I haven't blogged in a while. Sorry. Life's doing a bang-up job of getting in the way of things. Also am writing again. Ish. Only a couple scenes from the end of the Part One novella, but I have to do another pass through it to add a mini-narrator and tweak one of the main narrator's voices slightly. And then done, hurray! And I can move to Part Two.
I have a couple blog posts in the works right now, mainly one of The Dark Knight Returns which I'm still trying to process. A post on The Avengers might come sooner. I'm going to see it tomorrow.
In the meantime, I think my log of neat science has gotten long enough to post. :)
We already have the technology to build mag-lev trains to outer space. It would take about 20 years and $6 billion to build the ramp for them, but they'd ultimately be cheaper than rockets. And probably more environmentally friendly. With any luck, we'll have ionic motors powering lightweight spacecraft, such as probes, before then. They'll also make space exploration cheaper.
We have improved our chances of having ubiquitous holograms this decade!
And two other videos that I love. The first is a whole new breed of robot, and I guess the second one is too. Self-driving cars are robots as far as I'm concerned.
And that's all from me for now. Science is wonderful. The future is wonderful. I can't wait.
A lot of the science that makes mainstream news is downbeat and gloomy. We're destroying the planet. We're running out of resources. We still can't manage to feed the global population. We may be making progress against cancer and AIDS, but then we might not. Birth control could be illegal this time next year. Luckily, a lot of the scientific research and advances are positive and awesome, to counter the trend. I much prefer the future they show.
On the medicine front, we now have a powerful acoustic microscope sensitive enough to hear microbes, if we can only find a way to make it work outside lab conditions. A British company has designed a gene sequencer in a USB stick, which makes sequencing portal and fast and could open up all kinds of avenues. (They call it MinION, which is adorable.) And we can now use 3D printing to create human tissue. It's only being used for drug testing right now, but hopefully in the near future we'll be able to substantially shorten organ transplant lists.
Of course, it's anyone's guess how and when all this stuff will be publicly available, rather than exorbitantly expensive and only owned by the rich. Or whether any of it's going to take off, even. Oh, for a time machine … Someone get on inventing that.
It's been a long time since I've done a science round-up, which means there's an awful lot of links in this post. Hopefully you're all nerdy enough about science to think that's a bonus.
Most of the cool scientific advances since my last post have been technological. We can produce microscopically thin circuit boards out of graphene, which means smaller computers and hopefully greater processing power. Those computerized glasses might become a reality—not that it matters, because there are LED contact lenses in the works. There's also conductive ink now, which promises to do some very cool things.
A group of scientists has recently managed to create an invisibility cloak that also hides objects from time. Granted, it's not even close to being a piece of fabric yet, and probably never will be, but the potential for hiding things in plain sight like that … wow. It's even cooler than macroscopic quantum entanglement or self-cleaning fabric, though that's pretty cool as well.
What else have I come across? The fact that memory comes in packets is intriguing, and makes me wonder how that knowledge is going to impact psychology. I don't know enough about neuropsych and neuroscience to be able to hazard a guess at what that might be, though, but I feel like I should use it in a story at some point. The idea has potential.
And speaking of human biology, we may actually have a functional antiviral now! And io9 has a list of modern medical technologies that we're going to think are barbaric in the future. I'd like to see stories about people looking back at modern medicine with horror, or time travellers doing the same, or, better yet, people proposing technologies that'll surpass what's on that list. In fiction or reality, I don't care.
I think I'll end today on an anthropological note. There's now evidence that humans left Africa over 100,000 years ago, Which is about 30,000 years before anyone thought they had. This means rethinking ancient human cultures and migration patterns, and possibly other artifacts that don't quite fit where they've been placed at the moment. Me? I'll leave that to the scientists and get on with thinking of the hows and whys of that migration, and any human dramas that might make a good tale.
You may have noticed that I didn't blog this week. That's because every time I sat down to start a post, the post I promised Science in My Fiction was more demanding than anything I had planned. It's on the science in Cowboys and Aliens, or more specifically, the lack of thought-out science.It's up now, which I hope will make up somewhat for the lack of posts, and allow me to write a post or two for next week. Go read it!
And since we're talking science today, here are some links I've collected lately:
I've seen Green Lantern and will be writing a post on it, but not yet. Not today. Instead, I'm doing an Awesome Science post, because I haven't done one in a while and I didn't want to spam my Twitter feed last night. So here are some links that've caught my eye lately:
All non-African humans are part Neanderthal. I can't describe how happy this makes me, on several levels. First off, we have definite proof of interbreeding now. I was always kind of in favour of that theory, and the periodic announcements of "maybe we did interbreed" got me pretty excited too. Nothing compared to this, though. And then of course we have the feat by which we got this proof—comparing modern human genomes to DNA derived from 50,000-year-old bones. Science is amazing.
