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César Milstein...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 22, 2013 at 4:26pm


The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1984

Niels K. Jerne, Georges J.F. Köhler, César Milstein

Born: 8 October 1927, Bahia Blanca, Argentina

Died: 24 March 2002, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Affiliation at the time of the award: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Prize motivation: "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies"

My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina, and was left to his own devices at the age of 15. My mother was a teacher, herself the daughter of a poor immigrant family. For both my mother and my father, no sacrifice was too hard to make sure that their three sons (I was the middle one) would go to university. I wasn't a particularly brilliant student, but on the other hand I was very active in Student Union affairs and in student politics. It was in this way that I met my wife, Celia. After graduation, we married, and took a full year off in a most unusual and romantic honeymoon, hitch-hiking our way through most countries in Europe, including a couple of months working in Israel kibbutzim. As we returned to Argentina, I started seriously to work towards a doctoral degree under the direction of Professor Stoppani, the Professor of Biochemistry at the Medical School. My PhD thesis work was done with no economic support. Both Celia and I worked part-time doing clinical biochemistry, between us earning just enough to keep us going. My thesis was on kinetics studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. When that was finished, I was granted a British Council Fellowship to work under the supervision of Malcolm Dixon.

Nobel Prize:

Biographical, Nobel Lecture, Documentary (1 min)

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Atomic Friction...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 23, 2013 at 7:27am


A new experimental method based on atomic force microscopy allows the investigation of friction at the scale of individual atoms.



Everyone learns the basics of friction in high-school physics classes: the friction force experienced by a sliding object is proportional to the normal force that an object exerts on a surface. Remarkably, this extremely simple and empirical relation, known as Amontons’ Law, is still often used in creating the most technologically sophisticated machines and devices, even though friction is known to vary with a large number of other parameters not captured in this relation. For example, at the nanoscale, friction is significantly influenced by adhesion, an example where Amontons’ Law cannot predict the friction force [1]. Likewise, friction can depend on sliding speed, duration of contact, environment, temperature, and the sliding direction [1, 2]. As reported in Physical Review Letters, Jay Weymouth and colleagues at the University of Regensburg in Germany have investigated the friction force at atomic length scales, using an atomic force microscope (AFM) [3] to probe the forces between a tungsten tip coated with a small amount of silicon, sliding on the surface of crystalline silicon. They report an observation never before obtained at the scale of just a few atoms: friction is strongly dependent on the orientation of specific silicon atomic bonds at the surface with respect to the sliding direction of the tip.



A directional dependence of friction, also known as friction anisotropy, has been previously observed on larger scales (at least a few nanometers). For example, a tip was pulled along a molecular layer where the molecules were locally all tilted in the same direction. Sliding along the tilt axis produced lower friction than when sliding perpendicular to it [4]. A similar behavior can be observed in a simple way by pressing one’s hands together (as if in prayer but with the fingers spaced apart). Upon sliding the fingers of the left hand against the fingers of right hand (perpendicular to the long axis of your fingers), the fingers of one hand become stuck in between those of the other. However, if one instead slides the left hand down and the right hand up (parallel to the long axis of your fingers), the hands move smoothly. The relative orientation between the sliding direction and the grooves of one’s fingers influences friction because of the geometry of our hands. Friction anisotropy has been observed by sliding a small tip on atomically flat and well-characterized surfaces [5]. However, in all these cases, the nanometer-size tip was pressed into contact with the surface, meaning that a large number (at least thousands) of atoms were in contact during this experiment.

American Physical Society: Friction at the Atomic Scale

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Mario J. Molina...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 23, 2013 at 7:31am


The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995

Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland

Born: 19 March 1943, Mexico City, Mexico

Affiliation at the time of the award: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone"

Field: Atmospheric and environmental chemistry

I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope. I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets. With the help of an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist, I continued with more challenging experiments along the lines of those carried out by freshman chemistry students in college. Keeping with our family tradition of sending their children abroad for a couple of years, and aware of my interest in chemistry, I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland when I was 11 years old, on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospective chemist to learn. I remember I was thrilled to go to Europe, but then I was disappointed in that my European schoolmates had no more interest in science than my Mexican friends. I had already decided at that time to become a research chemist; earlier, I had seriously contemplated the possibility of pursuing a career in music - I used to play the violin in those days. In 1960, I enrolled in the chemical engineering program at UNAM, as this was then the closest way to become a physical chemist, taking math-oriented courses not available to chemistry majors.

After finishing my undergraduate studies in Mexico, I decided to obtain a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry. This was not an easy task; although my training in chemical engineering was good, it was weak in mathematics, physics, as well as in various areas of basic physical chemistry - subjects such as quantum mechanics were totally alien to me in those days. At first I went to Germany and enrolled at the University of Freiburg. After spending nearly two years doing research in kinetics of polymerizations, I realized that I wanted to have time to study various basic subjects in order to broaden my background and to explore other research areas. Thus, I decided to seek admission to a graduate program in the United States. While pondering my future plans, I spent several months in Paris, where I was able to study mathematics on my own and I also had a wonderful time discussing all sorts of topics, ranging from politics, philosophy, to the arts, etc., with many good friends. Subsequently, I returned to Mexico as an Assistant Professor at the UNAM and I set up the first graduate program in chemical engineering. Finally, in 1968 I left for the University of California at Berkeley to pursue my graduate studies in physical chemistry.

Nobel Prize:

Biographical, Nobel Lecture, Interview (32 minutes)

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OKLO REACTOR The world's first and only natural nuclear reactor

Posted by Celia Fernandes on September 23, 2013 at 2:20pm

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oklo-reactor

'' the uranium deposits in the Oklo region of Gabon created a natural nuclear power plant that operated for hundreds of thousands of years until most of the fissile uranium was depleted. While a majority of the uranium at Oklo is the non-fissile isotope U238, only about 3% needed to be the fissile isotope U235 for the chain reaction to start. Today, that percent of fissile uranium in the deposits is around 0.7%, indicating that the deposit had sustained reactions for a relatively long period of time. But it was this exact characteristic of the rocks from Oklo that first puzzled scientists''

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Vampires are terrible

Posted by Moorsgate Media on September 23, 2013 at 11:30am

By the title of this post you can probably guess that that I am about to rant about sparkly vampires or loving vampires or generally any sort of vampire that would not feature predominantly as a villain in a Blade reboot (ed:  Blade Reboot? awesome sauce!). 


 For the most part, you would be wrong. There is generally nothing wrong with twinkle vampires or any other form of fiction that explores wish fulfillment. There is a lot of "my rich boyfriend is a secret badass" to a lot of modern Vampire stories. As a result, people think the genera is over. No more vampire stories! people (namely book agents) cry!

