BLOGS

Featured Posts (3483)

Sort by

The Diversity Track & Black Science Fiction Society Back For Dragoncon 2019

Posted by Administrator: Jarvis Sheffield on December 7, 2018 at 3:43pm

The Diversity Track & Black Science Fiction Society Back For Dragoncon 2019

I just got news this week that the Diversity Track will be back for 2019 at DragonCon. I'm excited to be invited back for another groundbreaking event. Everyone associated with the first one this year knocked it out of the park! I could not ask for better volunteers, guests, photographers, moderators and participants.

Read more…

A NEW PUBLICATION OF THE BOOK, SHE

Posted by Ms. Regina Owens on December 5, 2018 at 7:30pm

The author Amina DeLaMere's has a new, and revised ebook entitled, SHE. The book was first written a few years back, later on Miss DeLaMere's will work it all out to rewrite the book, SHE, having the space being Ximena to board her spaceship to travel out into space way beyond her extraterrestrial world, Beta Nevaeh.  "Sometime ago, a politician once wrote, "there are no do overs." Maybe concerning politics, however in the world of a writer a do over, could be a new beginning," notes the author Amina Delamere. SHE, the ebook is now on sale on Amazon.com

Read more…

Assault of the Mainstream

Posted by Turtel Onli on December 6, 2018 at 9:10am

Now that the Mainstream has tried and failed to take the life force outta the growing indie-Black age movement with its "afro-futuristic" blockbuster along with its here today-gone tomorrow great token Hero of Harlem, who among us is really about winning at  this challenge and profiting from the opportunities it presents?

Their best efforts to corner and control the Black Age is my proof that we are actually winning in this war for minds and market shares.....inspite of addictive  brand loyalty...the Black On Black boycott....and culturally based anti-intellectualisms.  I often present on panels.....over the years since 1992....at San Diego,,,,,Wizards.......C2E2.....on the Black Age or diversity....  Usually with a lame unprofessional uninformed person in charge.  Each time some hater stands up to taut how racist the Black Age is and how he of she gets so much more outta Manga/Anime'.

Sort of like all of the Black folks that spent 8 years complaining about how President Obama wasn't Black enough instead of helping to make things betta....

OK. I know a lot of folks wanna grow up and become Ninja-Girls.....but has anyone ever noticed the names in the credits? All Japanese.  Behind that industrial smile is a hand all the way in their bank accounts and a grin that is saying..."Sucker"!.

Now I totally support with money, time and praise, all Brothers & Sisters that make money in the mainstream.  That is as god as cash and them and their successes matter too!

Then the ones who wish the mainstream would create something betta they could relate to......but in both cases not wanting to hear the merits and impact of the growing indie-Black Age. That's like only accepting a rescue from your captor.

I started down this path professionally in 1970. That was the last century! I hope it doesn't extend to the next.

The solution lays in a nexus of better business practices.....better cultural ownership on the parts of Blacks to items, services and concepts pioneered by Blacks.....and commerce. Commerce means buying......not those lame penniless "Likes" that folks think are as good as cash.

When was the last time you visited a store with a rack dedicated to indie-Black Age products, graphic novels, games & comix?

How indie-Black Age is your collection? 

Is it as Black as your music collections?

Is it as diverse as your cuisine selections? 

These are areas of massive growth potential.

 

Even my favorite wannabe Ninja-Girls agree with me on this. 

Read more…

On Teargas and Positive Thinking...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 30, 2018 at 6:30am
Reuters (via HuffPost): A Honduran toddler in diapers who came to the border on the migrant caravan sobs after she and her mother fled tear gas fired by American officers at the Mexican border Sunday.

Topics: Biology, Ethics, Existentialism, Politics

Note: Studying for and taking finals next week. Will be on hiatus until 10 December.

I've decided not only will there not be a "presidential pivot," but that there is no "low." When we think he's reached it, he'll just tunnel further to the center of Hades. Apparently, deviant meditations can be generated with the combination of an aggressive laxative encouraging septuagenarian elimination and early morning tweeting, a perversion of the old maxim "walking and chewing gum." The presence of his spot-on clone of Joseph Goebbels (himself a descendant of Holocaust survivors), only eggs on the most depraved behavior from our government and mimicked by a cult following of nihilists. It emboldens fascists globally: domestic terrorists here in the US, and authoritarians worldwide. What's happening at the border can't be done alone: there had to be a group of fellow citizens working in government for YEARS waiting for this moment and its orange, tweeting avatar. We have gone in two years from the world's best example (and that is arguable on many levels, I admit), to its decidedly worst.

*****

Tear "gas" consists of either aerosolized solid compounds or evaporated liquid compounds (bromoacetone or xylyl bromide), not gas. Tear gas works by irritating mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, and causes crying, sneezing, coughing, difficulty breathing, pain in the eyes, and temporary blindness. With CS gas, symptoms of irritation typically appear after 20–60 seconds of exposure and commonly resolve within 30 minutes of leaving (or being removed from) the area. With pepper spray (also called "oleoresin capsicum", capsaicinoid or OC gas), the onset of symptoms, including loss of motor control, is almost immediate. There can be considerable variation in tolerance and response, according to the National Research Council (US) Committee on Toxicology.