Three-billion-year-old life in the Great Lakes. Except I'm not totally convinced the microbes date that far back. Couldn't they have evolved from aerobic to anaerobic as they discovered a new environment?
Wednesday I mentioned that I chose to do non-dayjob work rather than write a blog post. Most of that day was devoted to researching and writing this article, now up at Science In My Fiction. I'm always fascinated by how similar animals are to us, especially when it's something to do with intelligence. I hope you have as much fun reading the post as I had writing it.
(Also, here's a video I didn't include in the post, but which is relevant to it.)
Well, actually, I do. They're tasty, especially in oatmeal or dipped in cocoa. But I don't have a blog post today. Not a proper, think-ful one, at any rate. I chose to do some non-dayjob work for other people, and may yet do some writing for myself. I didn't want to spend time coming up with, then writing, a blog post on top of everything. I'm actually considering doing that, period—write first, blog when I feel like it. Thoughts? I'd likely blog once a week anyway.
Here's a taste of one of those non-dayjob work projects, my next Science In My Fiction article, coming Friday:
We have powerful handheld computers that let us access a global information database, find our exact coordinates, translate languages in real-time, and make video calls to the other side of the world. We've taken photos of every planet in the solar system, many at close range—including Mercury from orbit. Heck, we've taken photos of planets that aren't even in our solar system! We can transmute elements and create antimatter. We're closing in on the technology to get us to Mars and beyond, and may be able to clone extinct species in the near future.
And yet, if you're anything like me, this is commonplace. We read a news article or hear something from a friend, and our first reaction is, "Oh, that's nice" or "Oh, that's cool" rather than "We can do that? Seriously?" There's so much futuristic stuff in our lives that it's normal. If that's not the definition of the future, what is?
Fortunately, there's still pioneering technology and ahead-of-the-curve science that can wow us, if we let it. Stuff that might be everywhere in ten, twenty, thirty years. Stuff that's inspiring to look at, to think about, to watch. Here are some of my recent faves. What are yours?
I'm not putting up a long post here today because all of you should be heading over to Science In My Fiction to read the post I've put up there. It's on symbiosis and parasitism, and will hopefully generate SF plot bunnies. Go on, read it, comment. Shoo!
And fine, if you want to stay here, I'll write a little more. A WIP update, maybe? Because I don't consider it long enough or interesting enough for a full post? Right then.
If you've been following the progress of my novel, you'll know that I keep having epiphanies about things that need to be fixed. I'm about to start the next round of implementation today, having written an admittedly somewhat bad denouement to tie up loose ends. I'm not too worried about the badness of it, since the stuff I'm adding on this pass is going to change things at the end anyway.
This pass is going to focus on Will, the protagonist, and his half of the narration. Will could stand to be stressed out a little more and his first chapter could use a bit more action and personal background, so I'm going to be beating him up again (or for the first time), giving him something to fail to accomplish in Chapter 1, and then [redacted for spoilers] which will result in lost sleep, hard questions, and possibly concerned relatives. The [redacted for spoilers] will also complicate the villain's half of the narration, which is a bonus. I'm excited to get started on this.
After that, Will's story should be "done" barring the next round of betaing, and I'll be switching my focus to the oh-so-fun-to-write villain. I need to give him a b-plot, which I haven't completely figured out yet, and I need to throw more wrenches into his arc than just the [redacted for spoilers]. One of the reasons I'm leaving him for last is because I have to figure this stuff out. Also, while I like writing in his voice, his thought processes scare me sometimes and it's a constant struggle to get him to describe anything. "What does the room you're in look like, Dan?" "It's a room." "What's in it?" "Chairs and a table." "Right then…"
So that's pretty much where things stand with the WIP. I'm going to stop writing here and start writing over there. And you're all going to read my guest post, yes?
It's obviously been a while since I've done anything with my archive of interesting science links. I know this because the first link on the list today dates from October. October! A quarter of a year away! But my list is finally long enough for a decent-length post, so here goes.
It is now possible to transmitting sound through space. Conventional wisdom says sound can't move through a vacuum because sound needs to be carried through air (or something else that vibrates). This holds for the breakthrough, actually. They're not using sound waves, exactly. They're getting the sound to vibrates a piezoelectric crystal, which sends out an electrical signal, which hits another crystal, which turns the electricity back into sound. Electricity can travel through a vacuum, you see.
