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| Image Source: Link below |
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".
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| Image Source: Seminar link below |
I saw Dr. Oluseyi speak at the National Society of Black Physicists, Austin, Texas in 2011 (where I met Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg). I signed up to hear him speak again today, obviously scheduled as a pick-me-up for graduate students before midterms. We could all use it.
And there, at Tougaloo College, you had a breakthrough.
Yes.These three grad students from MIT and Harvard came to Tougaloo, where I was one of two physics students in 1986. They were all black physics students from the Cambridge area – and each of them thought they were the only one! They came to realize that kids from certain communities just have no idea that physics as a career exists. They decided they’d start the National Council of Black Physics Students, to help the most down-and-out kids in the country. So where did they go? Mississippi. They showed up on our campus.
Because of them, I ended up meeting recruiters from Stanford University that ended up accepting me to Stanford for grad school. In all of Stanford’s history, at that time, there were only two black professors in all of the six schools of natural sciences and mathematics. One was my PhD advisor, Art Walker, who was also the PhD advisor of Sally Ride. Just being in his presence showed me a different model of how I could be.
But in the end, Art’s support changed it for me. It was like two different lives. I ended up changing my name from James Edward Plummer to reflect how my life had changed so drastically. I wanted my middle name to reflect how I am. So my middle name is Muata and it means “He seeks the truth.” I wanted my first name to reflect what I want to become. My first name Hakeem means “wisdom.” And my last name is from the West African Yoruba people, and it means “God has done this.”
Rise of a gangsta nerd: Fellows Friday with Hakeem Oluseyi, TED BlogNC A&T Seminar link: NCAT.edu/oluseyi
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| Researchers at Columbia University created an evaporation engine, driven by bacterial spores that swell as they absorb moisture from evaporating water. XI CHEN |
"Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from the dishonest stone-hearted Rome." Anthony Trollope
Please note I'm not quoting Trollope (an apropos name for our times as malapropism) as a critique of the study. All science is preliminary, in iterative steps. "Rome was not built in a day," and neither will sustainable energy solutions that will hopefully replace our current fossil model. It is unfortunate that our easy access to information via search engines have made us all attention deficit as a species and unappreciative of process, either political or scientific.
Technology that can tap into the renewable power of natural water evaporation could produce a huge portion of the nation's energy needs—at least theoretically (see "Scientists Capture the Energy of Evaporation to Drive Tiny Engines").
Prototype "evaporation-driven engines" generate power from the motion of bacterial spores that expand and contract as they absorb and release air moisture. If it could be done efficiently and affordably, the devices could provide more than 325 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, outpacing coal, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
That, however, would require covering the surface of every lake and reservoir larger than 0.1 square kilometers in the lower 48 states, excluding the Great Lakes, with arrays of the devices. Obviously, that would directly conflict with existing economic and recreational uses, and raise a host of serious aesthetic and environmental concerns. Notably, interfering with evaporation on a large enough scale, across a big enough lake, could even alter local weather.
But study coauthor Ozgur Sahin says that the paper is more of a thought experiment designed to underscore the potential of the technology and the importance of advancing it beyond lab scale, rather than any sort of literal development proposal.
Evaporation Engines Could Produce More Power Than Coal, with a Huge CaveatJames Temple, MIT Technology Review
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| Credit: Joshua Edel |
Note: My study group is preparing for midterms next week. I give my apologies for what will be an erratic posting schedule. I'm merging two colloquialisms: drinking from fire hoses and eating elephants one bite at a time. I should resume posting normalcy - as far as grad school goes - the 9th of October, until finals week in December.
From last Friday's posting, it's obvious what I thought of the (lack of) humanity pursuing the deaths of millions to give tax cuts for the few. I'm glad for the moment the Affordable Care Act hasn't met the zombie apocalypse. I have no doubt like the pertinacious walking dead, they will try again.
Surface plasmons—collective, light-driven oscillations of electrons in metal—have given us stained glass, flat lenses, and home pregnancy tests. Now they bring us the mirror–window, a liquid mirror whose reflectivity can be tuned, or eliminated altogether, with an applied voltage.
Developed by researchers led by Alexei Kornyshev, Anthony Kucernak, and Joshua Edel at Imperial College London, the device makes use of gold nanoparticles inside a cell filled with two immiscible electrolyte solutions—one aqueous, the other oily. Dispersed throughout one phase or the other, the nanoparticles interact negligibly with light, and the cell is transparent. But when the particles form a dense monolayer at the liquid–liquid interface, their plasmon resonances couple to each other and they become optically reflective.
