Archive for January 2018

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Spider-Goats!

January 31, 2018


(PhysOrg.com) — Researchers from the University of Wyoming have developed a way to incorporate spiders’ silk-spinning genes into goats, allowing the researchers to harvest the silk protein from the goats’ milk for a variety of applications. For instance, due to its strength and elasticity, spider silk fiber could have several medical uses, such as for making artificial ligaments and tendons, for eye sutures, and for jaw repair. The silk could also have applications in bulletproof vests and improved car airbags.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2010-05-scientists-goats-spider-silk.html#jCp

I, for one, am both entertained and concerned with the prospect of Spider-Goats.  I mean, imagine entering one of your rooms and finding one of the buggers hanging on your wall or ceiling!  I doubt that the usual spritz of Raid spray would be enough to deter one of them.  It might, however, lead to the development of a new generation of pest controllers, Goat-Busters. — I’m claiming royalty rights on that film franchise now!  The theme song’s already playing in my head…you got goats, got yer freakin’ goats?

And we have other thorny issues to sort out, too, like cross-over problems.  Would Spider-Goat be a superhero or super villain?  Would a special issue of Spider-Man be called for featuring a knock-down, drag-out fight?  And who plays Spider-Goat in that film treatment?  Even if computer-generated, voice work is required…I’m available!

Now because the spider silk is found in the goats’ milk, could you acquire spider powers yourself if you drank it, assuming of course that you could get it down?-  – Would that be a baaad idea?  Would you then be a Spider-Goat-Person? The line is forming to the left, folks, but remember that with great power comes great responsibility…

…remember the Spider-Pig episode of The Simpsons?  We’ve all got plenty to think about now, and I think that 2018 is off to a roaring (or perhaps a bleating) start.  As Dr. Seuss might have expressed it, From there to here / From here to there / Hybrid animals are everywhere!  

At least I’ll better fit in now, someday, maybe…


Categories: animals, Brilliant but twisted, controversial, science, strange
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Still Rockin’ the X-Files…

January 13, 2018

  
“Hard to Kill” might have been a subtitle of the second installment of the new limited X-Files  season as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully eluded and thwarted deadly Soviet operatives when guided themselves by the artificial intelligence version of a deceased Lone Gunman who sought to be unplugged, Richard Langly (aka Ringo).

I like how the series has kept its paranormal core while expanding the two central characters into almost action-heroes.  I mean, when armed with only handguns against a legion of Soviets with automatic weapons who attacked them at home they killed two Soviets outright,  and not only eluded death  but despite being handcuffed together managed to escape!  These are two smart, savvy, and tough FBI agents who could probably be featured on recruitment posters for the agency.  The episode expanded upon real-life events, too, with the enigmatic Skinner referencing how the current administration in Washington didn’t like the FBI much, and had even been infiltrated by Soviets.  

Now deep in the bowels of a compromised FBI resided a supercomputer into which had been uploaded the virtual essences of Langly and hundreds of other people whose survival was deemed desirable for the dark times to come.  A computerized existence was abnormal and apparently hellish, however, for Langly who wanted the program ended and his virtual existence expunged.  Mulder and Scully now as renegade agents were ultimately able to penetrate the forbidden FBI complex, with Mulder going mano-a-mano against a younger agent (and besting him) while Scully zaps the computer.  Plot twist, however; the bad guys made a backup system, so we may be hearing from the virtual Lone Gunman again.  I’d like that…

The notion of uploading an individual’s life experiences and general personality attributes to a computer program to simulate that person in life is within the fringes of a possible future reality, and may someday provide a kind of worldly immortality while allowing relatives to interact with a version of a departed loved one without requiring the downside of a zombie…I want to believe! — And hooray for the FBI and two of its coolest agents!

Categories: mysteries, paranormal, speculation, television
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The X-Files, Season 11…

January 4, 2018


I’m glad that there’s a Season 11 of The X-Files, even if it’s only comprised of ten episodes.  The season premiere that aired on Fox network January 3rd was heavy on the series mythology, bringing together many of the core iconic characters of the series and its on-going themes of deep-level government conspiracies and alien involvement. The quest in search of Mulder and Scully’s son William will be a strong underlying thread this season, and we learn that his parentage “by way of science” includes DNA from the nefarious Cigarette-Smoking Man, perhaps with some otherworldly genes also thrown in. 

Poor Dana Scully spends a lot of time in the hospital this episode, getting banged up in car wrecks, troubled by disturbing visions, and almost being smothered with a pillow by a baddie; it sucks to be her.  Fox Mulder was in heroic investigative and defensive mode, really putting a Ford Mustang through its paces and dispatching Scully’s assailant at the last minute with a scalpel; the guy’s got skills!  There’s even a shouting match with shoving between Mulder and Skinner, who may be in collusion with the CSM.  In the rambling undercurrent of the series, it would appear that the Cigarette-Smoking Man is actually trying to exterminate humanity with some kind of alien pathogen, which is probably why flu shots are no more than 10% effective this season…  

There was a lot of action and plenty of tantalizing unanswered questions in the episode, and I’d ride shotgun in Fox Mulder’s Mustang anytime…

Categories: aliens, paranormal, television
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