Well phooey. Seems like I am getting sicker.

Right now, I feel pretty wretched. Not full on misery, but I am miserable enough that it meakes it hard to do my usual things.

Specifically, I seem toi have a cold or similar. I am sneezing, I have a tunny nose, and my palate is itchy.

Normally, all of these can be attributed to my hayfever\allergies or whatever. But I have my antihistamines in me yet the symptoms persist.

Plus there’s that overall “oogy” feeling that comes with having an infection, and a burning sensation in my middle earts that has me worried about ear infections.

And I am still sore from inside my ears all the down my throat.

I am not having a great day, is what I am saying.

I am definitely feeling stupid. And contagious. So I won’t be going to Felicity’s place after Denny’s tonight and that sucks.

Not as bad as infecting her elderly parents would be But still sucky.

This is the sort of day for hibernating, preferably with soup. Sadly, I have no soup. Maybe I will get some when I do my shopping tonight.

I could use something both nourishing and soothing like soup, or stew, or perhaps a zesty ragout would hit the spot.

The words, they are not coming easy, All the fluid in my skull sloshes around with the slightest of head movements, and that is making it hard to focus enough to write.

Feels like I am trying to hit a moving target with my words, to be honest.

It’s kind of like being drunk. My head spinning and lurching. No doubt I would be quite the sight if I had to do something hard like cross a street or have a complex conversation or thread my way through traffic or somesuch.

Right now, all I want to do is lay down until the world stops spinning. Ideally, this would also involve some form of sleep as I am quite tired and need downtime.

I hate being like this. All mussed up and messed up and massed up and missed up and…. mossed up, I guess.

And myssed up, but only sometimes.

The itchy palate thing has me weirded out. Normally, I only get that in the middle of an allergy attack. But I definitely took my antihistamine not ten minutes ago, soi you would think it could not be an allergic reaction.

It’s possible that it’s just a really bad allergen day. Some plant is in blood and ejaculating its pollen into the air with herbivorous abandon and it’s more than mere mortal antihistamines can handle.

All I know is that I am sick and it sucks. I wish I could just curl up in a ball and hibernate.

Damn I need to get me some Alleve. An analgesic would do wonders for me at the moment. My head is pounding and I feel dizzy and nauseous and shaky.

Screw this. I will be back after the break.

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Suspension of Animation

Holy batshit, Fatman! For your science fiction becomes reality file, I hereby present : suspended animation is now a thing!

Scientists at the University of Maryland successfully placed a human volunteer into a state of suspended animation for two hours. They did it by replacing the body fluid with a particular saline solution.

Thus, cellular rupture is prevented because the saline keeps ice crystals from forming when they cool down the tissues.

We’ve known how to use cold to suspend animation since the days of Freud. It’s having them not turned into freezerburned mush in the process that’s been the tricky bit.

I have to admit, I am just the tiniest bit disappointed that the solution (so to speak) turned out to be boring old saline.

I always assumed it would turn out to be something exotic like nanoparticles of carbon or some strange fungus from deep in the Amazon that would do it.

Oh well, it’s tremendously exciting nevertheless.

Of course, the article talks about the direct medical application : giving medical professionals more time in which to do what they need to save a life.

That’s an extremely good application and certainly well worth the investment of research funds as well as the risk to the reputations and careers of all involved.

They might not have been able to bring the person back, after all, which by anyone’s measure would make the experiment a failure and by some people’s narrow minded definitions would make everyone directly involved murderers.

But you see, I am neither a scientist nor a journalist, so I don’t have to limit myself to well founded theories supported by all the pertinent facts.

I am a science fiction writer, and that means that wildly theorizing about applications for this breakthrough is not merely allowed but mandatory.

And what’s more, I’ll enjoy it.

So here goes :the article makes is clear that there is no known time limit to this process. That means that it is at least possible that people could be suspended for an indefinite length of time.

And suddenly, cryogenics is a reality. You could have yourself frozen until there’s a cure for whatever ails you, or even just do it as a way to time travel into the future.

Might become all the rage, for a while at least.

And of course, like it says in the article. that could open the door for space flight. It would be far, far easier to get a crew of humans to Mars and back if during most of the trip, the crew’s metabolic demands were almost nil.

But even more exciting is that we could see a future with almost no death. People wouldn’t die, they would simply go into suspension for however long it took to fix them, even if it took years.

The only people who will die will be those whose death is too sudden or remote for them to be put into suspension in time.

Imagine a future where even the old do not die. They just go into suspension until they can be rejuvenated, young and energetic once more.

This discovery might just be the key to a whole new era, folks.

You heard it here first.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.