An unsuccessful experiment

I tried playing with Fig for half an hour before bed in an attempt to prevent the 2 AM Crazies. It had exactly the opposite effect.

Aside from going berserk once the lights are out, he's the most laid-back young cat I've had, deferring to the older cats in all matters save one: he has to be the first one in the box once the sand is changed.

Award winners announced at Campbell Conference

According to File 770:

Molly Gloss's “The Grinnell Method” won the the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award

Adam Roberts' Jack Glass won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

Kevin J. Anderson and Steven Savile’s novella “Tau Ceti” won the first ever Lifeboat to the Stars Award.

Next up: Beyond Tomorrow

Three episodes of Beyond Tomorrow. From wikipedia:

Beyond Tomorrow was meant to be CBS's first science fiction radio program. The show was announced in newspapers but it is not known if any episodes were actually broadcast. An audition show and three additional shows were transcribed to disk.

For some reason, many of the archives of BT I have found include episodes from Exploring Tomorrow, as thought they were all copying some flawed original source for their archives.

Beyond Tomorrow: The Outer Limit (Based on a story by Graham Doar)

The Outer Limit

The pilot of an experimental rocket plane is snatched from the edge of space by aliens who want to warn humanity that thanks to alien intervention, the nuclear test by humans could very well be their final nuclear test.

This was an oddly popular story for adaptations: I see adaptations of it for Dimension X, X Minus 1, Escape, Beyond This World AKA Beyond Tomorrow, Suspense, and the TV show Out There. It might well be the most frequently adapted story I have personally listened to.

X Minus One reused Dimension X's script (and possibly the performance). This version uses a completely different scrip with some major differences: a surprisingly amount of the 30 minutes is used introducing and launching the rocket plane and whereas in the DX/XM1 version we never see the aliens and are left to wonder if the pilot went mad, in this one we see the conversation between pilot and aliens. As well, the subplot about the pilot's wife and his new-born son is missing, as is his attempt to prevent the nuclear test that will trigger the alien device.

The aliens are still jerks, though, picking a method of communication seemingly selected to guarantee the death of everyone on Earth.

Hassan Rouhani wins Iranian election

TEHRAN, IRAN—Iran's interior minister says moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani has won the presidential vote.

A link I could only call

A possible cover photo for the next SFWA Bulletin?

(possibly nsfw)

Interesting if it pans out

“By identifying the ATP/P2X7R pathway as the early mechanism in the body that fires up an alloimmune response, we found the root cause of diabetes,” says Fiorina. “With the cause identified, we can now focus on treatment options. Everything from drug therapies to transplants that require less immunosuppression is being explored.”