The study found that computers often have difficulty recognising the first word in a sentence, as well as problems with understanding sentences that contain a lot of ‘umm’ and ‘err’ sounds. The research also found that men are more commonly misunderstood, something that is likely to be due to their more frequent use of these indecisive noises. Words which sounded similar were also often misinterpreted, especially when either word could be used in a similar context. The work came from recording phone conversations between people, then submitting them to an electronic speech recognition programme to observe how it interpreted the conversations.

The unique nature of human voices makes designing a programme suitable for everyone very difficult, but this work, and other studies like it, hope to create a system that will more accurately interpret what is being said.

- Kat Davey

Why does everybody want to experiment on this poor fellow?

Hard to believe that this is our 25th podcast already. Thanks to all our loyal listeners! This week, our host Frank Dondelinger guides us through stories about wacky fruitfly research, a new type of solar cells, a tricky virus (no, not HIV this time), and much more. So sit back and enjoy our take on the buzzing power source of science stories that made the headlines (or at least the science pages) of newspapers over the past couple of weeks.

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What’s in today’s show:

News:

• Why our Bodies Age
• Alzheimers Gene Makes You Clever
• Mystery of Martian Dunes without Wind Explained
• Science Stories are Emailed More Often Than Newspaper Headlines
• Stinky Flowers Kept Warm by Yeast

• You won’t believe it, but obsessive driving fanatics are prone to driving agressively.

Also, please go and sign the national petition for libel reform. Help keep libel law out of science!

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The report, commissioned by the Chief Science Advisor for Scotland Professor Anne Glover, compared publication rates and impact of research produced by universities, research institutes, industry and the NHS in Scotland, with those of other countries. The findings were based on 2007, and where possible, 2008 data.

According to the report particularly strong areas of research in Scotland are biological sciences, which contributed 2.4 per cent of all citations, environment (2.2 per cent) and health and medical research (1.8 per cent). It also showed an increasing level of global collaboration with over 50% of Scottish research papers being internationally co-authored.

The report highlighted the fact that as research becomes more expensive other countries research productivity has dropped, whereas Scotland has managed to retain its productivity: per country, publishing the largest amount of papers worldwide.

First Minister Alex Salmond has commented on the report, saying that: “The Scottish Government continues to work with universities, research institutes, industry and community partners to ensure Scotland continues to be a competitive hotbed of ideas and innovation.” And went on to say: “This new report supports the Government’s work to attract new talent and investment to Scotland. It also strongly reinforces the message that Scotland is a world leader in technology, innovation and enterprise.”

To get the full list of results from the report, please visit: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/science/16607/research-1

- James Beggs

Like Killing Mice by Adam Wilson

I, Benedict Michael Matthew Hume, Inspector, first class, of the XIXth Moral Enforcement Unit and Inquisition (Electronic Atrocities Division), confirm before almighty God that what follows is a true and accurate account of the events of January the 27th 2110, in my precinct, the city of Edinburgh.

I arrived at Niddry Street at 3.25pm, thirty minutes after receiving the call from Sergeant MacNeil, who greeted me at the cordoned-off area and presented me with a torch and dust mask.
“Dark in there?” I asked him idly.
“Dusty, too,” he said, sneering slightly. “Sir.”
I let it slide, took the torch from him without comment. “What’s all the fuss about, MacNeil? Don’t tell me you got us all out here over a slide rule and a pack of tarot cards.”
“Hardly, sir.” MacNeil indicated, with a nod of his helmeted head, the bustle of activity surrounding the building that had once, presumably, been a pub of some sort. To have attracted such numbers of people, the find must not have been trivial. In fact, it must have been extraordinary. “In the basement, sir. A plaster partition, fairly well-camouflaged but not too strong. When the owners of the place accidentally made a hole in it, they discovered–”
I had already ducked under the line of tape and was marching towards the door. “Come on, walk and talk.”
“Don’t you want your mask, sir?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“The room is poorly ventilated–”
“Just… tell me what you know. Okay, sergeant?”
“Sir.”