This reminds me of the interplanetary internet idea that was floating around a few years ago—fast, almost real-time information transfer via relay stations set up throughout the solar system. We could conceivably do something similar with these crystals, set up a satellite phone between us and Jupiter or enable space stations or spaceships to talk to each other. Or, if we start looking for electrical signals coming from space, maybe we'll finally make contact with aliens! Of course, I don't know enough space science or electro-physics to say if interstellar dust or asteroids or solar flares will change the quality of the signal, but it's certainly a cool thought, no?
Getting a little gory for a second, researchers at McMaster University* have found a way to turn skin into blood. You stick skin cells into a chemical bath and voilà ! Well, I imagine it's quite a bit more complicated than that, but still…. Once it's perfected a little better, this may be a way to get around the pesky stem cell debates, and if the blood is compatible with humans (unknown at date of original link), it might simplify blood transfusions. We wouldn't need as many donors to give blood, if they were willing to donate a bit of skin instead.
And back to our irregular broadcast: We have a universal translator! It's not without flaws, because it relies on 1) people being able to speak clearly and 2) Google Translate correctly identifying the words they're saying, but! Universal translator! The ability to go to any country I want, without speaking the language, and be understood! No phrasebooks!** There's also an iPhone app that translates Spanish-English texts in real time! Is that not awesome?
A while ago, the internet was buzzing about apparent evidence for precognition. A psychologist had run tests that seemed to prove that if you primed people on words after testing them on words, they'd still do better on the words you primed them on. It's compelling evidence and I'm half-inclined to believe it without further study, but it's only one researcher, after all. Let's see this replicated! Author Peter Watts has a fantastic analysis of the whole thing, and the controversy, and since he's got a science background, I direct you there.
Finally (and this one's new), we've come up with a rudimentary dolphin-human language! A series of whistles that humans can make, and dolphins can make, that code to various pool-side objects (ball, baton, fish, person…). Dolphins are actually using it to talk to us! I'd really like to see this developed to the point where it is a real language, or at least a functional pidgin, with verbs and determiners and adjectives and the whole deal. Think of what dolphins could teach us! Think of what we could learn about their minds, their culture, their own language! I've enjoyed the idea of talking dolphins in science fiction, but usually they've been altered to have human voice boxes/vocal tracts or they've got some kind of machine that translates thoughts.*** I'm surprised the idea of creating a hybrid language hasn't come up before. (I'm also starting to wonder if this new language will reveal that dolphins actually are from another planet. But I'm not holding out hope.)
Any cool science you've seen lately?
* Canada represent!
** I'd probably still buy one.
*** Actually, I'm not sure of this last one, but I swear I've seen it somewhere that isn't Up!
I don't have the mental cast to be a scientist—I'm too impatient—but I have the right cast to appreciate science and understand scientific discoveries and facts. I like knowing them, too, because they give me a cool way of looking at the world. There's just something about how the most minute, invisible processes can achieve big, visible, and varied results, and something about how even the most mundane parts of daily life are actually kind of neat when you know what's going on.
To wit, my day so far:
I finished my sleep cycle with a revitalized brain and body, which will serve me well for the 14-16 hours I'll be active today. I don't remember anything that took place during the REM period, but I rarely do. I was pleasantly warm thanks to my quilt trapping my body heat and the excited gas molecules coming through the vents.
I rolled over and looked at a series of light-emitting diodes arranged in a pattern that goes back hundreds of years and conveys numerical information. Conventionally, this information on this device indicates time of day, which is somewhat arbitrary and somewhat based on the periods of light caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis and the Earth's rotation. The units of time are arranged in base-60, a practice that goes back to one of the world's first civilizations, Babylon.
I got out of bed with the aid of a number of muscles and walked to a wall where I pushed on a piece of metal covered in plastic. This action opened an electrical circuit and led to a chemical reaction in a glass container screwed into the ceiling. This reaction released photons so I could see where I was going. I repeated this process with my desk lamp.
I pressed a button to generate the electrical signal that would turn my computer on. A bunch of complicated electrical things I don't quite understand happened, which resulted in photons which, once my eyes received the information and sent it to my brain for processing, displayed several sophisticated pieces of coding, several of which allow me to "connect" to the Internet and get news, updates on friends, and other sorts of information that are important to me. I spent a while processing the information received thusly, by moving my eyes across the lit-up area and doing a number of computational and higher-brain-function kinds of things to the signals they sent my brain. (I can go into more detail than that, but I won't bore you.)
