Odds and ends

Captain's Log, Stardate 12.13.2005

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, the PT kicked my butt.

Yeah, yeah, excuses, excuses.

Got a few stem cell articles:

This article discloses an amazing study where scientists were able to coax adult stem cells to change into brain, nerve, heart muscle and pancreatic cells. It was previously thought that only embryonic stem cells could be changed into these types of cell, but if adult stem cells can be used for therapy, there's no need to destroy embryos. This would also eliminate any risk of rejection of the therapy cells.

This article details how researchers are working to both immortalize sperm stem cells and also possibly "push" them back into pluripotent stem cells, which is what embryonic stem cells are. This is great to show that therapies may not need embryonic stem cells.

This is a totally awesome article about a drug that triples the number of umbilical cord stem cells for use in therapy. This could also lead to research on increasing the number of adult stem cells from other parts of the body--like brain, liver, kidney--for use in treating Alzheimer's or stroke victims.

TED DEKKER!!!
Gina Holmes has a cool 3-day interview with Ted Dekker starting today through the 15th! Check out her blog First Novel Journey.

FIRST DRAFT
FirstDraft group is a notification-only email loop that sends daily links to writing website articles. This is a terrific resource for writers to keep honing their craft. I love this group. I've learned so much from the articles.

They have just moved from YahooGroups to GoogleGroups. Membership is free, and you can option to receive individual emails, digest format, or no email and read the posts online.

Writing: I finished revising my suspense manuscript! I feel bad since it took me a lot longer than I thought. I need to get my butt in gear. It's with a few tough critique partners, so hopefully it'll be in great shape for when my agent pitches it at CBA Advance in January.

Next up: Research for my Chicklit/Suspense. I think it'll be really cool. I'm researching things I feel passionate about. That's the important part. That's what'll come through in the writing.