As proficient as I most certainly am in a lab setting -- handling substances of various viscosities, manipulating fine scientific instruments -- you think I'd be a whiz in the kitchen. Not so. I just don't have the patience to cook food carefully and lovingly. Besides, I still have the Star Trek replicator I reverse-engineered for my seventh grade science fair, which spits out everything from ham sandwiches to blowfish sashimi in an instant. Though it does little justice to Klingon war grog.

We've touched on some ideas regarding the future of clothing already in this space, but a recent report in Popular Science got me thinking about it all again. There's growing interest in the concept of nanotextiles, clothing and materials that incorporate a dusting of nanoparticles for various purposes.

Now here is some news I can use. It seems an enterprising German scientist has invented a computerized pillow to help people stop snoring. I'm told that I have a bit of a snoring problem myself. Gentlemanly courtesy forbids me from naming names, but many women with whom I have shared a bed have complained about this. Several A-list movie stars, if you must know. Swedish diplomats. Russian double agents. These kinds of girls.

Wikipedia is, of course, a marvel and the wiki philosophy in general deserves every accolade thrown its way. The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free content license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." Nothing wrong with that.

For many years, I was radically opposed to the use of cell phones. Not for any profound sociological reasons, really -- I just don't particularly like getting phone calls. This is a familiar lament, but I imagine most people are trying to dodge calls from telemarketers and creditors. In my case, I have to worry about rogue Interpol agents and corporate-sponsored assassins.

Furthering the Internet's ambition to penetrate every available aspect of our lives, we have today a little gadget called the Chumby . It's a wireless Internet device, about the size of a coffee mug, that displays a constantly updated rotation of online content. (Chumby's not in stores yet, but is expected to sell for around $200.) Unfortunate name, you might say, but I dunno. I've seen worse. Nintendo's Wii continues to puzzle and disturb me. Then there was the iSmell, the Shling, and the Burning Love Pouch. Really -- these and others are rounded up here at PC Magazine.

So I had to get some stitches this week when a tray full of retroviral plasmid samples came flying across the lab and smacked me in the head. Happens pretty regularly, actually. Poltergeists, you see. There are those who say that it was a mistake to build my lab atop the sanctified Chippewa Burial Grounds for the Criminally Insane (later the LeVay Memorial Sanitarium for Lepers and Satanic Cultists), but hey -- the price was right.

I've become something of a sucker for industrial design ever since I split a Brooklyn coldwater flat with Raymond Loewy back in -- well, it was a while ago. Ray was a good guy. Clearly brilliant, but very … meticulous is the polite term, I think. He could not abide an apartment that was anything less than completely spic-and-span at all times. We had an Oscar and Felix thing going. Rumor has it he designed the Leisurama style of prefab housing just to get me out of the apartment. Anyway…