I walked into another room and opened a circuit that would allow water to flow from a perforated spout near the ceiling. I used a lye-fat compound to remove grease and dirt from my body while standing the water so it would wash the compounds away.
I then used heated water to soften the seeds of a semi-aquatic grass. I also used heat to denature the proteins found in chicken eggs and those found in processed curdled milk (with bonus orange dye).
I ingested the grass seeds and protein, which will be broken down by stomach acids (and then other chemicals in the small intestine) and get absorbed into my blood stream over the next 24 hours.
I did complicated electrical things on my computer again, which resulted in this blog post.
Sounds better than "woke up, looked at the clock, got up, checked the internet, showered, cooked, ate, and wrote a blog post", doesn't it? And that doesn't even begin to get into what I'm doing for the rest of my day… Go science!
Saturday was the longest, fullest day of the con, at least in terms of scheduling. There was a lot to see and a lot to do, and if I'd had a clone … but I didn't, sadly. I attended a lot of writing panels, and in the hopes that people out there care about what I learned, I'm going into detail again.
Saturday
You Suck! No, You Suck! - An unfortunately titled panel, because it was actually about critique, not vampires. The panelists covered a lot of territory, from how to give critiques to what should be critiqued to how to deal with criticism. There was a lot of focus on writing groups, but I think that was just how the authors themselves rolled.
Be careful using "you" accusatorially. The focus should be on the material, not the person.
Avoid using "perhaps" because this also comes off as you forcing your opinion on the writer.
The main things to look at: entertainment, credibility, believability, working dialogue, and whether the piece as the piece opens and closes in the right spots.
Never patronize readers. Always think they're better and smarter than the common denominator.
Don't push people into fixing things a specific ways. Suggest they change problem areas, but don't tell them how.
To deal with crit: 1) Listen with an open mind. 2) If there are multiple notes on the same thing, fix that thing. If there are multiple notes about many different things, there's probably just one or two spots that actually need fixing. 3) Don't look at your work or the critiques you've received, for however long you need to. 4) Reread the crit. 5) Change what needs changing in a new draft so that if you backtrack later, you haven't lost anything.
Ask yourself if the criticism is subjective or objective. If the critiquer says, "I hate this book because it's got a cat in it and I hate cats" or "I don't like this book because I think your personal politics suck", then don't pay as much attention to them as you would someone who says, "I don't like this book because I think these two plot points are unbelievable."
Critiquers who are criticizing you aren't criticizing your book, and vice versa.
You don't have to please everyone. Actually, don't even bother trying, because you can't.
Humans in Space - This wasn't a note-taking panel. They got three scientists and engineers, several of whom have worked with NASA, and the well-read editor I mentioned in the last post together, to talk about our chances for space colonization, particularly within our lifetime. In summary, "Not in our lifetime, maybe not ever, unless we get a massively game-changing technology. Right now, it's too expensive." A major subpoint: "It's all politics."
Good Villains - Not the best panel, but not bad. It kind of got derailed into a discussion of Buffy about halfway through. But basically:
Good villains aren't black and white. They're complex, layered people who are the hero of their own story.
Good villains can be made from exaggerated human traits. We're all greedy to an extent. Villains can be very greedy.
Isn't it interesting that women often get female villains, and men get male villains?
You don't always need a villain, but you must have an antagonist.
Beast of Bottomless Lake Screening - I'd been looking forward to this since I'd heard it was going to be showing. The Beast of Bottomless Lake is a comedy about a bumbling cryptozoologist who assembles a team to track down Ogopogo. There's no plan, and Murphy's Law quickly kicks into action. It's presented as a slightly-meta documentary, because we often see both videographers on camera at the same time and they're characters in their own right. It's a funny film and if you get a chance to see it, do.
I didn't stay for the Q & A. I was hungry.
EDGE Launch Event - A fairly standard reading. Four (I think) authors got up, talked a bit about their book, and read a passage. They signed and chatted afterwards.
Bartitsu Demonstration - Bartitsu was a Victorian martial art that combined boxing, kicking, stick fighting, and jujitsu. An instructor from Academie Duello, a local and apparently renowned fighting school, talked about the history and origins, and showed us a number of the basic moves. It was very cool.
