Stories from "Nature" magazine, February 2013 issues

Sorry I vanished for more than week. Actually, I've not recently seen many stories I want to talk about. This post is more in the nature of "yes, I'm still alive"; stories included are all minor.

All stories are flash fiction length. All are online.

1. 7 Feb: Donald S Crankshaw's "Local 623" (B); download; humor: Advice, on their rights, to folks who offer themselves as subjects to mad science experiments...
2. 14 Feb: Danny Dunlavey's "Peace" (B); download: Centuries after humans died out in a disaster, intelligent mantis have inherited earth. And one of their females is having pangs of guilt, having just torn the head off her mate & eaten him...
3. 21 Feb: V G Campen's "A gift of pain" (B); download: A new class of medical practitioners specialize in diagnosis of the cause of pain in a patient where ordinary procedures don't work. These folk wear a headset linked to a machine, another headset worn by patient, & literally feel the patient's pain & thereby, using practice & knowledge of pain patterns, make the diagnosis.
4. 28 Feb: John P Murphy's "Tumbleweeds and indelicate questions" (C); download: In a pub, someone is telling of an encounter with alien plant-beings called "Tumbleweeds" & of their strange burial customs.

Related: Fiction from Nature magazine.