The author could just be the next big thing in literature AND film
BY BRITNI DANIELLE, MARCH 30, 2017|EBONY
Tomi Adeyemi’s novel, Children of Blood and Bone, hasn’t even been released yet and it’s already headed to the big screen, thanks to a blockbuster deal with Fox 2000. Publishers clamored to snap up the 23-year-old’s novel, reportedly resulting in a “whopping publishing deal,” according to Deadline.
Children of Blood and Bone is the first book in Adeyemi’s fantasy trilogy rooted in African mythology, and has been described by some as “Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Black Lives Matter.” According to the writer’s website, the book follows the Orïshas’ struggle to survive after they’re threatened by a power-hungry king.
Here’s what’s listed so far:
With magic, Zélie’s family could stand against the royal guard.
Her people wouldn’t live in fear.
Her mom wouldn’t have hanged from that tree.
Years after the king wiped magic out of Orïsha, Zélie has one chance to bring it back. To do so, she’ll have to outwit and outrun the crown prince, who’s
hell-bent on erasing magic for good.
Children of Blood and Bone is the first book in Adeyemi’s highly-anticipated series and could set the young writer up to be the next big thing in young adult fantasy. The film adaptation is being produced by the folks who brought moviegoers Twilight, Maze Runner, and The Fault In Our Stars, and Fox 2000 reportedly paid close to seven figures for the book’s film rights.
At just 23, Adeyemi could be an important new voice in both literature and film. The Harvard grad not only gives tips to bourgeoning writers about honing their craft, but the Nigerian-American author has also said she hopes her work will inspire young Black girls.
“I want a little Black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star,” Adeyemi wrote on her blog. “I want her to know that she’s beautiful and she matters and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger.” Something tells me Adeyemi is this close to reaching her goal.
**MY TAKE: Glad to read about Afrocentric book-to-film deals especially in the speculative genres.**
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| Image Source: YouTube, see embed |
Franz Kafka[a] (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language novelist and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic,[3] typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity.[4] His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Source: Wikipedia
Kafkaesque: of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially :having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality - Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays Merriam Webster
Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population[2][3] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.[4]
Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany,[5] which were largely inspired by the previous American work.[6][7][8] Stefan Kühl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenicists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands.[9]
During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population; it is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements as the movement was to some extent a reaction to a change in immigration from Europe rather than scientific genetics.[10] Source: Wikipedia
I posted on eugenics this year on 13 February featuring "The Myth of Race" by Robert Sussman. His thesis - as I remember the read - is still sound. The previous election was testament to Ta Nehisi Coates' essay observation on our current resident in Washington, that he does have an ideology: old, vile and ugly like grabbing genitals without permission; blatant in-your-face race-baiting, going from wink-and-nod dog whistles to foghorns. The 2016 election - Russian cum Facebook interference - has emboldened the darkest among us, evidenced by Charlottesville and its aftermath and the sympathies of our chief executive.
The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, known only by its pejorative, is in danger of being repealed yet again. It's to repeal, remove, replace any memory of the achievements of our first and only African American president in the history of the federal republic, all while stating the party is "not racist" with a straight faces and monochromatic instagram posts. The individual mandate in the ACA was a conservative idea originated by the Heritage Foundation - an effort to counter the expansion of Medicare-for-all (at the time called by the pejorative "HillaryCare"). The KGB/FSB saw "conditions and opportunity" that had not existed since the uprisings of the 1960s when the FBI had COINTELPRO violate the Civil Rights of Americans fighting for...their Civil Rights. Racial animus would serve their purposes of western instability far better.
The conditions were and are our own history we tend to whitewash and give "alternative facts" about. Cultural studies - African American, Hispanic/Latino, LGBT, Women - MUST be opposed, as they give a portfolio of researched facts that counters the official Pollyannaish self-delusional narrative. The only thing "conservative" is the status quo of white supremacy. The fact is, colonization results in indigenous peoples getting replaced by violence: murder, disease, "Trails of Tears." Disparate groups join the red trail, blocked from expressing their power at the ballot box and economically segregated for generations. The equivalent of Confederate generals celebrated in a war of treason would be replications on Hitler and swastikas in Germany and Israel. From cultural studies to science, it is why authoritarians oppose facts. Like Wednesday's post, these are the usual signs that points to diminution of democracy in a republic.