Use of tear gas in warfare (as with all other chemical weapons,) is prohibited by various international treaties that most states have signed. Police and private self-defense use is not banned in the same manner. Armed forces can legally use tear gas for drills (practicing with gas masks) and for riot control. First used in 1914, xylyl bromide was a popular tearing agent since it was easily prepared. Source: Wikipedia

*****

"The use of tear gas on children -- including infants and toddlers in diapers -- goes against evidence-based recommendations, and threatens their short and long-term health," the statement, written by AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) President Colleen A. Kraft, reads.

"Children are uniquely vulnerable to physiological effects of chemical agents. A child's smaller size, more frequent number of breaths per minute and limited cardiovascular stress response compared to adults magnifies the harm of agents such as tear gas."

The AAP also alludes to possible psychological trauma, since children who have arrived at the border "have taken harrowing journeys."

"We must make every effort not to retraumatize them," Kraft writes. [1]

*****

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump on Monday denied that federal agents along the US-Mexico border used tear gas on child migrants, but photos and videos show women and children migrants were among those caught up in an incident between border agents and a migrant group that rushed a border crossing Sunday.

At the White House, Trump said that border agents involved in the incident "had to use (force) because they were being rushed by some very tough people and they used tear gas."

"Here's the bottom line, nobody's coming into our country unless they're coming legally," he added. Trump also said the Mexican government "wants to see if they can straighten it out." [2]

The Trump family infrequently attended Marble Collegiate Church, on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It was chaired famously by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, author of the "Power of Positive Thinking" and other books published along the lines of the "new thought" philosophy that would become famous in motivational books, speaking circles as well as prosperity gospel ministries, and the new age movement. Dr. Peale performed his first wedding to Ivana; his successor would perform his second to Marla Maples in the same facility. Peale would famously be derided by the psychological community as a fraud. Maybe evidenced by his choices of consigliere that was an appealing trait.

One major criticism of The Power of Positive Thinking is that the book is full of anecdotes that are hard to substantiate. Almost all of the experts and many of the testimonials that Peale quotes as supporting his philosophy are unnamed, unknown and unsourced. Examples include a "famous psychologist", a two-page letter from a "practicing physician", another "famous psychologist", a "prominent citizen of New York City", and dozens, if not hundreds, more unverifiable quotations. Similar scientific studies of questionable validity are also cited. As psychiatrist R. C. Murphy exclaimed, "All this advertising is vindicated as it were, by a strict cleaving to the side of part truth," and referred to the work and the quoted material as "implausible and woodenly pious".

A second major accusation of Peale is that he attempted to conceal that his techniques for giving the reader absolute self-confidence and deliverance from suffering are a well known form of hypnosis, and that he attempts to persuade his readers to follow his beliefs through a combination of false evidence and self-hypnosis (autosuggestion), disguised by the use of terms which may sound more benign from the reader's point of view ("techniques", "formulas", "methods", "prayers", and "prescriptions"). One author called Peale's book "The Bible of American autohypnotism". Source: Wikipedia

This is why my theory is, I don't think he "thinks" he's lying: he's - in the parlance of "faith confessions" - speaking the outcome he wants to see, a warped understanding, or an intellectual laziness not to even BOTHER to understand.

Because he said President Obama was born in Kenya, he HAD to be born in Kenya. Because he "says" the Mueller probe is a witch hunt, it HAS to be a witch hunt (that has bagged a substantial amount of Warlocks). Because he "says" there was "no collusion," their CAN'T have been any collusion. Because he "says" the children aren't harmed, they can't be harmed by teargas. Because he "says" global warming is a hoax by the Chinese, it HAS to be a hoax by the Chinese. Because he SAID their were "fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville, they have to have BEEN fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, Virginia (to remind: one side - antifascists; the other side - Nazis).

I could go on for 6,420 false claims in 649 days (9.89/day). Every prevarication uttered like a steady flow of diarrhea from an erupting sewer are all individual, cherished "golden nuggets" of truth for us mere mortals that don't understand his vibe...

Most of the saner rest of us just calls it lying.

1. This is how tear gas affects children, AJ Willingham, CNN

2. Trump denies tear gas was used on child migrants despite pictures, video, Maegan Vazquez and Geneva Sands, CNN

Read more…

The Talented Tenth Saga

Posted by Christopher Love on December 1, 2018 at 3:19pm

 Fundraiser for The Talented Tenth Saga. I need your help to see this live action comic book/short film to come true.

Synopsis:
A Time Traveler from the future arrives in the present to be captured by a billionaire called The Salesman who is rumored to be almost 200 years old. The Time Traveler must call the superhero group called The Talented Tenth for help. 