 There is nothing wrong with the genera. It might just be that the current story slate, i.e. rich boyfriend, needs to be investigated further. Economic theory says that if nothing else, most vampires should be at least affluent, if not down right uber-wealthy. Figure out a story that explains how your sexy vampire got his cash.

ISSUE 1: Vampires Are(or should be) Rich.

Vampires, without direct violence, can be expected to live anywhere from "A Very Long Time" to "Infinity." While that sounds great in and of itself, it is really great from an economic stand point. Most vampires lack the need of actual economic inputs (read: food, clothing, shelter, sleep...air). As such, their actual cash outlays are minimal to non-existent. If they possess special powers, such as super speed or flight, then generally they have zero to minimal transportation costs. Think about the cost of an average transatlantic flight. Vampires pocket that for fancy hotels and ebony wood coffins.

However, most vampires lack a normal occupation (with the exception of that one that was a Rock Star and that other one that ran a medical clinic in Washington State). One assumes, if you rob your food source (i.e. people), after a few years you have acquired some sizable assets.  Let's assume that your vampire boyfriend is nice and does not commit regular robbery/homicides every other lunch period.

However, lets also not assume that he hails from some degenerate landed gentry or b) employs some sort of glamer on people, thereby hypnotizing them into giving them money.  Assuming he was, in his mortal incarnation, middle class; then by investing some portion of his money (which he really does not need)  in the sock market (say in General Electric Stock in 1915) and living solely off the dividends (or reinvestment or diversifying in times of economic struggle), then by the time he hit the 90's tech bubble he would be a millionaire several times over. By not touching the principal, each vampire more than 50 or 60 years old should have a sizable amount of the worlds money locked up in various modern, seaside, homes.

So any story that I encounter that does not explain why a) the vampire is or isn't rich, or b) lacks the assistance of a good financial advisor, is generally suspect.

ISSUE 2: Vampires Are Bad at Science.

Vampires, as stated above, are considerably long lived. Generally, society mourns the loss of great intellects, from Newton to Einstein. One would think that Vampires would scoop up these top notch scientist at the bargain basement price of "almost dead".  Why stop there? Why not selectively "convert" the top graduate  of a highly prestigious technical university.

 There should be vampire covens of geniuses, sitting around creating fantastic works of art, literature, and science. One should assume that the internally produced vampire literature is significantly superior to human literature. Most vampire stories take the position that only good looking people of an artistic bent, become vampires (see said rock star). However, rarely do we get a story about the great and fabulous Vampire museums featuring the "post-turned" works of Picasso, Muro et. al.

Most vampires stories paint the species at a significant technological and ecological disadvantage relative to humans. Vampires rely on a slowly reproducing natural resource that is subject to plagues, pandemics, endemic violence, and natural and cosmic disasters. Modern day farmers would not tolerate the level of uncertainty in the long term viability of their stock. Likewise, surveillance technology, networked infrastructure, high-capacity ammunition, and directed energy weapons all level the playing field against the natural gifts of the supernatural.

It would be natural that, with unlimited life spans and budgets, individual vampires should be able to privately fund all manner of Manhattan Project-style endeavors. For example, given their superhuman abilities, vampires re almost specifically designed for Deep Ocean and Deep Space exploration.

A round trip to Proxima Centuri, at 1/10 the speed of light (which is all we could ever be capable of with modern technology) would take 80 years. This is seen as a barrier for humans, but with a steady supply of cryogenically frozen blood, would be a cake walk for vampires. Assuming ambitions closer to home, one would expect that at least some vampires use their vast wealth and time horizons to devise counter-measures to human extinction (since one prefaces the other), ready to be deployed at a moment's notice.

At the very least, you would assume that Vampires operate technology that is several generations ahead of our own. Faster computers, smaller devices, robots . (ed - see Vampire Hunter D series for technologically advanced vampires).


 The point here is to note that the Vampire genre, just like any other genre, has room for interpretation or reinvention. Just because there have been a spate of successful, "Vampires are my Boyfriend", books doesn't mean that every story that could be written about them has been written. Now, a book on Vampire Economics might not get turned into a best selling novel series, but it would definitely set the author apart.

@Moorsgate

www.moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com

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Firmly Aboard the Pequod...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 22, 2013 at 4:23pm


The most prescient portrait of the American character and our ultimate fate as a species is found in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle. He is to us what William Shakespeare was to Elizabethan England or Fyodor Dostoyevsky to czarist Russia.

Our country is given shape in the form of the ship, the Pequod, named after the Indian tribe exterminated in 1638 by the Puritans and their Native American allies. The ship’s 30-man crew—there were 30 states in the Union when Melville wrote the novel—is a mixture of races and creeds. The object of the hunt is a massive white whale, Moby Dick, which, in a previous encounter, maimed the ship’s captain, Ahab, by biting off one of his legs. The self-destructive fury of the quest, much like that of the one we are on, assures the Pequod’s destruction. And those on the ship, on some level, know they are doomed—just as many of us know that a consumer culture based on corporate profit, limitless exploitation and the continued extraction of fossil fuels is doomed.

Chris Hedges, "We Are All Aboard the Pequod"

Houston Chronicle: Texas lawmakers on Tuesday began weighing changes to the state’s high school graduation requirements to give students more flexibility in which courses they must take.

A closely watched bill by Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, would change the default graduation plan so students would not necessarily have to take four years of English, math, science and social studies. Instead, they could specialize in areas such as arts and humanities or science, technology, engineering and math.

“My focus is to help stem the dropout rate,” Patrick said during a meeting Tuesday, explaining that students would be able to take more courses that interest them.

Lake Houston Observer: Assessments in Algebra II, geometry, English III, chemistry, physics, world geography, and world history have been eliminated from the testing requirements. As a result, the July 2013 STAAR administration will not include assessments for these courses. End-of-course assessments will continue to be offered in Algebra I, English I, English II, biology, and U.S. history.

Texas is a large market due to its sheer size. Thus, a lot of other states emulate them; based their textbook purchase decisions on what they deem are deliberative, informed educational moves.

This was alerted to me by a friend on Facebook. My description/reaction is as follows:

"So, biology only is going to help us design an I-phone? Ye gods, we are destroyed by ideology, lunacy and idiocy! The only "logic" I can see in this: physics and chemistry would destroy their creationist/intelligent design garbage narrative I've read they're trying to get in textbooks K-12. Texas influences a lot of education markets nationally that assume it following a rational course, which this is NOT."

