Life

“A few days ago someone asked me where I see myself in 12 years. Like most people I know I answered that I see myself married with a good career and a few kids. The person asked if that’s all I aspired for myself in 12 years and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why they would ask that and thus I stuck to my original answer not being able to see beyond what the person was mentioning. What else could I possibly want in life? A house, maybe. A dog? I really didn’t know. And then it dawned on me.I recently came back from a month and a half in Egypt and since then I could not tell anyone what I learnt about the people there. Now, I think I might just have found my answer. I went with my best friend and her family, all of whom were extremely well off, and thus I managed to live the high and mighty life in Egypt. But I did meet one girl and now that I think about it, she taught me more about life and she never said a word to me in a language I actually understood.

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Findings

A giant virus was discovered that is as big as a small bacterium and may be an entirely new form of life. Scientists succeeded in cultivating square, salt-loving bacteria called Walsby’s square archaeon. Two new AIDS vaccines failed to work. The genome of a Hereford cow was sequenced. Cone snails, it was found, catch fish by firing a hollow posion tooth through a long proboscis. Chinese scientists unveiled a microscopic swimming robot that they said could be used someday to deliver drugs or to clear clogged arteries, and Korean and Italian researchers developed a tiny robot with multiple legs designed to crawl through a patient’s guts. Scientists with NIZO Food Research developed an artificial throat that breathes, salivates, and swallows. A new study found that injecting mice with embryonic stem cells can partially correct congenital heart defects in their babies. Another study suggested that vitamin supplements could increast the risk of dyning from cancer. Japanese surgeons gave a burn victim a new face made from a single sheet of skin taken from his back. A quadriplegic man succeeded in checking email and playing computer games via a microchip embedded in his brain. American researchers developed a device that uses spinach to generate electricity. Canadian researchers cliamed to have developed a cure for the common cold. California banned necrophilia. Volcanic ash rained down on Tokyo.

— Harper’s Magazine, December 2004