Masquerade - This was disappointing. Everyone thought so, not just be. It started late because they had to track people down, then the speakers weren't working, and then it turned out they only had seven entrants. I'd seen way more cosplayers than that as the day'd gone on, and had expected more of them to sign up to show them off. The organizers apparently had too. But there were several absolutely fantastic costumes, and I'm glad I got to see them.
There was a dance after this which I chose not to go to, partly because they were taking forever to set up, and partly because I'm not the greatest when it comes to crowds and loud music.
Other highlights: Wandered back to the dealer's room and bought a copy of an anthology from EDGE. Figured I should probably read more short stories and hey, it's Canadian. Had a brief chat with one of the publishers, which left me feeling positive. Had a good chat with Heather Dale. Had another good chat, for about half an hour, with a guy chilling in the chair next to mine.
Like many good geeks, I regularly visit several sciencey sites or follow them on Twitter. Like any good Tweep, I get linked random articles that other people found interesting. Like any good blogger, I save the coolest stuff I find for days when I'm not inspired to write a full-out post.
So, without further ado, I present … SCIENCE! And speculation on its uses as applied to fiction.
Spacequakes: Otherwise known as a reverberating planetary magnetic field. Obviously, the ones around Earth (the ones we've detected) aren't big enough to destroy us, but that doesn't mean they can't 1) be weaponized, 2) be used as a power source, or 3) destroy sensitive space-faring equipment. After all, some of the proposed spaceship engines make use of magnets that have to be tuned very finely to be useful. Also, we don't know how spacequakes work on other planets.
Water-purifying teabags: One of the better uses of nanotech that I've seen. This is immediately applicable the world over, but I see this really coming into its own in a post-apocalyptic environment.
They've invented a tractor beam! Well, a small one, at least. And they've proposed phasers. I don't need to say anything else for you to know how awesome that is. Do I?
Moon garden: A Moon colony is going to need to grow food, but the growing conditions are horrible up there (so I hear). Therefore, we'll need to figure out which species or breeds will cope before we ship them up there. We now have a greenhouse that is doing exactly this.
Flexible computers: I also don't need to add anything to explain how awesome that is, but I'll do it anyway. Computers that roll up and fit in your pocket. Computers that double as clothing or bracelets. Computers that wrap around surfaces, warp to contours, and take any shape you want them to. Anything can be a computer, which means more data, more applications of data, and a technology boom. I can't wait!
Caution: Today's post is NSFW if anyone's reading over your shoulder, or if you watch the video.
Today I want to talk about some books. They are by Mary Roach, and they are brilliant.
Roach is an investigative journalist with comic leanings and a tendency to enjoy her research far too much. She's asked astronauts about urination problems and has researched Victorian contraception devices. She describes e-mail exchanges with researchers where they've simply stopped responding to her. Her books are told in a factual, accessible, witty style, but not one that's for the overly squeamish.
I did say she got too into things sometimes.
Anyway, I'm not singing her praises for nothing. Yes, they're good books, but they're also good launching points for story ideas, if you have the right mindset.
Roach's first book, Stiff, is all about cadavers. When a crash test dummy just won't cut it, automotive tests use cadavers. When morticians and plastic surgeons need hands-on training, they use cadavers. There are chapters on organ donation, forensic research, crucifixion, and burial options.
This is useful reading for anyone writing about vampires, zombies, or murders. Also, there's a section on head transplants.
Spook tackles, you guessed it, scientific inquiries into the paranormal. People have attempted to determine the weights of souls, the best ways to fabricate ethereal phenomena, and the accuracy of clairvoyance. There are researchers looking into ways to make the brain think there's a ghost or a holy visitation.
This is useful reading for anyone writing about ghosts, angels, psychics, and visions.
Book three, Bonk, covers the myths, debunking, experiments, and actual knowledge about human sexuality. Kinsey features prominently. So do research dildos, Victorian gynecologists, animal orgasm, and the various ways to create an artificial erection. This is the first book of hers I read, and is probably my favourite for that reason only.
This is the one least skewed towards speculative fiction writers, but great reading for anyone interested in human sexuality (and then some).
For a taste of the book, there's a video below.
Packing for Mars is Roach's latest book, released not that long ago. It is, of course, the most recent one I've read. It explains why we haven't reached Mars yet, why NASA's budgets are so high, why space food has such a bad rap, and how a space shuttle toilet functions. Every human step along the path to Mars is chronicled, along with those of some monkeys, dogs, and chimps, and it's rather eye-opening. Some of the things they worried about in the early days of NASA….
This is highly recommended reading for anyone writing space-based science fiction, especially those whose worlds don't have anti-gravity. I'm serious—every page or two, there's a new idea for a story.
