air.  Using 3D printing technology, it’s sure to entertain all your co-workers when you start writing “kill me now” over and over again during your next 3-hour planning session!

Talented fellow Chase Holfelder sings the Star-Spangled Banner in a minor key.  Very cool treatment of one of my most favoritest songs of all time because MERICA.

How about a brain implant that could restore lost memories?  Great application for folks dealing with Alzheimer’s or traumatic brain injuries.  Also, one step closer to implanting false memories so we can go all Total Recall!

My second novel hit US store shelves (and digital shelves!) today, and I already had the delight of seeing it hit #1 in Western Science-Fiction on Amazon!

Thanks so much to everybody out there who’s picking it up, and I hope you all heart it with all your hearty hearts!

If you haven’t gotten a copy and you’d like to, you can conveniently find:

A print version here.

and

A Kindle version here.

Or of course you can find it at your local Barnes & Noble or other fine purveyors of books and such!

If you’re in an actual, for real bookstore, you want the one that looks like this:

 

Just a heads up that my second novel Morningside Fall is coming out in the US tomorrow, April 29th!

If you haven’t read my first book, Three, you’ll probably want to do that first, else all the SURPRISING TWISTS and things won’t actually be surprising so much as weird and confusing.

Feel free to order them both from Amazon here:

Three (Mass Market Paperback)

Morningside Fall (Mass Market Paperback)

Or pick them up at your local bookstore!

Also, for those of you in the Raleigh-Durham area, I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble at the Streets at Southpoint Mall on Saturday, May 3rd, at 1:00PM, signing books and mumbling apologetically about my poor penmanship!  Please come out and say hi!

A handy device to confusticate and bebother those annoying loud talkers in the public sphere – The Speech Jammer !  A pretty brilliant application of regular boring old microphones and speakers.  It’s basically like what happens to people who call into radio shows and forget to turn down the radio.

You guys!  Earth has shields!  There’ve been, you know, a couple dozen nuclear-scale explosions in our atmosphere from asteroids in the past 13 years or so.

I don’t usually like sharing “scary” news but it’s worth being aware of how germs are adapting to our use of antibiotics.

A fun tidbit about how we game developers use sneaky psychology to affect player behavior (in positive ways!).  We do a lot more research about people than you might think.

This is old, but if you’ve never seen Victor Borge’s Inflationary Language bit, I find it great fun.  (Grnine fun!)

Did you know … ? Apparently cordite makes a delicious chewing gum!  Just don’t chew it too hard or your friends might get quite a surprise.  It’s like Russian roulette for your tastebuds!