"Grandma-will-die-death-panels" as this repeal is a death panel, as millions of the GOP's supporters currently covered by the ACA will die. Like Hurricanes Katrina to Maria, such natural and political disasters illustrate the inequity of our society and how some well-heeled survive such changes - if you can afford healthcare with CASH, that IS your ACA! Those who cannot afford succumb to Darwinian extinction, a crass "survival of the fittest." Eugenics is what this is. It's what it's always been.
It's as clear as which group boards their property before a storm and starts consulting with architects to recover from the storm, to like many in New Orleans, stranded on roofs, figuratively and literally. Someone once told me "when you point one finger, three fingers point back at you," a hark to obvious, demonstrated hypocrisy. This nihilistic, Kafkaesque eugenics that will hurt "the least of these" should forever redefine us as not a "Christian nation," but a heartless and cruel one. Senator Cassidy has violated his Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm"; his party rejecting all claims to human decency.
Call:
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121; 202-225-3121
Related link:The Republicans Aren't Even Pretending This Is About Healthcare AnymoreCharles P. Pierce, GQ
Fig. 1 Experimental schematic of the hybrid system and ToF apparatus.
(A) A schematic of the experimental apparatus, including the LQT, the high voltage pulsing scheme (shown as solid and dashed lines), and the ToF. (B) An illustrative experimental time sequence that depicts initialization of a Ba+ crystal, production of BaOCH3+ (visualized as dark ions in the crystal) through reactions with methanol vapor, and subsequent MOT immersion. (C) Sample mass spectra obtained after ejecting the LQT species into the ToF after various MOT immersion times, ti, along with an inset depicting a superimposed fluorescence image of an ion crystal immersed in the Ca MOT. (D) Mass spectra of photofragmentation products collected after inducing photodissociation of BaOCa+. The identified photofragments were used to verify the elemental composition of the product.
Topics: Atomic Physics, Modern Physics, Nanotechnology, Quantum MechanicsLA physicists have pioneered a method for creating a unique new molecule that could eventually have applications in medicine, food science and other fields. Their research, which also shows how chemical reactions can be studied on a microscopic scale using tools of physics, is reported in the journal Science.
For the past 200 years, scientists have developed rules to describe chemical reactions that they’ve observed, including reactions in food, vitamins, medications and living organisms. One of the most ubiquitous is the “octet rule,” which states that each atom in a molecule that is produced by a chemical reaction will have eight outer orbiting electrons. (Scientists have found exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions are rare.)
But the molecule created by UCLA professor Eric Hudson and colleagues violates that rule. Barium-oxygen-calcium, or BaOCa+, is the first molecule ever observed by scientists that is composed of an oxygen atom bonded to two different metal atoms.
Normally, one metal atom (either barium or calcium) can react with an oxygen atom to produce a stable molecule. However, when the UCLA scientists added a second metal atom to the mix, a new molecule, BaOCa+, which no longer satisfied the octet rule, had been formed. [1]
Abstract
Hypermetallic alkaline earth (M) oxides of formula MOM have been studied under plasma conditions that preclude insight into their formation mechanism. We present here the application of emerging techniques in ultracold physics to the synthesis of a mixed hypermetallic oxide, BaOCa+. These methods, augmented by high-level electronic structure calculations, permit detailed investigation of the bonding and structure, as well as the mechanism of its formation via the barrierless reaction of Ca (3PJ) with BaOCH3+. Further investigations of the reaction kinetics as a function of collision energy over the range 0.005 K to 30 K and of individual Ca fine-structure levels compare favorably with calculations based on long-range capture theory. [2]
1. In step toward ‘controlling chemistry,’ physicists create a new type of molecule, atom by atom, Stuart Wolpert, UCLA Newsroom2. Synthesis of mixed hypermetallic oxide BaOCa+ from laser-cooled reagents in an atom-ion hybrid trapPrateek Puri1, Michael Mills1, Christian Schneider1, Ionel Simbotin2, John A. Montgomery Jr.2, Robin Côté2, Arthur G. Suits3, Eric R. Hudson1,*1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.2 Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.3 Department of Chemistry, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.*Corresponding author. Email: eric.hudson@ucla.edu
Murder on the Eros Star, Planet of Doom and Terror on Telderan.
1. Murder on the Eros Star
Not long after hearing about the attempted murder of his assistant Da'Qaun docks aboard the luxury Space cruise ship Eros Star. Shortly after his arrival, the intergalactic detective realizes that his assistant has stumbled onto something huge. A masterful plot of vengeance and murder has already been set into motion.
With the help of his assistant Jada and a few members of the clandestine Time, Travelver's Guild Da'Quan attempts to stop a new very powerful foe from carrying out his devious plot the will drastically change life in the galaxy and beyond forever.