Now, naturally, these books shouldn't be the end of your research, just the launching point. When you read these books, make notes, then do more research. Look up the people she cites. Try to find the studies, the articles, and the books. Then stop reading and write some awesome fiction!
If you want a taste of Mary Roach's style, she's guest-posted on BoingBoing, and I'd be remiss if I didn't include her TED talk. It's NSFW, though. Obviously, if you read the title of it.
A friend talked me into watching Despicable Me last night. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would* and I started thinking about it on the way home—not the themes of family and life's passion and happiness, but the way they handled the science fiction elements.
There's a whole class of children's films that basically pay homage to Golden Age comics and B-movies (The Incredibles, Sky High, Monsters vs. Aliens, Igor, Jimmy Neutron,Planet 51, the upcoming Megamind), and they all seem to use the same stock elements in the same zany, irreverent way. Aliens are green and evil. The villains caper with glee, cackle, rub their hands, and don't pose much of a threat to the hero. There are shrink rays, laser guns, death rays, and freeze rays, as well as a variety of robots and flying vehicles.** More specifically, there's little to no actual science behind anything. Even live-action Sky High ignores the laws of physics.
The only adult films I can recall that do the same things are Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Mars Attacks. Most adult sci-fi movies seem to be either comic book adaptations that play true to modern life, tales of space travelers, or idea films like Inception. This isn't a bad thing, although the comic book trend is getting kind of old, Marvel aside***. I like what's being produced for people my age, though I only watch the stuff that looks good.
I'm all for having science in science fiction, but at the same time I really like the goofiness of old B-movies and serials, and the same goofiness we find now in kids' sci-fi. I'm not the only one. So why don't we see more of this in adult films? Is Hollywood assuming adults are now too smart and cynical to enjoy the story of Joe Scientist, his trusty sidekick, and their race to destroy Doctor Von Evil's death ray? Is Hollywood trying to be realistic and true to scientific fact? Are screenwriters rebelling against the tropes of the B-movie, or unable to produce a script that uses them and still gets picked up?
I can't say, of course, but I'm betting the answer to all those questions (except the first, rhetorical one) is "no". Hollywood routinely ignores actual science in adult films. There are enough screenwriters out there that someone must be talented enough to write a second Mars Attacks. Movies like Hot Tub Time Machine,The Hangover, and Sex in the City IIprove that Hollywood will gleefully release movies without much substance.
So where's my primary-colored world of The Giant Space Tarantula and The Man With the Heat Ray?****
*I go into every film expecting disappointment. And kids' summer movies tend to be on the lower end of the quality scale anyway.
** I generalize. Not every movie I've listed as all these tropes.
*** I badly want to see Thor and Avengers, and Iron Man is just awesome.
**** On a side note, why don't we have books that revamp the old tropes, in the vein of Doctor Horrible or The Incredibles?
There's been a fair bit of buzz this last weekend-and-a-bit about how Triceratops fossils are actually juvenile Torosaurus fossils, or could be, maybe, because dinosaur skulls could change shape with age. In other words, Torosaurus should really be Triceratops, and we might have to re-examine other sets of closely related dinosaurs for the same juvenile/adult relationships. (I think we're already starting to do that, but can't remember which dinosaurs have been reclassified already, so can't look them up to link to articles. I know there was one of the duck-bills…)
Anyway, this apparent plasticity of dinosaur bodies has gotten me thinking: Can anything else be reclassified the same way? Specifically, do we now have the tools we need to reclassify (Western) dragons as dinosaurs?
Dinosaur bones were one of the foundations for the idea of dragons in the first place.
We know of flying reptiles that weren't dinosaurs, and dinosaurs that evolved into birds. Reptiles with wings are not an unsubstantiated concept.
A number of bird species hoard shiny objects. Birds are almost definitely descended from dinosaurs.
Evolution can do remarkable things, given time.
Some dinosaurs were very big. So are some dragons.
Since we now have evidence that dinosaurs changed shape as they aged, it is not impossible that a species or two could have gained the ability to sprout wings out of their backs upon reaching maturity. We simply don't have any fully mature specimens to examine.
Most cultures have some kind of "imaginary" reptilian creature, frequently one that eats people. Dinosaur fossils are found all over the planet.
Dinosaurs are extinct. So, we believe, are dragons.
Three obvious "flaws" with this theory: no evolutionary evidence (we just haven't found it yet); no explanation for the fire thing (yeah, I don't have one either, except standard mythological exaggeration); no legends of Pan-American dragons, per se (thunderbird, Quetzalcoatl).