Can the Human Pearl, The Buffalo Soldier, Fiery Furnace, Shining Star, The Mysterious Maestro, White Butterfly, Alien Ambassador and John Henry 2.0 rescue the Time Traveler and save the Past, Present and Future.

https://www.gofundme.com/the-talented-tenth-saga?fbclid=IwAR2k5nx1Bz4SMoLcnPzJyyCajOBewNTiBp-qw_a_vVbFT_HMh5T3weTBcbI

Read more…

Eugenics Wars...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 29, 2018 at 8:06am
Some say a global moratorium on germline gene editing is called for In the wake of He Jiankui's controversial study. LUISMMOLINA/ISTOCKPHOTO

Topics: Biology, Ethics, Existentialism, Star Trek

"Superior ability breeds superior ambition."
– Spock, 2267 ("Space Seed") Source: The Eugenics Wars (Memory Alpha)

The Eugenics Wars (or the Great Wars) were a series of conflicts fought on Earth between 1992 and 1996. The result of a scientific attempt to improve the Human race through selective breeding and genetic engineering, the wars devastated parts of Earth, by some estimates officially causing some thirty million deaths, and nearly plunging the planet into a new Dark Age. (TOS: "Space Seed"; ENT: "Borderland")

*****

When a researcher in China startled the world earlier this week with the revelation that he had created the first gene-edited babies, only one prominent scientist quickly spoke out in his defense: geneticist George Church, whose Harvard University lab played a pioneering role in developing CRISPR, the genome editor used to engineer embryonic cells in the hugely controversial experiment. Church has reservations about the actions of He Jiankui, the scientist in Shenzhen, China, who led the work.

The fiercely debated experiment, described by He at a meeting in Hong Kong, China, today, used CRISPR to try to make the babies resistant to HIV by crippling a receptor, CCR5, that the virus uses to infect white blood cells. But Church also thinks there’s a frenzy of criticism surrounding He that exaggerates the severity of what one critic gingerly called his “missteps” but another called “monstrous.” [1]

*****

HONG KONG, CHINA--An international conference on human gene editing dominated by news of the birth of the world's first genetically engineered babies today concluded with a statement from the organizers that harshly condemned the controversial study. But it did not call for a global moratorium on similar studies, as some scientists had hoped; instead it called for a "translational pathway" that might eventually bring the ethically fraught technology to patients in a responsible way.

The hotly debated study, which apparently resulted in twin baby girls whose genomes were altered in a way that could affect their offspring, came to light on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing here. The first summit, held in Washington, D.C. in December 2015, concluded with a statement that specifically said that unless and until safety, efficacy, and ethical and regulatory issues are resolved, "it would be irresponsible to proceed with any clinical use of germline editing," a reference to genetic modifications that can be passed on to the next generation.

But that is exactly what Chinese researcher He Jiankui did, crippling a gene known as CCR5 in hopes of making the babies as well as their offspring resistant to HIV infection. After the news appeared in the media, He appeared at a special session at the summit yesterday to defend his work and answer questions from the stunned audience. (He, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in nearby Shenzhen, withdrew from a second session on embryo editing on Thursday afternoon.) [2]

1. ‘I feel an obligation to be balanced.’ Noted biologist comes to defense of gene editing babies, Jon Cohen, Science Magazine

2. Organizers of gene editing meeting blast Chinese study but call for a "pathway" to human trials, Dennis Normile, Science Magazine

Read more…

In Time for the Holidays...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 28, 2018 at 9:24am
A glass of beer, deconstructed. (a) At the beer’s surface sits a head of foam. (b) A trail of bubbles rises from a nucleation site along the glass wall. The rising of bubbles from different nucleation sites induces a global circulation (sketched here with white arrows). (c) Cellulose fibers serve as nucleation sites; gas cavities inside the fiber are clearly visible. (d) A 3-mm-wide mushroom-shaped bubble plume arises from the implosion of a millimeter-sized bubble when a beer bottle is gently tapped. (e) Surface bubbles seen from below are nearly on edge. (Panels a and b courtesy of Rodrigo Viñas, TresArt Collective.)

Topics: Chemistry, Fluid Mechanics, Physics Humor

Carbonation can also occur by fermentation. When yeast eats simple sugars, it primarily excretes ethanol and CO2. If the process occurs in a closed container, the pressure rises as the amount of CO2 increases. In turn, as the pressure rises, the gas dissolves. Although beer making dates back thousands of years,3 it is unclear how bubbly beer could have been originally—old ceramic containers were most likely unsealed. Sparkling wine was discovered later—in the 17th century—and its carbonation comes from a secondary fermentation inside the bottle.

The presence of alcohol and other molecules during fermentation, such as proteins and enzymes, makes the physical description even more interesting. They affect the liquid’s surface tension, viscosity, density, and other properties, which in turn affect the formation, motion, and surface stability, or lifetime, of the bubbles. No less important is the bubbles’ ability to accelerate the absorption of alcohol in the body and thus the rapidity of intoxication.4

Alcoholic or not, bubbly drinks are full of physics. Figure 1 illustrates the processes that occur when a carbonated drink is poured into a tall glass. If the liquid is poured shortly after the bottle is opened, the birth of bubbles is visible inside the liquid and on the surface of the glass. Streams of bubbles continuously form and induce convection that affects their production rate and motion. As they grow, the bubbles rise and eventually reach the surface. Once there, depending on the properties of the liquid, the bubbles either burst or float.