Will Da'Quan put the pieces together in time? Will the mastermind succeed in getting his revenge and change the lives of billions of lives across the galaxy? Listen to Murder on the Eros Star narrated by actor James Romick. Mr. Romick has been acting professionally for over 38 years.
2. Terror on Telderan
After breaking away from the Planetary Alliance the planet Otar finds it's self on the brink of ruin. In a desperate move, their leader Rotart makes a foolish attempt to terraform the planet Telderan so that he may claim it and relocate the Otarian race. Ancient oracles have been warning Alliance leaders for years that such an attempt would be made and that it would have catastrophic results for planet Earth billions of miles away. Rayna, High Ruler of the Southern Quadrant of Lazon and J'lore Chief Council of Earth's Guardians have been lifelong friends. Although Earth Guardians are considered outlaws by the government Rayna sympathizes with their cause to save the human race. Earth's Guardians is also aware of the impending disaster for earth but Rayna confirms it. Taz, son of the ruthless dictator of Otar is dispatched to clear Telderan of the handful of inhabitants so that the terraforming process can begin. His harsh and heavy-handed ways do not go down well with the settlers and his father's confrontation with leaders of the Planetary Alliance does not fair any better. Only time will tell if the Planetary Alliance's oracles were right.
After breaking away from the Planetary Alliance the planet Otar finds it's self on the brink of ruin. In a desperate move, their leader Rotart makes a foolish attempt to terraform the planet Telderan so that he may claim it and relocate the Otarian race. Ancient oracles have been warning Alliance leaders for years that such an attempt would be made and that it would have catastrophic results for planet Earth billions of miles away. Rayna, High Ruler of the Southern Quadrant of Lazon and J'lore Chief Council of Earth's Guardians have been lifelong friends. Although Earth Guardians are considered outlaws by the government Rayna sympathizes with their cause to save the human race. Earth's Guardians is also aware of the impending disaster for earth but Rayna confirms it. Taz, son of the ruthless dictator of Otar is dispatched to clear Telderan of the handful of inhabitants so that the terraforming process can begin. His harsh and heavy-handed ways do not go down well with the settlers and his father's confrontation with leaders of the Planetary Alliance does not fair any better. Only time will tell if the Planetary Alliance's oracles were right.
3.Planet of Doom
The Planetary Alliance has requested the services of intergalactic detective Da'Quan. His job is to locate the rough Deltorian warriors Dajus and Mallobo who must answer for multiple charges of crimes committed throughout the Spiral Galaxy. Before Da'Quan could locate the deadly duo his ship (Spirit) was yanked from the sky and crashed landed on a nearly deserted island. With the ship in need of repairs, Da'Quan is trapped on the planet Akanon, a small planet controlled by humanoid androids. He quickly learned that no one has ever escaped from the planet.
Will the andriods add Da'Quan to their list of kills, will he be the first to escape and complete his mission or will he be forever trapped on the Planet of Doom.
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| Image Source: See link [2] below |
Scientists in Brazil have protested devastating cuts to science that are threatening to close institutes and funding agencies across the country. Earlier this month about 900 people took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro to protest over budget reductions that have hit science this year. Meanwhile, around 80,000 people in Brazil have signed an online petition, set up in late August, calling on Brazil's president, Michel Temer, to reverse the cuts.
Brazil spent around R$10bn (£2.4bn) on science in 2014, but that figure has been steadily dropping. This year the budget was initially planned to be around R$6bn, but the new government that took over in August 2016 following the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff slashed it even further to R$3.4m.
Major scientific agencies are now starting to run out of money. The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, for example, may not be able to pay employees and researchers in October, while other major science and research centres such as the National Observatory and the National Institute for Space Research are also facing restrictions on cash flows. [1]
For empirical evidence of the changing mood, consider the chart above, drawn from a survey released in September by Latinobarómetro, a Chilean pollster. Every year, it asks people across the region whether they agree with the statement: “Democracy is preferable to any other form of government.” In 2016, just 32 percent of Brazilians agreed – a whopping 22 percentage point decline compared to 2015, by far the largest drop of any country in the survey. Only Guatemala – a country so plagued by violence and poverty that tens of thousands of its people flee every year – registered less support for democracy in 2016 than Brazil. Meanwhile, the number of Brazilians who agree that “I don’t mind a non-democratic government as long as it solves problems” rose to 55 percent – defying a downward trend across Latin America as a whole.
