July 23, 2023

Miriam

Unveiling Detective Miriam Hunter Hey there! First up, I’ll tell you all about Detective Miriam Hunter, the fascinating chief protagonist in my sci-fi series “The Hunter Series.” Then, I’ll throw in some questions from a recent interview I did that expands on Miriam’s character and backstory. Let’s dive right in! […]
July 23, 2023

Author Inspiration

Interview with Robin Craig the Author The interview below explores where I get my plot ideas from, my writing process and more. Enjoy it – I did (thanks ThoughtWare Books) for chatting with me:-) Interviewer: Robin, your repertoire includes a wide variety of stories, ranging from science fiction and alternative […]
May 4, 2012

Quantum Time

The article “Freezing Time” published in The Scientist describes the development of extremely powerful enzyme inhibitors. Because of their vastly higher affinity for the enzyme, they can not only be used in much smaller doses for medical purposes, but persist for longer in the target enzyme but not the bloodstream: increasing […]
March 18, 2012

Lies, Damned Lies, and Creationism

This is the gist of my recent reply to a post on Objectivism Online about debating creationists, which thought might be of interest to others who encounter those pesky creatures: Arguing with creationists – that way lies madness. Many years ago I had an extended argument with a creationist (by mail – […]
October 9, 2011

Yay for Us!

At school we learn about the epochs of geological time where for whatever reason, the character of the Earth changes: the Cambrian, the Jurassic, the Pleistocene etc. Some scientists are now saying that we have entered a new epoch, the Anthopocene: The Age of Man. “Humanity, they contend, can be […]
August 5, 2011

Zincfinger

An essential for gene repair that fixes the problem without corrupting other genes (possibly causing cancer) is targeting the repair to the specific gene with the problem. We’ve already seen the use of “zinc finger” nucleases to repair blood mutations in mice; now for the first time, scientists have used them […]
July 10, 2011

A Germ’s Genome in 2 Hours

Scientists in Asia and Europe used the Ion PGM™ sequencer to determine the strain of the deadly German E. coli bacterium, sequencing its whole genome in only 2 hours and developing and delivering screening tests in 5 days. Back in the mid-1970s, it was thought that the challenges of sequencing DNA […]
May 22, 2011

Live Liver Transplants

While lab-grown skin has been around for a while (relatively speaking!) and artifical bladders have already been used medically, the problem with growing solid organs is that their three-dimensional structure can be important, both in terms of localisation of cells with different specialisations and the blood supply to the organ. […]
May 21, 2011

Life Extension: Ending It All

Telomeres are the “caps” on the ends of chromosomes that keep things functioning smoothly. Normally, each time a cell divides its telomeres get shorter, until eventually the cells can no longer function. The enzyme telomerase can restore the telomeres (that is how many cancer cells achieve their self-destructive “immortality”). By […]