“The Wick” by Julianna Baggott is a look into the future of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Genetic Engineering that is both engrossing and disturbing. The narrative structure itself tells the reader right away that something unusual is going on here. The story is told from the first person point of view of a being we …
Category Archives: bio warfare
BOOK REVIEW OF The Girl in Red
I was conflicted about The Girl in Red. On the one hand, I’d read (and reviewed) Christina Henry’s work before, and knew her to be an excellent writer; on the other, the idea of a “Red Riding-hood” themed novel seemed a recipe for silly cliché. As it turns out, The Girl in Red is hard-core …
The Science of Memory Implants
A recent article talks about MIT researchers Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu, who successfully implanted a false memory into the mind of a mouse. This is the real world catching up with science fiction, where the possibility of implanted memories has been around since Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series in the 1940’s. In fact, I used …
Book Review of Mary’s Monster
Mary’s Monster by Lita Judge is a book that defies category. This is too bad, because it will get categorized anyway, which means many people will miss it. I can’t express how sad this is, because Mary’s Monster is an otherworldly great book! If you were to ask me what type of book, well…that’s where …
Robots in your blood
Nanobots (very small robots, potentially as tiny as molecules) have been a staple of science fiction for decades. But, despite massive investment in scientific research that has produced amazing things, actual nanobots haven’t made it into the real world. However, that may be about to change. This article talks about research at the University of California …
Where are all the aliens?
An article in Science presents research showing that the building blocks of life are more prevalent than previously thought. It says a lot of other things too, but this is what I get out of it. This makes me wonder more than ever about the Fermi Paradox, which states that reasonable assumptions lead to the …
Culling the Human Race
This article talks about how a very small mutation allowed the H7N9 flu virus to jump from birds to humans, and it disturbs me for two reasons. The first is how minor the change was that allowed this to happen. The second is how long after the fact the science is catching up to this virus. What if …
Physics and Art 