Xenotransplantation – in general terms, transplanting non-human organic tissue into human beings – looks likely to become more common in New Zealand in light of the decision to re-open the door to its use in potential diabetes treatment.

• Pig cell transplants bring new hope for sick Kiwis – 17 Apr 2007 – NZ Herald: New Zealand National news:
• Green light given for pig cell transplants to humans – New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz:

A couple of years back I did a few lectures about xenotransplantation and similar technologies that I argued would become more common in the near future, and that there were significant pastoral issues that would need to be faced in light of this. I still think this, and I worry that many people when faced with hard decisions about this type of procedure, and especially questions that it raises about human identity, will find little or no space in the faith communities to reflect upon and discuss it.

Even outside of the issues raised about its safety, the potential for a knee-jerk marginalization of individuals who do elect for these treatments (for whatever reasons) within the church and the wider community seems a very real possibility. Especially in communities that see the division between human and non-human in clear-cut, black and white, divinely-ordered categories.

For links to related articles and web sites see the category: Greenflame: Bioethics.

Comic buying is temporarily on hold at the moment, but that isn’t stopping me from paying attention to the developing story of the Sinestro Corps within the DC Universe. Finally, the villain Sinestro seems to have moved from an almost comic (pardon the pun) character to one who is deadly serious. It was hinted at in the Green Lantern: Rebirth series and now it seems like more depth will be added to the character. Way back in Emerald Dawn II (early 90s) Sinestro was portrayed as a control-freak who imposed (his) order upon the world in clear cut, black and white categories – a fundamentalist almost in some ways. Now, we get to see where being thwarted in that goal takes him.

Newsarama has an interview here about the upcoming mini-series: TAPPING IN TO EVIL: ETHAN VAN SCIVER ON SINESTRO CORPS – NEWSARAMA.

My only quibble with the interview is that it does seem to ignore the fact that something similar was done way back in March 1982 with the creation of the Anti-Green Lantern Corps (see picture). On the other hand, the new attempt at a dark mirror to the GL Corps looks far less cheesy than that.

Damaris have released some study resources for Firefly to go with the Serenity resource,

See Culture Watch – Firefly and Culture Watch – Serenity.

I’m a big fan of software applications that concentrate on doing one task in an exemplary fashion. Probably a throwback to my UNIX script programming day when I’d connect lots of small single purpose applications together to work on my data. Which is why this interview caught my eye (Mozilla: Why Desktop E-Mail Crucifies the Browser). I loathe web email – I use it, but it’s never a pleasant experience no matter what system the provider is using. Maybe if I was getting mail only on one address, and maybe if I was getting only a few emails a day, but with lots of mail accounts for different purposes it really doesn’t work well.

I tried an early version of Thunderbird years ago and it didn’t quite satisfy me. Maybe it’s time to try it again – especially with better web email support.

He drew a deep breath. ‘Well I’m back,’ he said.