Posthuman Blues

Palmtop Nuclear Fusion Device Invented

"The nuclear reaction that powers the Sun has been reproduced in a pocket-sized device, scientists announced today."

It's probably too early to tell how momentous this might be. But that's the crux of pure research -- you never know when a relatively trivial discovery will explode into a bona-fide paradigm shift. Unfortunately, pure scientific research is becoming increasingly difficult to fund; people expect science to cough up a never-ending stream of tangible marvels like cellphones and digicams. And there is historical evidence that truly marvelous discoveries were terminated because they conflicted with entrenched industrial interests. I fully expect more such casualties.