Richard Leis

Horror Writer & Poet

Month: November 2004

  • Paralyzed Patient Walks Again After Stem Cell Treatment?

    Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. The Korean Times is reporting that a patient has regained the ability to walk after 19 years of paralysis [defunct link] following the injection of stem cells into the damaged portion of her spine. The apparent success was reported at a press conference held…

  • First Clones, Now Chimeras?

    Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Over the past couple years, scientists around the world have successfully integrated human cells into animals [defunct link], resulting in pigs with human blood, mice with human neurons, and lambs with human livers. These chimera are the blending of cells from two species into…

  • The Art of Saturn and Mimas

    The blue background is Saturn (made so by the scattering of blue sunlight), the tiny globe in the middle right is the moon Mimas, and the foreground tan streaks are Saturn’s rings. The rings are casting their shadows onto the planet.

  • Future Wants – Digital Distribution over the Internet

    In my latest “Future Wants” column, I anticipate the emergence of the Internet as the primary distribution network for all media, including music and movies. When is that going to happen and what are some of the details? Read on…

  • Prometheus Feeds

    The moon next to Saturn’s F-ring in the previous image turned out to be Prometheus, one of the ring shepherd moons. The tiny body moves close enough to the ring at times to start dragging some of the ring material away. This leaves a temporary radial gap in the ring. [Header credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute…

  • Future Wants: Digital Distribution Over the Internet

    The pirates won. BitTorrent is a file distribution program used to share data files between computers. BitTorrent now makes up more than one third of all Internet bandwidth usage. This surprising find illustrates a major trend…everything, text, images, music, and video, is being digitized and shared on the Internet, and it is happening at the…

  • Raw Image Reveals Saturnian Moon?

    Many of the images downloaded from Cassini are not processed right away. While the spacecraft was heading to and from Titan it snapped pictures of some of the objects in the Saturnian system. This image of the F-ring includes what appears to be a tiny moon floating serenely nearby. Since the image has not been…