The Moral Enforcement sledgehammers had made short work of the plaster, widening the hole enough for a man to the squeeze through into the space beyond. Like an
archaeologist at the door to a tomb I cast around with the beam of the torch without crossing the threshold. Particles of plaster tickled the back of my throat, and when I spoke, I tried to keep from my voice the strain of trying not to cough.
“How far does the tunnel go?” I asked.
“A long way,” MacNeil said. “We haven’t reached the end yet.”
It didn’t surprise me. The rocks under Edinburgh were burrowed so full of holes it was amazing the whole city didn’t fall in on itself. These days, I half expected it to. “And
you’ve been inside?”
“Only as far as the stash of contraband. Once we recognised it for what it was, we called for backup immediately.”
I nodded. Straight out of the manual. Probably untrue, too. If MacNeil was right, this was sorcery of the highest order, witchcraft right out of Leviticus. I doubted even an officer as devout as MacNeil could resist a closer look.
“Grade-A blasphemous stuff, is it?”
“Heinous,” MacNeil agreed, nodding fervently.
I sighed, stepped out of the way. “Lead on, sergeant.”

The cellar he took me to had obviously not been inhabited in years. The shelves, rather flimsy aluminium things, were covered with dust. Many of them had fallen over or collapsed over time, a combination of the weight of their contents and the haste with which they had been assembled: when the very holy boots of the Moral Enforcers are kicking in your doors, it doesn’t leave much time for tightening screws.
And on the shelves themselves…
“Impressive, isn’t it, sir?”
“Depends what impresses you, I suppose.” I prodded a tangle of wires like electronic spaghetti with the tip of my pencil.
“Where do you think it all came from?” MacNeil asked.
I shrugged. “If there were less of it, I’d have guessed it was a personal stash. But a collection this size… I’d say the University. Not all their stuff was accounted for.”
MacNeil whistled, already thinking of promotion. This was a major coup. Largely thanks to our work, there wasn’t much AI still left to be found.
In these enlightened times, it seems hard to believe that anybody could have had the gall to do serious research into artificial intelligence – that they could dare think an inanimate machine could have independent thought, or that to make even the most tentative and faltering steps in that direction was not an insult, not just to God, but to Man. If a snarl of metal and plastic could have a soul, where did that leave mankind? Such thoughts made a mockery of human dignity, and constituted an insidious attempt to topple the moral system that held society together. And when the Second Enlightenment came, of course, the University robotics department was one of the first places to be sacked. With its advances in economics, chemistry and philosophy, the first Scottish Enlightenment had shown us that Man is indeed God-blessed; the second had eliminated all evidence to the contrary.
(In the intervening years there had been one Edinburgh-residing upstart who’d suggested the human soul might have arisen from inanimate matter by gradual improvements in hardware, but people tended not to talk about him these days.)
I was walking along the row, regarding the assembly of curiosities with a professional eye, when I noticed a large, heavy machine that smelled faintly of petrol. I
waved MacNeil over. “What do you think this is?”
“I… couldn’t say, sir.”
Perhaps he was lying. It can be wise, these days, to pretend ignorance about such things.
“I think it’s a power source,” I told him. “All of these… devices, they appear to be connected to it.”
“Sir.”
“The fuel tank still has a little left.” I crouched beside it for a long moment, stroking my beard in thought. “Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“Switch it on.”
MacNeil stared at me in disbelief, his mouth working noiselessly, a broken machine. “Sir… These electronic aberrations are sinful by the mere fact of their existence–”
“Then they won’t be any more sinful when they’re lit up and moving around,” I said. “Switch it on. I want to see what we’re killing.”
When MacNeil finally worked out which switch did what, the generator hummed loudly, and a light bulb, previously unnoticed in the ceiling, burst into illumination.
We worked for many hours. Rather than narrate the entire event, I shall simply include a partial inventory of the discoveries. Where included, explanatory notes were pieced together from various technical documents found in or near the tunnel. Our findings included:

AN ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR
Twelve digit display, facility for complex numbers and matrices. Non-threatening, but easily smashed against the tunnel wall.

PROSTHETIC ARMS AND LEGS
For amputees. Various degrees of realism and sensitivity to external stimuli. These we burned.

A HAND
A metal endoskeleton, with fully articulated joints and some sensory pads. It was able to detect, presumably from changes in temperature, the kerosene we poured over it. Its fingers flexed as though trying to move away as MacNeil struck a match.

AN IMAGE RECOGNITION TOOL
Was able to identify objects by sight and name them, speaking with a woman’s voice: “Shelving unit. Computer processor. Electric torch. Man. Hand. Crucifix. Carpet. Boot. Axe.”

A NAKED BODY
This was found lying in an alcove, and was so lifelike we at first took it to be one of the designers. On closer inspection it was found to be hollow, with space for servos. When properly animated, it would have been indistinguishable from a human being.

