Note: This was written in 2007. I like to keep my old predictions around. It tends to keep me humble.You may notice mentions of Gather. Gather was an early competitor for Facebook that catered to writers. Unfortunately, it went belly up years ago, tearing big holes in my website when it went offline.

This is an experiment. I'm going to try bringing together science and technology information that I think might be of interest to writers, and especially science fiction writers into brief newsletters to be published on Gather every month or so. If you like this and want more, let me know in the comments. If you think it's a waste of time, feel free to let me know that too.

Sanctuary: Something I hadn’t seen before: A sort-of Science Fiction/paranormal show called Sanctuary. The twist is that they claim TV quality but are releasing the show directly to the web. Apparently the cash flow is supposed to come from DVD sales. I don't know if that will work but they have two episodes out so far on YouTube. They aren’t awful from what I’ve seen. They’re short: roughly 16 and 17 minutes long. The first one is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K-v4MJScz0

Chilean Chickens Char Columbus Claims: PreColumbian chickens, actually. Researchers recently found chicken bones with radiocarbon dates in a range from the early 1300s to around 1420 in Indian sites in Chile. Since chickens weren’t native to the New World, that means that someone brought them here before Columbus arrived. Based on DNA extracted from the bones, it looks as though the chickens were closely related to ones from Polynesia. If this proves out it looks like a smoking gun on contact between Indians and Polynesians. That’s long been suspected but up until now hasn’t been proven. First the Vikings and now this. Will we have to change Columbus Day to Unknown Polynesian With a Chicken Day?

A Huge Number of New Mammal Species Discovered in South America. A guy with very good scientific credentials is claiming to have found an enormous number of living mammal speciesnew to science in Brazil. The new species include a large new Peccary, a bunch of new monkeys, including rather large spider monkeys and wooly monkeys, a new species of Tapir, a new Coati larger than the common one we knew about, numerous other small carnivores, a manatee, a new species of Giant Anteater, and possibly a big cat larger than a Jaguar. And that’s just a partial listing. It looks like earlier naturalists overlooked an area and it happened to be a hot spot for unique species.

The discoverer of all of these animals also has a website: The last article concerning this on the Tetrapod Zoology site says: … 'new species status' will not be universally accepted for all of the many new mammals we've been looking at. Others - such as the anteater and the big cat - are less ambiguous and cannot be anything other than highly significant new taxa. Regardless, it is clear that we are talking here about one of the most remarkable single contributions to the diversity of living mammals ever made by a single person….

Note From decades later: Those animal discoveries proved a mixed bag. Some of the smaller ones were genuinely new species and have been recognized by the scientific community. Some of the larger ones were actually just local variations on known species. Some of the more interesting ones are still in limbo, with no definitive proof of existence. The naturalist behind the discoveries got in trouble with the Brazilian government, supposedly because he was keeping monkeys captive illegally. He claimed that he was framed by timber and mining interests who wanted to open up the territory he was operating in to exploitation. I'm not sure which to believe, but you may be hearing more from this part of the world.

John Philipp Jun 6, 2007, 10:48pm EDT Dale, I found it interesting. Gave me one story idea. Keep them coming.

Lori F. Jun 6, 2007, 11:15pm EDT I agree with John. Very interesting and it does get the mind wandering into story ideas. Thanks for the work you put into this.

Pat S. Jun 6, 2007, 11:24pm EDT I have a feeling this is going to be a valuable resource for the sci/fi minded!

Stephen Prosapio Jun 6, 2007, 11:52pm EDT ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I got my story idea from a great special on Discovery HD the other night. It's wayyyyyy too early to share it though.

Sheila Deeth Jun 7, 2007, 12:05am EDT Hey, good stuff Dale. Great idea to do a newsletter, and great ideas in your news. Thanks.

Beth H. Jun 7, 2007, 3:21am EDT You're on to something. So far you've sparked story ideas and made me want to look up a few things for more info. I think you'll fill a need with this.

Catherine M. Jun 7, 2007, 11:15am EDT And on the chickens-of-the-Pacific theme, a friend of mine was stationed in Guam when he was in the Navy many years ago. He's always been fascinated with languages, so whenever he was in a new place, he would try to learn a bit of the local lingo. When I knew him, ten years later, he maintained that the Guamian language has one word which translates to: Get the chickens out of the house! He couldn't remember the word, though, so it's okay to be skeptical. I was. Cathy

Jamie C. Jun 7, 2007, 2:49pm EDT Verrrrry interesting.

Rachel S. Jun 8, 2007, 11:21am EDT Love it! Thanks Dale. This is going to be fun and interesting. Will we see a plethora of Dr. Moreau spin-off novels soon?? :)

Gary Jaron Jun 8, 2007, 3:37pm EDT You did a good job. Interesting stuff...