Topics may very well include: That controversial New Yorker cover, inappropriate touching at the Department of Natural Resources, attacks on the presidential candidates' wives, Seattle's toilet auction, and whatever else you call in to demand we discuss.

That's 94.9 FM if you want to listen in. Oh, and if you want to get inside my head early, the comments, as always, are open.

OTTAWA - Air Canada has launched an informal investigation in the emergency diversion of a London-bound flight after the co-pilot fell ill somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, with one passenger saying the pilot was having a breakdown and calling for God.

Sean Finucane said the co-pilot was bound by restraints and carried into the cabin.

"He was very, very distraught. He was yelling loudly," he told CBC.

"His voice was clear, he didn't sound like he was drunk or anything, but he was swearing and asking for God," he said in an interview from England. "He specifically said he wants to talk to God."

Is the inspiration of a new film, North American:
(For Tim Appelo: the image is by Matt Daniels)

[I]t’s the story of an airline pilot having a mental breakdown mid-flight. Put up in a Seattle hotel, the pilot sneaks across the street to “an incredibly dense and seemingly endless terrain” fused “of the major Olmsted parks into one diverse geography located in the middle of downtown Seattle.”

I'm not asking about a business reporter who covers biotech. Nor someone who reads press releases and RSS feeds of published scientific articles. I'm definitely not asking about wire reports, or reruns of New York Times articles. Is there anyone, at any of the local papers, who actually covers the scientific community in Seattle, who knows the lab managers, the budget officers, the department chairs, the graduate students and fellows? Anyone who is connected enough to know the science that isn't being done, what crucial questions are going unanswered?

I'm not gloating here. I'm horrified. Seattle is a world class scientific city, right up there with Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo and Baltimore. The University of Washington is consistently one of the largest federal grant recipients--many years second only to Johns Hopkins in total dollars, typically hovering around a billion dollars--largely due to the high quality of work being done. With all we need right now from science, to have no real press coverage, in one of the primary centers of global scientific research, is terrifying.

I don't count. I'm far to conflicted to honestly report on the state of science in Seattle. I can say there are fantastic stories to be had. Anyone out there?

STUDIO at Havana has a regular following of devoted Disco, Italo, Cosmic and Mustache Groove fans. Every Wednesday night punks, bike messengers and skaters join Disco Enthusiasts and crowd onto Havana's small dance floor to move and sweat while STUDIO's resident DJs—American Athlete and H.M.A.—spin vintage vinyl along with guests.

STUDIO is Seattle’s only real disco night and STUDIO is STRAIGHT. Mostly. But tonight the boys behind the night are hosting a very special Gay-ass Disco Night to mark Gay Pride Week. Sponsored by the Stranger with give-aways from Boy Butter Lube.

I'm posting this under Nightlife and Conflict of Interest because I happen to be sleeping with one of the guys that will be DJing tonight. Go and see if you can guess which.

"May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead." The Irish saying, which inspired the title of ThinkFilm's highest-grossing release "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead" is an apt one for the specialized distributor, which is currently facing the worst financial crisis of its seven-year history. If last year's release of the acclaimed Sidney Lumet drama marked the heavenly highpoint of the company's career, now Lucifer appears to be breathing down its neck.

And:

Producers associated with Robinson Devor's documentary "Zoo," Susan Kaplan's "Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family" and David Sington's "In the Shadow of the Moon" all refused to comment for this story on the advice of their lawyers.

I ain't saying nothing.

I can't vouch for any of the other shorts in tonight's program, but Manoj--a mockumentary about an Indian comedian and America's clumsy affection for stereotypes-- is funny and smart and painful. (Read Charles's profile of director Zia Mohajerjasbi here.)

In other Hari Kondabolu news, he'll be appearing on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham" on Friday, July 18th at 10 pm. If you like Hari Kondabolu, which you should, save the date.

With oil prices spiking again--I say from both real increases in global demand and speculation piggybacking on the market conditions, you may disagree--and global energy supplies at some of the tightest margins ever, is it any surprise that...

