Saturday, December 15, 2007

Weird Headlines

So science news is getting bizarre. The latest headline I keep running into is that someone did some research on why pregnant women don't fall over when they get big. Why is this important to know? And, for their information, pregnant women DO fall over. Lots of us have. Plus it's NOT comfortable, despite the extra vertebrae, and if it looks easy it's because we go home and sit around and don't do anything else but waddle with a baby. Sometimes one in the arms, too.

But this one tops all:

"Scientists Clone Glow-In-the-Dark Cats." http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/12/13/fluorescent-cats-clone.html?dcitc=w19-506-ak-0005

Wow. Pretty hard to clone something that doesn't exist!

If you read the article, it explains that the glow-in-the-dark-ness is a side effect of the cloning. So the headline is a little misleading. Still.... why do you need cats that glow? Do the cats want to glow? I always got the impression that stealth at night was a good thing for cats--at least from their point of view. I am imagining glowing felines creeping around the house at night. Spooky. Oh-oh-or that movie on YouTube about cats flying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtbjH8Tm4fM)--but the cats can glow!

In other science news: They found Captain Kidd's pirate ship! I was checking my email and saw the headline and had a "novel" moment--suddenly I was Melora, a character in my novel, and she was seeing that headline, and somehow it connected to or led to an adventure she was having--either the catalyst for the adventure, or the catalyst for the climax.....I need to use that sometime.

How was that for a glimpse into the mind of a writer?

So now I want to know where the real science is.

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