mattnyc99 writes "Esquire is running a a jaw-dropping profile of MacArthur genius Marc Roth in their annual Best and Brightest roundup, detailing how this gonzo DNA scientist (who also figured out how to diagnose lupus correctly) went from watching his infant daughter die to literally reincarnating animals. Inspired by NOVA and funded by DARPA, Roth has developed a serum for major biotech startup Ikaria that successfully accomplished "suspended animation" mdash; the closest we've ever come to simulating near-death experiences and then coming back to life. From the article: 'We don't know what life is, anyway. Not really. We just know what life does mdash; it burns oxygen. It's a process of combustion. We're all just slow-burning candles, making our way through our allotment of precious O2 until it becomes our toxin, until we burn out, until we get old and die. But we live on 21 percent oxygen, just as we live at 37 degrees. They're related. Decrease the oxygen to 5 percent, we die. But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?'" The writer Tom Junod engages in what Hunter Thompson once called "a failed but essentially noble experiment in pure gonzo journalism." If you can suspend your inner critic for a time, it's a fun ride.pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/2313252amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/02/2313252"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/2313252amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ypCO5OsyU6MHkvYSIlY32MGpnrU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ypCO5OsyU6MHkvYSIlY32MGpnrU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/cN_wunER-5I" height="1" width="1"/

Bill Thompson on what free means for social sites

pemsmallPhoto by a href="http://www.magphoto.org/"strongMichael Alan Goldberg/strong/a/small/embr /br /"I was thinking about trying to put anybody off that asked me out right if the a href="http://www.4ad.com/pixies/"strongPixies/strong/a legend a href="http://www.frankblack.net/"strongFrank Black/strong/a was producing our next album by telling them that they must have mis-heard and in fact the legendary a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-510893/Schoolgirl-Pixie-Geldof-stumbles-celebrity-party-looking-like-needs-good-nights-sleep.html"strongPixie Geldof /strong/awas," a href="http://www.artbrut.org.uk/"strongArt Brut/strong/a frontchap and general gadabout Eddie Argos a href="http://the-eddie-argos-resource.blogspot.com/2008/11/frank-black-is-producing-new-art-brut.html"strongwrote on his very amusing blog/strong/a. "I'm glad I didn't have to stoop that low to hide our secret." Us, too./p pAccording to Argos, Mr. Black (or Black Francis or Charles Thompson or whoever he is these days) will join Art Brut in the studio to work up their third LP, the follow-up to last year's fine a href="/article/record_review/43578-its-a-bit-complicated"strongemIt's a Bit Complicated/em/strong/a. Argos claims the band's got about 20 songs ready to go for the sessions, including "Alcoholics Unanimous", "Summer Job", "Art Brut Versus Satan", "Rebellious Henchman", "Moved to L.A." (a href="http://hypem.com/track/587950/Art+Brut-Moving+to+L.A."strongha/strong/a), and "D.C. Comics and Chocolate Milkshake"./p pThe blog post in question ends with this mysterious note: "We leave for Oregon on Thursday." Could the Brut brood and the former Mr. Thompson be making a record in the Beaver state as soon as this week?br /br /One thing's for certain: a href="http://www.myspace.com/paranoiddogbark"strongGlam Chops/strong/a, Eddie's band with David Devant, issued a free Christmas single via their MySpace today. The Chops have a show planned for January 29 in London that's still without a venue, and offer the promise of more to come in February, once they settle on locations. a href="http://www.playbackstl.com/content/blogcategory/151/289/"strong"Pow! To the People"/strong/a, Argos' a href="/article/news/145232-art-bruts-argos-writes-about-comics-forms-bands"strongcomics column/strong/a for PLAYBACK:stl hasn't been too active lately; his a href="http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/8202/167/"strongmost recent column/strong/a, concerning a graphic novel by My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way, was posted on November 1./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/La6renZZ8XZNrUAT_KAqXwD876U/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/La6renZZ8XZNrUAT_KAqXwD876U/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/JCUaqpiRqm8" height="1" width="1"/