SCIFIBLOG

2004-03-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

Improve brain power with music

Scientists say exercising to music (Verdi, in this case) helped recovering heart disease patients perform better on cognitive tests.
The researchers say since they know exercise improves cognition and music is supposed to, they wanted to see if combining them increased brain power for their cardiac patients, which it did.
MusicandExericise

2003-10-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Bug-killer Paint

A British company discovered paint that makes walls too slippery for bacteria to gain a foothold. They were trying to develop a paint for a bakery when they made the discovery.

Read article

2003-10-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

2003-10-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

This just in from NASA

SOUTH AMERICAN GLACIERS MELTING FASTER, CHANGING SEA LEVEL

The Patagonia Icefields of Chile and Argentina, the
largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere,
are thinning at an accelerating pace and now account for
nearly 10 percent of global sea-level change from mountain
glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro
de Estudios Cientificos.

Researchers Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Andres Rivera of Universidad de
Chile, Santiago, Chile; and Gino Casassa of Centro de Estudios
Cientificos, Valdivia, Chile, compared conventional
topographic data from the 1970s and 1990s with data from
NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, flown in February
2000. Their objective was to measure changes over time in the
volumes of the 63 largest glaciers in the region.

Results of the study, published this week in the journal
Science, conclude the Patagonia Icefields lost ice at a rate
equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.04 millimeters (0.0016
inches) per year, during the period 1975 through 2000. This is
equal to nine percent of the total annual global sea-level
rise from mountain glaciers, according to the 2001
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific
Assessment. From 1995 through 2000, however, the rate of ice
loss from the icefields more than doubled, to an equivalent
sea level rise of 0.1 millimeters (0.004 inches) per year.

In comparison, Alaska's glaciers, which cover an area five
times larger, account for about 30 percent of total annual
global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers. So what's
causing the increased Patagonia thinning?

Rignot and his colleagues concluded the answer is climate
change, as evidenced by increased air temperatures and
decreased precipitation over time. Still, those factors alone
are not sufficient to explain the rapid thinning. The rest of
the story appears to lie primarily in the unique dynamic
response of the region's glaciers to climate change.

Rignot said scientists are particularly interested in studying
how climate interacts with glaciers because it may be a good
barometer of how the large ice sheets of Greenland and
Antarctica will respond to future climate change. "We know the
Antarctic peninsula has been warming for the past four
decades, with ice shelves disappearing rapidly and glaciers
behind them speeding up and raising sea level," he noted. "Our
Patagonia research is providing unique insights into how these
larger ice masses may evolve over time in a warmer climate,"
he said.

The Northern Patagonia Icefield in Chile and the Southern
Patagonia Icefield in Chile and Argentina, cover 13,000 and
4,200 square kilometers (5,019 and 1,622 square miles),
respectively. The region, spanning the Andes mountain range,
is sparsely inhabited, with rough terrain and poor weather,
restricting ground access by scientists. Precipitation in the
region ranges from 2 to 11 meters (6.6 to 36 feet) of water
equivalent per year, a snow equivalent of up to 30 meters
(98.4 feet) a year. The icefields discharge ice and meltwater
to the ocean on the west side and to lakes on the east side,
via rapidly flowing glaciers. The fronts of most of these
glaciers have been retreating over the past half-century or
more.

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is a cooperative project
of NASA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the
German and Italian space agencies. Information about the
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is available at:
JPL/NASA

2003-10-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

Edgy Shows Promote Brand Recall

This study from Comedy Central, which may be self-serving, suggests that edgy shows such as SouthPark produce greater brand recall for their advertisers. If marketers find this so, we can probably expect to see more and more edgy shows with raunchy language, sexually explicit themes and subversive messages. Can you see this principal at work in the type of in-your-face advertising such as that in Spielberg's "Minority Report?" I can imagine standing in the checkout line at the grocery story and seeing SouthPark's Cartman saying, "If you don't want to be a fat ass like me, better buy this reducing aid..."

Read Article

2003-10-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

Laser Embossed Bunny

I wrote a book about lasers in 1982 (Lasers, Lightwave of the Future, Arco). Something I left out was the possibility of a laser-embossed bunny on Playboy's special 50th anniversary pink lipstick.

