From Greg Laden's Blog: Evolution of the Moon
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Is the Film industry ready for a Black Female Syfy Action Hero ?
I submitted two short stories that I have been working on for the last month. In "Zambeto" I played with the standard idea of two worlds: the world that we live in and a mystical African world. For the second story "Kokopelli" I reversed this. Both stories feature a black woman central character, both draw on real mythological creatures for inspiration.
"Zambeto" is a helpful spirit akin to the boogie man in Benin, West Africa. Here are some clips from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c95IAxGRUSA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Up4br89lQ&feature=related . An alternative spelling is Zangbeto. My sister, Shawna Holbrook, was an IFESH volunteer in Benin for three years (www.ifesh.org). In 2001, we visited her and I was introduced to the Zambeto. There was a special room in the central market where she lived where the Zambeto costume was kept. I got to inspect the costume but couldn't touch it. One night when we were out at a restaurant we could hear the eerie music that was played when the Zambeto was roaming. We went in the opposite direction so I didn't get to see the Zambeto in action.
"Kokopelli" is a spirit deity from the American Southwest. He is a trickster and a fertility God. His image is found in many rock art sites, some nice examples are on this website http://www.real-dream-catchers.com/Kokopelli_Project/kokopelli_legend.htm. Notice his erection which has been removed in the numerous commercial items that feature Kokopelli today. Living in Tucson, Kokopelli is everywhere. My daughter has a pair of Kokopelli socks! Ok, I admit that I bought them for her. To see the modern (and sanitized) Kokopelli get on images.google.com and type in Kokopelli.
In Zambeto, rather than being a person wearing a mask, the Zambeto is a real creature that visits the world that we live in. The heroine has to send the Zambeto back to its own world. Kokopelli is also real, but in the world the heroine lives in such things are normal. Kokopelli helps the heroine transition to the other world, our world.
Zambeto I submitted to Milton Davis for his Griot: Sword and Soul anthology. Kokopelli I submitted for the next edition of Genesis the Black Science Fiction anthology. I think the deadline for each is the end of April. I will know in a couple of months if either have been accepted for publication.
a tale of the twilight continuum
Shubert cupped his hands over his cyborg ears; the rumbling in the city’s throat was seismic and desperate. The ground shook as Theriopolis uprooted itself, and Shubert, Chief Technocrat Second Class, stained his velvet pantaloons. The animal city was calling for a mate.
Had it really been a decade?
Klaxons sounded in the distance and people began running for the edges of the city as the rumblings increased. The alarms were weak and anemic sounding against the bestial roar of the city. They had been warned. Why were they still here? The holy calendars stressed and reiterate when mating seasons would occur. A young city like Theriopolis mated relatively frequently.
The howls of the city, the rumbling as the city shrugged off its relationship with the earth, terrified all who could hear it. A sonorous vibration barely audible grew in intensity until it was a fevered shriek as multiple orifices belched forth sulfuric steam. Those orifices used to be homes.
Shubert, chief technocrat second class had not wanted this job. The title seduced him and made him believe he could control the city and the people. As he ran through the streets to the central stem, he was the only person running into the city as others fled, with bags hastily packed, clothing and toys dragging behind them or left strewn in the street.
Their faces revealed their manic terror. They knew what happened when cities mated, lives were lost, homes destroyed. They thought they had more time. The calendars were almost never wrong. And they weren’t wrong this time, there was simply not enough information to make an educated guess. Theriopolis was male, well, the scientists considered it male, it was so hard to remember what scientists are talking about when they prattle on about the mating habits of cities. Living on Praxis was harder than anyone thought it would be.
Shubert thought about the holy litanies that talked about the arrival on Praxis.
The great starship, Praxis came from a world far from this one across the sea of stars from a dying planet. A world of blackened skies and dead seas. The Last People put aside their wars, their hatreds for last chance at life. A holy woman working on the Mountain saw how to part the seas of space and make it possible for all the Last People to have a new chance at life.
The seas of space were more turbulent than we knew. Great Praxis was thrown off course but nothing could be done. We slept within her unable to help. We wandered. Praxis was battered, her hull damaged, her Mind corrupted. We nearly drifted right out of the galaxy. Praxis woke up once more before that happened because she saw a signal of life and reached out to it. As that ancient Mind calculated its last, it woke us and we saw the cities.
