escalators, orphanages and nanofoods

It always amazes me how weird it feels to walk on an escalator that isn't working. Theoretically it should be just like stairs, but no matter how much you tell yourself this your legs end up feeling like gravity was just doubled. Transport for London has obviously conditioned me well.

I went to see "The Orphanage" last night and it is a beautiful and inteligent film that I recommend you all to see. The director (who also made "Pan's Labyrinth") is also a master of building unbearable suspense, misdirecting you to think it's safe and then making you jump out of your seat.

I read in the guardian the other day about nanotechnology in foods, and I may be a sucker for science, but it sounds awesome. Tiny capsules that store the vitamin C in orange juice, to release it when you drink it (apparently it's often lost otherwise), pesticides that metaphorically explode only on entering an insects stomach, reducing the amount needed. Ideas like this, and the fact people are always looking into them make me a great believer in humanity and confident of our survival. Sure we sometimes generate effects we don't want (e.g. global warming) but we're always advancing and coming up with new solutions.

Which reminds me of a piece I read a while back (I think in the FT) discussing how Europeans (and most of the rest of the world) see global warming as something that will be solved by us cutting back on what we use; stepping backwards before we do any more damage. Americans on the other hand want to try and solve it with new ideas and inventions (e.g. those glass tubes to suck carbon into the ocean - yeah, I have no idea how they work).

As with many things a bit of both may be the answer.