The first particularly intriguing article I stumbled across this morning was about a blind man that sees with sound. He’s managed to teach himself how to “see” by clicking his tongue and using the reflected sound to analyze his environment. I find it astounding that a human being, with no particular biological organ devoted to the geometric interpretation of acoustic data, can do this and, what’s more, that it can even be taught.

The second article, also from New Scientist, deals with diabetes. I don’t have diabetes, nor am I at risk to “get” it, but I find anything dealing with overcoming human ailments through science fascinating. It seems as though a stem cell treatment on trial patients in Brazil has freed most of them from requiring insulin treatments. As one who scoffs at the crowd decrying stem cell research as immoral, that research in the field has produced such promising medical advances is heartening and satisfying.

While we’re rattling down the points-of-interest list, a friend pointed me at an amusing pictorial blog today called This Is Indexed. The general theme of the blog is taking two potentially disparate groups and using them as axes on a graph to depict a humorous correlation. Man, was that a Vulcan/android-esque description or what? Anyway, worth a look.