The fluid mechanics of bubbly drinks, Physics Today

Roberto Zenit (zenit@unam.mx) is a professor and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

Javier Rodríguez-Rodríguez is a fluid mechanics professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain.

Read more…

Strange Metals...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 27, 2018 at 6:30am

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Science, Quantum Mechanics, Superconductors

A ubiquitous quantum phenomenon has been detected in a large class of superconducting materials, fueling a growing belief among physicists that an unknown organizing principle governs the collective behavior of particles and determines how they spread energy and information. Understanding this organizing principle could be a key into “quantum strangeness at its deepest level,” said Subir Sachdev, a theorist at Harvard University who was not involved with the new experiments.

The findings, reported today in Nature Physics by a team working at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada and the National Laboratory for Intense Magnetic Fields (LNCMI) in France, indicate that electrons inside a variety of ceramic crystals called “cuprates” seem to dissipate energy as quickly as possible, apparently bumping up against a fundamental quantum speed limit. And past studies, especially a 2013 paper in Science, found that other exotic superconducting compounds — strontium ruthenates, pnictides, tetramethyltetrathiafulvalenes and more — also burn energy at what appears to be a maximum allowed rate.

Universal Quantum Phenomenon Found in Strange Metals, Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine

Read more…

6 Minutes of Terror...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 26, 2018 at 6:30am
As InSight enters Mars's atmosphere, it will be traveling at around 12,300 mph, generating a tremendous amount of heat. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Topics: Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

When NASA's InSight mission arrives at Mars on Monday (Nov. 26), the probe faces a formidable challenge — perhaps the most harrowing so far of its seven-month journey — touching down on the planet's surface.

Any given moment of the process of launching a spacecraft and propelling it toward a distant target in our solar system carries risks. But InSight's descent will be an especially nerve-wracking nail-biter for NASA: Mission control won't have any idea what's happening to the spacecraft in real time, due to the minutes-long delay in the craft's transmission signal.

During the critical minutes after InSight breaches Mars' atmosphere, when the probe is hurtling toward the planet's surface, news of the lander's progress won't yet have reached Earth. For 6 long minutes, NASA engineers will tensely wait for InSight's status reports to catch up, leaving the team unable to confirm if InSight landed safely or if something unexpected went horribly wrong. The latter could leave the lander "dead" on the Martian surface.

There are three stages that InSight (short for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will undergo as it zooms toward the landing site: a rocket-powered trip through Mars' upper atmosphere; a parachute descent after ejecting the lander's protective heat shield; and a powered descent to the ground, slowed by 12 firing engines, according to NASA. First, the "cruise stage" will separate and the capsule will reposition itself so its heat shield faces the atmosphere, where the shield will heat up to more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius), Rob Manning, a systems engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in a video.

Get Ready for InSight Mars Landing's '6 Minutes of Terror', Mindy Weisberger, Live Science

Read more…

Commerce

Posted by Turtel Onli on November 17, 2018 at 8:08am

Being creative or innovative is the easy part. The challenge that tends to overwhelm folks of African descent is the one of commerce. Controlling and profiting from the financial, administrative and distribution of those amazing good & services tends to lag behind.  Leaving those with better expertise in these areas to dog it out, exploit and profit. Not to mention over-control.

This is why breaking the "Black On Black" boycott of legal honest Black owned operations in a must!  Once one controls masses of money then comes the control of everything else. 

Where as Black On Black Money will overcome everything negative!

Read more…

Coup D'état...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 16, 2018 at 6:30am

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Diversity, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics

Blog break: 26 Nov - 7 Dec (Thanksgiving, finals, projects). There will be a break around Christmas into the new year. And after the new year:

KING HENRY V:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;...

'Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' speech of Shakespeare's Henry V, Act III, 1598.

Because apathy gives power to a demagogue. As he is wounded, and apparently moping, he will try something, ANYTHING to constantly change the subject during a creeping authoritarianism; (as Bill Maher said) a slow-moving coup.

Late night comedians are making great hay of this moment. It allows us to diffuse our angst in humor. Charlie Chaplin did so in 1940 with his self-produced speaking film, "The Great Dictator," Adolf Hitler personified in his cinematic character (and, Chaplin's obvious opinion of him) Adenoid Hynkel. That levity did not stop the coming atrocities, or the war.

Coup D'état (n) : a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics
especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group Merriam-Webster

*****

The Trump administration is breaking with 75 years of precedent by attempting to interfere in how science is practiced by the U.S. government, according to three experts who issued a dire warning to their profession in the journal Science on Thursday. The administration is empowering political staff to meddle with the scientific process by pushing through reforms disguised to look as though they boost transparency and integrity, the experts say.

“It is tempting to conclude that recent proposals for reforming regulatory science are similar to what has occurred in the past,” they write. “They are not.”

“People who are not scientists are telling us how scientific synthesis and analysis should be done,” says Wendy Wagner, a professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of the paper. “We’re not even getting scientists’ best work. We’re tying scientists’ hands behind their back and not even giving them a shot.”

