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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
 |
| Desert Cabbage | ||
| A giant plant that regulates its internal temperature even on Mars. |
Very handy for lost travelers.
| "Jim boy come here. Frank come here. Cold there. Warm here."
"...we can't go inside a cabbage It would crush us." "Do as you like, Jim. I can't skate any farther." He set one foot on a broad leaf - which flinched under the contact - and strode steadily..." Willis greeted them ecstatically. "Good boy, Frank! Good boy, Jim! Stay nice and warm all night." The Sun was slipping behind a distant dune; the sunset wind whipped coldly at them. The far edges of the plant lifted and began to curl toward them... The inner leaves were beginning to curl faster than the outer leaves. Such a leaf, four feet wide at its widest and at least ten feet long, raised up in back of Jim and curved in until it touched his shoulder... With elbows and knees and hands the two managed to occupy a roughly spherical space about five feet across and a little less than that high. The leaves closed down on them, seemed to feel them out, then settled firmly against them... Soon the last open space was covered and they were in total darkness. |
| Technovelgy from Red Planet,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Scribner in 1949 Additional resources -
|
This colorful cover version shows the desert cabbage:
(Red Planet cover by Shigeru Komatsuzaki)
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Tech news articles related to Red Planet
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Desert Cabbage-related
news articles:
- Earth Skunk Cabbage And Martian Desert Cabbage
- Farming In Space Starts With Mycorrhiza
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
| Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore |
| Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals |
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'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
