Designer babies Tom Smith

In the UK, where else, they're working on designer babies, sort of.  (If they're so smart, you'd think they'd be able to come up with a way to monetize information instead of a stupid magazine subscription, but not yet.  So subscription necessary to read the whole article.  Though I'm not sure I would bother.  I signed up for an online subscription to New Scientist and never got it to work right.)

More fun news:  Zombie caterpillars.  Maybe God created everything except wasps, and wasps were made by the Devil.  They lead unbelievably nasty lives and they sting too.  In this case, wasps turn caterpillars into zombies that guard their eggs.

Here's something on the Horror Frog, which grows hair and has claws.  Not to be confused with the gigantic "frog from hell" now extinct.  This frog has no lungs.

Dino girls were hot to trot, and kinda cute too IMHO.  Also cute are these amphibians; check out the slideshow.

Meanwhile, male wolf spiders attract females by risking their lives, which excites female spiders no end.  Patagonia is considering a line for male spiders.  You've got to love spiders:

Pisaura mirabilis [male] spiders . . . present a food gift to prospective mates, with some males playing dead by stretching out their bodies and remaining motionless while holding the gift in their mouths. The female spider investigates and takes hold of the food gift, sometimes dragging the male around. At this point the "dead" male comes to life and manoeuvres into the copulation position. Eighty-nine per cent of males that played dead achieved copulation, whereas just 40 per cent of males that did not adopt this behaviour were successful.

Female spiders find it hard to resist a meal, and would rather eat than have sex.  I strongly advise males of our species to avoid females of that persuasion.  And females too, though you need to understand sometimes guys just get really hungry. 

Here's a cool nano-scope.  Should prove useful for watching the nannites bring on the Singularity.

Some very smart, scary bacteria.  Maybe it's the Andromeda Strain.

Now herds of cars could watch out for each other.  I think I would still prefer a vehicle that could look out for itself.  And Stupid Traffic Tricks.  We are expert in these in San Diego.

Stop thinking about death.  It makes you fat.  How to live to be 100.