“It’s a very dangerous place for science and public policy,” she told me. “Politics has gone to a place that should be off limits, and no one is noticing and calling them on that fact.”

Why are all these reforms so unprecedented? According to the authors, each of them places some stage of the scientific process under political direction. For decades, they write, the EPA and other federal agencies have followed a “two-step process” when consulting science: First, scientific staff have reviewed existing research and summarized and synthesized it for political staff. Then that political staff “can accept, ignore, rerun some of the analysis, or reinterpret the results.”

This process essentially erects an apolitical wall between the agency’s scientific staff and its policy makers, and it has been endorsed by the U.S. National Academy of Science, the authors say. But every single one of the proposed EPA reforms breaches that wall, allowing political staff to dictate the terms of scientific analysis and synthesis to scientists.

Trump’s Interference With Science Is Unprecedented, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic

*****

In his piece on Psychology Today, Eric R. Maisel, Ph.D. lists "What You Can Expect From an Authoritarian." The list is terrifying, but number 7: "Truth Held As Enemy - Authoritarians have little regard for the truth. If your agenda is to punish others because you are filled with hatred and anger, the truth of any particular matter is a mere inconvenience." This sums up the assault on legitimate news media and science. There is method to this madness.

*****

1. Systematic efforts to intimidate the media.

2. Building an official pro-Trump media network.

3. Politicizing the civil service, military, National Guard, or the domestic security agencies.

4. Using government surveillance against domestic political opponents.

5. Using state power to reward corporate backers and punish opponents.

6. Stacking the Supreme Court.

7. Enforcing the law for only one side.

8. Really rigging the system.

9. Fearmongering.

10. Demonizing the opposition.

Top 10 Signs of Creeping Authoritarianism, Revisited, Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy Magazine

Related link

#P4TC: The Mendacity of Dopes...August 24, 2018

Read more…

Proton Pump...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 15, 2018 at 2:14pm
Magneto-ionic switching based on hydrogen accumulation at the metallic ferromagnet/nonmagnetic heavy metal interface. Courtesy: G Beach

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Electromagnetism, Materials Science, Semiconductor Technology, Spintronics

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have discovered a new way to electrically control magnetism using a gate voltage that could be applied to a wide variety of magnetic materials, including oxides and metals. The “magneto-ionic” technique, which involves reversibly inserting and removing protons into the material structures, could help advance the field of spintronics (a technology that exploits the spin of the electron rather than its electrical charge) for the post CMOS-world.

Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies are reaching the end of their road map and scientists are looking for alternatives to silicon microchips. Spintronics devices show promise in this context because they retain their magnetic state even when the power supply is switched off, something that it is not true for silicon memory chips. They also require much less power to operate and generate far less heat than their silicon counterparts.

One of the most important phenomena being studied in spintronics today is spin-orbit coupling, explains MIT Materials Research Laboratory co-director Geoffrey Beach, who led this research effort. “In many spintronics systems, emergent effects are generated at the interface between, for example, a metallic ferromagnet and a nonmagnetic heavy metal (like platinum or palladium),” he says. “Heavy metal/ferromagnetic interfaces have long been exploited to engineer magnetic thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, that is, films that spontaneously magnetize in a direction perpendicular to the film plane, which is required for most applications.”

Controlling magnetism using a proton pump, Belle Dumé, Physics World

Read more…

Hailing Frequencies Open...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 13, 2018 at 6:30am
On target: artist's impression of a laser beacon. (Courtesy: MIT News)

Topics: Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Laser, SETI, Space Exploration, Star Trek

A bright laser beacon that announces our presence to extraterrestrial civilizations could soon be achievable, new research suggests. Calculations done by James Clark and Kerri Cahoy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest that current and near-future technologies could be used to produce light intense enough to be detectable to extrasolar astronomers as distant as 20,000 light-years away. The duo’s research also sheds light on how we could detect signs of intelligent life in star systems beyond our own.

For decades, some in the astronomy community pondered what would be the best way of communicating with intelligent alien life on distant planets. Once a purely academic question, the desire to communicate has been heighten recently by the ongoing discovery of large numbers of exoplanets orbiting stars other than the Sun.

Recently, two nearby exoplanets have proved particularly attractive for such efforts. These are Proxima Centauri b, a planet which lies in the habitable zone of our closest star just 4 light-years away; and the TRAPPIST-1 system, which at a distance of 40 light-years is believed to contain three potentially habitable exoplanets, are currently viewed as our best hopes for receiving replies to our messages.

Megawatt laser beacon could communicate with aliens

James Clark and Kerri Cahoy, Physics World

Read more…

Waltzing Nanoparticles...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 14, 2018 at 6:30am
A nanoparticle "dance pair." The pair were dyed red and green to reveal molecular binding under a fluorescence microscope." Credit: Yan Yu, Indiana University

Topics: Biology, Biomedicine, Cancer, Nanotechnology

Indiana University researchers have discovered that drug-delivering nanoparticles attach to their targets differently based upon their position when they meet—like ballroom dancers who change their moves with the music.

