So you may have heard the news. A team of American geneticists have successfully edited the genes of a living human embryo. It's hard to believe that 15 or 20 years ago all of this is merely science fiction.

But as we take our baby steps towards transhumanism, we should, with all respect, give due credit to those who came before. As well as ask ourselves whether we want to know of what might come after....

Sometimes even the most terrible disasters have serendipitous consequences. Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 for instance have been said to be a worthwhile "investment" just because of a single chart that was drawn 57 years after. This chart have been said to be a triumph that even the great French general (who was an amateur mathematician himself) would approve of.

As they say, when life gives you lemons...

If you have a sibling, you can probably note down some differences between yourselves, one of you have your father's eyes, while the other have you mother's. If you then compare yourself with your first cousins, the differences maybe more pronounced.

Now, how far do we have to go back the family tree to be completely unrecognizable? And how did this came about?

In our daily lives, there are two things that we can tell: random event, and those due to cause and effect. However some supposedly random things are simply organized in such a way that we can't help by recognising a cause to their non-coincidental effect.

We see it in nature (the Golden Ratio), and constructs by humans (the movement of share prices). But what about in pure numbers? Especially the most mysterious kind: prime numbers.

If there is one definitive mystery out there, it would be the black hole. We don't really know what it is, we don't know whats going on inside it, and what happens to things that fall into it.

Keith McLachlan's Black Hole Theory may be closer to science fantasy than science fiction, but unlike the black holes in our real world, his gives us closure.