Money, Money - Brains!

I am newly in possession of a coin I’ve been looking for for many months: a silver English coin minted in 2016.  So now I have both ends of my coin collection that covers one thousand years, beginning with Canute and ending with Elizabeth II.  The coin was sent from England at the request of a local friend to Barnaby Wilde, who writes a mystery series.  So now I have to look him up and buy an example of his writing, then post a review on Amazon.  The coin, by the way, is beautiful, a bi-metallic with the usual portrait of Her Majesty on the obverse, but a gorgeous reverse: a crown with a Tudor rose, a thistle, a shamrock and a leek rising out of it.  Take a look:

There are still eleven coins missing from the collection.  It’ll take me awhile to get all of them; the Harold II, for example is rare and costly, so unless it turns up at a price someone absent-mindedly sets too low, it will probably come last.  Meanwhile I’m in the market for a William and Mary or perhaps a George IV.

Looking for a story idea?  Remember those spooky (and sometimes unintentionally hilarious) old movies about human brains being kept alive in big, bubbling glass jars?  Well, scientists at a university report keeping pig brains alive in glass jars for up to 36 hours.  Whether the pigs are conscious is unknown, and the scientists seem curiously reluctant to try to find out.  They do admit that their success means that any brain, including a human one, could be kept alive with this treatment, though any attempt to place the brain in a body would very likely be unsuccessful.  At least at this stage of experiment.  Spooky.

Warm and sunny yesterday, light rain this morning.  Grass is greening, new grown everywhere.  Ahhhhhh . . . spring.