We seem all firmly aboard the Pequod, 'tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine' (Ephesians 4:14); the ship of fools captained by a 1% Ahab fighting against the forces of nature and common sense. Anything that should be eliminated is the testing-industrial-complex, not science in an ever-increasing; ever-complicated world. We need more scientists, mathematicians, engineers and technologists with an appreciation for written discourse, geography and history; more importantly: a citizenry that appreciates these subjects and informed enough to demand such from its leaders and hold them accountable. A canyon gap between 1 and 99% will soon be an untraversable chasm. I do not see a stable society emerging from this Phoenix's ashes.

Controversies are manufactured to keep us divided: "Smokey James: ['Blue Collar' voice over echoing earlier line] They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place." A fill-in-the-blank modern extrapolation is pretty simple.

Chris Hedges opined on climate change, which takes an appreciation of science. The conclusions of science have long been opposed since Galileo as it destroys the narrative of authoritarians in sheep and shepherds' clothing (Canis Lupus would be too obvious), more driven by their warped sense of order and power than any concern...as sociopaths lack empathy nor real concern for the well-being of their fellow humankind, spiritual and scientific efficacy in this country.

Shoulders thrown into the effort of rowing; brine spraying our collective faces, we steady our feet above deck as someone shouts:

"There she blows!--there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!"

"Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence."

"From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

"Ignorance is the parent of fear."

There she blows, a great force of nature and alas, we cannot all be Ishmael...

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Blood rushing excerpt from my novel in progress Task Force Arrow!

Posted by Ronald T. Jones on September 21, 2013 at 8:51pm

Thirty light war cruisers swarmed the assault boat Matador as it rounded a sharply angled corner of the station. Ruby lasers lanced from Matador’s emitters, slashing the night. Six Association cruisers bucked violently as the lethal lasers cut through shielding and hull, boring into interiors, igniting reactors. A center cruiser exploded, its blast wave sending the others spinning away. More Association cruisers sped toward the Matador, but one veered off in a slightly different direction. It brushed close to the station’s equator covering a two-mile distance in less than three seconds. Then it dipped abruptly, crashing into the station in an impact so shattering the ship vaporized. A tremendous flash sprouted from the collision. It subsided rapidly, revealing a vast hole from which a plume of atmosphere shot out with typhoon strength.
The Matador’s captain, Rajay Thapoory, looked at the monitor in puzzlement. “Did that ship just deliberately…?”
A second cruiser raced toward the impact site, pausing fractionally to release clusters of small objects into the hole.
“Troop pods,” his XO said.
Thapoory shook his head. “Why are they deploying troops inside the station?”
The XO examined a sensor screen. “They’re bringing in more than troops, sir. Configuration scans are picking up bulk material inside some of those pods.”
Captain Thapoory took a handful of seconds to process the XO’s report. His eyes slowly narrowed. “Contact the Far Walker.”

Greggory, Lian, and Grimes stood around the display tank watching an image playback of the Association cruiser slamming into the station and the subsequent pod drops.
“What the hell…” Grimes’ expression registered shock and revulsion. “The Matador never touched that ship…that was a suicide crash!”
“If they wanted to hole the station, for whatever reason, they could have simply used firepower,” said Lian.
“It would have been too obvious.” Greggory turned away from the tank, facing Lian and Grimes. “Using a crash to disguise deployments inside the station is a good plan. The one, big flaw is that it still drew our attention.” He looked briefly at the display. “I think I know what they’re trying to do. Contact PSWO and Infantry. Tell them to mobilize.”

Tzayber Lur, Assault Leader, 12th Complement of the Bringers’ Fist Division growled into his mouth comm. The fifty soldiers under his command quickened their debarkation from the troop pod. High-speed winds screamed and whipped about, escaping through a massive breach above produced by the cruiser’s impact. Tzaybur Lur belted out praise chants for the 3,000 martryrs aboard who willingly gave their lives to pave the way for the Bringers’ Fist.
More pods soared through the breach, faster than they should have. Two bumped into each other and whirled out of control. One pod received the worst of the contact and tumbled twice when it hit the surface before skidding on its side and plowing into a thick support column. A handful of Bringers’ Fist soldiers managed to claw their way free of the mangled wreckage. Less than half of them cleared it before a pierced reactor gave up its volotile energies, consuming what was left of the pod.
Tzayber Lur chanted for the pod fatalities as well. Such were the hazards of a mission. They needed to dash halfway through the station, assemble five pulse cannons and blast that Demon helper ship out of its repair dock. And they needed to be quick about it.
“Move it, move it!” the Assault Leader bellowed, activating his powered armor boost to counteract the blasting wind. Chances were his Complement was not going to be the first to reach and secure the designated launch zone, but he was damned if it was going to be last.

Unit Leader Karinia Baez, Planetside Special Warfare Ops, crouched just within the entrance of a storefront facing a five-lane concourse. With a mental command to her helmet’s visual, she zoomed in on enemy movements at six hundred yards and closing. Fifty-one hostiles in heavy powered armor tramped swiftly down the concourse. A gathering of station occupants stood along both sides of the concourse, observing the soldiers’ approach. The occupants were part of a minority that chose not to evacuate the station. Perhaps they thought the situation was not serious enough to warrant so drastic a departure. Or maybe they were among those who were deeply loyal to the High Cleric and felt it unneassary to leave. After all, what did they, as true believers, have to fear?
A readout flashed above Baez’ helm display identifying the Association soldiers as members of the Bringers’ Fist, an elite detachment. Fist soldiers were the most highly trained and fanatical of all the forces under the High Cleric’s control. They were also incalculably ruthless.
A foreboding chill crept through Baez as the armored soldiers neared the bystanders.
The next instant they leveled cannon-size blaster rifles on the crowd.
Searing death funnelled from fifty-one barrels, slashing and burning through bodies with indiscriminate savagery.
Half the bystanders were reduced to charred chunks of flesh before the other half gained the presence of mind to scatter.
Some of the soldiers targeted their fleeing victims, blasting them apart in coherent ripples of light. Others preferred to kill up close, using narrow blades that extended from the tips of their armor suited arms. The blades were three feet long, less than an inch wide with ultra durable diamond edges that glowed emerald green.
Despite being no stranger to violence, Baez flinched when a pair of armored suits chased down four bystanders and hacked them to pieces.
The butchery continued as streaks of metallic green met flesh and bone, sending body parts flinging away on streamers of blood. With every bystander dead, the soldiers resumed their advance across a gore-splattered surface.

Baez reverted to normal vision and took a deep breath in an effort to tamp down her rage. Patience, patience. She sent a message through her subdermal comm. “First contacts are close to position.”
“Copy,” a voice replied. “Ready to light ‘em up.”
“Wait for my word,” Baez said with a smirk. She was ready too. The PSWO operative melted into the shadow of her dim hideaway and withdrew.

