More Asimov

I re-read the Caves of Steel yesterday(partially due to Scott's comment from last week, partially due to the fact that it occurs "later" in Asimov's overarching timeline than most of the other robot short stories), using my father's day free time. I found it interesting that humanity is supposed to be pushing the earth to it's carrying capacity at around 8 billion people. While this is more than we have now(6 billion plus), it isn't so many more that I can believe that the extreme measures required in the book are plausable. Of course, this book is 50 years old, and people took Malthus more seriously back then.

Also, an idea I linked to a while back about extracting glucose from cellulose is used. The people of earth are fed a diet of mostly processed yeast, which is fed from glucose derived from tree cellulose. I just thought it was interesting that this idea has been around this long.

The great thing, of course, is that this book is actually a mystery. The futuristic predictions, both good and bad, are a backdrop for a good story.