Another great wirter who pushed the limits of imaginable real science - juxtaposed to SciFi - has moved on to another alternative reality. I cannot say "sadly" as who knows but this plane might be where he has been treveling for some time. Michael Crichton was 66 and if you read "Next", among many, many others - and appreciate its profound implications for genetic R&D, then you realize that he was every bit the equal of ACC but in a much different style.
I bring up "Next" because the new administration will no doubt put some of the stem cell and other genetic R&D on a fast track now. Ironically, part of the plot of "Next" revolved around a cancer survivor, but MC did not share in that good fortune. However, a few of the readers of this post could benefit from this very thing -- now that promise of stem cell research will be more rapidly fulfilled - after all: as Mark Twain sez: Truth is stranger than fiction, but that is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Jones Speaking of SciFi and the very real prospect of reality often being stranger than fiction - this death comes on a day whose significance few Americans could have imagined as little as two years ago - geeze - a *President of Afro-American descent* this was beyond mention or even comprehension before 'West Wing' <g>. To illustrate the rapid the change of public opinion has been, and how close the time-connection of this momentous election is to Slavery itself in the USA - it is fitting that in a nearby convalescnt facility to where Crichton passed, the following took place. Gertrude Baines parents were both slaves and she could not pronouce the name of the man she voted for... but vote she did. Heck if Cricton is right, many of us may be paying Genetic or some other greedy company a huge fee for an extract of Baines' longevity-gene in the near future. "GertrudeBaines' 114-year-old fingers wrapped lightly over the ballpoint pen as she bubbled in No. 18 on her ballot Tuesday. Her mouth curled up in a smile. A laugh escaped. The deed was done." A daughter of former slaves, Baines had just voted for a black man to be president of the United States. "What's his name? I can't say it," she said shyly afterward. Those who helped her fill out the absentee ballot at a convalescent facility west of USC chimed in: "Barack Obama." Baines is the world's oldest person of African descent, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates claims of extreme old age. She is the third-oldest person in the world, and the second-oldest in the United States after Edna Parker of Indiana, who is 115.