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On The Brane...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 20, 2013 at 10:02am


This challenges a holy grail of physics, and relates to The Standard Model; how we describe the four forces of nature and how they interact, even the Higgs Boson.

I almost hesitate to post it because many who do not "believe in the Big Bang Theory" will shout: aha! I say: ah, science - self-examining, exploring; learning more tomorrow than we thought we knew yesterday. Quantum mechanics had its trials and tribulations: Weins Law, Rayleigh-Jeans Law and the "ultraviolet catastrophe" eventually getting to Max Planck (of Planck's constant) and light seen as quanta. This eventually led to Einstein and the photoelectric effect in his Annus mirabilis papers generated in a lowly patent office in Munich. Thus we have the Internet, I-phones, flat screens, etc.

This description matches some of the wording I've seen over the years of the "universe as hologram" and admittedly either didn't understand or regarded as new age mystic pop culture. This challenge will have to be peer-reviewed and experiments performed to verify. Stay tuned...

However, Pluto is still not a planet.

A few nine-year-olds will send me hate mail now...Smiley

It could be time to bid the Big Bang bye-bye. Cosmologists have speculated that the Universe formed from the debris ejected when a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole — a scenario that would help to explain why the cosmos seems to be so uniform in all directions.

The standard Big Bang model tells us that the Universe exploded out of an infinitely dense point, or singularity. But nobody knows what would have triggered this outburst: the known laws of physics cannot tell us what happened at that moment.

“For all physicists know, dragons could have come flying out of the singularity,” says Niayesh Afshordi, an astrophysicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada.

It is also difficult to explain how a violent Big Bang would have left behind a Universe that has an almost completely uniform temperature, because there does not seem to have been enough time since the birth of the cosmos for it to have reached temperature equilibrium.

In our Universe, a black hole is bounded by a spherical surface called an event horizon. Whereas in ordinary three-dimensional space it takes a two-dimensional object (a surface) to create a boundary inside a black hole, in the bulk universe the event horizon of a 4D black hole would be a 3D object — a shape called a hypersphere. When Afshordi’s team modelled the death of a 4D star, they found that the ejected material would form a 3D brane surrounding that 3D event horizon, and slowly expand.

The authors postulate that the 3D Universe we live in might be just such a brane — and that we detect the brane’s growth as cosmic expansion. “Astronomers measured that expansion and extrapolated back that the Universe must have begun with a Big Bang — but that is just a mirage,” says Afshordi.

Nature: Did a hyper-black hole spawn the Universe?
Physics arXiv: Out of the White Hole: A Holographic Origin for the Big Bang

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new creative weapon of choice, the tablet

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on September 18, 2013 at 1:52pm

"I see you have constructed a new light saber, your skills are complete."

Hi all, I know many have thought of this but I thought I'd mention it because I'm having so much fun. Yeah, yeah, smartphones everybody's got one. Except me, I got an old school cellphone so that I'm not bothered by endless txt, emails and calls or my own fiddl'n with the darn thing. I was in the market for a new laptop, one with longer battery life, light weight yet some power. I kept seeing the tablets at the various stores. I resisted for so long, finally pick one up for a closer look. Smartphones/cellphones, OK, the 7" tablet, just a big smartphone, the 10" tablet..............wait, hummmmmmmmm!

Picked up a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (it's OK to get an iPad, sheeech!). It does everything I need and has Wacom touch and stylus technology to boot. I can draw on the thing. It's like having a Wacom Cintiq............almost. The apps are all Android apps, there are numerous drawing apps including Photoshop Touch, Autodesk Sketch Pro and one called ArtFlow which I like very much. The Note app is wonderful, you can insert pictures, write/draw/type your ideas. I'm always in waiting rooms, running trips, finding a quite spot, watching a vid while working. It has two cams, takes very good pictures and videos. I recorded a couple of bands, two dance troops and a walk through at a local Art festival. I take it everywhere. I'm thinking velcro dots in the car, around the house. My old Chevy has been instantly upgraded.

All done, I can transfer pics and vids to my laptop via Dropbox (cloud transfer/storage) or use a flash drive. I'm still discovering hidden functions. Tablets don't have the full power of the force, but does well with what energy it commands. 7 hour battery life, wi-fi and sci-fi (thought I'd throw that in there!). I use a lot of note pads so this device is like having an endless roll of paper towels, stacks of envelopes and sticky notes galore.

Being in my usual semi-retirement economic crunchiness, a new laptop with the weapons of glory would have cost me a grand. This thing cost me less than 1/2 a grand, most apps were free. The big time apps are free but are advance feature locked, $4-$10 to unlock. That's Photoshop for $10, ok Photoshop Touch. Still it does a lot and I can still transfer pics over to GIMP on my laptop.

So, what's so sci-fictionee about a tablet? I imagine my self like those artist sitting on the river bank, easel, brushes, paints, tam, sweet air, curious walker-bys...........only without the setup, the mess, the cleanup. I'm in the role imagined. And passer-bys? "Hi, is that a Nook or iPad?" "Why no, it's a Galaxy 10.1!" Sounds kind of spacey.

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Luis Alvarez...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 18, 2013 at 8:35am


The Nobel Prize in Physics 1968
Luis Alvarez

Born: 13 June 1911, San Francisco, CA, USA

Died: 1 September 1988, Berkeley, CA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Prize motivation: "for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis"

Field: Particle physics

Luis W. Alvarez was born in San Francisco, Calif., on June 13, 1911. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Chicago in 1932, a M.Sc. in 1934, and his Ph.D. in 1936. Dr. Alvarez joined the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, where he is now a professor, as a research fellow in 1936. He was on leave at the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1940 to 1943, at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago in 1943-1944, and at the Los Alamos Laboratory of the Manhattan District from 1944 to 1945.

Early in his scientific career, Dr. Alvarez worked concurrently in the fields of optics and cosmic rays. He is co-discoverer of the "East-West effect" in cosmic rays. For several years he concentrated his work in the field of nuclear physics. In 1937 he gave the first experimental demonstration of the existence of the phenomenon of K-electron capture by nuclei. Another early development was a method for producing beams of very slow neutrons. This method subsequently led to a fundamental investigation of neutron scattering in ortho- and para-hydrogen, with Pitzer, and to the first measurement, with Bloch, of the magnetic moment of the neutron. With Wiens, he was responsible for the production of the first 198Hg lamp; this device was developed by the Bureau of Standards into its present form as the universal standard of length. Just before the war, Alvarez and Cornog discovered the radioactivity of 3H (tritium) and showed that 3He was a stable constituent of ordinary helium. (Tritium is best known as a source of thermonuclear energy, and 3He has become of importance in low temperature research.)