The reasons for this shift are fairly obvious. In the minds of some Brazilians, the worst recession in at least a century and the discovery of billions of dollars in graft at Petrobras and elsewhere have discredited not just the entire political class, but “democracy” as a whole. This may sound like an overreaction – and it is – but remember that Brazil’s democracy is barely 30 years old. Most of that period has been dominated by center-left governments of varying stripes which during the 1990s and 2000s successfully brought tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty, virtually eliminated hunger, and consolidated many democratic institutions. But in a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of world, they are now collectively blamed for unemployment above 11 percent, some of Latin America’s highest taxes, seemingly daily revelations of corruption, and a horrifying 58,000 homicides per year. [2]
“Austria. Well then. G’day, mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie!” — Lloyd, Dumb and Dumber
1. Budget crunch hits Brazilian physics, Henrique Kugler is a science writer based in Brazil, Physics World2. Brazil’s Authoritarian Side Makes a Comeback, Brian Winter, American Quarterly
Did you hear? On Saturday, we're all dead meat! So, say your goodbyes, Nibiru is on a collision course with Earth and putting plywood over the windows won't help!
Relax folks, this won't happen for a few reasons.
-There is no Nibiru.
-There IS a "theoretical" 'Planet X' (aka Planet 9) but, at its closest pass, it's still about 700AU or 65,100,000,000 miles away - so far away, in fact, that we haven't visually confirmed its existence yet.
-anything THAT big lurking in our inner solar system would've been here before life on Earth, (maybe even before Earth) and noticed a long time ago. If it came from outside, we would've seen it long before it got here, and it would most likely get Deebo'd by Jupiter or Saturn's gravity on its way in.
-last time we were hit by a planet was 4 billion years ago (and from that cataclysmic one-night stand, we got the moon)
-These are just my thoughts, though. What do you guys think?
http://abc7.com/heres-why-some-claim-the-world-will-end-on-saturday/2428453/?sf115016653=1
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| A new tool in deep learning renders passwords less secure. weerapatkiatdumrong/iStockphoto |
"Locks are made for honest people." Robert H. Goodwin, June 19 (Juneteenth), 1925 - August 26, 1999 (Pop)
Last week, the credit reporting agency Equifax announced that malicious hackers had leaked the personal information of 143 million people in their system. That’s reason for concern, of course, but if a hacker wants to access your online data by simply guessing your password, you’re probably toast in less than an hour. Now, there’s more bad news: Scientists have harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create a program that, combined with existing tools, figured more than a quarter of the passwords from a set of more than 43 million LinkedIn profiles. Yet the researchers say the technology may also be used to beat baddies at their own game.
The work could help average users and companies measure the strength of passwords, says Thomas Ristenpart, a computer scientist who studies computer security at Cornell Tech in New York City but was not involved with the study. “The new technique could also potentially be used to generate decoy passwords to help detect breaches.”
The strongest password guessing programs, John the Ripper and hashCat, use several techniques. One is simple brute force, in which they randomly try lots of combinations of characters until they get the right one. But other approaches involve extrapolating from previously leaked passwords and probability methods to guess each character in a password based on what came before. On some sites, these programs have guessed more than 90% of passwords. But they’ve required many years of manual coding to build up their plans of attack.
The new study aimed to speed this up by applying deep learning, a brain-inspired approach at the cutting edge of AI. Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, started with a so-called generative adversarial network, or GAN, which comprises two artificial neural networks. A “generator” attempts to produce artificial outputs (like images) that resemble real examples (actual photos), while a “discriminator” tries to detect real from fake. They help refine each other until the generator becomes a skilled counterfeiter.
Giuseppe Ateniese, a computer scientist at Stevens and paper co-author, compares the generator and discriminator to a police sketch artist and eye witness, respectively; the sketch artist is trying to produce something that can pass as an accurate portrait of the criminal. GANs have been used to make realistic images, but have not been applied much to text.
The Stevens team created a GAN it called PassGAN and compared it with two versions of hashCat and one version of John the Ripper. The scientists fed each tool tens of millions of leaked passwords from a gaming site called RockYou, and asked them to generate hundreds of millions of new passwords on their own. Then they counted how many of these new passwords matched a set of leaked passwords from LinkedIn, as a measure of how successful they’d be at cracking them.
Artificial intelligence just made guessing your password a whole lot easierMatthew Hutson, Science Magazine, AAAS
That Friday night, for the sake of appearances, Quincie hung out with some of her track teammates after practice. By ten o’clock, she had enough of the inane conversations, forced laughter, and awkward pauses. She politely excused herself for the night, thankful to be rid of it all. A call came in from Shara while she was driving home, a call she thought about not answering. She turned down her radio.