Read article

2003-10-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

The 'Times' Markoff on Science Fiction

John Markoff has been covering technology for the NY Times since Microsoft and Apple were unknown to most of us. Turns out he's a science fiction fan. Mentions John Barne's "Mother of Storms," Gibson's latest and other works in this interview on the Online Journalism Review.

Read article

2003-09-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Injectable Eyes?

Researchers say by turning a known neurotoxin into a plastic gel, they may be able to make old eyes new with an injectable lens.

Injectable lens

2003-08-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Park Me, Baby

The Japanese have made a car that uses a video camera and a software package to park itself.

Will it kiss the girl for me, too?

Park It

2003-08-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

Fiber Optics From the Sea

Scientists at Bell Labs say they've identified an ocean sponge capable of
growing thin glass fibers that transmit light "at least as well as
industrial fiber optic cables used for telecommunication" and are much
more flexible than man-made fiber optic cable.

One researcher: "You can actually tie a knot in these natural biological fibers and they will not
break -- it's really quite amazing." The sponge, nicknamed the "Venus
flower basket," can apparently grow the fiber at cold temperatures using
natural materials and can also accept additives such as sodium that
increase the ability of the fibers to conduct light.

A materials scientist commenting on the news: "It's such a wonderful example of how exquisite
nature is as a designer and builder of complex systems... We can draw it
on paper and think about engineering it but we're in the stone age
compared to nature."
Optic Sponge

2003-08-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

Fortune Cookies on Mars?

Weirdly shaped Martian dunes in the Space pic of the day. Yeah, don't tell me those things are aliens.

I wonder what the tabloids will make of this?

2003-08-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

Blue Origins: Rich Men Funding Private Space Programs

Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com founded Blue Origins, yet another privately funded space program. What's this all about and will it eventually lead to private orbital space programs? The British newspaper The Independent doubts it.

Blue Origins

2003-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Transhumanist Convention

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

William Butler Yeats

Eric Baard in the Village Voice quotes these lines from Yeats to sum up the attitude of attendees at the Transhumanist Convention at Yale in June (2003). Here's his report on those breathlessly awaiting breathless existence when their minds are uploaded to computers.

Transhumanist Convention

2003-08-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

Minimovies As Commercials

Ads everywhere department: the way TV stations plaster their irritating logos over movies and ads for forthecoming programming with increasingly intrusive and annoying graphics that play during climatic scenes are getting another aid to our billboard culture: minimovies during commercial time intended to keep you from skipping past the bill-paying message.

The ads everywhere era is here and the scenarios of Spielberg's take on Phil Dick's "Minority Report," are not far off. My guess is that some cable stations may actually be training people to mentally block out their logos and ignore their increasingly irritating intrusions. There's a sci-fi idea here somewhere: a generation with selective attention? Oh, hell, maybe I should just trade in the rubber brick I throw at the TV screen for a real one.

Minimoives (may require registration)

2003-08-04T04:58:00.000-07:00

Disney's Rocket Ride Like the Real Thing, Says Astronaut

If you want to know what it feels like to ride a rocket to the space station, but don't have the $20 million or so it costs for a tourist seat these days, an astronaut says the Disney simulation is close to the real thing.

Rocket Ride

2003-08-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

Who's Who?

A new actor takes on the venerable Dr. Who role. The actor playing Doctor is Richard E. Grant (WITHNAIL & I, HUDSON HAWK), a familiar face to fans of Brit cinema. Grant's take on the Doctor: "Sherlock Holmes in space".

The new DR. WHO will be an animated adventure this time and not life action as previous outings have been.

New WHO

2003-08-04T04:42:00.000-07:00

Matrix Reloaded in Japan, Very Weird

The Japanese know how to do sci-fi weird better than anyone else.

For some reason, these oddly funny and disturbing pix also remind me of Men In Black.

But I'm not sure who the aliens are.

MatrixMarch

2003-07-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Life on Earth Suggests Life is Possible on Mars

Whether there's actually life on Mars or whether life ever gained a toehold there is still moot, but increasingly, scientists find life on earth manages to fill every niche, including those most Mars-like.

NASA scientist discovers new species of organism in Mars-like environment - NSSTC News Release N03-007 (07-30-03)

2003-07-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

No moment of time?

