Jell-O
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Nanofiber gel and snake venom work together to stop the bleeding
Researchers at Rice University announced a novel use for batroxobin, a hemotoxic component in the venom of two South American pit viper species. They've figured out how to leverage it as a potent coagulant -- when combined with a nanofiber hydrogel called SB50 -- that could save countless lives in surgery. Medical science has actually been employing batroxobin as a topical clotting agent and thrombosis treatment since the mid 1930s. Used along with the gel, now it's shown a capability to stop the flow of blood even if the patient is on heparin, a powerful anticoagulant administered before some surgeries.
Aion's 1.9 patch to right XP wrongs
Everybody loves double-experience weekends, right? For a while now, they've been shoring up the XP gap in Aion, helping to push players over the hump of the long grind. While there's an upcoming double-experience weekend starting this Friday, the Aion team has informed the community that these golden days of glory may be short-lived, with these special weekends becoming a rarer occurence in the future. This seemingly-depressing announcement is actually because Aion is switching from "shoring up" to "fixing" XP issues. On June 2nd, patch 1.9 will hit Aion's servers, and with it a host of solutions to the XP gap. The Aion community team has laid out three ways the XP will flow like rivers of honey. Wait, that would be slow and sticky. Let's go with Jell-O. In any case, 1.9 will add more quests, increased XP for quests and a new "Energy of Salvation" system that awards experience bonuses the longer you play. So while double-experience weekends might become a scarce event in Aion, it's hopefully for the best overall. Read the letter and let us know what you think!
Champions Online writer nominated for award
We knew this guy was awesome, so it's nice to see him in the running for an award. What award is John Layman -- writer for Cryptic Studio's upcoming Champions Online -- being nominated for, you ask? None other than the Harvey award for his work on Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen No. 1 -- that's right, he's the series' co-author. The comic issue in question is being nominated for best single issue or story. It's also worth noting that the second issue is coming out on July 2nd, so if you weren't sure about getting it before you've got yourself a new excuse.This is a really great sign for anyone looking forward to Champions Online, since a lot of how interesting the game characters and Champions world will be relies on Layman's ability to write well. We really can't wait to see his take on Foxbat, which should prove to be especially awesome. We're looking forward to the mission where we get to stop Foxbat from flooding the city with Jell-O or forcing everyone to do the macarena repeatedly for hours on end -- or maybe he'll try to carry off the Empire State Building again.