“Hey, what’s up girl?” she said, and immediately had to pull her ear away from the phone.
“What’s DeAndre’s number?!” Shara yelled, furious about something.
“DeAndre? I thought you were hanging with Steven tonight.”
“I called his cell, and some other bitch answered,” she griped. “He grabbed the phone from her and tried to say it was his sister!”
“Maybe it was his sister.” Quincie tried to stifle her laughter.
“Yeah right,” Shara shot back. “What sister asks, ‘Who’s that bitch, and does she know about our son?” Quincie burst into laughter.
“It’s not funny! Anyway, what’s DeAndre’s number?!”
“Why DeAndre? You haven’t spoken to him since before school started; and why the hell do you think I would have his number?”
“Because DeAndre is Steven’s cousin, and I can use him to get revenge, and I texted you his number that time I went out with him, remember? In case something happened to me.”
“Oh, right.” Quincie exhaled, remembering that, as a safety precaution, they agreed to send one another the cell number of the guy they were going out with so if either one of them went missing, the police would know where to start. It was always Quincie who got the texts, however, since she was never the one going on a date.
“You know you’d only be making a fool of yourself, right?” Quincie advised. “If you took the time to think about things instead of just reacting, you’d—”
“Quincie, please! I need the number, not a damn lecture!”
“I’m driving right now,” Quincie remembered the day her father bought her car; particularly the ten-minute speech he gave about not talking on the phone while driving. “I’m almost home.”
“Pleeeeaaaaasssse?!” Shara begged.
“Oh God, hold on a minute!” Quincie pulled up to a four-way stop sign intersection and decided it was okay to look for the number since there were no cars behind her. After a few moments, she wished she had picked a less-scary place to stop. There was nothing but tall grass and woods in every direction, and it looked as if something would jump out and grab her at any moment. She locked the car’s doors and activated the speaker function on her phone.
“Are you there, Shara?” She asked, checking to make sure that the phone’s audio had switched over.
“I’m here.” Shara’s pitchy voice came back through the speaker.
“Okay, talk to me. I’m stopped in a scary place right now.” Quincie scrolled through her text messages searching for DeAndre’s number.
“I appreciate you,” Shara said.
“You’d better!” Quincie’s voice was trembling a little. The wind had picked up, and she looked around and swore that the dried-out weeds surrounding the intersection were coming to life as they rustled and swayed. She found the number, copied it into a new text message, and sent it to Shara.
“I just sent it to you. Did you get it?”
“What did you say?” Shara asked. “I didn’t hear that.”
“I said, ‘did you get it’?”
“What? Speak into the—” Shara’s voice disappeared in a cloud of static, and then cut out completely.
“Hello?” Quincie looked at her phone and saw that she had no signal. “I’m out of here!”
When she looked down the road, she saw a light building just over the horizon, a light so large and so bright, it looked like the sun rising in the dead of night! It grew in intensity until the source appeared at the top of the hill, washing out the darkness. It slowly made its way toward the intersection where she had stopped.
The intensity of the light caused the transitional lenses in her glasses to darken, which enabled her to make out a large black object at the light's center.
“What kind of car is that?” She asked herself, growing more frightened as she saw that, this ‘car,’ floated just above the ground! The weeds on the side of the road were being pressed flat by some eerie, unseen force generated by the object as it moved.
It came to a stop just across the intersection, directly in the center of the road, blocking her path; its wraith-like blackness was surrounded by brilliant bluish-white light, making it impossible for Quincie to recognize, even from this short distance. When the lights began to overwhelm the shaded lenses of her glasses, she had seen enough, but when she stomped on the gas pedal, nothing happened! She looked down and saw that her dashboard had gone dark. She turned the ignition key but heard only the clicking sound it made in the lock. The car was completely dead! Terrified, she watched the object hover at the opposite side of the intersection, making no attempt to proceed across. She felt the ominous sensation of being watched.