A POWERFUL COMPUTER SIMULATOR
This was designed to support a densely interconnected network of over four million virtual switches. Four million is approximately the number of neurons in the brain of a mouse. I mentioned this fact to MacNeil, who grinned and kicked it apart. In its final moments, the thought processes of this electric ‘mouse’ could be inferred from the trembling line of an oscilloscope.

A SOLID-STATE DATA STORAGE SYSTEM
If the accompanying documents are to be believed, this was originally a joint project between the departments of robotics and neuroscience, and contained the uploaded
memories and personality of a graduate student. Wiped with magnets.

A SMALL BOX
With voice simulator and accelerometers. Emitted a piercing, human-like scream when moved, and pleaded for salvation. Whether or not this was true awareness of its future or simply an automatic response to movement was not investigated. Smashed.

Hours later, sitting on the bonnet of MacNeil’s car, wet from the spit of an Edinburgh winter mist, I watched the smoke billowing from the door.
“Something wrong, sir?”
I raised a hand to my eyes, felt the moisture there.
“Just the dust, sergeant.”

Thus ends my testimony. For completeness, please find, attached as appendices: a fuller list of the artefacts found and purged; photographs of the scene, both before and after its destruction by fire; and, finally, my formal letter of resignation from this post, effective immediately.

]]> http://www.eusci.org/2010/03/01/euscifi-competition-first-prize/feed/ 0 http://www.eusci.org/2010/03/01/new-links-between-stress-and-diabetics%e2%80%99-memory-loss/ http://www.eusci.org/2010/03/01/new-links-between-stress-and-diabetics%e2%80%99-memory-loss/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:01:26 +0000 News Editor http://www.eusci.org/?p=603 Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have looked at the memory function of more than 900 type-2 diabetics, and found that stress increases the risk of memory loss.

Type-2 diabetes is characterised by high blood glucose levels and tends to be more common after the age of 40. The Edinburgh Type-2 diabetes study was set up in 2006 to identify risk factors for memory, which is a recognised symptom of this type of diabetes.

This study, published by Diabetes Care, examined the mental abilities, intelligence, and vocabulary of individuals to see if brain function had diminished over a period of time. Factors such as cardiovascular disease, smoking and education were taken into consideration. It was found that brain function had slowed in individuals with higher levels of cortisol, thus linking this stress hormone with the memory loss associated with type-2 diabetes.

“This study shows that older people with diabetes who have higher levels of stress hormones in their blood are more likely to have experienced cognitive decline. It may be that by regulating cortisol levels, we could help improve cognitive decline in patients with type-2 diabetes”, said Dr Rebecca Reynolds of the University’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science.

- Katherine Staines

Rett Syndrome primarily affects girls and is caused by mutations in the X-chromosome gene, MeCP2.  Previously it was thought that MeCP2 protein affected the expression of a handful of genes, but this study, published in the journal Molecular Cell, claims that the protein may act ‘genome-wide’ within brain cells.

Professor Adrian Bird, who led the research team, said: “This debilitating disorder is caused by a protein that is much more abundant in brain cells than we had realised and can therefore interact with the entire human genome, rather than with a few selected genes.”

“It may be that, in Rett patients, many brain cells share a generic defect – which would mean this disease is less complicated than we feared. More work is needed to investigate this possibility.”

- Laura Bailey

Adult rats were left sniffing youngs to memorise their smell. The adults were later placed in an enclosure containing the previously interacted baby and several unknown young rats. Results of the research indicate that adults whose vasopressin were removed failed to recall the baby, in comprison to normal rats who could.

“(The study shows that) vasopressin may help to filter sensory information according to its emotional significance,” said Professor Mike Ludwig, who led the research. The malfunction of the vasopressin system in the brain may prevent people from forming deep emotional bonds with other individuals, and it might be the underlying cause of conditions such as autism and social phobia.

- Dong Liu

Robo-Rebus by Emily Pritchard

The turn-out for the Mark III was less impressive than for the previous models. At the Mark I unveiling the First Minister had given a speech, celebrating a triumph of science in the field of policing. After that disaster, the Mark II had been shown off by the Lord Provost, waxing lyrical about a new era of automated criminology. The Mark III had commanded only Chief Inspector Mohammed Fitzpatrick, of Lothian and Borders Police, some nervous looking Bobbies and a smattering of press.