Nuclear power, long reviled as a dangerous source of energy, is on the verge of a comeback. That’s because a growing body of scientists, politicians and environmental activists see atomic energy as part of the solution for global warming and our ever-growing dependence on foreign oil, much of it from nations that, if not downright hostile toward us, certainly don’t share our values.

Well, what of nuclear power? On the Dear Science blog, I've just completed a six post series on nuclear power, covering...

...the physics behind nuclear power:

Every nuclear power plant in operation today works by capturing the energy release when a really unhappy large nucleus breaks up into two smaller and more successful get-togethers–atomic fissioning. When these cranky huge parties break up, a few neutrons typically get flung out at high speeds–think of these as a few type-B’s from the party screaming away in tears. If these neutrons hit another large nucleus, teetering towards breaking up already, they can smash the party to pieces, sending yet more neutrons out.

So, you can imagine a game where you place enough of these large nuclei next to one another, such that the neutrons from one breaking up shortly cause a neighboring large nucleus to break up, sending more neutrons out to break up more nuclei… creating a chain reaction.

... how almost all current nuclear power reactors work...

The goal? A controlled fissioning of large nuclei. You’ll need fuel, moderation, coolant, and some control...

Hey, something nifty! Water is both a good coolant and moderator! No moderator, no chain reaction, right? So, if you use water as your coolant and moderator, your reactor has an intrinsic safety feature. If you lose coolant, you lose moderation and the chain reaction stops. We all live! Thus, almost all nuclear reactors in operation today use water as a coolant and moderator.

... radiation...

Alpha particles, the cannon balls, can be stopped by a single sheet of paper. Smash! Likewise, the dead outer layer of skin does a damn good job of protecting your living cells from alpha particles. Beta particles, the bullets, go right through paper. A thin sheet of aluminum, or something of similar density and substance, will gobble these up.

Gamma radiation is trickier. Gamma radiation is just a freakishly high energy version of light, with almost no substance. Just like light can pass right through your hand, gamma radiation can pass through all but the heaviest and densest of metals, wreaking havoc deep into the body.

... nuclear waste ...

When we loaded our reactor, the fuel was chemically fairly pure. Recall, however, that nuclear decay typically results in new chemicals being created–whether by alpha or beta decay or by fissioning. As our reactor operates, these new atoms build up. Most are radioactive themselves, also undergoing various decays. Most of these atoms are neutron hoarders–gleefully absorbing our precious neutrons, while offering up few when they themselves decay. So, as these new atoms build up, we lose more and more neutrons. Eventually there are too few free neutrons left to keep the chain reaction going, even if we completely remove the control rods. Such fuel, still containing a bunch of Uranium but now contaminated various highly radioactive but non-chain reacting atoms, is called spent. It’s hideously radioactive, more radioactive than when we put the fuel in the reactor, but useless as fuel.

Welcome to the trickiest problem of nuclear power, the waste. What can we do?

... the two most famous disasters at nuclear power plants ...

I’d like to imagine the following exchange, between a middle manager in the Soviet Union and us, some plucky nuclear engineers, when planning these plants:

Middle manager: “You have my plant design?”
Us: “Yes, but it is incredibly dangerous!”
MM: “But it will work without any Plutonium, enriched Uranium or heavy water?”
Us: “Yes. In fact, it produces Plutonium as a waste product!”
MM: (Claps hands) “Excellent. We shall have such nice dachas when I tell everyone of this plan.”
Us: “It is far to dangerous to build. I refuse to do it!”
MM: (Laughs. Then pauses.) “Oh. You’re serious.”
MM: (Considers his boss, probably some one-eyed, one-armed veteran of Zhukov’s Berlin campaign in the Great Patriotic War, who won’t be sympathetic to concerns about hoards of irradiated civilians after asking why his reactor isn’t operating yet.)
MM: (Points to us.) “Guards, shoot this man.”
Us: (Shot in the head)
MM: (Turns to our assistant) “So, ready to build the reactors?”
Assistant: “Let’s just pick some places in Ukraine, Romania and other shitholes to build ‘em, yes?”

