science – World News Center

Knit One, Pearl Two

February 10, 2020March 31, 2020 Bill McCormickflu, hearts, science, stem cells, vaccine

Way back in the early ears of World News Center I wrote a fun article about medical advancements that were coming down the pike at a rapid rate. One, human limb regeneration, has hit a tiny snag. Simply put, it doesn’t work. Here’s the thing, while many life forms on our planet can, and do, regenerate limbs, they are far less complex than people. The working parts in a simple hand number thirteen and that’s just an overview. Fingers count as one, for example. Add in the capillaries, supporting tissues,…

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Free Hugs!

September 26, 2019 Bill McCormickcompassion, hugs, love, science

My friend Joi likes to say that a person needs six hugs a day to maintain their sanity. And there’s enough research behind that thought to warrant consideration. Having your personhood affirmed by tactile reinforcement can go a long way in our increasingly disconnected world. I was reminded of this today as I was walking home from the library and spotted a woman wearing a Superman shirt like mine. Hers was a rebirth era, and mine is classic, but Superman is Superman. So we laughed, claimed a bond only true…

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Boldly Going

April 11, 2019April 12, 2019 Bill McCormickexciting, katie bouman, large hadron collider, lhc, science, space, women

It’s 2019. The past, lurid and confining, is behind us. Right? I mean …. oh, seriously? Okay. I surrender. We’ll do this again until people get it straight. Women have been doing the science thing for a bit and we’d probably be staring at the moon, instead of walking on it, were it not for them. But, as the World News Center official girlfriend discovered, this is not important news. One nice human took time out of his busy day to enumerate on all the men who were behind the…

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Ooops

April 4, 2019May 13, 2019 Bill McCormickcats, evolution, fun, mail delivery, science

Science is often seen as an immutable thing. It simply is. But, for anyone who’s paid any attention to science, they know that’s woefully misguided. Science, by its very definition, evolves constantly. When new things are discovered that reject old knowledge, the new is embraced. Some things are perceived to be ancient knowledge and aren’t at all. They are merely a product of modern prejudices. For example, while there are morons today who believe the Earth is flat, they are a relatively new phenomenon. Ancient Greeks knew the Earth was…

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Happy Death Day, Grandma!

June 7, 2018November 21, 2019 Bill McCormickimmortality, longevity, science

The headline might seem a touch off putting but it was the best way I could think of to get the point across. While science fiction has long considered the idea that there could be some sort of mandatory maximum age (Logans Run, Star Trek: The Next Generation and others), the idea seemed ludicrous to most. We barely lived long enough to register as a flutter against the geologic scale of time, why would we happily kill ourselves? Way back in January of 2014 I wrote an article about how…

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Where Do You Go When You Die?

April 20, 2018November 21, 2019 Bill McCormickafterlife, eternity, heaven, science, soul

No matter what god or gods you believe in, if you’re a spiritual person you have some concept of what happens to you after you die. Religions are, after all, a guide for how to live this life so that your next will not be awash in torment. Even if you’re not spiritual, being nice to people and treating them with respect isn’t a bad way to count your days. All that being said many people think that science and religion are too disparate to be welded together. I’m not…

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Body and Mind

December 7, 2017October 17, 2019 Bill McCormickAI, cyber, dystopia, humans, science

We live, to use the ancient Chinese curse, in interesting times. Ignoring, for a moment, the geo-political shit storm that is roiling across the globe, there are things happening, just below the mainstream radar, that could impact our future in ways we’ve never imagined. Back in October of this year I wrote about how Facebook developed an artificial intelligence, which was designed to learn how to negotiate, and how it, instead, developed its own language, shut out the humans in charge, and did a decent job at its assigned task.…

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We’re Getting Better

September 21, 2017September 21, 2017 Bill McCormickcancer, cures, medicine, paralysis, science, stem cells

While the Internet keeps puking up stuff that is supposed to make you healthy but will, in reality, get you killed, or, at least, not make you any better, there have been some stunning advances in the real world. Granted, they use that magic science stuff and not something cool someone once said their Aunt Sadie swore might work. If you believed and sent $100 to someone somewhere. These remedies, and I use that term incorrectly here, are only slightly less effective than praying for rainbows or sending good vibes…