heliopausa

Writing: I've made absolutely no advance on actual writing all week, but (as part of my continuing quest to learn from how other writers do it) I put together four pages of background about the Telmarines in 'The Ivory Merchants' - their history, religion, culture, social structure, economy, geography, and current political situation. It was all stuff I've had vaguely in my head, but not written down; none of it was new (except for how one already-dead-in-the-story character died). Still it feels good to have it straight and in writing. And I've whittled down, considerably, the forty-five pages of "bits and pieces that might come in handy", discovering in the process that almost all of it won't. So now there's nothing standing between me and the need to actually sort out the plot - which is daunting. :)

Reading: I have lost track of how I came to see this article on DNA research - via jjhunter's reading page, I think. But I thought it was a huge new understanding of DNA or how it works. For a start, it'll call into question a whole lot of criminal convictions (or acquittals), I would think. But also, I'm pondering how it might broaden out the idea of male and femaleness, at the DNA level. Even the detail of the woman with two blood-types... fascinating! Who (or what) we are can't be pinned down as easily as hard science seemed to say. And what might it mean (I have no idea!) for the idea of patenting DNA?

My linking skills are not up to scratch! So here it is in plain errr... English? Plain letters, anyway. :)

http://aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2013/09/biologically-speaking-what-is.html