The study, published Nov. 13 in the journal ACS Nano, is significant since the "movement" of therapeutic particles when they bind to receptor sites on human cells could indicate the effectiveness of drug treatments. The effectiveness of immunotherapy, which uses the body's own immune system to fight diseases such as cancer, depends in part upon the ability to "tune" the strength of cellular bonds, for example.

"In many cases, a drug's effectiveness isn't based upon whether or not it binds to a targeted receptor on a cell, but how strongly it binds," said Yan Yu, an assistant professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Chemistry, who led the study. "The better we can observe these processes, the better we can screen for the therapeutic effectiveness of a drug."

'Waltzing' nanoparticles could advance search for better drug delivery methods

Indiana University, Phys.org

Read more…

Swine, Slop and Armistice...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 12, 2018 at 6:30am
Robert H. Goodwin (June 19, 1925 - August 26, 1999), "Pop" Third Class Petty Officer, US Navy, WWII veteran. Heavy Gunner, Naval Boxer and cook.

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, History

As a United States Air Force veteran, I along with a roomful of others from the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard were honored at Providence Baptist Church at their annual Veteran's Day breakfast. My fraternity brother, retired Staff Judge Advocate, US Army was the keynote speaker for the event. The southern breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage; grits, fried apples and biscuits was quite good and filling. Later yesterday evening, my fraternity honored the veterans in attendance with a gift: a 50 caliber bullet made into an ink pen. I laughed, thinking what conversations it would generate at school. I as usual thought of my father, a WWII veteran from the then segregated United States Navy. I posted his youthful photo on social media to commemorate him.

Retired Colonel Paul Jones, US Army Staff Judge Advocate

As far as our current occupant of the presidency in America: There is no low for this man. He attacks three African American female journalists in a not-too-subtle wink at white nationalists and denigrates the firefighting efforts in Southern California via bombast and tweet, respectively. He could not afford to get his Propecia comb over wet during the 100th observance of Veteran's Day, or Armistice in Europe. It was the "war to end all wars" due to its carnage and horrific loss of life. Little did they know human depravity has an alarming tendency to top itself from its last offense, as the second would conscript my father and many other African American men that saw the danger of a worse racist nation actually winning the war to their own lives and their posterity. Since Orange Julius prides himself in not reading anything without his name in it, he's ignorant of the significance of his gaffs, unless they are purposeful to undermining this republic.

There was a desire, a longing for a "presidential pivot." We now see clearly he's as capable of that as a hog of showering off his own slop/feces: he sees no reason to change as the swine is comforted by the warmth of its own shit. Manure is his element: this is him.

The remarkable observation is the support (though dwindling) he still commands, which brings to question the depravity of our fellow citizens.

Macron rebukes nationalism as Trump observes Armistice Day, Kevin Liptak, CNN

Trump condemned for missing Armistice ceremony at US cemetery because of ‘poor weather’, Emma Snaith, The Independent

History: Veteran's Day Facts

Read more…

Petrol, Wastewater and Membranes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 8, 2018 at 6:30am
Argonne scientists have invented a membrane (shown here) that, when exposed to sunlight, can clean itself and also actively degrade pollutants. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Topics: Atomic Layer Deposition, Chemistry, Green Tech, Semiconductor Technology

Argonne scientists have invented a membrane that, when exposed to sunlight, can clean itself and also actively degrade pollutants.

Critical tasks such as treating wastewater and processing petrochemicals rely on porous membranes that filter unwanted materials out of water. Over time, these membranes inevitably become clogged by bacteria or other substances, so they need to be replaced or cleaned with harsh chemicals that shorten their lifespan.

To address this problem, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have invented a membrane that, when exposed to sunlight, can clean itself and also actively degrade pollutants. The advance paves the way for membranes that can last longer and perform better than those in use today, lowering costs.

“Fouling is a longstanding challenge in membrane separations,” said Jeffrey Elam, a chemist in Argonne’s Applied Materials division. ​“This unique, multifunctional membrane is one way to combat that.”

The main ingredient driving this material’s pollutant-fighting abilities is a coating of titanium dioxide, widely studied for the purpose because it can accelerate chemical reactions when exposed to light. Typically for titanium dioxide, that light must be ultraviolet (UV) — a limitation that increases costs and narrows its feasibility.

Argonne researchers took two important steps to achieve sunlight-activated self-cleaning. First, they added small amounts of nitrogen to the titanium dioxide, ​“doping” it so that visible as well as UV light would bring out its photocatalytic properties.

Second, they used atomic layer deposition (ALD), a technique for creating thin films often used in the semiconductor industry, to place the coating on the membrane. Unlike the conventional method of dipping the membrane into a solution, ALD grows the coating one molecular layer at a time. This allows all of the membrane surfaces, including the internal nanopores, to be coated uniformly and precisely.

Sunlight turns membrane into a self-cleaning, pollutant-eating powerhouse

Christina Nunez, Argonne National Laboratory

Read more…

Product Review Updates #6

Posted by Stephen Alexander on November 9, 2018 at 8:30am

Occasionally, I will alert fellow members to product updates by creators I have reviewed in the past year or so. 

