Google will call this the future. I call it your dystopic nightmare. Remember quantum-dot tattoos? Well, we're close. VERY close to this becoming a reality. A vaccine the size of a postage stamp. Room-temp mRNA. No doctor. No clinic. Just slap it on at your kitchen table. Sounds convenient, right? Now keep reading. MIT has already worked on heat-stable mRNA delivered through dissolvable microneedle patches. And remember those quantum dots I mentioned? MIT and Rice researchers also developed a way to leave an invisible pattern under the skin that could store information about which vaccine you received. You can't see it with your eyes, but it can be read using near-infrared light. The reason given? So people in places without reliable medical records wouldn't have to worry about losing a paper vaccine card. And maybe that sounds harmless to you. It doesn't to me. Because we've watched this movie enough times to know how it goes. Start with the most sympathetic reason possible. Make everyone comfortable with the technology. Normalize it. Expand it. Quantum dots are already being explored for other uses, including cosmetics. So now imagine the pieces coming together: a vaccine patch mailed directly to your house, dissolvable needles delivering what's inside, and an invisible mark under your skin that can be scanned later. No, that's not some sci-fi movie plot. These technologies are actually being developed. And that's the part I think people should be paying attention to. Because if the big selling point is simply a painless, convenient vaccine patch... why the hell do we need an invisible code under the skin? I don't want my medical history tattooed on my body. Invisible or otherwise. Hard pass.

After watching people spend the last few days talking about Pike - her childhood, her age, her trauma, her execution, her suffering - I want to talk about Colleen Slemmer. Because somehow the person who was murdered keeps becoming a footnote in the story of the person who murdered her. Colleen was 19 years old. She wasn't a case number. She wasn't simply "Christa Pike's victim." She was a daughter. A granddaughter. A young woman who loved roller-skating, miniature golf and computers. She could take a computer apart and put it back together again. She even had a shirt that said "Computer Geek." Her family later had that shirt made into a teddy bear so they could keep a piece of her close. ❤️ Colleen was also the kind of kid who gave up part of her own lunchtime to help children with disabilities - feeding students who needed assistance and helping kids in wheelchairs. She volunteered at Special Olympics events. One summer, she helped paint her school. She struggled with reading, but she was smart and fascinated by computers. She wanted training that wasn't available at the Job Corps program near her home in Florida, so at 19 years old she left her family and went to Knoxville to learn computers and build a future for herself. She never got that future. On January 12, 1995, Colleen was lured to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. What happened next wasn't a momentary loss of control. Colleen was beaten and tortured during a prolonged attack. She was cut repeatedly. Her throat was slashed. A pentagram was carved into her chest. She was struck with a meat cleaver and ultimately suffered devastating blows to her head with a large piece of asphalt. Afterward, Pike took a piece of Colleen's skull from the scene. These details come from the court record - not internet rumor. Colleen was 19. Nineteen. And while the country is now being asked to think about what Christa Pike experienced during a failed execution, I think there's room to remember what Colleen experienced when nobody came to stop it. There's also room to remember everything that existed before those final horrifying moments. The girl who loved computers. The girl who roller-skated. The girl who helped children with disabilities eat their lunch. The girl who volunteered at the Special Olympics. The daughter whose mother has now spent more than three decades trying to make sure the world remembers her name. Her mother, May Martinez, said something this week that absolutely broke my heart: "The criminals get so much attention. Why? She has been lost in this." She's right. So today, I'm not posting Christa Pike's face. I'm posting Colleen's name. COLLEEN ANNE SLEMMER September 20, 1975 – January 12, 1995 She was here. She was loved. She mattered. And she deserves to be remembered for the life she lived - not only for the horrific way someone chose to end it. Remember Colleen. 🤍