Nobel Prize: Biographical, Nobel Lecture, Banquet Speech

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Sufficiently Advanced Technology...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 17, 2013 at 5:54pm

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke

I sadly see an arms race brewing:

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Today, Lu Lan at Zhejiang University in China and a few pals have actually created the first invisibility cloak designed using topology optimization. They carved it out of Teflon and it took them all of 15 minutes using a computer-controlled engraving machine. “The fabrication process of a sample is substantially simplified,” they say.

The resulting “Teflon eyelid” invisibility cloak hides a cylindrical disc of metal the size of poker chip from microwaves. But crucially, its performance closely matches the prediction of the computer simulation.

Physics arXiv:
Experimentally demonstrated an unidirectional electromagnetic cloak designed by topology optimization

Also:

Pro and Con, i.e. before I get too excited, I'd like to hedge my bets!

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Quantum Algae...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 17, 2013 at 5:59pm
Image of the diffraction grating made by the researcher

The exoskeleton of a tiny organism has been used as a diffraction grating by researchers in Vienna, who have carried out a molecular interferometry experiment using it. The team showed that a coherent molecular beam could be diffracted from the silicon-based cell walls of a marine alga. Algae are cheap and easily available, so replacing costly nanodevices with them in interferometry experiments would be beneficial, according to the researchers.

Contrary to classical mechanics, quantum physics states that a particle can act like a wave and vice versa – an idea that was first proposed by Nobel-prize-winning physicist Louis de Broglie back in 1923. While the idea that tiny particles such as electrons could behave like a wave came as a shock, scientists now know that even objects a million times more massive than electrons, such as complex molecules, also show quantum interference. Massive molecules have very small wavelengths and therefore a grating with extremely thin and closely spaced slits is needed to observe their diffraction. Currently, such sophisticated devices are specially fabricated using nanotechnology techniques.

Physics World: Diatoms bring the quantum effects to life

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Cursing The Darkness...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 15, 2013 at 8:51am


"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

"The dumbing down of Americans is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."

Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark."

This is a significant date: first of all, it's Hispanic Heritage Month; 5 years ago along with the global financial meltdown, my mother celebrated what would be her last birthday this side of the grave. She lasted until the Thursday before Mother's Day in 2009. She would have been 88 today.

This is one of my favorite quotes by Carl. A shame "The Sagan Effect" is part of the lexicon. We could use some more popularizing of science (kudos to Science Channel), our consumption of which is only as end-users of high tech devices. Neil deGrasse Tyson's revival of "Cosmos" can't come soon enough.

It is quite evident by the turn of recent events, candidates for and in office; ridiculous public statements, inane sound bites parroted; conspiracy theories ad nauseum - cabals, crystals, dogs and cats living together (Ghostbusters - couldn't resist), Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, faking six moon landings (and one near-fatal attempt), pyramids by aliens, poltergeists, UFOs and our propensity to concern ourselves with the goings on of "reality shows" - this quote is more haunting than his contribution to modeling and warning the aftermath of thermonuclear war: a nuclear winter. The real cabal conspiracy is NOT wanting to teach critical thinking skills (they now "admit" a wording gaffe/faux pas); "teaching the controversy"; of the dumbing down of Americans in prime time.

A technocracy is so far only hypothetical and the basis of the fictional Superman's alien society (and, it apparently didn't work out well for them). I don't expect an overnight appreciation for science from any of our leaders, but such would help in the long run. It would help Congress's approval rating if they could regulate Wall Street instead the Citizen's United vice-versa. At least have a discussion about how technology is rapidly diminishing the need for certain career fields that can only exacerbate the income gap. Instead, for 126 days of "labor," we get meaningless votes on the taxpayer's time and dollar as we sleepwalk the "American Dream."

We slouch nonchalantly towards dystopia - somewhere between Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Octavia Butler's Parable series. We ignore evidence we think inconvenient to our beliefs; create controversies in science classes that do not exist to satisfy a constituency that thinks dinosaur bones were placed in digs by beelzebub The crazy thing is people run on this claptrap...and get elected. Then, they wish to be president and have the nuclear codes to Armageddon. The bellicose bravado expressed by certain pundits on the Syrian conflict is prime example of rushing in where angels fear to tread. With noted exception of the Iran-Contra affair star shredder and smuggler, no pundit has any military experience. There are implications for the region and the globe beyond chemical weapons. Biological life is not like "The SIMS": there is no reset button.

What is frightening is that this dumbing down process may actually be a prelude to global conflagration: idiocy before oblivion. I don't begrudge anyone's beliefs and don't impose mine, but the "New Heaven and a New Earth" hopefully has a solution to a warming climate, and post nukes - mechanism to dissipate radiative half-life followed by surviving environmental chill, or full life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on this pale blue dot...will not be possible.

Scientific American: More Cuts Loom for US Science

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Self-Assembling Quantum Devices...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 14, 2013 at 9:56am


TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: One of the great goals of applied physics is to make quantum information processing a robust and common technique. To achieve this, physicists will need a simple way of storing and manipulating quantum information, preferably at room temperature.

There is no shortage of possible quantum storage devices but one sits head and shoulders above most others: a nitrogen atom that has replaced a carbon atom in a diamond lattice, an arrangement known as a nitrogen-vacancy centre.

Today, an international team of physicists say they’ve used biological self-assembly techniques to make diamond-based prototypes of the quantum information storage devices of this type. That’s a development that has the potential to profoundly influence the future of computing.

The key to all this is nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond which behave like single atoms. They can store photons, emit them again and interact with other nitrogen-vacancy centres nearby. In fact, their photon storage ability is legendary, holding them, and the information the carry, for periods stretching to milliseconds. At room temperature.

Physics arXiv: Self-assembling hybrid diamond-biological quantum devices

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V'Ger...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 13, 2013 at 7:11am
Artist conception, Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Not exactly "warp factor one," but its a start...Smiley


PASADENA, Calif -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun.

New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our sun are still evident. A report on the analysis of this new data, an effort led by Don Gurnett and the plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

"Now that we have new, key data, we believe this is mankind's historic leap into interstellar space," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "The Voyager team needed time to analyze those observations and make sense of them. But we can now answer the question we've all been asking -- 'Are we there yet?' Yes, we are."

NASA: NASA Spacecraft Embarks on Historic Journey Into Interstellar Space
Star Trek Memory Alpha Wiki: V'Ger

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Eye See You...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 12, 2013 at 6:34am
Kenneth Chau is excited about the newly published research that explains how he and his colleagues developed a negative-index material that can be sprayed onto surfaces and act as a lens.

