Wired: Why Spore will be huge.  "Imagine all the possible interactions. You might have people creating creatures just to put them into movies. And you might have hardcore gamers just playing the game and exploring space. But then they might come across those characters, who've been pollinated into their worlds automatically. And then they'll click on the creature and be able to see who made it, and bring up the Sporepedia then and there to see what else this person has done, and they'll be able to watch their machinima on YouTube, right in the game."  Okaaay. 

This is cool: Fighting lethal diseases with 3D snapshots of their pathogens.  "These cheery loops and swirls may look like confetti, but don't celebrate. It's a close-up of deadly Salmonella typhimurium, just one of a set of protein blueprints drawn from some of the most lethal diseases on the planet, killers like cholera and anthrax. The idea: If you can get a good look at the proteins, you can find places where other molecules — aka drugs — can latch on and exterminate the bugs."  Excellent.  And the bugs are even cool looking. 

I wonder if Spore is going to allow pathogens to be designed :)

From the ESA website: Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth.  "Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes."  Excellent news - just one more reason why I want to visit Titan! 

Speaking of space - and hydrocarbons - here's an interview with Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX (private space travel), and Tesla (electric cars).  Also my ex-CEO at PayPal and an all around amazing guy.  Oh, and he has five kids under the age of five :) 

Kind of the anti-Tesla: TTAC reviews the Bentley Brooklands.  "If you're a student of serious horsepower, hand-stitched pampering and tightly focused branding, Wakefield's luxury car liturgy will be music to your ears."  Not to mention, it's beautiful! 

eSkeptic: Journalist Bites Reality.  "To argue that a decided sloppiness has crept into journalism or that the media have been 'hijacked by [insert least favorite political agenda]' badly misses the real point; it suggests that all we need to do to fix things is filter out the gratuitous political spin or rig the ship to run a bit tighter. In truth, today's system of news delivery is an enterprise whose procedures, protocols, and underlying assumptions all but guarantee that it cannot succeed at its self described mission. Broadcast journalism in particular is flawed in such a fundamental way that its utility as a tool for illuminating life, let alone interpreting it, is almost nil."  Sad but true; a great article, please read the whole thing.  [ via Tim Oren ]