A Frankenbrane universe 

I shall review the recent interest in braneworld scenarios, in which
four-dimensional spacetime is realised as a membrane in a
higher-dimensional universe. After discussing the singularities that
occur in these scenarios, I present a brane world construction in
which the extra dimensions close at "bolts", providing a boundary
condition without bulk singularities for black holes or gravitational
waves in the observed low energy dimensions. The low energy spacetime
may be any Einstein space with an arbitrary cosmological constant, and
the only nongravitational field is a bulk Maxwell field.

The talk bears some relation to hep-th/0109099.