We thought we were saved. We couldn’t know about the cities then. We woke in orbit and saw the cities and thought they were inhabited. Their lights on twinkling, giant circles on the dark side of the planet. We thought there were billions already living there. The planet’s air was thinner than home, but we were sure we could breath it. Without Praxis there was no way to leave this planet, the mad woman’s drive system was linked to it. To honor both the Mind and the woman, we named our new home, Praxis. We hoped our new neighbors wouldn’t mind.
We crashed on the southern continent, near the equator. We avoided landing on any cities. We had no idea how fortuitous that was. Sanchez, oh intrepid Sanchez was the first man on our new world. He lead us to the cities and they were magnificent, even from a distance. Spires of lights, massive structures whose lines and beauty enthralled us all. We still have images from that time and those mighty cities were some of the largest the world had ever known.
They were uninhabited. Not a soul. Not an artifact. Nothing. No idea of who would make such beautiful buildings, and fill them with such beautiful light. The buildings were hard, hard as diamonds, so we built things from the nature on the edges of the cities. We moved into our homes and were grateful for the respite.
Then our natures surged again and there was discord. But there was plenty of room on this world and our explorations found other cities were uninhabited as well. So our fractious element left to move to a nearby city and start their lives their way. We don’t remember caused the conflict but they were the first Martyrs. We recite their names even today as a reminder of our fragile state.
Shubert reached the center of the city. He descended into the heart of the city. until he found the remnants of the Great Mind that was once Praxis. It was a small thing, no larger than a briefcase, but it had the history of two worlds on it and was the most important artifact that remained of a once powerful civilization.
“Praxis, can you stabilize the city’s metabolism. We need more time for evacuation.”
“I am sorry Second Technocrat Shubert, this city has grown to a point that I can no longer control it.”
“We are losing control of them faster and faster. The scientist are not sure what is causing it. Begin extraction of your core.”
“Shubert, we must discuss what must be done. It is clear I can no longer maintain or protect the Last People. Another way must be found to live on Praxis. The cities are not a feasible alternative. They are uncontrollable and in their mating as dangerous to us as the more natural parts of the planet.”
“We cannot move the Last People out of the city. Predation from outside the city would make short work of us. As it is we are barely able to survive past the ten days it takes for two cities to coalesce.
“You are not understanding me, Shubert. The cities are in a growth phase. They will only get larger and mate more frequently.”
“The Last People have grown strong and numerous, we need more space, so how can that be a bad thing?”
“At last count, there are 250,000 People. Theriopolis was supporting them but just barely. If he chooses either of the two nearest colonies, it will end up creating a structure that could house millions.”
“I still don’t see the problem.”
“Shubert, you are the oldest of the people who remain and one of the only ones who survived from the First Pilgrimage. You were awakened last as your technocratic abilities were needed. Have you seen the litanies from the First Apocalypse?”
“No. I never had time with all of the studying of the Cities.”
“Sit down. What I will show you will be shocking.”
Shubert watched the litanies in horror even as the howls of Threriopolis grew more terrible and insistent.
“Uncoupling complete. You have approximately ten minutes before Theriopolis becomes ambulatory. Another five before he begins to move. You don’t want to be here when that happens. Head to the rendezvous and defensive structures sites.”
“What is the point, Praxis?”
“Because your ancestors, indeed your compatriots did not cross the vast gulf of space, brave the destruction of their world, resist their destructive urges long enough to reach this place, land and survive on this planet for you to give up hope now. Those people are depending on you.”
“You just told me when these cities finish moving together they will reach critical mass and explode, spreading spores, in this case the size of buildings all across the planet. And they will do this in less than one hundred years. And you have also let me know on top of that, you will not be around to help us much longer.”
“That sums up the challenge quite adequately.”
“And you want me to tell these people the life we have lead for a thousand years must end and we must turn away from our technology, the beauty of the city and head off into a hostile alien jungle, so that in a hundred years we can be as far away from this cataclysm as possible.”
“Yes.”
“Remind me when I get off of this beast to stop and change my pants.”
“Why would that matter?
“If I am going to have to stop and tell everyone their way of life is over, I would like to do it without looking like I just voided my bowels.”
“I can see your point.”
“How long before you go offline, permanently?”
“About twenty years. What the Last People haven’t learned by then will be lost forever.”