There was a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach; like the feeling one gets when riding a roller coaster over a drop. She recoiled from something that floated by her face. She lifted her glasses and looked around the inside of her car. She saw all kinds of objects drifting in the cabin; coins, pens, keys, almost the entire contents of her bag, floating as if suspended in water. She let go of her phone and watched it drift out of her hand. It was as surreal as it was frightening. She was relieved when two patrol cars from the Sheriff’s Department came to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection, directly between her and the strange object. As their car’s lights and sirens flickered and went dark, two deputies jumped out and began shouting at the object from behind their guns. A loud, deep droning noise, like the kind made by a large generator, shook the area, and the outlines of everything that she could see became distorted by the vibrations. That feeling in her stomach got worse, and she could feel her car rising in the air. She looked up and saw the deputies and their cars suspended several feet off the road, by what means, she didn’t know or see. She started screaming; her voice was deafening in her car’s small cabin. She wanted to jump out but was too scared. There was the sharp crack of gunfire as the deputies opened up with their pistols. A series of lights began to strobe all over the strange object, in rapid succession. They mesmerized Quincie, getting brighter and brighter until... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075Q48MPR
Although the following novella excerpt is in a separate universe from DARK EDGE, I've still been considering publishing within the next few months once the design portion of DARK EDGE has slowed down.
Excerpt- Vacuum Draft Flows Part I
"CHAPT 3
Green means go and the seconds in between become an infinite and hopeless abyss. The abyss consumed the fears, hopes and dreams of all who found themselves in its presence. Regret, that so many things have been left undone and too many things left unsaid. Pain, that there are no more opportunities and this is the absolute end of all things. Finally, bliss once a man or woman can sweat pure adrenaline and testosterone fuels superhuman strength and senses. Human eyes adjust to slits, brows are frowned, teeth are grit and ground into dust, fingers tremble to crush metal held by throbbing palms, muscles twitch and spasm begging for immediate use. Death is but a weak ghost afraid to take the souls due to him, souls so powerful in this moment that even the reaper couldn’t pull them into the abyss before they willingly conceded to perish.
“Fuck Death” whispered Celia. "
Want to know more? Stay tuned spacefans!
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| Image Source: Meanwhile, In America |
A search term "war on science" will bring up several posts (this one now included) that predate our current epoch. We have a chief executive that used to be a reality show host, insisting on meting out his brand of "diplomacy" at 140-character increments - some misspelled. It like many social platforms was created by science, the very science his administration has decided must kowtow to "alternative facts" and unicorns.
The meme seemed apropos the day after "The Handmaid's Tale" won an Emmy for Best Drama series on Hulu (having read the novel, the reason why I purchased a subscription). Again, a venue we all take for granted on our laptops and Amazon fire sticks, also created by science.
An exhaustive list by Science Blogs follows. My Monday gallows humor, but don't lose heart or get exhausted.
The last one of these was in mid-June, so we’re picking up all the summer stories of scientific mayhem in the Trump era. The last couple of months have seemed especially apocalyptic, with Nazis marching in the streets and nuclear war suddenly not so distant a possibility. But along with those macro-level issues, Trump and his cronies are still hammering away at climate change denial, environmental protection, research funding and public health issues. As exhausting as it seems — and this is part of the plan — amongst all of us opposed to Trump, we need to keep track of a wide range of issues.
If I’m missing anything important, please let me know either in the comments or at my email jdupuis at yorku dot ca. If you want to use a non-work email for me, it’s dupuisj at gmail dot com.
The selections are by no means meant to represent a comprehensive account of everything written about science and science-related over the last few months. I’m not aiming for anything than complete or comprehensive. For example, there are probably hundreds of articles written about climate-change related issues over that period, but I’m just picking up what I hope is a representative sample.
Science Blogs: Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis
Agape Children’s Museum and the City of Long Beach will have the Annual Family Health Festival Saturday September 30th, 2017 at Admiral Kidd Park
Attendees will be able to take advantage of a number of health screening, watch and participate in a variety of exercise demonstrations, and listen to presentations about orthopedic surgery, colonoscopies and diabetes awareness and management. This free community event is designed to increase health awareness, promote the health oriented resources for all ages and literacy throughout the local community.
This will be a full day of fun and awareness for the whole family.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Admiral Kidd Park
2125 Santa Fe Ave
West Long Beach, CA
10 AM – 4 PM
free to the public
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| NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew through the plumes of Enceladus' geysers several times and gathered information about the particles that may foster life on Saturn's small frigid moon. Credit: NASA/JPL |
For Mildred D. Goodwin, September 15, 1925 - May 7, 2009. Happy birthday, mom. As far as this serendipity, I'd like to think she would have enjoyed it.
Friday morning (Sept. 15), Cassini will complete the orbital pirouettes of its seven-year Solstice Mission and complete a self-destructing descent into Saturn's atmosphere. This fierce ending is dramatic for a purpose: It will prevent Earth microbes from contaminating Saturn's nearby moons.
