Cats are so much fun.

Not sure if there will be a full article today…. exterminator’s coming, going to be AFK for six hours at least. We’ll see what time I get back to the apartment.

Yes, it’s back! I have a bunch of cleaning to do today, and no particularly compelling ideas for a column today, so I figured what the heck, let’s go back to the wild, wacky, wonderful world of science for inspiration.

First off, we have this interesting little item about a village of dwarves living in the Andes who might hold a clue to a cure for cancer.

No, not with their ancient dwarf magic. Turns out, this small population of dwarfs hardly every get cancer or diabetes, and coincidentally, they also all have the form of dwarfism that stems from a lack of human growth hormone. The theory, then, is that possible human growth hormone and cancer are somehow linked, and suppressing human growth hormone in full adults might just keep cancer from happening at all.

The idea passes the initial common sense and plausibility tests. Cancer is defined as a particular form of out of control growth in human tissues, so the idea of inhibiting it via growth hormone regulation makes a kind of sense, at least to this armchair scientist.

But an isolated popular of 100 is a poor basis for so broad a theoretical leap, and there are so many potential factors involved with cancer and its genesis that it’s nearly impossible to control for them all. So while this seems interesting, I will wait and see if this theoretical model can be backed up with lab work.

A lot of interesting and promising and plausible theories simply fail to pan out in reality. All the world of science can do is track down every lead, like detectives.

Next, scientists want to plant micro-worms in your body.

No, wait, come back! Turns out, these “micro-worms” are actually nanotech tubes that could perform a whole number of useful functions in the human body, like providing real time monitoring of various health status issues, or delivering medication over a long term.

But if ever a technology needed a new name, it’s “micro-worms”. Sure, it’s catchy and probably even descriptive, but nobody wants worms in their body unless they’re a bird looking for lunch. Just the idea of them putting anything with “worm” in its name into my body makes me squirm with discomfort.

And I am a potential client! One of the possible applications for this technology would be to provide that fabulous tech of the future, the “diabetic’s tattoo”, a technology by which an area of skin on the diabetic’s body would have tiny colored nanoparticles embedded in its blood vessels. These nanoparticles would be shaped so that they reacted to blood sugar, and voila, you have an area of skin which reacts visibly and harmlessly to blood sugar and provides an instant visual reading of the diabetic’s current blood sugar level. The more of the color, the higher the blood sugar count.

I would love that. No blood, no testing, just look at my blood sugar magic tattoo and I would get a good idea of how I was doing. Right now, because my diabetes is not too severe, I can get away with hardly ever testing and mostly relying on my own internal sense of how charged my batteries are to give me the cues I need. But I would rather know, and so it would be awesome to be able to just look at my arm and say “Woops, too high… better have the salad!” or “whoa, too low… I need COMPLEX CARBS NOW. ”

But why did they have to call them “worms”?

I mean, the only thing worse than having worms in your body would be if you had some huge alien creature growing out of your spine.

WARNING, link contains a tail of medical horror and entertaining grossness.

So this fellow named Josh Abken (an alien sounding name if I ever heard one!) was having chronic back pain. So he went to the doc, figuring he had a pulled muscle or something.

Turns out, it was a HUGE FREAKING TUMOUR that was so big it was pushing his other organs out of shape. It was, in fact, close to straight up killing him.

But that’s not the freaky part. The freaky part is that it was :

A soccer-ball size “alien” tumor that had become as solid as a rock and even had growing tentacles.

IT HAD FREAKING TENTACLES. That’s where I would start seriously freaking out.

But to his massive credit, Josh Abken did not freak out. Instead, he and his family did what any family would do if they found out their pater familias had a massive tentacled tumour in his back : they named it.

In fact, they named it “Gill” and had “Kill Gill” T-shirts made in the style of Kill Bill posters.

This family is obviously way above average in the field of being completely awesome.

Luckily, thoracic surgeon Costanzo Di Perna was able to remove it before it killed poor Josh. Doctors say that thing had to be growing in there for at least a decade.

I have to admit, the sociopathic mad scientist in me really, really wants to know what would have happened to that thing if it somehow had been left to grow for another decade.

Presumably, it would kill its host. But if it didn’t… say, some mad scientist was able to transfer it to a supportive medium…. say, a big bell jar full of evil-looking liquid… and just let it grow and evolve, would it eventually have grown into a full alien, leading inevitably to the bloody death of the scientist and a really awkward reunion with the human it considers to be its “father”?

Probably not. But it’s fun to think about. I picture it as looking like the exposed-brain guy from the Star Wars Cantina scene, but speaking with an incongruously innocent and all-American teenage boy voice.

“Gosh, Dad, aren’t you glad to see me? After all…. I used to be part of you! Sorry about the cat, by the way. The moment I realized it was yours, I disgorged it. It’s fine, just a little damp. Eventually it will get over the smell and clean itself. ”