HorsePerson and the ShoeMan

"It wasn't a beer, it wasn't a mead, and it wasn't a wine or a cider. It was somewhere between all of them...

The results show that circumcised men in the study were 63 percent less likely than uncircumcised men to be infected through sex with HIV-positive women. That's a far better level of protection than the 30 percent reduction risk set as a target for an AIDS vaccine.

The early spacecraft that landed on Mars were thoroughly sterilized. But as money for the space program got tight, the expensive cleansing process was cut back.

In such varied political climates, scientists around the globe are racing to see which techniques will produce treatments soonest. Their approaches vary, but on one point, all seem to agree: How humanity handles its control over the mysteries of embryo development will say a lot about who we are and what we're becoming.

Internal sensors allow the android to react "naturally." It can block an attempted slap, for example. But it's the little, "unconscious" movements that give the robot its eerie verisimilitude: the slight flutter of the eyelids, the subtle rising and falling of the chest, the constant, nearly imperceptible shifting so familiar to humans.