A team of researchers, including a University of British Columbia engineer have made a breakthrough utilizing spray-on technology that could revolutionize the way optical lenses are made and used.



Kenneth Chau, an assistant professor in the School of Engineering at UBC’s Okanagan campus,worked with principal investigator Henri Lezec and colleagues Ting Xu, Amit Agrawal, and Maxim Abashin at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland on the development of a flat lens. Their work is published in the May 23 issue of the journal Nature.



Nearly all lenses – whether in an eye, a camera, or a microscope – are presently curved, which limits the aperture, or amount of light that enters.



“The idea of a flat lens goes way back to the 1960s when a Russian physicist came up with the theory,” Chau says. “The challenge is that there are no naturally occurring materials to make that type of flat lens. Through trial and error, and years of research, we have come up with a fairly simple recipe for a spray-on material that can act as that flat lens.” (1)
A NIST team has created an ultraviolet (UV) metamaterial formed of alternating nanolayers of silver (green) and titanium dioxide (blue). Credit: Lezec/NIST

For the first time, scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet (UV) light in such an unusual way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution three-dimensional imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields.



"Conventional lenses only capture two dimensions of a three-dimensional object," says one of the paper's co-authors, NIST's Ting Xu. "Our flat lens is able to project three-dimensional images of three-dimensional objects that correspond one-to-one with the imaged object."



An article published in the journal Nature* explains that the new lens is formed from a flat slab of metamaterial with special characteristics that cause light to flow backward—a counterintuitive situation in which waves and energy travel in opposite directions, creating a negative refractive index. (2)

1. UBC engineer helps pioneer flat spray-on optical lens
2. The Better to See You With: Scientists Build Record-Setting Metamaterial Flat Lens

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The Most Astonishing Fact...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 9, 2013 at 5:44pm
An artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope observing the Universe. Credit: Northrop Grumman

The first video embed has the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson (title credit); the second Nobel laureate John Mather.

The most astonishing fact is not just as Carl Sagan quipped we are made of "star stuff": is that we have within humanity persons threatened by that knowledge; re-fighting the war between the church and Galileo (which, by the way has yet to pardon him...just saying).

The most astonishing fact is we're more comfortable with telling our children of controversies that don't exists; information that could start careers in STEM fields; threatened by critical thinking skills while the rest of the world passes the US by.

NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) will be sensitive enough to pick out the light from the earliest stars and galaxies to form in the Universe, only about 400 million years after the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago.

It will split infrared light from these objects into a spectrum, helping astronomers to find out their chemical make-up, physical properties, age and distance. NIRSpec will be able to carry out its observations on up to 100 such objects at a time.



Demonstrating its versatility, NIRSpec will also study the early stages of starbirth across our own Milky Way galaxy, and analyse the atmospheric properties of exoplanets orbiting other stars, checking the potential for life to exist there.

The most astonishing fact is that mere excerpt above to the link below (I found out Saturday to some)...is controversy.

SEN: Europe completes second instrument for James Webb Space Telescope

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O.T.H.E.R . SCI FI MAGAZINE SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE - OCTOBER 1, 2013

Posted by Penelope on September 8, 2013 at 9:53pm

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS…

TRUNCATED DEADLINE! 

OCTOBER 1, 2013

(for OCTOBER 31, 2013 launch date)

“O.T.H.E.R.” SCI FI

_________

 

OVER        THE          HORIZON          EMPIRES                     RISE

 

            OTHER Sci Fi  is a Magazine/Journal dedicated to the creation and promotion of SciFi, Speculative Fiction, Horror and Fantasy works of Epic proportion focusing on diversity and featuring diverse civilizations, subcultures, worlds and universes in alternate and crafted realities.

 

SUBMISSIONS

We are looking for works to be included in the Premier Edition to be launched on October  31, 2013:

FEATURES

  1. Focusing on Words and Artwork: We are seeking a collaboration of  written word and graphic artists where two or more individuals in any of the below subgenres have come together  in an effort to add a dimension of  realism to their work.  Both the written work (no less than 1000 and no more than 5000 words either short story or excerpt and Artwork must be submitted simultaneously. Writer and Artist short profiles and contact information will be published along with the work.

 

  1. NOVEL EXCERPT:  We are seeking an Excerpt from a Horror Novel no less than 2500 words and no more than 5000 words long. The novel must be completed and either be published (self-publishing is fine) or have a launch date set within three months of  October 31, 2013.  A short author profile and contact information will be published along with the excerpt.

 

  1. NOVELIST INTERVIEW:   We are seeking a Horror Novelist to interview via audio or video (but not the novelist submitting the above-mentioned excerpt).  The novelist should be published (self-publication is fine) and have at least one novel length work in circulation.  An author profile and contact information will be published along with the interview.

 

  1. SHORT STORY (Horror)  We are seeking a short story of no less than 1500 words and not to exceed 5000 words.  We would prefer works that have not been previously published,  but if  a work fits our criteria and has been previously published, please let us know when and where the work has been in publication. Authors do not have to be previously published.  A short author profile and contact information will be published along with the story.

 

  1. SHORT STORIES  We are seeking a short stories not less than 1500 words and not to exceed 5000 words.  We are seeking  short stories in the areas of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Alternative Reality and Subcultures and Civilizations. We would prefer works that have not been previously published,  but if  a work fits our criteria and has been previously published, please let us know when and where the work has been in publication. Authors do not have to be previously published.  A short author profile and contact information will be published along with the story.

 

THE SUBGENRES OF INTEREST FOR EXCERPTS, SHORT STORIES AND INTERVIEWS ARE AS FOLLOWS BELOW. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO SUBMIT IF YOUR WORKS FALL INTO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:

FANTASY:  Beyond the common tropes of sprites, and knights universes of fantasy exist that have yet to be completely explored. Here is where the fantastical takes shape. Successful Fantasy submissions must focus on more alternate fantastical elements, specifically those created by diverse authors and which focus on characters and lands which show cultural divergence from the common fantasy themes.

HORROR:  Digging into the fertile grounds of diverse cultural memes and backgrounds the successful submissions will explore the concept of “horror” in new and alternative universes and/or with creatures, beings, gods and monsters reflective of this world’s diverse populations.

SCIENCE FICTION:  Without actual science “science fiction” is really magic or fantasy.  Successful submissions in this area will focus on stories based in either hard or soft science,  the issues and themes that are commonly associated with  “science” fiction, space opera, etc.  and reflective of this world’s diverse populations and cultures.

ALTERNATE REALITIES:       One of the most intriguing areas of speculative fiction is the alternate reality construct.  Successful submissions will provide readers with either people or places already known and familiar while twisting or modifying them to create a unique literary experience.

