Links 30/11/12

'At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics.'  After days of fevered media speculation, NASA gets around to killing a rumour with the facts.

NASA hasn't found plastic beads on Mars, either.

On the other hand, the Messenger spacecraft has identified water-ice and organic material in permanently shadowed regions at the north pole of sunblasted Mercury.

'Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?' Talking of internet rumours, a long article in the New York Times about a lone, eccentric scientist who may have discovered the key to immortality in a species of jellyfish, is swiftly and thoroughly critiqued.

Apparently, my story 'The Choice' didn't win an award I didn't know it was shortlisted for.  Oh well.

Still, in his roundup of the best science-fiction novels of the year, Adam Roberts says some nice things about In The Mouth of the Whale and picks M. John Harrison's Empty Space as his book of the year. Mine too.

This is not a Rubik's Cube.

But these are fish.