  • The conclusion of The Conscious Dreams Saga has finally arrived! You can buy The Sacrifice of Knowing (The Conscious Dreamer Series Book 3) at Amazon today! The first book is also free, BTW. I've been waiting for this for a while (the first book was my #2 favorite work in our club)
  • Some of the Kickstarters advertised in the Black Comics Creators group have made their budgets. Look out for Niobe by Sebastian Jones and Scorpio by John Robinson IV. If you're curious, swing by Kickstarter and drop those product names in the search bar.
  • Resistance: Battle of Philadelphia is online! Check it out at https://www.resistanceseries.com/
  • One of the writers behind Black Magic Women, Kenesha Wiliams, has a new anthology out. If you like strong female protagonists, you can't go wrong with 400 pages of them. Check out Black Girl Magic Lit Mag: The Anthology: Year One Kindle Edition
Read more…

Deviant Confederates...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 9, 2018 at 6:30am
Image source: WREG.com

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Politics

(noun): the fact or state of departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior.

This commentary is post the firing of Jeff Sessions, and the unconstitutional appointment of the sketchy Aryan bodybuilder Matthew Whitaker as opined by legal experts Neal K. Katyal and George T. Conway III (Kellyanne's husband) in the New York Times. My thoughts and articles I've excerpted follows:

Germany after WWII outlawed the public display of the Nazi flag or veneration of Adolph Hitler and other leaders in statues festooned across Europe because that’s what you do when trying to repent of war crimes, and absolve yourselves from crimes against humanity in the extermination of 6 million Jews as well as artists, gypsies, homosexuals and scientists.

There are obviously right wing extremists still in Germany and Europe as here. As a part of human society - manipulated and scammed by the rich that has always profited from such divisions - we likely always will have a deviant element.

We could minimize it however by agreeing on shared reality and not comfortable fables (“alternative facts”), teaching history In its proper context; the rights and responsibility of citizenship (Civics) and universal healthcare.

This is the only planet humans as far as we know have lived on. Since we’re 99% like ever other human in existence, we’d better start cooperating (an evolutionary survival trait) or expect extinction. It would be arrogance and hubris to expect anything else.

Then, there will be no “superior” left on a charred cinder.

The above commentary originally on Facebook (with modifications) is in reference to the article: "Picture showing voter wearing shirt with noose and rebel flag at the polls causes controversy," Troy Washington, WREG.com

What type of president looks at 14 mail bombs sent to public figures and 11 worshipers killed at a synagogue and gripes that these events disrupted his political momentum? Who would echo history’s worst leaders by calling the press “the true enemy of the people” and call migrants walking toward the U.S. an “invasion?” How does a man entrusted with the world’s highest office make 30 false or misleading claims every day?

As author of the most recent Trump biography, I’m repeatedly asked questions like those. In reply I rely on two old-fashioned terms. When it comes to his character, Trump is a deviant. When it comes to his conduct, he is a delinquent.

Even as a child in the 1950s Donald Trump showed a stubborn tendency to deviate from the very principles that underpin civilization. Trump explained to me in an interview that he felt most people are “not worthy of respect,” and this was the attitude he would carry through life. He never felt that the rules applied to him or that he should take responsibility for any harm he caused.

Trump’s deviant personality naturally led to delinquent behavior, including giving a teacher a black eye and continually refusing to comply with basic rules. “I was a very rebellious kid,” Trump told me. “I loved to fight.” More concerning was Trump’s suggestion that he hasn't changed since first grade. “The temperament,” he revealed, “is not that different.”

Fred Trump, his father, became so worried about his behavior that he sent 13-year-old Donald to military school. In those days New York Military Academy was, for kids like Trump, an alternative to a juvenile detention facility.

At the military academy Trump started out as defiant, especially compared with those he described as “normal kids.” When he conformed, he did it to manipulate. His mentor at the school said that Trump was the most “conniving” kid he ever met. After a baseball game, for example, he demanded a younger schoolmate agree that he had hit a home run that never happened. The boy, feeling the pressure, complied.

Who behaves like Trump? Deviants. And delinquents. Michael D'Antonio, The Los Angeles Times

“There have been many monsters in the past, but it would be hard to find one who was dedicated to undermining the prospects for organized human society, not in the distant future -- in order to put a few more dollars in overstuffed pockets.

And it doesn’t end there. The same can be said about the major banks that are increasing investments in fossil fuels, knowing very well what they are doing. Or, for that matter, the regular articles in the major media and business press reporting US success in rapidly increasing oil and gas production, with commentary on energy independence, sometimes local environmental effects, but regularly without a phrase on the impact on global warming – a truly existential threat. Same in the election campaign. Not a word about the issue that is merely the most crucial one in human history.

Hardly a day passes without new information about the severity of the threat. As I’m writing, a new study appeared in Nature showing that retention of heat in the oceans has been greatly underestimated, meaning that the total carbon budget is much less than had been assumed in the recent, and sufficiently ominous, IPCC report. The study calculates that maximum emissions would have to be reduced by 25% to avoid warming of 2 degrees (C), well above the danger point. At the same time polls show that -- doubtless influenced by their leaders who they trust more than the evil media -- half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.”

