Day: February 18, 2007

• “Google is playing an unlikely role in the Iraq war. Its online satellite map of the world, Google Earth, is being used to help people survive sectarian violence in Baghdad.” [link | via]
• “Astronauts’ spacesuits may one day be covered in motion-sensitive proteins that could generate power from the astronauts’ movement, according to futuristic research being conducted by a new lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.” [link | via]
• “A vicious Mexican drug gang war has moved onto the Internet video site YouTube, where rivals taunt each other with blood-soaked slide shows and video of their murder victims.” [link | via]
• “A bionic eye that can restore sight to the blind should be commercially available within two years, scientists behind the revolutionary technology announced today.” [link | via]
• “THE US wants the world’s scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.” [link | more | via]
• “Behind the scenes, the spread of a pathogen that targets wounded GIs has triggered broad reforms in both combat medical care and the Pentagon’s networks for tracking bacterial threats within the ranks. Interviews with current and former military physicians, recent articles in medical journals, and internal reports reveal that the Department of Defense has been waging a secret war within the larger mission in Iraq and Afghanistan – a war against antibiotic-resistant pathogens.” [link | via]

A Dutch primary school teacher dying of cancer is overseeing one last class project: her pupils are making her coffin.

I assume the history of movies is full of cases like this: terrible movies without which, nevertheless, somehow, by their sheer existence, another good movie wouldn’t have been made.

When his novels work, it’s because he successfully persuades us of the writer’s oldest trick: that his characters have somehow broken free of their creator.