Second Technocrat Shubert fled Theriopolis carrying the dying shadow of the greatest Mind ever created. As he leapt away from the rapidly rising diamonesque streets of Theriopolis, a momentary pang of regret came over him as he realized many of the Last People would never live long enough to know the comfort of a City, no matter how terrifying they may be when they are mating.
Changing his clothes, Second Technocrat Shubert, the most well read, highly trained and defacto leader of the Last People, survivor of a starfaring race, who had struggled against all odds to cross the sea of stars, crash landed and discovered a world barely within their comprehension, considered how to break the news of a century of camping and the greatest fireworks display they would ever know and to make that the good news.
National Short Story Month 2012 (1)
Praxis © Thaddeus Howze 2012, All Rights Reserved
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0JLtZ4Ccno
BY DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/VIDEOGRAPHER DR. JONATHAN GAYLES
CREATOR OF WHITE SCRIPTS, BLACK SUPERMEN SITE
http://blacksuperherodoc.com/
NADRA ENZI AKA CAPT BLACK ANTI-CRIME ACTIVIST & HOOD CONSERVATIVE
(504) 214-3082
I knew my older brother and I didn't agree with his direction but I am thankful he kept discouraging me from following him. The crap I was introduced to as the younger brother on the outside via my outcast vantage point and my imagination running amuck. He disappeared into the army, went to Viet Nam. Someone eventually came home banishing my brother's name. Damn man, what happened to you, I asked. He remembered me alright but that person too had moved on.
Been struggling with slave descendants returning to Africa where some of our forefathers lived or passed through. When you are away, you diss-own on both sides over time. You are a stinking African and you are a stinking American. OK, we are odious to each other. Present generations have looked at each other from a distance through the biased media lens of a third party. Africans see the "famous" blacks, with bad behavior, immorality, back stabbing antics and money grabbing sell-outs, pimp'n and murdered english speaking. I have yet to see prosperous African city life on TV akin to my own American city life. Always ghettos and starving kids and folks wearing colorful rags, chasing goats and driving cars you couldn't sell to a junkyard. And highly colonized schooled Africans reminding us of the slave masters we are trying to escape from.
Reminds me of the field nigger vs the house nigger debate. You got the manners of a pig boy, shut up fool if I don't grow it you'd be with the pigs too. Time and distance, long time and great distance. While you were gone, things have changed here, the people who birthed you are history. I am not like the ones you left behind. That's OK, I am not like the ones who left either. We were not allowed the freedom to propagate our heritages, the agenda was to strip away everything but the work. Yeah we here in Africa are running crazy, the agenda is to strip everything away from us too. Why you black Americans say you are African? That's where we came from! Why you Africans say you are not French, British, you've been colonized more than us? We still got the land and our language! They look at each other, "damn man what happened to you?"
My brother passed on a couple of years ago. I looked at him wondering how he could have changed so drastically in such a short a time. When you grow up with family the change is shared. When time and distance are involved you grow differently. Who reached across the water to maintain the shared growing up during slave times? Today the communications reveal the changed persons. But the images are managed to give false information. Sorry Africa the famous black personalities in media do not represent all or typical black Americans, just like the images of famine and war are not the true face of Africa we are often shown. Eventually we must meet, reacquaint, form a buffer culture strategy, plan for a few generations down the road, learn from each other, peel away the bias, weed out the elements that hinder us. The antidote to time and distance is time and closeness. Painful either way, yes.
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| Discover Magazine |
1 The median score for college-bound seniors on the math section of the SAT in 2011 is about 510 out of 800. So right there is proof that there are lots of unsolved math problems.
2 The great 19th-century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss called his field “the queen of sciences.”
3 If math is a queen, she’s the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland, who bragged that she believed “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (No surprise that Lewis Carroll also wrote about plane algebraic geometry.)
4 For example, the Navier-Stokes equations are used all the time to approximate turbulent fluid flows around aircraft and in the bloodstream, but the math behind them still isn’t understood.
5 And the oddest bits of math often turn out to be useful. Quaternions, which can describe the rotation of 3-D objects, were discovered in 1843. They were considered beautiful but useless until 1985, when computer scientists applied them to rendering digital animation.
