Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 59

Red Alert!

Captain Kirk so didn't have to deal with this threat.

Home Grown Groovy

NewScientist suggests you grow your own orchestra.

Apparently, truth is stranger than fiction, as there is a Vienna-based orchestra that plays musical instruments made of veggies. They're currently working on hybrids of squash/gourds to produce guitar and trumpets.

Now if I wrote that in a book, would you believe it for a second? Or would my critique group look me in the eye and say, "No, that's just TOO damn silly"??

The Future is Closer Than You Think

Guardian reports that a top Russian astronomer says he expects humans to encounter extraterrestrial civilizations within the next two decades.

He seems to think they'll resemble humans, though, which I find highly unlikely. As the story Eleanor loves to recount about biologist J. B. S. Haldane's answer to the question, "What has your study of biology taught you about the creator." God is inordinately fond of beetles. Personally, I expect we'll find bugs and viruses and microbes. Bipeds?

Maybe. IF they have funny ridges on their foreheads like on New Gen.

The Sky is Falling! (Part 2)

Wired Science has snapshots of the asteroid that buzzed Earth this morning.

Monkey See, Monkey Buy

Advertising to monkeys. Seriously. And, according to this article from New Scientist, sex sells.

What, No Wyrdsmiths???!

Locus announces the Locus Award winners. Pretty good stuff, despite the notable lack of Wyrdsmiths among the winners/nominees. Congrats to them all!

Friday Cat Blogging

Black cat knows how to play the camo game, oh yeah!



I suppose you can take my pic, but only for my adoring fans…



Your chair shmore chair, bald monkey.



Shaved my forearm 'cause I'm thinkin 'bout gettin' a tattoo.

Sea Monkey Diary: Day 11

Yesterday was another milestone day for the sea monkeys: their first scheduled feeding, five days after being hatched.

My poor little camera isn't really up to the job, but on the sixth day after inception, despite a long stretch of sunless days and suboptimal water temps, I'm happy to report that the sea monkeys are thriving.

This big bruiser is going to grow up to be their king.

See all posts in the sea monkey diary.

Now, For Something Completely Different

I give you faith-based comics ("comics" as in graphic novels, and "faith" as in evangelical Christian, kinda scary revelation types, no less).

Space, The Final Frontier

In more space related news, I saw via Facebook that the next mission for NASA is called "Mission Juno," as they're headed to Jupiter. Brief warning: the site has music and a video and is "interactive" (which could suck if you have slow interwebs.)