The Chief Inspector eyed his crowd warily; they were clearly all expecting another disaster. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation, and all precautions had been taken against it. The army were waiting outside Fettes HQ, armed to the teeth with all the latest equipment, and a squadron of RAF fighters were circling the Edinburgh skies. At the back of the hall was a reinforced bunker, it couldn’t fend off the Mark III indefinitely but at least until the forces could disable it. But despite all doubts, CI Fitzpatrick knew they’d got this one to work, the Mark III was almost human.

That was the problem with the two previous models, they weren’t human enough, they were too perfect. The Mark I had been carefully programmed to know and understand every nuance of the law, and to enforce it unquestioningly. Compared to the Mark I, Jesus was a bit of a naughty boy. The Mark I was, in short, too good. It wasn’t long before the Mark I had gone on a violent rampage, obliterating anyone who had broken the tiniest of laws – children who nicked sweets from their siblings, drivers who parked their hover vehicles seconds past the time on their tickets, people swearing before the nine o’clock watershed. It was only stopped by a confined explosion of a nuclear warhead.

When they made the Mark II they decided to iron out these problems by programming it with criminal psychology. If the Mark II understood why people commit crimes, then it could treat criminals with a level of leniency appropriate to their crime and circumstance. Unfortunately the Mark II understood criminals too well, and realised that the old adage ‘Crime doesn’t pay’ is only applicable to individuals who cannot take down an entire police force with the arsenal in their big toe. Indeed, it was not an unreasonable surmise as the Mark II was now running the biggest drug ring the world had ever seen. The only possible way of infiltrating the gang and destroying the Mark II was with the Mark III.

The scientists had considered the Mark III long and hard. It needed the moral backbone of the Mark I, the criminal understanding of the Mark II and something else, something less tangible – empathy, instinct and understanding. It needed to be human. Programming a real human personality into the Mark III had been rejected by a government ethics committee. They had suggested instead to programme in the personality of a fictional police officer. Inspector Rebus was chosen for a number of reasons, not least because Ian Rankin was one of the most prolific writers of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries. DI Rebus also had knowledge of the area, and a certain kind of bloody-mindedness that CI Fitzpatrick, despite berating his own officers for it, secretly admired.

The Inspector Rebus texts has been inputted into the hard-drive of the Mark III, along with the legal knowledge of the Mark I and the criminal psychology of the Mark II. CI Fitzpatrick was sure that this time they’d cracked it.

It was time. The Chief Inspector stuck the vocal amplifier patch to his neck and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I am pleased to welcome you to the unveiling of the Mark III Automated Policing Android, or as we like to call him, Robo-Rebus. Unlike the previous models, the Mark III has been programmed with the personality of the fictional detective, Inspector Rebus.”

There was a small burst of applause.

“Before we switch him on,” he warned, “I have to remind you of our safety procedures. If the robot happens to malfunction,” (the onlookers glanced at each other cautiously) “the security bunker is located at the rear of the hall, and you are advised to stay there until it has been deactivated.”

There was a grim silence. Some of the audience were all too aware of the dangers if the Mark III malfunctioned. The Scotsman’s Evelyn Chung had entered the building on cyborg legs as a result of an encounter with the Mark I. CI Fitzpatrick could only admire her determination to return to report on later models.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Robo-Rebus.”

An automatic door lifted, and the Robot was revealed, in a cloud of smoke. The Mark III looked much the same as its predecessors, about 2m tall, the height of the average man, approximately humanoid in shape, but with enough artillery to hold a small country to ransom. CI Fitzpatrick placed his hand on the oversized switch – the whole thing was a little too theatrical for his taste – and pulled it down. The thing spluttered into life.

“Is there any chance of a pint?”

The voice spoke in an archaic dialect. The Chief Inspector recognised it as a Scottish accent, but so many of the younger generation never watched the old films. Most of them would have never heard a regional accent.

A pint though. He racked his brains to remember what a pint meant. He knew he’d heard it somewhere. Beer! A pint meant beer.

“We’ve got champagne,” he said hopefully.

The robot turned to focus on him. It appeared to shrug, “Aye. That’ll do.”

It was like somebody had suddenly opened a valve. Around the room everybody let out the air that they’d been holding in their lungs since CI Fitzpatrick pulled the switch. Chuckles rippled around the room, before spontaneous applause broke out.

