Science and Science Fiction Link Roundup March 18, 2012

Some of the science and SF links originally posted on Google+ , Twitter , and Facebook  this week:

• Guest Essay: ‘Machine’ Author Jennifer Pelland on Mechanical Immortality « Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games 
• No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart | Popular Science
  Life without a pulse! 
• The Funny Thing About Research
  CT Adams and Cathy Clamp explain how Mycobacterium leprae became a "magical" bacterium. 
• Cyborg snails power up : Nature News & Comment
  "Cyborg snails! The dozen or so brown garden snails crawling around the plastic, moss-filled terrarium in Evgeny Katz’s laboratory look normal, but they have a hidden superpower: they produce electricity." 
• Nancy's Blog: Jane Austen and Gregor Mendel
  Nancy Kress on genetics, families and science fiction 
• Shady scientists head up mission to clone woolly mammoths
  If this were a SyFy movie of the week, the formerly disgraced scientist would use this opportunity to show every he was legit by making mammoths that take over the world. 
• CDC - Blogs - Public Health Matters Blog – Disaster Movies: Lessons Learned
  The lesson from Contagion: "The chef should have been more careful about washing his hands so that he could have avoided spreading the animal virus to humans."
  That wouldn't have been much of a movie, though. 
• Planarians and the New Battlestar Galactica
  How Cylons in the new Battlestar Galactica are like planarian flatworms 
• Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains
  Why do we have brains? It's all about movement 
• Precognition studies and the curse of the failed replications
  Not too surprisingly, scientists had difficulty replicating an experiment that appeared to demonstrate precognitive abilities. A bit worrying, though, is the difficulty they had getting the replicated study published in a peer-reviewed journal. 
• DVICE: Should we re-engineer our species to save our planet?
  If we humans can't learn to live sustainably as we are, should we genetically engineer humans to use less environmental resources? Some of the suggestions DVICE proposes are bit silly, but I can't argue with providing more general education to women, since that has been shown to correlate with lower birthrates.
  Based on the suggestions in an article by philosopher S. Matthew Liao and colleagues:
  http://www.smatthewliao.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/HEandClimateChange.htm
• Stuffed in a vacuum and bombarded by electrons, a tick waves hello | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine
  Ed Yong writes that ticks can endure "being dried and slathered in metal, starved of air, and bombarded with a high-energy electron beam". No wonder they are so hard to get rid of. 
• Neuron - brainawarenessweek
  Brainbows, dancing parrots and sex differences: free content from Cell Press to celebrate Brain Awareness Week. 
• New Scientist TV: Fruit fly trapped in 'holodeck' fooled by the illusion 
• Alien Plants May Thrive on Many Wavelengths of Light
  Alien plants may be able to use the light from red dwarf stars for photosynthesis. Another place to look for life!
• Despite the Dark, Giant Squid Eyes See All : Discovery News
  Giant squid eyes can be the size of basketballs - the better to spot predatory sperm whales..
• 'Luck' raises stakes on animals' use
  Should live animals in films and television shows be replaced with CGI? Or will that only work on science fictional productions where the depicted creatures aren't expected to look "real" anyway.

For More Updates Follow Biology in Science Fiction:
Follow @BiologyInSF

Biology in Science Fiction

Promote Your Page Too