It’s beautiful outside. The trails up the escarpment are muddy but passable and the main ones are packed full of joggers and cyclists.

This post is dedicated to the memory of the bonsai pictured above, given by our dear friends Pink and Sue, which tragically burst into flame one day and perished.

The hammer has been raised yet again. This issue includes the 5th installment of Digital Kayak, where I connect poor gastrointestinal health to climate change.

This is a bizarre story:

For the first time in Canada, a man has anonymously donated a part of his liver to a complete stranger on a “no-strings attached” basis.

But before doctors at Toronto General Hospital (TGH) agreed to Kevin Gosling’s request, he was sent to three psychiatrists to assess his mental state.

“They asked me, do I have a death wish? Did I do something wrong in life that I want a free ticket to heaven?” Gosling said at a news conference Thursday.

Kudos to Kevin Gosling for remaining anonymous.

Raise the Hammer is out with another issue, one that really focuses on Hamilton’s long-term future. Ryan has two great articles that examine two issues highly relevant to Hamilton, the future of big box stores like Wal-Mart and the implications of peak oil on Hamilton’s future. There’s lots of other interesting submissions to check out too.

Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has developed a robotic seal they call Paro, a creation designed for therapeutic benefit that is currently being tested in nursing homes and with handicapped children.

Having a pet is good for people, especially people who are lonely or depressed, and Paro was created with this in mind. But just as the creation of robots intended as sexual companions raises the kind of moral and ethical questions I examined in Robotic Prostitution, so does the creation of robots intended for therapy:

Is it right for anyone who feels desperately lonely or depressed to gain relief in an illusion? Would it be fair to use robots, which appear to have feelings, among elders with dementia who might think they’re dealing with a real animal?

Robotic Prostitution continues to attract comments and attention, including from the distributors of the movie Ghost in the Shell that I referenced, who contacted me to tell me about their newest film, Karas, which will be released on April 25. I don’t know if the film will have the same social relevance as Ghost, but the production values look outstanding and they’ve hired a long list of Hollywood talent for the voice acting, something that happens all too rarely with Japanese releases.

They’re sending me a copy to check out, so I’ll be sure to let you know what I think.