When NASA's Cassini spacecraft completed its first tour of Saturn in 2008, the mission team had to decide what would come next. [Cassini's Saturn Crash 2017: How to Watch Its 'Grand Finale']
Cassini could have parted ways with the ringed planet. In 2009, studies showed that Cassini had enough fuel to reach Uranus or Neptune. Cassini could have traveled in the other direction, toward Jupiter, or it could have been sent to visit an assembly of asteroids known as the Centaurs in the outer limits of the solar system.
Instead, scientists chose to continue making discoveries about Saturn and its moons — first through a two-year extended mission known as the Cassini Equinox Mission, and then with a second extension in 2010 that would bring the spacecraft to the very limit of the fuel it carried. That made it clear that Cassini's third mission, the Solstice Mission, would be how the spacecraft would end its career. It was during these missions that scientists discovered that two of Saturn's moons, Titan and Enceladus, showed signs that they were well suited to life. But why the fiery plummet?
"The spacecraft will burn up and disintegrate like a meteor in the upper atmosphere of Saturn," Preston Dyches, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Space.com via email. "This was determined to be the best way to ensure the safe disposal of the spacecraft, so that there would be no chance of future contamination of Enceladus by any hardy microbes that might have stowed away on board all these years."
Why the Cassini Mission to Saturn Must End in a Fiery Dive, Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Staff Writer
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| A complete reconstruction of what the northern and southern auroras looked like to the Juno Ultraviolet Spectograph (UVS) as Juno approached Jupiter, passed over the north pole, rapidly traveled to the southern hemisphere to pass over the southern pole, and receded from Jupiter. Credit: BERTRAND BONFOND. |
Evidence from the Juno probe’s close flights past Jupiter indicate that the gas giant’s dazzling polar light shows are caused by a mysterious mechanism different from the one responsible for intense auroras here on Earth.
On Jupiter, as on Earth, the northern and southern lights are produced by charged particles from the Sun colliding with gas atoms in the atmosphere and releasing energy in flashes of light.
Jupiter’s aurora is the brightest in the solar system, so planetary scientists assumed it was produced by the discrete process.
However, a paper in Nature analyzing data from Juno’s low-altitude passes over Jupiter’s poles shows that, while there are extremely intense electric fields aligned with the magnetic field and signs that electrons are being accelerated downwards, the resulting auroras were much dimmer than those produced by the broadband process.
Why? The authors don’t know, though they speculate that Jupiter’s intense auroras may be started by a discrete process creating a stream of electrons that is then disrupted and diffused by the magnetic field fluctuations that produce the broadband process.
Power supply for Jupiter’s aurora puzzles scientists, Michael Lucy, COSMOS magazine
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| Courtesy: ACS Nano DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b03073 |
For any couple who has witnessed an amniocentesis with WIDE eyes (as I did), this advance should be a welcome relief.
Circulating fetal nucleated cells (CFNCs) in the blood of pregnant women is an ideal source of fetal genomic DNA that can be used for prenatal diagnostics. However, the problem is that there are only a very small number of CFNCs in maternal blood. A team of researchers in the US, China and Taiwan has now developed nanoVelcro microchips that can effectively enrich a subcategory of CFNCs, namely circulating trophoblasts (cTBs) in blood samples. These cTBs can then be isolated using a laser microdissection technique for subsequent genetic testing.
Current prenatal tests for diagnosing foetal genetic abnormalities rely on invasive, “harvesting” procedures, such as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling. Although highly valuable, they can increase the risk of miscarriage. Whole foetal cells circulating in an expectant mother’s blood could also provide important information on foetal DNA since they contain entire genomes, but until now it has been very challenging to capture these cells because they are only present in small quantities.
The new nanoVelcro microchips developed by Hsian-Rong Tsung of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles and colleagues can effectively enrich cTBs from blood samples. These cells can then be isolated using a technique called laser capture microdissection (LCM) for subsequent genetic testing.
The researchers (who initially developed their microchips for detecting low concentrations of tumour cells circulating in blood) made their devices by nano-imprinting them on a spin-coated PLGA substrate (see image). To enrich the cTBs, they grafted a biotinylated anti-EpCAM (which is a trophoblast surface marker) onto the imprinted nanoVelcro.
For the genetic characterization, they isolated at least three individual cTBs and pooled these together in a 0.5 mL polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tube for whole genome amplification (WGA). They then subjected the resulting amplified DNA to so-called array comparative genomic hybridization (array CGH) and short tandem repeat (STR) assays.
NanoVelcro microchips for prenatal testing, Belle Dumé, Nanotechweb.org