SUBCULTURES & CIVILIZATIONS:           Ethnicities, species, languages, physiology, religion, geographic locations, prejudices, preferences and more all play a role in the development of cultures and subcultures. Successful submissions will create compelling cultural constructs and develop realistic cultures that we can identify with.

 

SEND SUBMISSIONS TO:

administrator @otherscifi.com .  Please send all submissions in an attachment in either  rtf or WORD format.

If you have any questions regarding the submissions process  contact me at penelope@penelopeflynn.com

 

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Xzytovhorre. Part One.

Posted by Barry K. Nelson on September 7, 2013 at 8:49pm

       Sparky began to shiver as he sat near the muddy bank of the Monongahala River in KcKeesport. The small brown furred Chihuahua found that being out on the river at night was always too cold for him to tolerate. But he had no choice as he was here with his companion, Jake. The five foot, four inch tall, twelve year old black male wearing cut off blue jeans shorts and a black Pittsburgh Steelers T shirt with the large, bold number seven on it’s chest. His white sneakers were stained with moist mud from the river bank. Jake was holding a fishing rod in his hands. It’s line cast into the murky water. Standing next to Jake was his older brother Sid. A twenty two year old standing six feet tall. His white sneakers standing out against his black shirt and shorts. Sid also had a fishing rod in his hands. With it’s line cast in the water in the hope of catching a fish. Sparky admired Jake and Sid’s ability to withstand the cold. But in spite of their comfort Sparky hand just one thought going through his mind. I want to go home.

         As Sparky looked up at Jake he knew that Jake was content to be out here since the sun went down and it turned dark. He also suspected that Jake was not satisfied with the three small fish that he caught and was holding in the white plastic bucket on the ground behind him. Jake was still trying to catch more. But as far as Sparky was concerned the those three fish were enough. He began to shiver as he looked across the rapidly flowing dark water. Then he looked back at Jake and let out a high pitched growl. But Jake ignored him as he was involved in a conversation with Sid. The lack of response only caused Sparky to growl louder.

        Jake and Sid both looked down at Sparky. Jake smiled. “What’s the matter. You hungry? Want me to fry you up some fresh fish?”

        Is there a stove out here? Sparky’s thought. Take me home and I’ll cook the fish myself.

        “We’ve been out here for six hours and all we got are three fish,” Sid grumbled. “Maybe we should give Sparky a rod and let him help catch something.”

        Sparky glanced over at Sid. Maybe you should give me the car keys and I’ll drive myself home. Jake kneeled down and gave Sparky a quick pat on the top of his head. “Are you cold boy? You look like you’re shivering. Don’t worry. We’ll go home in a couple of hours. Right after we catch a few more fish.”

        A couple more hours out here? Sparky’s grumpy thought. He was tempted to run home by himself, if it were not for the fact that they had driven too far away from the familiar sights and scents of their home territory. Sparky knew that he would get lost too easily. He had no choice but to continue shivering in the cold while Jake and Sid continued to spend more time trying to catch fish that would never appear.

        Jake stood back up and began to crank the small handle of his reel. “Maybe I’ll have better luck if I change my bait.”

        Sparky growled. You changed your bait ten minutes ago. Your luck hasn’t gotten any better. Sparky looked up at Jake. That was when he noticed something strange. It was a bright green ball of light streaking across the night sky. Sparky followed the light as it left a long green trail in it’s wake. Then to his surprise the ball of light exploded into a massive halo of fire, with a loud boom. Startled by the sudden explosion Jake and Sid both jumped, then looked up to the sky. Sparky let out a yelp of fear when he saw seven large flaming fragments falling from the explosion and heading in different directions.

        Jake pointed up to the sky,” What the hell was that?”

        “An airplane blowing up?” Sid theorized.

        Jake pointed to one of the burning fragments falling towards the river. “It’s coming our way. Lets get the hell out of here,”

        Jake dropped his fishing pole and quickly scooped Sparky up from the ground. Carrying Sparky in his arms Jake joined Sid as they both ran from the river and across a short field to reach the street. There were three cars stopped in the middle of the street. Their drivers getting out to look at the object falling from the sky. Sparky felt the tight constriction of Jakes arms. As well as being bumped and jerked by his each running step. Jake and Sid stopped running when they crossed the street and turned around just in time to see one of the huge objects hitting the river. A tower of water was hurled high into the air when the thing crashed into the river. A twenty foot tall wave flowed out from the point of impact and washed up onto the shore. The water flowed across the field and nearly reached the street. Jake turned to follow the second object that was falling towards an area a mile down the street. The object hit the ground with a loud boom that filled the air. Sparky yelped out, fearful that the explosion’s huge expanding fireball would reach this spot where Jake and Sid were standing. He was relieved to see that the fireball dissipated before it could reach them.

        Sparky was still shivering. But now fear was his motivation instead of the cold. He looked out to the river. There was a tall tower of steam rising up from the water after the impact of the first object. He turned his head and looked down the street at the red glow of the fires left behind by the second object.

        “Did you see that?” Jake exclaimed. Two of these things came down. What the hell were they?”

        “Hell if I know,” replied Sid. “Lets go down the street and check that one out.”

        Bad idea, Sparky thought. He looked back out to the river. The steam was still rising, now joined by a wide circle of bubbles churned up from the water. As Sparky studied the sight of the impact his senses, unique to canines, picked up a consciousness laying beneath the water. Sparky felt intrigued, as he had never felt anything like this before. Allowing his curiosity to get the better of him, Sparky leaped out of Jake’s arms and ran towards the river.

        “Sparky. Where the hell are you going? Get back here,” the voice of Jake called out.

        Sparky ignored Jake and continued towards the water. His feet became soaked as he padded across the wet ground. He stopped just a few feet away from the river bank and gazed into the flowing water. From deep within the river he could still sense the consciousness. Sparky had no idea what it was. But it was large. And it was powerful. He could feel it’s power increasing as he maintained his contact with it.

        Sparky was startled when Jake scooped him up. “Come on you crazy dog. Fishing trip is over,” Jake scolded.

        With Sparky in his arms Jake followed Sid to their blue Ford that was parked at the curb just a few feet away. Still holding on to Sparky, Jake sat in the front passenger’s seat. Sid sat behind the wheel and started the car.

        “We might be able to get there before the cops show up,” Sid told Jake. “It looked like it hit that field near the old apartment complex.”

