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COMICPANEL THE ACADEMY TRAINING WORKSHOP

 This is usually a one day training workshop held on a Saturday and on any aspect of creativity at all, be it digital painting, animation, graphics, cinematography, editing etc which we aim at introducing young individuals and giving them the basics of these skills.

 

This year, one of Nigerias Top Digital painters GODWIN AKPAN will be anchoring the class and its going to be a workshop that will teach you everything you need to know about digital coloring and using the Wacom tablets to achieve this. You can check his work out HERE

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Basics of Digital Colouring.

Understanding Photoshop CS6

Creating Realistic portraits

Creating Matte Painting for film

How to use a Wacom Tablet.

ENJOY!

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Dr. Ada E. Yonath...

Source: NobelPrize.org


Topics: Biology, Chemistry, Nobel Prize, Research, STEM, Women in Science

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

Born: 22 June 1939, Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel)

Affiliation at the time of the award: Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Field: biochemistry, structural chemistry


I shared a rented, four-room apartment with two additional families and their children. My memories from my childhood are centered on my father's medical conditions alongside my constant desire to understand the principles of the nature around me. The hard conditions didn't dampen my curiosity. Already at five, I was already investigating the world. In one of my experiments, I tried to measure the height of our tiny balcony using the furniture from inside the apartment. I put a table on another table, and then a chair and a stool on top, but I did not reach the ceiling. Hence, I climbed up on my construct, fell down to the back yard on the ground floor and broke my arm ... Incidentally, the results of this experiment are still unknown, since the current tenants in the apartment have remodeled the ceiling.

Dr. Ada E. Yonath - Interview

"Ada E. Yonath - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 12 Mar 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/yonath-facts.html

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A Tougher Quantum Computer...

This photograph of the quantum-computing device shows the nine superconducting qubits arranged in a row. The qubits interact with their nearest neighbours to detect and correct errors. (Courtesy: Julian Kelly)


Topics: Modern Physics, Nanotechnology, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics


A system of nine quantum bits (qubits) that is robust to errors that would normally destroy a quantum computation has been created by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Google. The device relies on a quantum error-correction protocol, which the team says could be deployed in practical quantum computers of the future.

In principle, powerful quantum computers can be built from a collection of qubits. For a qubit based on an electron, for example, these states would be "spin up" and "spin down", with one state representing a logical "1" and the other "0". Each qubit can be in a superposition of two quantum states at the same time and N qubits could be quantum-mechanically entangled to represent 2N values simultaneously. This would lead to the parallel processing of information on a massive scale not possible with conventional computers.

However, quantum computers are extremely fragile, and a computation can be easily destroyed by "bit errors" that occur when external noise in the environment affects the values of the qubits. While it is proving very difficult to create practical qubits that are robust enough to eliminate such errors, an alternative approach is to accept that errors will occur and to try to correct for them as the quantum calculation progresses.

Now, UCSB's John Martinis and colleagues have taken an important step forward by demonstrating repetitive error correction in an integrated quantum device that consists of nine superconducting qubits. Each qubit is a small circuit consisting of a capacitor and a Josephson junction, and is made from an aluminium film evaporated onto a sapphire substrate. The qubit can be thought of as an artificial atom with information stored in its quantum states.

Physics World: How to make a tougher quantum computer, Belle Dumé, nanotechweb.org

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17 Game Changers...

Topics: Astrophysics, Dark Matter, Diversity in Science, Nobel Prize, Women in Science

Two who advanced what we know about astrophysics:



And, one so familiar and deep cover, she was literally "hidden in plain sight":



From discovering pulsars to correcting the optics of the fuzzy Hubble Space Telescope, here are 17 stories of women who made undeniably vital contributions to astronomy and physics.

Popist: These 17 Women Changed The Face Of Physics, Mika McKinnon

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In 180 Days...



Topics: Aeronautical Engineering, Flight, Green Energy, Green Tech, Solar Power


A pioneering flight around the world will use nothing but sunshine for fuel. In the dusty peach dawn of a desert day, the Solar Impulse 2 airplane took flight at 11:12 PM Eastern time on March 8 from Abu Dhabi on the first leg of a bid to fly around the world exclusively powered by electricity generated from sunlight.


The primary structural component is carbon-fiber sheets that weigh just 25 grams per square meter, or roughly three times lighter than a similar sized piece of paper. That carbon fiber is used sparingly in structural spots where forces push on the airplane. But the interior of the wings, the fuselage and other areas are empty to save even that tiny bit of weight, co-pilot Bertrand Piccard explained to Scientific American.

Atop those wings, as well as the body and even the tail of the plane, are 17,248 solar cells as thin as a human hair that generate electricity as the plane flies, some of which is stored in four lithium polymer batteries. Those batteries take over powering the plane’s four electric motors at night, which spin the two propellers under each wing. All told the plane weighs 2,300 kilograms and the four batteries are the heaviest passengers, weighing in at 633 kilograms. Making the plane required 12 years of calculations, computer simulations, building and testing, according to Piccard, and some $140 million.