The Mark III looked embarrassed, as much as a robot can look embarrassed. He walked out of his holding over to the refreshments table. Behind the table the waitress was visibly shaking. He took as glass of bubbly and examined it quizzically.

“Haven’t got a mouth, have I?” he said, “Isn’t that a bugger.”

Robo-Rebus found his chemical testing probe and plopped it into the glass. He stared at the probe miserably.

Evelyn Chung was by his side almost immediately; “Inventive,” she said, gesturing to the probe.

“Aye, doesnae get you drunk though,” he said with a grimace, “Eh, those are fancy legs. How’d you get them?”

“Your predecessor,” she replied with a wry smile, “Everybody gets cyborg limbs after injuries these days.”

“My Sammy could have done with a pair of them. My daughter she… I don’t have a daughter, do I? She’s a fictional character. Fuck me. I could really do with a drink right now, or a smoke. You don’t have a fag do you?”

Evelyn handed him a cigarette and lighter, “I’m afraid you’ll have to smoke it in the airlock. It’s over there.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t made these things illegal.”

He walked over to the airlock (the only authorised place to smoke) as if the world were resting on his shoulders, shut the door on himself, placed the cigarette into his air-vent and lit it. After a few seconds he put it out and came back out again. He looked despondently at all the eager faces and sighed.

“That didn’t work either.”

The crowd surged forward, the journalists desperate to speak to him, to get a unique quote that no-one else had. But he batted them all off, moving slowly over to CI Fitzpatrick who was quietly sipping champagne.

“Are you my superior?” he asked.

The Chief Inspector nodded.

“DI John Rebus,” he said, proffering his hand.

“CI Mohammed Fitzpatrick,” he shook it.

“Is there a case I can get working on? I need to start work as soon as possible. There’s nothing else for me.”

And CI Fitzpatrick understood. The Mark III might be the greatest asset Lothian and Borders Police had ever had, but he was also John Rebus, the loneliest man who had ever lived. He wasn’t going to go on a killing spree, or become a drug baron, but he was a bigger failure than the Mark I and the Mark II put together. They had created a human being, with nothing to live for.

The human ovary contains a fixed number of eggs which is established before birth. This store declines with age, becoming depleted by the age of 50-51. Analysis using data from women in the UK, US and Europe, shows egg recruitment increases from birth till age 14 afterwhich it declines with age until the menopause. By the age of 40 as little as 3% of the original egg reserve remains.

The study also predicts that 81% of variance between women in their egg reserve is due to age alone, with the remaining 19% resulting from factors other than age e.g. smoking, BMI, and stress. The study, published in PloS One journal, speculates that as age increases, factors other than age become more important in determining the rate of egg loss. “By understanding the dynamics of ovarian reserve, we can predict which children and young people treated for cancer are most at risk of an early menopause,” states Dr. Hamish Wallace, consultant oncologist at the University of Edinburgh. It is hoped that a better understanding of the dynamics of human ovarian reserve will provide a more scientific basis for fertility counselling.

- Sobia Raza

Technology by Eleanor Horn

Old people just can’t work new technology. It’s a fact of life. No matter who the old person is and no matter what contraption they are trying to manipulate, the result is always the same. A worn mind leads to a lack of understanding, which manifests itself as a general dislike towards technology, and finally the decision not to use technology at all, much to the despair and exacerbation of young people.

It is only now that I am beginning to understand the chain of events being in my middle years and trying to work out how to switch off this ridiculous flashing and noising machine. It was attempting to tell me that I was tired and that I should go to sleep, by measuring serotonin levels or what not. I think, having regulated my sleeping patterns for 65 years, I don’t need a machine to help me. I switched on the TV using the old style remote control (none of this microchip in the head rubbish) and flicked over to BBC1 Scotland, to see Bruce Forsyth, now 135 years old but only 13.5% of his original DNA, showing off as usual with some poor Scottish sidekick outside Edinburgh Castle. At least it is sufficiently distracting to calm me down after having finally taken the batteries out of my ‘SLEEP-O-MATIC SERIES 3.

Who designed this idiotic device anyway? What a stupid concept; it was most probably designed purely to make money. They just designed something that people would blindly think is “essential” in their life, and try to sell it for a few hundred pounds a piece, for a bit of electricity and metal to tell us what we can feel ourselves. Or a pair of emotion recognition sunglasses to tell us what mood our friends are in today. Or a personality robot determining the job that is most suited to us. And no matter how much technology is stuffed into our lives nowadays, there is still no technology in the world that can yet discover someone’s name and how they are feeling that is simpler and more effective than good old human conversation.