... and finally what future reactor designs will be like.

The designs are, individually, brilliant. The lead-cooled variant is designed to be modular. The reactor is small, easily installed and removed and works for about fifteen to twenty years without having to be opened or refueled. Perfect for countries or remote areas with no interest in or infrastructure for refining nuclear fuels. The gas-cooled variant can operate safely at huge temperatures and is incredibly efficient at minimizing waste products in a relatively simple manner. The sodium-cooled design is the dreamiest to me. Such a reactor complex could not only operate at tremendous efficiencies, but also eat up the waste of the older pressurized water reactors. Keen!

2030 is too far away. If we were smart, we would throw resources at these fourth generation technologies, pushing to have the pilot reactors and designs finalized within ten years. None of these are perfect. No source of power is without risk or environmental injury. None. Our planet hosts nearly seven billion people. Fossil fuel reserves are dwindling. The atmosphere and oceans are buckling under the carbon strain. Nuclear power, particularly responsibly applied with standardized plant designs and a real plan for dealing with the waste, remains our best hope. The physics and technology is available. We just need to do it. Now.

It’s time we talked about nukes. For most, the opinions run deeper than knowledge. Read my series, or pick up a good book on the subject. Educate yourself. Get an informed opinion and then go out and win some arguments.

Unlike GH nights at bars, this one should be all about the insane talent of young people who wield plastic guitars. I've already resigned myself to not winning this, but if I have any shot, it'll only be because the competition is separated into under-13 and over-13 camps:

See you there.

Thanks to our continuing success in Iraq, you might have noticed distinctly fewer limbs in today’s America. Hence this recent work published in the journal Nature is quite encouraging:

Here we describe a system that permits embodied prosthetic control; we show how monkeys (Macaca mulatta) use their motor cortical activity to control a mechanized arm replica in a self-feeding task. In addition to the three dimensions of movement, the subjects' cortical signals also proportionally controlled a gripper on the end of the arm. Owing to the physical interaction between the monkey, the robotic arm and objects in the workspace, this new task presented a higher level of difficulty than previous virtual (cursor-control) experiments. Apart from an example of simple one-dimensional control, previous experiments have lacked physical interaction even in cases where a robotic arm or hand was included in the control loop, because the subjects did not use it to interact with physical objects—an interaction that cannot be fully simulated. This demonstration of multi-degree-of-freedom embodied prosthetic control paves the way towards the development of dexterous prosthetic devices that could ultimately achieve arm and hand function at a near-natural level.

The big plan here? Brain cells make electrical currents when doing their jobs. By listening for these electrical spikes with electrodes, we can eavesdrop. Using a map of the brain, giving us a clue which part of the brain controls (or controlled) the limb, we can put the electrodes over the right spot. When we detect a change in the brain cells in this spot, we can move a robot arm. Enjoy your new cyborg limb!

Well, Meel Velliste et al. got a monkey to move a robotic arm just by thinking. Nifty. Many groups, including my buddy Kai Miller right here in Seattle, have gotten people to play video games just by thinking. This brings us one step closer to replacing all those lost limbs.

Still, we really don’t have the best idea of exactly what these brain cells must say to one another when they want to move a limb or a finger. The better we understand this language, the better we can program the computer sitting between the electrodes on the brain and the robotic limb. Back to my friend’s thesis defense this week.

Listening to the brain with these electrodes, that read millions of brain cells at a time, is a bit like listening to the crowd at a stadium. You can hear large groups chanting in unison, horns or general roar; trying to pick out an individual conversation in all of this is next to impossible.