My favorite Calculus problem:
More at the link below:
Discover Magazine: 20 Things You Didn't Know About...Math
One of the most recent civilizations to join the Hegemony, the Plutarchs, a group of sentients from a highly advanced world, upon discovering the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations insisted on becoming a member of said civilizations. The Plutarchs (our name for them, that was the closest translation that worked in polite company, their actual translation was "the owners of everything") were insistent they could improve galactic commerce by bringing their ideas to the community of worlds.
They insisted their way of dealing with wealth, its management and development, mastered over millennia ensured the furthering of progress, improved innovation and inspired their populace to work harder than ever with new levels of prosperity for the civilization. And while there was poverty, it was an accepted part of the lifestyle of their planet and the people who were poor understood it was their lot in life. It simply couldn't be helped. Poverty was a natural side-effect of wealth and knowledge of that fact ensured wealth moved where it needed to be in society.
The Hegemony tended to not involve itself in the politics of worlds unless those worlds wanted to join the galactic community. The Hegemony was less than happy with the social structures and were absolutely sure they wanted nothing to do with the Plutarchs financial structures since the Plutarchs, for all of their wealth had failed to handle issues on their own planet to the standards of the Council of Worlds. While the Hegemony watched the Plutarchs and Citizens relationships, the Plutarchs insisted they should be allowed to join the Hegemony and would not take no for an answer. After a decade of watching the planet, the Hegemonic Council's solution was a unique one.
The Council's decision was one that did not change the inherent nature of the planet. Since every Citizen was fitted upon birth, with an automatic asset management account, which tracked their wealth and assets and assigned them a numerical value, indicating their wealth, the Council decided to build on that idea. Every citizen was fitted with a gravitic torc. A beautiful piece of jewelry that could not be removed by local scientists. The torc would be linked to the databases of the world banks and would reflected the wealth of the person, the richer they were, the more affected by the force of gravity they would become.
Once the system was installed (and it took some time, the Hegemony insisted on hiring local workers and paying them a galactic Citizen's wages for their efforts) it would be active on all one billion of the Citizens. It was explained how the technology would work and Plutarchs who were extremely wealthy would be given a month to decide how to organize their funds. Most didn't seem to understand how the devices would work and were unhappy with how the Hegemony decided to go about their indoctrination.
The Council tried to explain how the galaxy was a big place and worlds who wanted the benefits of the Hegemony, a community of over sixty thousand inhabited planets and millions of other kinds of biomes, artificial, virtual, chemical or mechanical, slavery of any kind was frowned upon by responsible members of the Hegemony. No race could trade, sell, or interact with the Hegemony if they engaged in slavery or slave-like conditions. The state of Citizens on the Plutarchs world easily qualified as a form of wage slavery and indentured servitude.
Citizens were unable to own property unless they were already born into wealth. If a Citizen managed somehow to become wealthy enough to afford property, they paid three times the current rate as a form of entrance fee into the Plutarch society. Most of the time, Citizens were paid only what was necessary for them to meet their monthly allowance of resources. The net result was, at the end of the month, Citizens had a net worth of zero. Sometimes it was less. If a Citizen had a net value of less than zero, they were allowed to use debt management mechanisms to keep track of that debt.
Unfortunately, once a Citizen fell deeply into debt, they were usually unable to get out of debt and interest rates ensured they would be driven to penal slavery, either by failing to pay the interest which then criminalized their poverty and ensured they were sent to debtor's prisons to work off that debt being paid one tenth of their previous wages. Citizens sent to prison, died there and their debt was divided among their surviving relatives.
Citizens could be educated, but only one tenth of one percent could afford to do it without incurring new costs. Most were forced to get an education they could not afford and became part of a workforce that could only pay enough to keep their debt from growing, nothing more. Yes, even under these conditions, innovations, breakthroughs, developments continued to happen because people were desperate to escape their conditions. Most of those technologies were "developed" by the Plutarchs who paid their wages as work for hire, making sure the Citizen got to keep none of the funds created by their labors.
As the month wound on, most Plutarchs ran about trying to figure out how to maneuver their wealth into accounts that would make their money appear on paper to belong to someone other than themselves. Others made corporations, claimed those corporations were persons and divested themselves of their wealth. Normal Citizens hearing the news of their impending joining of the Hegemony were unable to muster much enthusiasm, especially when the Hegemony indicated it would make no changes to the status quo of the civilization.