Though I guess I’m being a bit of a cynic. I’m glad I didn’t just dunk my SLEEP-O-MATIC SERIES 3 into my fish tank for it to short circuit and sputter to its end like I wanted to. Susie would ask me where it was and would want to see if it still worked properly, in that girlish excited way of hers with sparkly eyes and a naive smile. This wasn’t the first thing that she’d bought me in an attempt to make her old grandfather into a techno whiz despite his obvious reluctance. I wrapped the SLEEP- O-MATIC SERIES 3 into its protective vacuum packaging while the Scottish sidekick chattered to old Brucey about the latest version of e-reader,

“It’s fantastic Bruce. You pop the goggles on and there you are in the scenery of your chosen book while the story happens around you. It’s memory and battery life are ten times better than the previous model, plus a £100 discount if you are under 18 or a full time student!”

E-readers: Now there’s a thing. I remember in 2008 when I was just a boy, adverts in the windows of Watersones on Princes Street. ‘ New e-readers! Stores 100 of your favourite books, all in one convenient pocket sized database! For just £99 it could b yours today’. I remember thinking along the lines of this being the coolest thing ever, and that I must get one no matter what, despite only owning about 10 books at the time. I pleaded with my mother and plagued my father to get me one for my birthday. I even saved up my paper round money to contribute to the then expensive gadget, which wouldn’t even buy one paper back book today. They sneakily told me that I could only get one once I had enough books to fill it up with; that is when it began.

I started to buy interesting looking books from charity shops, so I could boost my book numbers up and because they were inexpensive. I never intended on actually reading any of them. However on one cold grey day in November, as was so typical for winter weather in Edinburgh, I missed the school bus home, and ended up having to wait for my dad to finish work at Standard Life before he could rescue me from school and take me home. I was frustrated that the school didn’t think I was old enough to get a service bus by myself to the ‘oh so scary’ land of Stockbridge. Of course, being an 8-year-old boy, I was easily restless and needed something to occupy my agitated mind. It was then I remembered I had brought in one of my infamous unread books for Library Time that afternoon, which had undoubtedly remained as unread as the day of its purchase. Although I thought that in these desperate times (such as waiting with Mrs. Fraser) I might as well give it a try. It was boring and difficult for the first chapter or so, but stern glances in my direction spurred me on to continue, and so I persevered. I guess I must have been more into it than I thought, because when my dad came for me two hours had passed without me realising.

Now books are my passion in life. Real books. I soon discovered that real books had an irreplaceable quality to them that an e-reader could just not satisfy. The art of studying real books and writing by hand is what I fill my days with. I used to love going into the library at George Square and wandering though their fantastic collection of books to prepare for my students. As a lecturer in the History of Scientific Literature it didn’t feel like work at all to roam the shelves and pick out books here and there to have a metaphorical nibble at. It saddened me greatly to see the library gradually turn into a giant computer lab with only one tiny section dedicated to real books. And to think nowadays they don’t even teach children to write properly. Their education is filled with keyboards and only the odd lesson in how to write the alphabet, in the “old fashioned” way. It was a shock to see that my Susie could type her name and the names or her family before she even mastered writing the letter ‘a’ on paper.

Again I caught myself being cynical, and decided to stop being so gloomy by putting on a CD of The Kaiser Chiefs which reminded me of when I was young and actually knew what was popular. Susie would probably say something like,

“Why do you listen to these old bands with all those clumsy real instruments, like guitaros and drummys. In fact even those CDs that their music is on are clumsy. Don’t you want me to buy you an mp5 player for your birthday? Oh it would be so cool, and it could be blue and say your name on it and…”

She would chatter on about some nonsensical idea of getting me yet another piece of technology that was a “must have” for survival. Oh Susie. I doubt she would ever stop trying. I don’t want her to stop trying. I don’t want her to have to stop…I’ll need to make that appointment soon I think. I have to give in. For the sake of Susie I have to overcome my fear of technology and compromise my morals. I will have to go with the treatment. The revolutionary “gene therapy”, the same as old Brucey had, that would ensure my survival past the end of the year. But I’m willing to do it so that I can continue being baffled by all the new gadgets and gizmos that Susie will buy me. I will attempt to cure my phobia of technology.