That aside, I think I've listed enough facts to build a good case for the theory that dragons are, in fact, giant flying Utahraptors with a unique defense mechanism. And don't tell me that would make dragons a solely North American phenomenon. First, there's Achillobator, and second, dragons can fly.
Clothes grown by bacteria*. I haven't looked into the actual science behind this, but it's a very cool concept: use bacteria to create a material that can be used as fabric. It's sustainable, it can probably be done at home, and the clothes are almost certainly biodegradable. They're a little see-through, but whatever. Layering will fix that. (And they said we'd be wearing paper in the future. Ha!)
Invisible computer mouse. Not, sadly, a piece of invisible plastic with electronics inside, but nearly as good. Apparently, if you hook up a laser and an infrared video camera, you can use hand motions to manipulate a cursor. This makes me wonder if we could think outside the box a little, and code crazy functions to the lesser-used fingers. For instance, tapping with the pinky could change screen resolution and the thumb could scroll through a document. (Also, the inventors' explanatory video uses Tom and Jerry footage, which makes this announcement about twice as awesome.)
Acoustic fibers.** Clothing that functions like a microphone-speaker? Why the heck not? I think the article says it best: "In addition to wearable microphones and biological sensors, applications of the fibers could include loose nets that monitor the flow of water in the ocean and large-area sonar imaging systems with much higher resolutions: A fabric woven from acoustic fibers would provide the equivalent of millions of tiny acoustic sensors." Or we could plug our iPods into our pocket and use our jackets like boom boxes.
Best cyborg arm yet***. It has joints, independent finger motions, and excellent dexterity. It is sensitive enough to mimic touch. It's also controlled by the brain. This has, of course, gotten a DARPA contract, so the Terminators probably aren't far behind.
Throwing off quantum mechanics, in one simple step. So the proton is apparently smaller than we thought, meaning that there is a) something massively off about current quantum theory, b) another subatomic particle we haven't discovered, c) both a and b, or d) something wrong with the experiment that got these results. Being a geek, I'm voting c.
Travel through time, without killing Grandpa. The closer you get to creating a paradox, the more likely it will be that something highly improbable will happen to prevent you. There is a valid scientific experiment behind this, so it's not just talk. Does make me wonder if H2G2's Heart of Gold ever stopped a paradox, though. Possibly by turning someone into a penguin.
I know I haven't really done a science-heavy blog since the reboot. I figured it was more economical to stash all the interesting links I came across in one article and post them in one go, instead of taking one article and trying to spin out my speculation into a post-sized length. I've got four cool stories now. I should post them before the list gets longer and the links get any more outdated.*
Functional, vat-grown lungs. Granted, they're barely functional and they're not human lungs, but I still see it as a breakthrough. From just the 'skeleton' of a pair of lungs, we can regrow something that will properly do the gas transfer thing when we stick it into a living creature. Once we figure out how to keep the lungs working and progress to human trials and beyond, we'll have a reasonably quick, effective way to cure lung cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,**, emphysema, and other lung ailments. Heck, we could probably even manage to engineer lungs better adapted to different pressures. (And yes, I know I've posted on this topic before.)
Creating life from a Titan-like atmosphere. This could be how life started on Earth. It could be how life starts on another world. It could be how we start life on a different world, accidentally or otherwise. I can kind of see a mad scientist getting the idea to terraform a world by starting life from scratch.
A genuine flying car! No antigravity technology or jet engines here. Just fold-down wings. A two-seater vehicle with the ability to take to the air if given enough speed and enough road. I'm not sure I see this taking off, exactly—I think the flying car that sells is going to be the one that looks like the Jetsons'—but it would be danged cool if it did.
Print-a-laser. Or a lightbulb, or a TV screen, or solar cells. Do I really have to go into how cool this could be? Or how badly it would upset the economy? Or what will happen when makers get their hands on this technology? Instead of buying a TV for $1000, you could load the schematics on your computer and print one. Instead of dithering about how much work it would be to buy enough solar panels and cart them home, you could press a button and have what you needed within a few days, without ever leaving the garage. Anyone who used lasers in their job would see their budget expand for things that aren't lasers. Lightbulb manufacturers would go broke.
Soon, thanks to Jacek’s work, we may have millions of tiny lasers working in our homes lighting our rooms and even acting as pixels in printable TV screens. The lasers could also be used as components in optical computers, electronics, sensors, as cheap laser pointers in a range of colours or even fashion accessories.
