A nice piece in The Independent by comic Rob Newman about a variant of the singularity that he’s termed Technology Collapse:
‘500 years from now, Galileo and Kepler study antique technology – SatNav, electrocardiograms, hair tongs – trying to deduce what each was used for. They often have no clue, although Galileo is much praised for his paper On Suggested Applications of the Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.’
Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, Ian Sample reports on New Scientist’s list of science’s strangest experiments – including Tusko, the tripping elephant and Vladimir Demikhov: “In 1954 he unveiled a two-headed dog, created in the lab by grafting the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy on to the neck of a German shepherd dog.”
And this seems like a fine time to mention that Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science’s Outer Edge, a collection of my weird science columns from the Guardian, published by Disinformation press, has shown up and is looking mighty fine. It’s in a handy, CD-sized format, and will look great next to the time machine or DNA accelerator – or by the toilet if you don’t happen to have any mad scientist gear lying around.
The book is unleashed next week and we’ll be previewing a few entries here soon. In the meantime you can make advance orders via Amazon.
(If you’d like a review copy, drop me a line and I’ll try to sort one out…)