A 27-year-old New Zealand broadcasting school tutor (?) has written a paper that may solve the ages-old Zeno of Elea's paradox. The author, who has spent an entire six months at University, says that there's no such thing as a precise instant of time for objects in motion. As I understand it, he suggests such precise moments are a product of human consciousness rather than physics. It's complicated stuff and controversial, but some top physicists praise the work. It reminds me some of David Deutch's theories, which also say there is no "flow" to time, that time doesn't progress.
Does this mean I can't go back in time to my first love and give it another shot when I get that time machine ticket?

Ground-breaking work in understanding of time

2003-07-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Coffee Good for the Liver

Hey, I like this. Norway researchers say that drinking three cups of coffee a day may reduce deaths for liver disease by up to 40 percent. I wonder if this still works when you drink about 8 cups a day?

Coffee reduces risk of death from liver disease)

2003-07-25T06:11:00.000-07:00

X-Prize Appeals to United Spaceports

Now, the X-Prize Foundation is appealing to United Spaceports for help.

Spaceports? You thought those were sci-fi, you say?

An evolving part of the commercial space transportation industry in the United States is the development of private or state-operated launch, re-entry, and processing sites known as "spaceports."

Several states -- such as Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, and California -- are developing commercial spaceports within their borders. These spaceports can provide space transportation service providers and their customers with an alternative to the traditional U.S. federal launch sites and ranges operated by either the U.S. Air Force or NASA.

Yahoo! News - X Prize Looks to Spaceports for Rocket Races

2003-07-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Mars of Our Dreams

I read Edgar Rice Burrough's books about the imaginary Mars he called Barsoom at age 12. I still sometimes dream of that fantasy Mars with its four-armed green men of the red desert plains and its nearly naked red-skinned Martian Princess Dejah Thoris. The SF author Fred Pohl, not a man to give up early loves lightly, has argued that Burrough's ideas of air machines pumping breath into the thin Martian atmosphere, of advanced biotechnology and assorted other wonders were not bad for their time.
But I gotta admit, I read them for the adventure. Swords and radium guns and riding giant Martian thoats chased by the great white apes and hordes of four-armed green men. Great stuff.
Lots of other Mars pop culture affected me along with most baby boomers, ranging from the film "Invasion From Mars," parodied nicely by Tim Burton in "Mars Attacks," and the wistful Martian tales of Ray Bradbury. Here's a few reminders of some Mars inputs...
Mars in 20th Century American Pop Culture

2003-07-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

Dark Energy Evidence

Astrophysicists say most of the universe is made of "dark" energy and "dark" matter. We don't know what either actually is, but evidence that both are very real, even if we can't see them directly, is accumulating. Here's another piece:

Direct evidence found for dark energy: Mysterious force of cosmic acceleration marked Big Bang's afterglow.

2003-07-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Biotech Marches On

Researchers are unlocking the mysteries of how our bodies fight disease. Another key found recently may help is a protein that carries target information to our immune systems. If I were getting paid for this, I'd translate the following story into English for you. Maybe later.

ScienceDaily News Release: Protein That Fights Bacteria And Viruses Cloned By Scripps Scientists

2003-07-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Singularity May be Disruptive

The idea of a "singularity," a technological advance such as the emergence of real artificial intelligence -- that is, of conscious, A.I. or other tech changes of equal magnitude --is one of the hottest concepts in both tech circles and among science fiction writers. The site, Singularity Watch, keeps its online eye on the lookout for indicators of such change and what it might mean.

Well, it could change everything.

Social Backlash to the Singularity Hypothesis

2003-07-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

Best SF related Blogs

Cory Doctorow's blog over at BoingBoing is probably the best one by a techie SF author out there at the moment. He updates regularly and the blog lives up to its title as a "Directory of Wonderful Things." Those include links to futuristic tech, weird cultural events and artifacts and behaviors, and sky-fi out-there stuff ranging from the folk art stylings of SARS masks and other wild images. It also points out cool new software and personal items about well-known techie and SF people.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

2003-07-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

Space Spinoff: Drilling Planets

Expertise derived from working on the joint NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon Titan is now being applied to underground drilling machines.

ESA Portal - Improving Daily Life - Space engineering helps drill better holes in planet Earth

2003-07-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Metal-rich Stars Tend to Have Planets

A comparison of 754 nearby stars like our sun - some with planets and some without - shows definitively that the more iron and other metals there are in a star, the greater the chance it has a companion planet.
"Astronomers have been saying that only 5 percent of stars have planets, but that's not a very precise assessment," said Debra Fischer, a research astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. "We now know that stars which are abundant in heavy metals are five times more likely to harbor orbiting planets than are stars deficient in metals. If you look at the metal-rich stars, 20 percent have planets. That's stunning."