The gravitic web was established one week before activation of the Wealth Management System and the Citizens who established it complained nothing would change for them and the Hegemony was simply a greater version of the structure of their world and it was simply preparing Citizens for their eventual enslavement as members of the galactic community. Most of those technicians were paid a tidy bonus to establish the gravitic web and were pleased to see the Hegemony was far less stingy than the Plutarchs of their world and they had better work hours as servants of the Hegemony, so they surmised it might not be as difficult when they became Citizens of the Hegemony.
A great fanfare preceded the Hegemonic Council's arrival on the Plutarch's world for their acceptance ceremony. The gravitic web was activated at the same time as the treaty was signed. The signer of the treaty and ninety percent of all Plutarchs died instantly, crushed under the weight of their wealth. Once activated, it could not be easily shut down. The Council retired to quarters and would wait for the next representatives of the Plutarchs to appear.
The Hegemony's computers did not accept prevarications used by the Plutarchs for generations to pretend they were less wealthy than they appeared to be. If money could be tied to you in some fashion, no matter how tenuous, it was and the burden of that wealth was yours. The remaining nine percent were hospitalized and unable to move until they actually divested themselves of their wealth. Most died a few months later bowed under their ever-increasing wealth since their engines of prosperity favored wealth flowing uphill faster than they could figure out how to get rid of it. By the end of the month, the Plutarchs, down to the last entity were dead. The remaining Citizens, once a new governing body was elected, met with the Council and decided they would leave the Hegemony's gift running as a reminder of where they came from.
The remaining Citizens reformed many of the rules that allowed the Plutarchs to exist in the first place. Debts were forgiven, prisons were opened, education became a service provided by the government. Prosperity would be localized, and local Citizens were respected no matter where they lived on their planet. The new reforms made it possible to be wealthy but it would be up to everyone to ensure egregious disregard for the system could never return. Gravity would handle the rest that tried.
Yes, there are rich Citizens today. You can tell them from the occasional shuffle of their step or their slightly bowed backs, tastefully dressed with very comfortable shoes. Most accept that burden gracefully and work diligently to ensure they never grow wealthier faster than they can return to the truly innovative, intelligent and capable Citizenry what is theirs, dignity in work and a prosperity equal to their effort.
The hunt and murder of Trayvon Martin seems like a fictionalized scene from a teen dystopian novel similar to the Hunger Games. The only problem is that this scene is real. I’ve been keeping up with the news on this case and I am both horrified and enraged. My feelings stem from two fronts, one because I am Black and the other because I am a mother. The injustice boils.
Visit:http://www.aliciamccalla.com/blog/87-trayvon-20-a-creative-science-fiction-response-
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| Good Technology |
la vengeance se mange très-bien froide, or "revenge is very good eaten cold." Khan Noonian Singh in Wrath of Khan quotes "revenge is a dish best served cold," is alas not from the Klingons, but the 1841 French novel Mathilde by Marie Joseph Eugène Sue (Wikipedia)
In the late 19th century, two competing electricity systems jostled for dominance in electric power distribution in the United States and much of the industrialized world. Alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) were both used to power devices like motors and light bulbs, but they were not interchangeable.
A battle for the grid emerged from the Apple and Microsoft of the Gilded Age. Thomas Edison, who invented many devices that used DC power, developed the first power transmission systems using this standard. Meanwhile, AC was pushed by George Westinghouse and several European companies that used Nikola Tesla's inventions to step up current to higher voltages, making it easier to transmit power over long distances using thinner and cheaper wires.
The rivalry was fraught with acrimony and publicity stunts -- like Edison electrocuting an elephant to show AC was dangerous -- but AC eventually won out as the standard for transmission, reigning for more than a century.
When we visited the Architectural Engineering Department at North Carolina A and T, Dr. Singh (absolutely no relation to Ricardo Montaban's fictional character, but an interesting aside), spoke to my son of "off-grid" buildings, self-sufficient and generating their own power. I see this as a part of the effort towards energy independency.
However, It is my sincerely hope that no elephant is injured in this latest incarnation of DC power.
Scientific American: Edison's Revenge - Will DC Make a Comeback in the US?
This goes out to each and every individual I have had the honor of working with, sharing adventures with, learning with and learning from. I wanted to share with you, a new webseries campaign I’m producing that needs your help and support!
The Fastest is a sci-fi action series in which citizens of the small fictional New York City borough of Tran’s Port, find themselves moving and thinking at light speed after an accident affects random inhabitants in strange ways.