Scientific American:
Solar Plane Takes Flight to Circle Globe in 180 Days [in Photos], David Biello
Site: Solar Impulse
You Tube: Solar Impulse Channel

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Dr. Carol W. Greider...

Image Source: NobelPrize.org

An admitted repeat, but I didn't want to just list her as a mere name during Women's History Month. I am grateful for her and subsequent research by Dr. Blackburn's regarding telomere length and aging in African American men.

Topics: Biology, Genetics, Nobel Prize, Research, STEM, Women in Science

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009


Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase".

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes – the telomeres – and in an enzyme that forms them – telomerase.

The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed. This is the case in cancer cells, which can be considered to have eternal life. Certain inherited diseases, in contrast, are characterized by a defective telomerase, resulting in damaged cells. The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies.

"The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 7 Mar 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

National Institute of Health:
Discrimination, racial bias, and telomere length in African-American men.
Chae DH1, Nuru-Jeter AM2, Adler NE3, Brody GH4, Lin J5, Blackburn EH5, Epel ES3.

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When a group of Sikh children were asked who their favourite superheroes are, the answers were barely surprising: Iron Man, Batman, Superman and the usual list of DC and Marvel old-hands.

But when they were asked if they knew of a Sikh comic book superhero, their response was unanimous: an emphatic no.

“And then we asked them, ‘Would you like to see one?’ The looks on their faces was just priceless,” says Supreet Singh Manchanda, a technology executive and comic creator based in San Francisco.

“They just beamed.”

Click here for the full story

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Super Black

My website, "The Ratchedemic" discusses issues and occurrences in the world around us, highlights Black excellence, and promotes me on my journey to my life goals. In the three months since I first started this website and blog I have done great things with discussing and highlighting, but not so much on the promotion aspect. Now with today's newest post all that changes, check it out at the link below and learn about how my love of the fantastic has made me who I am today; a "Super Black"!

http://theratchedemic.squarespace.com/blog/2015/3/9/super-black

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My Writing Process

I really don't have any set pattern.  I know some people do and it works for them.  Being on other writing sites before this, people have shared their experiences and given tips like always take a note pad out with you in case a breakthrough comes or an idea.  Of course you can put any such note on your phone these days.  Personally I prefer when I am out and about just to be going about my regular business, focus on that is usually enough.

By the way, I have never attended a writing class.

Writer's block is the other thing people have shared and many famous writers have suffered from this for one reason or another and written about it.  Happy to say I really don't get this affliction.  I have so many ideas on the go and works that need completing.  For me it is rather more the opposite.  I could write a story about what's really happening on my grains of toast or what happened when my wet coffee granules came alive and joined the carnival down the road, everybody thinking it was a real person dressed in costume or something.  As for my toast: I was concentrating on the crumbs which became mountain peaks, finding myself trudging through this buttery substance - something like that.  Whether anyone would care to read it would be another thing ...  My issue would be more that when an episode relating to my health is bothering me I sometimes have to stop ...  Even so, I try to scribble with pen at those times and having note pads to write on doesn't always help when I can't find them.  So I may end up writing on envelopes or scraps of paper etc and hope to find them later.  Yeh, really disorganised like that but it works for me.  The central idea will still be there somewhere in the back of my mind so I don't worry about it.

Cross-fertilisation and challenges work for me.  I was once challenged to write outside of my genre when I was on ABCtales so I wrote a western called "On Route to Tama" which is a short story and this led me to write a flash fiction piece called "Riders" which earned me a cherry and I did a short video on, then some so called Russian channel decided to upload said video to what I'd term a totally inappropriate site no sooner had I posted it on You Tube.  I've had to write letters and all sorts to try to get my entire channel removed from them!

Competitions sometimes have themes and I can see those as a challenge and an opportunity to stretch myself too.  I don't always enter them but I can still write around the theme and to the word count just to see if it works for me.

Coming on BSFS has already given me two ideas for stories I would not otherwise have really thought about and that's purely through interacting with people and it isn't even straightforward - more like - but what if?.  Turn something on its head.  That also can also trigger "more bounce to the ounce".

Editors I think can be useful but do they understand people not from their own cultural comfort zone?  Does this matter?  I would say it does.  Making money is one thing but wiping out everyone else's identity factors in preference for the western market and is totally unethical in my book, having the kind of consequences we all live with today.  An alien visiting this planet would have a very warped perception of diversity left to media coverage and mainstream book outlets.

I hope sharing my simple revelations here may prove useful to someone.  There's some awesome talent on this site which I hope will maximise to deserved fruition.

In relation to the above, I found this article on Twitter

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/02/27/387533895/this-month-and-every-month-black-sci-fi-writers-look-to-the-future

One Love

Patricia

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The Limit as it Approaches...

Topics: Bias, Diversity in Science, Education, STEM, Women in Science


This is a re-post from 2012 whose title I didn't quite explain: "the limit as it approaches" is a term in Calculus - helped to co-develop by Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz to define The Derivative; Leibniz's impact was Integration. The point of the article in Physics Today I think is still three years hence quite relevant, as well as PT's own Calculus social reference.
South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement
Harvard Theoretical Physicist Dr. Lisa Randall

PHYSICS TODAY: Of all the sciences in the US, physics continues to have the lowest representation of women. Currently, women earn just 21% of bachelor’s degrees and 17% of PhDs in the field. Discourse about women in physics often centers on representation, and the unspoken assumption seems to be that if the representation of women were to increase to some higher level, all would be well. However, the focus on representation obscures important issues and ignores the day-to-day experiences of women physicists.