Still, we can figure a lot out at this level. When parts of the brain are at rest, they’re subject to regular gonging. The idea is somewhat like the best scene in Blazing Saddles (“Dag namit. The sheriff is a n{GONG}…”) Every time the part of the brain starts getting an idea to activate out of turn, the gonging from deeper levels interrupts the planning. So, the absence of this gonging is one way to detect when a part of the brain is activated. The problem is, this happens over a huge area of the brain. We need to figure a way to listen in on the planning among the brain cells that can now proceed uninhibited. A good old-fashioned scientific knife fight emerged in the field. One camp figured this planning would be synchronized--like a section in the stadium starting to chant, “Wave! Wave! Wave!” The other camp figured it’s hard to plan anything by only chanting in unison. Any meaningful planning would be the brain cells taking to one another, out of sync, and thus just sound like a bit louder roar from a small section. Screw listening for chants, listen for an increase in crowd noise and you’ll figure out when the brain is trying to, say, wiggle a finger.

My friend, sifting through recordings from human brains and using complex mathematical earplugs to separate the raw data from the electrodes into manageable pieces, figured out the second camp is probably right. Listen for the roar!

Two fun advances in science at a timely moment.

Seattle's got a new food quarterly: Edible Seattle, devoted to "celebrating the seasonal bounty of Puget Sound."

The premiere issue is on stands now, and features the start of a new series by Stranger food writer/Bar Examiner Bethany Jean Clement: Icebox, in which BJC investigates the contents of a notable chef's refrigerator.

Subject of the first installment: Boat Street Cafe's Renee Erickson, whose fridge is home to an array of fascinations, along with Best Foods mayonnaise, Heinz ketchup, and Diet Pepsi.

You can find EdibleSeattle all over town.

Read the whole story here.

Who: A puppet show by the always awesome Sgt. Rigsby and His Amazing Silhouettes.

Also, music by Accordion Boy (also known as Nate Mooter of Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Strong Killings, and the Lashes).

Where: McLeod Residence.

When: Wednesday April 30 at 7 pm.

What else: Fish and chips. And whiskey.

How much: Suggested donation of $15.

Background: Last year, Sgt. Rigsby offered to donate a private puppet show for our Strangercrombie charity auction. Our own Ari Spool bought the package and, overachiever that she is, decided to double-down on the do-gooding: a puppet show bought for charity, repurposed into a fundraiser.

The result is like a miracle—everything anyone could want (Sgt. Rigsby, Accordion Boy, McLeod, Vera, whiskey) all in one place.

I also have a new column up in this week's paper, explaining the financial crisis through junk food.

Many modern financial investments—whose number and amount of money invested within increased dramatically after the depression-era financial controls were dismantled in the 1990s—are more like processed foods than produce. Investors just figured this out. And they've started to get nervous about where their cash has gone.

Take the mortgage-backed securities at the center of this crisis—in which thousands of mortgages were blended together, sliced into pieces, and then sold to millions of investors. Compared to the traditional mortgage lent out by a single bank to a single investor, these are the pizza-flavored low-fat Pringles to a baked potato.

Some Topics Discussed: How to fist yourself on a statue, James Joyce, Alyson Hannigan's hotness, e-mailing penis photos to a stranger on Craigslist, which authors are assholes in person, how to get involved in short pornographic film production, how many chins I appear to have in a certain digital photograph (popular consensus leaned toward 23 chins), the relative attractiveness of men in the 1980's, and whether Chad Lowe looks like a hockey player.

I Saw You: Mr. Poe, heading outside and returning decidedly more, um, organic; Scary Tyler Moore, pointing at me and making the drinky-drunk motion with her hand; Original Monique, taking photos of everyone, no doubt with the nefarious intent of sticking faces onto pornographic photos with Photoshop; NaFun, wearing the greatest coat since Vin Diesel's scene-stealing giant fur monstrosity in XXX; Will in Seattle, looking quite dapper (did you do something with your hair?); Aislinn, telling the story of her shattered foot, which was injured in a fit of exuberance. Pretty Much Everyone But Me: Heading to Saint after leaving Moe Bar.

This Hangover-Free Morning (and also chins 16 through 19) Brought to You By:

DiGiorno's Ultimate Four-Cheese Oven Fresh Pizzeria Pizza. Motherfucking delicious.