        Sparky was familiar with the area. The Crawfield Heights apartment complex has been abandoned for years. If the second object when down in that area then hopefully no one was injured. As Sid was driving down the street Sparky squeezed out from Jake’s arms and stood up at the passenger’s side window. He watched several people on the sidewalk running to reach the scene. From the long row of houses people were emerging to see what happened. In the far distance his keen ears picked up the sounds of sirens. As they continued driving the road up ahead became congested by a long line of cars. Several drivers in these cars were getting out to walk to the field. In the opposite lane there was no traffic coming out from the area. Sparky predicted that Jake and Sid would also have to leave the car if they wanted to investigate the thing that dropped down from the sky. A quarter of a mile up ahead there was the bright red glow of a fire.

        “This traffic isn’t moving,” Sid grumbled. “Why the hell are these jackasses getting out of their cars?”

        “Can’t you go around?” Jake asked. “Drive in the other lane.”

        Sid laughed. “Oh sure. Drive in the lane with on coming traffic. The cops will be on me in five seconds when they get here.” Sid turned his head to look out of the rear window. Sparky also turned to look. There was a blue pick up truck approaching from behind. It stopped just a few feet from the car. “We’re going to park it and walk.”

        “Walk?” Jake asked.

        “You want to get a close up look at this thing before the cops show up and move everybody back?”

        Sid pulled back on the small lever at his right hip to shift the car in reverse. The car moved back a few feet. Sid shifted the lever forward and turned the steering wheel to the right to park in an open spot at the curb. Jake grabbed Sparky in his arms. Then he and Sid got out of the car. They both began to run down the sidewalk. They approached two white teenaged boys as they were running to reach the area where the thing came down.

        Jake called out to one of the teenagers. “Dude. Did you see what came down?”

        “No. But I felt it. It shook the whole damn house,” the teenager shouted back.

        Jake and Sid continued running. Sparky was finding it difficult to breathe while he was being carried in Jake’s tight embrace. While at the same time being shaken as Jake was running was equally discomforting. I hope this kid doesn’t kill me before get there, he thought. They continued to run, merging with several other people who were also trying to reach the area. At the end of the row of houses they came upon the ruined shells of four homes that were damaged by the force of the impact. Sid and Jake stopped for a moment to inspect the damage. They stepped over broken lumber and masonry that was scattered across the sidewalk. It appeared that no one was at home during the moment the houses were destroyed. Sparky looked about but saw no humans stirring from inside or bodies laying on the ground. 

        Sid and Jake continued moving down the sidewalk until they came upon a large field. Sid and Jake pushed their way through the crowd of people that had gathered here to get in front so that they can have a clear view of the field. The field was littered by small bits of burning debris. Several yards up ahead there was a large blackened area surrounding an even larger crater. Within this crater was a sight that caused an immediate reaction from both Sid and Jake.

        “Whoa!” both teenagers gasp out.

        Whoa! was the same thought from Sparky.

        Protruding from the crater was a massive, green crystalline object. Oblong in shape. Standing fifty feet high. Sparky’s wide, unblinking eyes stared at the object for several seconds. Then like he did with the object that had fallen in the river he began to sense a consciousness. Within the object there was something alive. Something powerful. But unlike the thing resting at the bottom of the river this power was radiating an evil. Sparky whined in fear as he was feeling this evil growing stronger.

        “What’s the matter boy?” Jake asked Sparky. “You want to get a closer look?”

        No! I do not want to get a closer look! Sparky’s thought.

        “Come on. Lets take a closer look,” Jake told Sid.

        On come on! thought Sparky.

        “Sid. Get your camera out. Get a picture of this,” said Jake.

        Jake and Sid joined a few other people as they began to make a slow advance into the field to get closer to the huge object. Behind them the sounds of sirens were getting louder.

        Where are the cops when you need them? Sparky wondered.

        Jake and Sid continued their advance. Then they both stopped in their tracks when they heard a loud boom coming from the object. After a few seconds they heard it again.

        “It’s a bomb!” a female voice cried out.

        “Get back!” shouted another voice.

        There was a third boom. Jake and Sid both jumped back as the side of the object began to crack. There was another boom and the side of the object shattered. Large chunks of crystal showered the area. Then two huge, black spidery legs emerged. One of the legs ended in a long scythe blade with a serrated edge. Another boom came and the object shattered completely to reveal more of the legs that were attached to the body of a massive scorpion-like creature that was as large as a five story building. There was a huge mouth with rows of long, sharp teeth in front of it’s dark, oblong body. Above the mouth were four rows of eyes blazing red. The creature’s body was supported by it’s eight long legs. The front two of which ended in the long scythe blades. It’s long serpentine tail thrashed left and right, knocking away the final fragments of the crystal that it was sealed in. There was a chorus of male and female screams as the creature was now free and began to crawl out of the crater.

        “What the hell is that?” Jake shouted to Sid. “What is that? Are you getting a picture of this?”

        Sid whipped out his small black cell phone from his pocket and held it up to his face. “I’m getting it. Hold on. This image is crap. We have to get closer.”

        We don’t need to get a picture. We can watch this on the news, Sparky’s frantic thought.

Sparky gazed back at the huge monster and reestablished a connection to it’s consciousness. Sparky yelped in shock as his mind was flooded by several images. Scenes of cities beyond Earth in flaming ruins. countless skeletons littering the ground. And entire planet transformed into a graveyard. And in each of these scenes was the same monster that was standing across the field. Then a name came to Sparky’s mind. Skyron, the Devourer.

        “Get your phone out. Help me get a picture of this,” Sid shouted to Jake.

        As he was holding on to Sparky, Jake’s right hand fumbled into his pocket to reach his cell phone. “I got it. Give me a second.”

        “Hurry up. We have to get closer,” Sid shouted back.

        Get closer? Are you mentally I’ll? was Sparky’s thought. That thing destroys planets. We have to get the hell out of here.

        Two teenaged boys, holding up their cell phones with their built in cameras, took the lead and moved closer to try to get a quick snapshot of Skyron. Skyron reared up it’s two front legs with the scythe blades and opened it’s toothy mouth to let out a screeching, high pitched roar. Then several long, writhing tentacles sprouted out from it’s back. Two of the tentacles stretched out towards the two teenagers. The boys both screamed and turned to run from the tentacles, but they did not move fast enough. They screamed out as the tentacles grabbed them and lifted them up from the ground. The teens continued screaming. Their bodies thrashing about violently. A second later they became still and quiet as a white foam engulfed their bodies. Sparky was horrified as he watched their flesh melt from their bones while seemingly being absorbed into the tentacles.

        There were more screams from the crowd of onlookers who were watching the same gruesome sight. The tentacles dropped the two dead teenagers, now reduced to piles of soggy clothes and fleshless bones. Seeking more victims the tentacles were joined by several others reaching out from the monster, Skyron. They were now heading in the direction of Sid, Jake, and Sparky.

                          TO BE CONTINUED.

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