End of last week
I had a nice time walking around with Zack after work one day. My arms started hurting again, and I had some two chiropractic appointments which seemed to help.
I finally made it to Moonbase University for the genetic engineering talk, which featured Eduardo Blumwald, who created a tomato which can grow in extremely salty water (and pulls salt out of the soil and stores it harmlessly in the plant's leaves!). Professor Blumwald showed the results of his impressive research, and there was some discussion over control of biotechnology (e.g. through patents), its safety, whether it's necessary because of population growth, and whether rich people get to eat natural foods where poor people have to eat artificial foods.
Zack and I took his huge Fresnel len out in the sunlight and burned a big hole in the side of an aluminum soda can, in just a few seconds. The Sun is awfully powerful!