In fact, women physicists could be the majority in some hypothetical future yet still in their careers experience problems that stem from often unconscious bias. After all, science, and especially physical science, is seen by many cultures as a primarily male domain. But do women actually experience problems in their day-to-day work as physicists? Do they have equal access to opportunities and resources? If not, how does that inequity affect their careers? If harmful, sex-based differences of access exist, then those of us who care about the situation of women in physics need to come up with a solution that encompasses more than just increasing female representation.




I had the pleasure of being educated by Dr. Elvira Williams at North Carolina A and T State University. She was the fourth African American female awarded a PhD in physics in the United States, specifically Condensed Matter-Diffusion Physics, from Howard University (she's third from the bottom of this list). She last taught at Shaw University.
Dr. Elvira Williams: Cambridge Who's Who

I'm proud and honored to have studied General Physics II and Electromagnetic Field Theory from her.

Physics Today: Women in Physics: A Tale of Limits

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Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn...

Image Source: NobelPrize.org


Topics: Biology, Genetics, Nobel Prize, Research, STEM, Women in Science

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009


Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase".

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to three scientists who have solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation. The Nobel Laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes – the telomeres – and in an enzyme that forms them – telomerase.

The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed. This is the case in cancer cells, which can be considered to have eternal life. Certain inherited diseases, in contrast, are characterized by a defective telomerase, resulting in damaged cells. The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies.

"The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 7 Mar 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

National Institute of Health:
Discrimination, racial bias, and telomere length in African-American men.
Chae DH1, Nuru-Jeter AM2, Adler NE3, Brody GH4, Lin J5, Blackburn EH5, Epel ES3.

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Amelia Boynton...

Source: Biography.com

Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea.

Translation: Bernard of Chartres used to say that we were like dwarfs seated on the shoulders of giants. If we see more and further than they, it is not due to our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high and upborne by their gigantic bigness. John of Salisbury, Wikiquote

Topics: Bloody Sunday, Civil Rights, Soldier, Voting Rights, Women's Rights


I knew I wanted to talk about this hero on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The president will speak today in Alabama, and I would presume some part of his commentary will mention her particular shoulders (like my sister's) that stood up for one like me when I was just learning to walk. Going backwards, as I've stated, violates causality and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It is better to go forward, together, lifted on shoulders that pushed us all here. She and many others, made our foray on astronautics at NASA; education and engineering; sports and politics up to and now inclusive of the presidency possible. The conditions were not as ubiquitous nor taken for granted as they are today. Thus, we have a generation that believes in magic; that neglecting the sacrifices of the past will have no impact on the present; that their rights taken for granted will always be there if they don't act upon them. There wouldn't be an effort at Voter ID for a non-problem, if your voice made no difference; had no impact.

Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton helped Martin Luther King Jr. plan the Selma to Montgomery March on Bloody Sunday, which led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Amelia Boynton was born on August 18, 1911, in Savannah, Georgia. Her early activism included holding black voter registration drives in Selma, Alabama, from the 1930s through the '50s. In 1964, she became both the first African-American woman and the first female Democratic candidate to run for a seat in Congress from Alabama. The following year, she marched on Bloody Sunday. In 1990, Boynton won the Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom. Today, she tours on behalf of the Schiller Institute.

Also in 1964, Boynton and fellow civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. teamed up toward their common goals. At the time, Boynton figured largely as an activist in Selma. Still dedicated to securing suffrage for African Americans, she asked Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to come to Selma and help promote the cause. King eagerly accepted. Soon after, he and the SCLC set up their headquarters at Boynton's Selma home. There, they planned the Selma to Montgomery March of March 7, 1965.

Some 600 protesters arrived to participate in the event, which would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday." On the Edmund Pettus Bridge, over the Alabama River in Selma, marchers were attacked by policemen with tear gas and billy clubs. Seventeen protesters were sent to the hospital, including Boynton, who had been beaten unconscious. A newspaper photo of Boynton lying bloody and beaten drew national attention to the cause. Bloody Sunday prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, with Boynton attending as the landmark event's guest of honor.

Biography.com: Amelia Boynton, Civil Rights Activist

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In the near future, troublesome women are marked “noncompliant” and trucked off to a space age Auxiliary Compliance Outpost – aka Bitch Planet – which is also the name of a new comic series by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro.

Click here for the full story

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Dr. May-Britt Moser...

Image Source: Nobel Prize link below


Topics: Biology, Diversity in Science, Medicine, Nobel Prize, STEM, Women in Science

Born: 4 January 1963, Fosnavåg, Norway


Affiliation at the time of the award: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

Prize motivation: "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain"

Field: physiology, spatial behavior

"May-Britt Moser - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 3 Mar 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2014/may-britt-moser-facts.html

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