Somebody needs to use this in a story. Seriously.
And that's all the links for today. Stay tuned.
* I was going to write a book review today, but since it's after 5 pm and the East Coast is going to bed soon, I think I'll save that for Wednesday.
** totally added for the long word bonus
I spent a lot of my childhood reading pop science articles. My parents subscribed to National Geographic and Discover, and the town library had Popular Science, which I'd read waiting for my parents to pick me up or during meal breaks while I was working there. Eventually, I read enough that I a) became seriously oversaturated on the subjects of hominids, dinosaurs, quantum physics, Mars, and the Hubble telescope; and b) decided that there were only a finite number of science article types:
The New Discovery, Hyped Up: This article will take a discovery, usually archaeological/paleontological, and take up 5-10 pages discussing how the artifact or bone was found, what it looks like, and then speculating at length about what the artifact or bone could mean—while couching the speculation in the language of fact. The large collection of hominid bones in this cave suggest a large community over an extended period of time, something that has been unheard of so far. Previously it was assumed that these hominids were nomadic and travelled according to season. "We're going to have to rethink everything," says Dr. Smith.
The Excuse to Show Off The Photographer: The photographer in question generally being a satellite, Martian robot, or Hubble, meaning that the photography is usually of space. Sometimes it's of landscapes or new species of animal, however. This article will have lots and lots of beautiful, glossy photos with captions, and the occasional quote from the photographer or a scientist about the Beauty Of Science.
The General Explanation: This seems to crop up about once a year in each magazine, though not always on the same topic. For instance, you might find the Full and Complete History of Human Evolution, The Birth Of The Solar System, How Old Is The Universe, The First Bird, or What Goes Into An Atom, but you won't find all those articles together. The science in these articles tends to be the accepted, conservative science, but does a good job of giving the gist of things and the history that's intended.
You can see how this could get old, fast, especially to someone with a good memory. Sometimes I think a lot of my cynicism was born from reading variations of the same article and realizing that there was more "maybe" in them than actual "fact". Not what I'd signed up for.
And of course, options 1 and 3 make for bad science reporting. I'm not quite sure why science mags feel they need to dumb down the science quite as much as they do. I'm more sure that there has to be a way to write a science article in layman's terms that actually gets things right. Option 1 is the worst for that, because of all the speculation that goes into things.
A recent case in point is the announcement of artificial life that I talked about here. There's a "rebuttal" to the announcement here that is required reading for anyone interested in Bad Science Journalism. The articles I linked to were all "zomg we're almost God, we're so awesome, major breakthrough", while the rebuttal points out that "hey, guys, this is only a baby step, it's nothing special". Seriously, go read it.
You'll find the same overblown reporting for everything. Yes, we'll need to "rethink everything" about the evolution of birds based on that one fossil, but it's not (usually) as if we'll need a lot of rethinking. So Protobird X has a different kind of tail than Protobird Y, which has a different sort of feather or a different beak. So we've discovered another exoplanet, or a jawbone that might belong to a new hominid. How is this groundbreaking, exactly?
Of course, there are instances where the discovery is considerably more important (water on the moon, water on Mars) and instances where the discovery is in a kind of grey area (life on Titan). Those I can live with. But the journalism that takes one thing and turns it into another? Speaks of agenda and dumbing down and not trying to educate, and that bugs me.
On the other hand, it's occasionally quite fun to take that Bad Science, pretend it's all entirely fact, and see what stories come out of it. If there actually is life on Titan…
If you're tuned into the world of geeky science, you probably already know about this because let's face it, anything older than a day on the internet is Old News, but yesterday Craig Venter announced that his institute had created the first synthetic cell. You can read about the announcement and future plans here and here.
You can also listen to him talk about the fifteen-year path leading up to the announcement, and what they've done to prove it's synthetic DNA, by clicking play on the video below.
Venter and his team have already put forward ideas for using this achievement to create hydrocarbons, clean water, manufacture vaccines and the like, and have said this will give us a better understanding of "life". If that isn't science fictional enough for you, here are some other ideas:
synthetic epidemics (zombie plagues, etc.)
ways to combat epidemics (Can't get a vaccine or antibiotic fast enough? Infect the population with a bacteriophage!)
seeding moons and planets to initiate terraforming (bacteria could turn CO2 or CO4 into O2, or start aerating and fertilizing the soil, hundreds of years before human touchdown)
escaped synthetic eukaryotes disrupting an ecosystem
space-adapted food
synthetic higher organisms (in a few hundred years, though)