Stars rich in heavy metals tend to harbor planets

2003-07-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

Unmasking the "Elephant Man"

The Discovery Health Channel has united three distinguished medical researchers from three different continents in an attempt to put an end to the mystery of what really afflicted Joseph Merrick, notoriously known as the Elephant Man.

They studied DNA samples from Merrick's century-old hair and bone in the investigation, but the most interesting aspect of the show may be seeing what Merrick would have looked like without the disfiguring ailment.

Ancient DNA analysis unveils mystery of history's most horribly deformed man -- The Elephant Man

2003-07-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

Heart Healthy Pizza?

Just one serving a day of tomato-based foods such as pizza or tomato sauce could lower your risk for heart disease by as much as 30 percent, contends a new Harvard study.

Yahoo! News - A Tomato a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away

2003-07-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

Better Animations Coming

More realistic clouds, smoke. Cyberspace simulations resemble reality with ever greater fidelity. Surely, somewhere, Baudrillard is nodding, "I told you so..."

Purdue software promises better animation for movies, games

2003-07-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Glass Engine

I love Philip Glass' work. His opera for Cocteu's "Beauty and the Beast," and soundtrack for the film "Mishima," are favorites, but I can listen to anything he composes. Minimalism isn't for everyone, I guess, but to me, it sounds so sci-fi. Maybe that's why he gets to score so many spooky films and themes ("Dracula," "Fall of the House of Usher," etc.)

Over at the Glass engine, you get Glass in any mood you want. Selections from 60 works, all downloadable. Made my day when I found this.

The IBM glass engine

2003-07-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

A little Zen never hurt anyone

Brain tests suggest something about Buddhist practice makes people less stressed, angry or just generally unhappy...and the parts of their brains associated with good mood and positive feelings are more active.

For years I've told people that practicing Zen meditiation brought me a sense of spiritual peace that Western religion certainly never provided. One of the ways it does that, perhaps, it by accepting that living in the moment is all we are sure of and we really should pay attention to that. Mindfullness.
MemeMachineGo!: Scientists give props to Buddhism

2003-07-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

All is not what it seems..."

Illusions inform us that our senses do not always see what is or isn't there but make some of it up as they go along. I'm not making this us. See for yourself at Sandlot Science.

SandlotScience.com

2003-07-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

A poker playing computer? Hold onto your chips

The University of Alberta says it's poker playing computer program is the best in the world...because it bluffs.

Techdirt:A Poker Computer Program That Bluffs

2003-07-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Who's Afraid of the big bad machine?

Hollywood always took something of a dim view, storywise, of science and technology, odd, considering that it is itself one of technology's most successful products. In the 1950s, the fears evoked by the atomic bomb, our first forays into space, and the UFO craze sparked a spate of films such as "Them," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "It Came from Outer Space," "Invasion from Mars," "Beginning of the End," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Thing From Outer Space," "Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers," "Creeping Unknown," and many others. They were often frightening films, at least to their youthful audiences. "Invasion from Mars" was even filmed from angles intended to heighten the effect of being a child's nightmare, looking up at transformed and looming authority figures who no longer had our best interests at heart.

Fear of science and technology persists in popular media of all sorts, even in literary science fiction, where technophillia is as likely as technophobia. But the movies still exemplify it most graphically, even if there is now a counter cinema in which technology and science or even UFOs are not necessarily evil. Terminator, Matrix Reloaded and other such recent films suggest the fear of sci-fi like tech expressed in the well known Wired magazine article by Bill Joy, remains widespread.

Personally, my guess is that the late, much missed Issac Asimov had it right when he said that our only hope for survival is science and technology. But, ok, I do still get a kick out of machines duke-ing it out with us, with each other. So why did the Comedy Channel cancel the battling robots show, anyway? That used to give me a sci-fi in the real world thrill.

I'm watching robots fight, I'd think. I guess it really is 2001 (at the time) after all.

Anyway, Nanodot reporting on the Hollywood fear factor re man and machine.

Movies reflect fear of machine intelligence - Nanodot

2003-07-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

Nano-TV screens?

If nanogoo doesn't get us, ala Critchton's "Prey," big TV screens made from carbon nanotubes might...