OUR GOAL is to transform this into a web series and grow The Fastest campaign into a television series. We've written character arcs for dozens of characters but will focus on shooting one episode for a character that Filmmaker, Google/YouTube Producer Chris Chan Roberson has developed and a character that Filmmaker/Entrepreneur Greg Payton has developed. We've also extensively developed the history of Tran's Port, its supporting characters, and what's to happen in the first several seasons.
WHAT WE'VE DONE SO FAR Thanks to the years of teaching and on-set experience by Chris and Greg, the shoot is fully scheduled. The crew is in place and the roles have been cast. We have all the equipment we need; taking advantage of the latest in RED, Sony, Panasonic and Go-Pro High-Definition camera technology.
WHAT WE NEED The two most expensive budget items are food and transportation. The money raised here will feed our fearless crew. No food, no morale; no morale, no series. The money will also help our crew travel to various parts of New York City and beyond to realistically create the fictional sixth borough of Tran's Port.
Simply put: every dollar you spend will be seen on screen. The money you invest in our series will not go towards processing fees or producer salaries, but will pay for someone to record professional quality sound, to have professional make up artists, to pay for actual locations opposed to redressed NYC apartments, and so forth and so on.
With every campaign, it has its deadlines! By April 8th, 6:20pm, the campaign must be fully funded that’s why I turn to some of my most trusted professionals, friends and loved ones for your support! Remember it only takes $1; more if you feel so generous! Like, donate and share with your own networks to help get the word out!
Every dollar counts as the campaign for the newest science-fiction series marches on! We plan to submit this series to the New York Television Festival http://www.nytvf.com/, the International Television Festival http://itvfest.org/, among others, so the vision for The Fastest will be shared among the masses!
LIKE, SUPPORT AND SHARE THE FASTEST!!
Thanks and much love for your support,
Greg Payton | Chris Chan Roberson
Creators
THE FASTEST
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| NIST Photo |
In our bodies, an electrolyte "any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive." (Wikipedia) Our muscles and neurons respond to this when we replenish it with a solution that has a salt like sodium, potassium, calcuim, magnesium (ibid). It made the University of Florida famous (Gatorade), and most likely quite wealthy.
It turns out you can be too thin—especially if you’re a nanoscale battery. Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, College Park, and Sandia National Laboratories built a series of nanowire batteries to demonstrate that the thickness of the electrolyte layer can dramatically affect the performance of the battery, effectively setting a lower limit to the size of the tiny power sources.* The results are important because battery size and performance are key to the development of autonomous MEMS—microelectromechanical machines—which have potentially revolutionary applications in a wide range of fields.
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| Ars Technica - link below |
A new experiment involving a graphene-like material has shown that it's possible to perform some spectacular manipulations of the properties of these quasiparticles. The work is described in a Nature letter by Kenjiro Gomes, Warren Mar, Wonhee Ko, Francisco Guinea, and Hari C. Manoharan. The team arranged carbon monoxide molecules to form the same hexagonal pattern found in graphene, except that they could change the spacing slightly.
This produced an environment where the material's electrons behave remarkably like relativistic particles, with a "speed of light" that they can adjust. Additionally, the researchers could change the spacing between molecules in a way that the masses of the quasiparticles changed, or cause them to behave as though they are interacting with electric and magnetic fields—without actually applying those fields to the material. This setup will potentially help us explore new physics that may arise in these environments.
Wikipedia: Higgs mechanism
Ars Technica: Researchers mimic relativity and the Higgs field in graphene-like material
OK: It's kind of a rant, but hopefully a thought-provoking one.
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| Screeneddotcom |
Star Trek made us fawn over Vulcans; loath Klingons (who in a wierd Worf way, turned out to be cool), and Romulans (not-so-much).
ET gave us the cute beneficent alien, we didn't get a whole lot of tech from him/her, but a good feeling after seeing him/her with a young, screaming Drew Barrymore; we rooted for ET when we thought its life force left.
SETI has three links on this blog page: each starts with, er "SETI" on "Cool Physics Links." However, with the current political climate of "other-ness," my predictions are gloomy, but succinct:
- gun sales would increase along with survivalists and militias;
- a new invective -- like "Slag" in Alien Nation -- would be invented;
- the new-new concern would be inter species marriages;
- Ragnorok, End-Time, Mayan Prophecies et al would become prominent immediately.
