Australian Bioscience News & Views

Body art

Watching the World Cup, I've been impressed with how many players are tattooed. Body art has a pretty high profile in the media, with a recent advert for a mobile phone reminding a friend of Alexander Besher's Mir.

Naturally conversations about sentient tattoos led to thoughts about what kind of nannotech would be designed to create adaptive, changeable, or 'sensitive' tattoos.

Tech games and sports games

Last night I had a tragicomic dream about accidentally sending the warranty in for our TV in the envelope for my mum's laptop & vice versa. Needless to say that has not happened, though they are from the same manufacturer.

The telvision is not huge by Australian standards (81 cm) but feels more than sufficient for our household. Its purchase and numerous features have given me the delightful sensation that sport, entertainment & technology are worlds of interesting statistics. For one thing, the current holder of the world record for Fastest Serve is Andy Roddick, and Trinidad & Tobago qualified for the World Cup despite having a population of around 1 million people (slightly fewer than Sydney). There is nothing quite like being able to look things up on the internet at the same time as watching the box.

Orang microchip

No, today's title is not a typo, I recently saw some footage of an Orang Utan being microchipped at an animal sanctuary. Evil thoughts ;-) So it can be done to primates!

Sadly, a Blue Mountains herper was bitten by his pet death adder last night. Not good news, but it appears likely he will survive, which is not a certainty after being bitten twice by Acanthophis antarcticus.

Control issues

Australians do not have the right to choose a dignified, self-administered death, and Americans are losing the right to choose. Cancer patients can't get RU 486 into Australia. I would not recommend suicide or abortion, but I will defend the right to openly discuss and choose them if a person feels it necessary.  Life is complicated, and I don't pretend to know all the answers, so I'm quite negative about denying other people actions they feel are required.

Sydney Harbour Week is coming, but the news reports say that the fish are too toxic to eat. I hope no one has been poisoned, and I dread to think of birds eating those fish. One of my favourite birds came to mind as I watched the news.

Watching world affairs from my  desk, I note that while South America moves to the left politically, the Commonwealth (& former) countries move to the right. We do live in interesting times, and I wonder how they will appear to future historians.

Elephant Rage

I have the TV on in the background while catching up on emails. Apparently 'it is estimated that 10 people per week die in elephant attacks'. You can blame that gem on National Geographic showing Elephant Rage :-)