“In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favor of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.

“Its premise appears to be that protection of others limits the rights of white men, and those rights should be unlimited. The Brazilian philosopher of education Paulo Freire once noted that “the oppressors are afraid of losing the ‘freedom to oppress’”. Of course, not all white men support extending that old domination, but those who do see themselves and their privileges as under threat in a society in which women are gaining powers, and demographic shift is taking us to a US in which white people will be a minority by 2045.

“If you are white, you could consider that the civil war ended in 1865. But the blowback against Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the myriad forms of segregation and deprivation of rights and freedoms and violence against black people, kept the population subjugated and punished into the present in ways that might as well be called war. It’s worth remembering that the Ku Klux Klan also hated Jews and, back then, Catholics; that the ideal of whiteness was anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, anti-inclusion; that Confederate flags went up not in the immediate post-war period of the 1860s but in the 1960s as a riposte to the civil rights movement.”

The American Civil War Didn't End, and Trump is a Confederate President, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian

Read more…

Lithium Magic...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 7, 2018 at 6:30am
Drive for innovation: Electric vehicles are a major target for R&D on novel battery materials. (Image courtesy: imec)

Topics: Battery, Chemical Physics, Green Tech

The batteries we depend on for our mobile phones and computers are based on a technology that is more than a quarter-century old. Rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries were first introduced in 1991, and their appearance heralded a revolution in consumer electronics. From then on, we could pack enough energy in a small volume to start engineering a whole panoply of portable electronic devices – devices that have given us much more flexibility and comfort in our lives and jobs.

In recent years, Li-ion batteries have also become a staple solution in efforts to solve the interlinked conundrums of climate change and renewable energy. Increasingly, they are being used to power electric vehicles and as the principal components of home-based devices that store energy generated from renewable sources, helping to balance an increasingly diverse and smart electrical grid. The technology has improved too: over the past two and a half decades, battery experts have succeeded in making Li-ion batteries 5–10% more efficient each year, just by further optimizing the existing architecture.

Ultimately, though, getting from where we are now to a truly carbon-free economy will require better-performing batteries than today’s (or even tomorrow’s) Li-ion technology can deliver. In electric vehicles, for example, a key consideration is for batteries to be as small and lightweight as possible. Achieving that goal calls for energy densities that are much higher than the 300 Wh/kg and 800 Wh/L which are seen as the practical limits for today’s Li-ion technology. Another issue holding back the adoption of electric vehicles is cost, which is currently still around 300–200 $/kWh, although that is widely projected to go below 100 $/kWh by 2025 or even earlier. The time required to recharge a battery pack – still in the range of a few hours – will also have to come down, and as batteries move into economically critical applications such as grid storage and grid balancing, very long lifetimes (a decade or more) will become a key consideration too.

There is still some room left to improve existing Li-ion technology, but not enough to meet future requirements. Instead, the process of battery innovation needs a step change: materials-science breakthroughs, new electrode chemistries and architectures that have much higher energy densities, new electrolytes that can deliver the necessary high conductivity – all in a battery that remains safe and is long-lasting as well as economical and sustainable to produce.

Beyond the lithium-ion battery, Jan Provoost, imec/Physics World

Read more…

#VOTE...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 5, 2018 at 6:30am

"You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change." Tim Cook, CEO, Apple, Inc. Brainy Quote

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Diversity, Existentialism, Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Politics, Women's Rights

I've literally done all that I can do. I've blogged, I've called, I've text messaged, I've given money; I've reminded/nagged/begged. I've also early voted. It's now all up to you millennials tomorrow, and the futures you want for yourselves.

Trust me on this one: you will get older. You won't look as good as you do right now in the mirror. A car accident, a fall, a cancer diagnosis could change your world for the far worse than it is. I don't want you to find out the high cost of healthcare in this country (an oxymoron) and the high price of ignoring signs and "hoping it will go away on its own."

If you've decided not to have kids because of the terrible state of affairs in the world, that's fine too. I know a lot of couples that are childless by choice. Minus refugees fleeing the blow back from our country's debacles in Central America; climate change, minus clean water standards; minus standards of living: we're headed into 15 billion souls that will need food, clothing, healthcare and jobs with no ideas coming from the living fossils tied at the hip to the fossil fuels industry. They get to die before the impact of their blunders turn your golden years into a dystopian nightmare.

Think of it this way: if your "favorite" isn't on the ballot, if your candidate didn't move you to tears with their oratory; if you just think all this fuss is kind of dumb, what isn't is your futures. It's on the ballot tomorrow and every election after that.

It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis,[1] and a 1936 play adapted from the novel by Lewis and John C. Moffitt.[2]

Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. The novel's plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup's opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion. Wikipedia

I'm surprised I've not heard any parallels drawn from the plot of this novel and current events.

Like the Neanderthal nincompoop politicians lining their pockets from their 1% paymasters, I'll likely be ashes in a cemetery giving life to a maple tree (or, at least that will be my request).

I would just really appreciate a planet to supply oxygen for and clean water for my roots to drink. I tend to think you would too.

Read more…