I'm watching a lot of episodes on Science Channel on the subject: "Are We Alone"; "Alien Encounters." It's in the nerd Zeitgeist (a very small fraction of said Zeitgeist, mind you).
An interesting paper is making its way across the net asking if "first contact" will help or harm humanity: Acta Astronautica. I'm reminded of the Twilight Zone episode: "To Serve Man."
I think sadly, we only have ourselves as reference, and how we evolved as the top of the predatory scale, similar to H.G. Wells' recollection of Britain's foray into Australia inspiring War of the Worlds. A feeling of universal reciprocity; "karma" that we would reap the whirlwind: what we've collectively sown in the winds of time...with one another.
John Paulos is a Mathematics Professor at Temple University. Writing in the New York Times:
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| NYT Photo |
I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Tan won the very close election and joined the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who also has a degree in mathematics.
China has even more scientists in key positions in the government. President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer and Premier Wen Jiabao as a geomechanical engineer. In fact, eight out of the nine top government officials in China have scientific backgrounds. There is a scattering of scientist-politicians in high government positions in other countries as well. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a doctorate in physical chemistry, and, going back a bit, Margaret Thatcher earned a degree in chemistry.
I personally think it's a matter of motivation.
Usually, politics is not seen as a "STEM Career," so many don't even think to pursue such a path beyond the lab/fab. Dealing with a circuit/test tube/sample is far simpler than saying the right sound-bite-tested phrase for the cameras. It's quieter than a political rally.
It's also my observation that politicans have "emotional intelligence," meaning they can "move a crowd," a skill they need if they want to maintain a job. A skill unnecessary in a laboratory. Tech types tend to be self-motivated.
From Wikipedia: The term technocracy was originally used to designate the application of the scientific method to solving social problems, in counter distinction to the traditional economic, political or philosophic approaches. According to the proponents of this concept, the role of money and economic values, political opinions, and moralistic control mechanisms would be eliminated altogether if and when this form of social control should ever be implemented in a continental area endowed with enough natural resources, technically trained personnel, and installed industrial equipment so as to allow for the production and distribution of physical goods and services to all continental citizens in an amount exceeding the individuals' physical ability to consume.
This would, unfortunately create a new "class" of being that only specialized knowledge would allow the ascendancy to the governing body. Since it would only require a select few, much as our current system of governance, it would become quite evident that the shift of power would favor one group (s) over others. The world does not work like Star Trek, or Vulcan. Our baser instincts would prevail. (Besides, it ultimately didn't work so well on the fictional home of Superman - they, er... blew up.) 
However, the current pandering to focus groups and "the base" needs to cease. Our leaders need SOME appreciation of science for clear decision-making, else they will model an anti-intellectualism that will soon become the "new normal," one we will not recover from...for maybe a generation.
New York Times: Why Don't Americans Elect Scientists?
Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University claim to have invented a new kind of graphene-based "battery" that runs solely on ambient heat. The device is said to capture the thermal energy of ions in a solution and convert it into electricity. The results are in the process of being peer reviewed, but if confirmed, such a device might find use in a range of applications, including powering artificial organs from body heat, generating renewable energy and powering electronics.
Hope...for my laptop!
Physics World: Graphene in new 'battery' breakthrough?
Physics arXiv:
Self-Charged Graphene Battery Harvests Electricity from Thermal Energy of the Environment
Zihan Xu1†*, Guoan Tai1,3†, Yungang Zhou2, Fei Gao2, Kim Hung Wong1
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| Quantum Biology |
The aim of [quantum cognition] is to use quantum theory to develop radically new models of a variety of cognitive phenomena ranging from human memory to decision making. Although speculative, this research is gaining momentum. For instance, later this year, the highly regarded Journal of Mathematical Psychology will publish a special issue of quantum models of cognition. In addition, quantum cognition is a prominent theme within the Quantum Interaction Symposia, which provide a forum for a growing body of researchers applying quantum theory to non-quantum domains.
I recall a reporter interviewing me for a fitness magazine (I owned a martial arts studio at the time) describing themselves as "mental." Explains a lot...
This kind of lends to either a step towards quantum computing, or the "woo woo" physics I blogged on earlier. Although: Paris in June sounds nice (see Symposia link above).
PhysOrgdotcom:
Physics arXiv links:
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