The Nanodot site is always full of futuristic stuff just this side of sci-fi.

Nanotech and cheap, big-screen TVs - Nanodot

2003-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Better Wine Via Space?

Space spinoff -- technology brought down to earth from the space program -- led to miniaturization of electronics that revolutionized medicine and gave us TV sets that never die, but satellite imaging and communications are still two of the most important changes the space program brought about. The space program gave us one world -- one world to see as blue-green spaceship earth in a black void. And one world of instant communications. Those pictures from the sky aren't just beautiful, though. They're useful.
Now they're helping Europe make better wines.
ESA - Satellite Applications - Observing the Earth - Imaging vineyards from space will benefit Europe's wines

2003-07-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

Matrix Attack

Lots of people are talking about the movie "Matrix Redux," but online, I'm fond of another Matrix.

Bruce Sterling, who attended the Clarion science fiction and fantasy workshop the same year I did, writes Schism Matrix, the quirkiest, least copycat blog on the Web at Infinite Matrix. He points readers toward links to articles, sites and art about Bollywood, amazing Japanese traditional prints updated in the spirit of science fiction and fantasy, and a whole lot of other stuff.
Schism Matrix

Infinite Matrix is one of the finest science fiction Web sites. It includes a column by Terry Bisson, >Terry Bisson my favorite short story writer, and criticism by John Clute of Science Fiction Encyclopedia fame, the name critic in SF, along with author interviews, articles, and entertaining fiction.

Best SF Site?

It's run by Eileen Gunn, another Clarion grad (influential workshop with graduates far flung and accomplished), who needs some contributions to help keep it going. This one, I really want to see survive. It and others like it could rival the influence of the pulp science fiction and fantasy mags on the field eventually. I think www.Scifi.com, under the guidance of former SF Age editor Scott Edelman, is already carving out a respected space in the genre.
Infinite Matrix

2003-07-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Science Friction

Getting the George Bush led GOP into the 21st century is a problem for leading scientists. One of his advisors on biotethics asked committee members to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark," before attending their first meeting. I'm glad they're reading SF, but couldn't they at least try to get into the second half of the 20th century? Nicholas Thomson of Washington Monthly explains why scientists find the Bush administration andediluvian.

Science Friction

2003-07-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

28 Days Later, a review

Although I loved George Romero's Zombie trilogy, Romero's Dead Trilogywhich began with Night of the Living Dead and peaked with the second, genre-defining film, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later 28 Days Later reminds me most of the last, thus far, of Romero's efforts Day of the Dead.

I first saw Day of the Dead in a smoky, urine scented New York City theater on Times Square. The venue seemed perfect for this most gloomy of post apocalypse films.

28 Days Later mimics the Zombie kept for study by mad military men, the surviving miltary compound, and other features of Day of the Dead. It also has moments reminescent of of the shopping center scenes in the Dawn film, when survivors of the zombie-making virus raid a food story saying, "Let's shop," and race the ailes with their ricketty carts. Even in a world of the dead, shopping lifts everyone's spirits, a telling comment on our society.

The influence of the Romero films has been incaluable, but this is one of the few take-offs that reflects the philosophical and post-apocalypse ruminating of the trilogy. Most zombi films, such as the excreable Italian ripoffs, simply imitate the graphic violence and gore without the science fiction sensibility informing them.

The two Books of the Dead anthologies of stories based on the Romero films edited by Craig Spector and john Skip, and the two more recent Zombie story anthos, The Book of All Flesh, from Eden Studios, BookofAllFleshbased on their zombie video game, which is another sorta spinoff of Romero's trilogy, are surprisingly good. The Joe Landsdale story in the first Book of the Dead, "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks," is one of my favorite Landsdale stories, and I've read a lot of them.

I've always had a taste for post-apocalypse literature. At least one literary critic has defined much of SF as apocalyptic fiction, and I think he's at least partly right.

It's another way of thinking about what we'd do in the face of disaster. Muti-disciplinary studies of narrative suggest we think in stories most of the time, and one of the purposes of the stories we spin in our heads or consume and think about, is to model potential futures, to plan, evaluate, and criticize potential courses of action. To plan for all eventualities.

What's really scary in this era of nuclear proliferation, SARS, AIDS, organized terrorism, and biological and technological warfare, isn't zombie movies. It's the real world.