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The Limit as it Approaches...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 9, 2015 at 7:48am

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...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 8, 2015 at 10:58am
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...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 7, 2015 at 9:40am
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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A Testament To Originality: Welcome to Bitch Planet: the comic that's reimagining feminism

Posted by William Hayashi on March 6, 2015 at 8:06pm

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...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 6, 2015 at 8:01am
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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10 BOOK GIVEAWAY! 3 DAYS ONLY!

Posted by Brandon Hill on March 6, 2015 at 3:30am

ATTENTION, BSFS!

My newest book, "Lifemates" is finally out!

It is a 3-story anthology, coauthored by my good friend and co-writer, Terence Pegasus. 



First Read the Plot, and then read the giveaway details below!  

Wild Space Saga is a massive, sprawling webcomic trilogy by Brandon Hill, author of From Slate to Crimson and The World of Five Nations series, and co-writer and artist Terence “Pegasus” Elliot, weaving an epic tale of mankind’s struggle to survive in a far-flung sector of space in the distant future, against impossible odds. 

The universe of Wild Space Saga has many tales to tell, fraught with adventure, romance, and tragedy. Tales of Wild Space brings to light the untold tales of this universe in times both past and present. 

The Hunter and the Tiger 

Ni’Linya, a indentured Feylan pleasure girl is the only friend in the life of Cole, a world-weary human assassin for the Second Imperium. For the past four years, each finished job takes him back to the penthouses of Xiao, and into the arms of his “Tiger”: the beautiful female to whom he pours out his heart, and whose bed he shares. As they indulge their nights, his Tiger sweetly calls him “Hunter,” and to his chagrin, refuses his money until the events surrounding one fateful mission to a hostile planet bring about revelations and changes in the small world of the star-crossed couple, both tragic and blessed. 


Combat Pay Blues 

Desperate for the considerable pay offered by a shady android, Isibar, a freelance spy for the Planetary Alliance and sometimes space pirate, takes on an assignment that no one has yet been brave (or crazy) enough to accept: infiltrating the reclusive world of Icona, the heart of the despotic, expansionist Second Imperium, in order to divulge their deepest, darkest secrets and ensure the safety of the free human worlds. Despite its initial ease, Isibar soon learns that this is a job that comes with far more hitches than he ever bargained for, and reveals far more sinister goings-on than he ever would have ever imagined. 


Her Hand in Mine 

Zynj used to be the shining capital planet of all human worlds until that fragile First Imperium fractured in a series of horrific wars. Now it is a burnt, polluted husk, with all humans living in underground cities and scrapping the once proud cities of the surface for raw materials to sell off-world. On this planet of provincial attitudes, Jules Galway, a lonely scrap hauler, reunites with Sar'vana Van, a Felyan friend from his childhood, who has returned with her people for routine maintenance on the systems that keep life for humans possible on the ruined world. The two happily continue their relationship where it left off ten long years ago, only to discover that in spite of the purist ways of Jules’s society, their feelings have grown beyond the puppy love of their youth. On a world that chafes under the fact that they live by alien charity, Jules and Sar’vana, having lived mutually peaceful lives until now, are exposed to internal and external perils they never thought would find them.

NOW HERE'S THE GIVEAWAY:


I'm giving away 10 copies of my book!  So the first 10 responders -no more, no less- to my blog will be given a choice between a free .mobi file of the book, compatible with the Kindle and Kindle app, or a free .pdf file.  

NOW HERE'S THE BONUS!  

Those who go to the book site on Amazon ( Lifemates ) and review the book will receive ANOTHER free copy of my story, "From Slate to Crimson" as a special "thank you" bonus!  This giveaway will end in 3 days (by 3/9/15), and there are only 10 slots, so space is very limited!  

So if you love to read sci-fi, and would like to get even more free books by doing a simple review, just PM me and tell me whether you want a .mobi or .pdf sent to you.  I will contact you by PM, and arrange the delivery!  All I ask is that in your Amazon review, you be honest, but kind.  I won't mind if you didn't like it, but just be civil.  And be sure to refer me to your review when you do it, so I can send you the next book!   Happy reading!  

-Brandon

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Dr. Nadya Mason...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 5, 2015 at 7:27am


Mayer                                            Mason


Topics: Carbon Nanotubes, Diversity in Science, Nanotechnology, Women in Science

Dr. Nadya Mason

University of Illinois, repost: 2012 Maria Goeppert Mayer Prize recipient

Citation:


"For innovative experiments that elucidate the electronic interactions and correlations in low-dimensional systems, in particular the use of local gates and tunnel probes to control and measure the electronic states in carbon nanotubes and graphene."

 

Additional note: The first photograph of a Maria Goeppert Mayor Prize recipient seems to be in 1996 with Dr. Majorie Ann Olmstead, most likely made a part of the site as society got comfortable with the Internet, advances in tools and what could be posted. The prize has been awarded by APS since 1986: "To recognize and enhance outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career, and to provide opportunities for her to present these achievements to others through public lectures in the spirit of Maria Goeppert Mayer." Dr. Mason seems to be - at first brush of the site - the first African American woman awarded this honor.

I attended her talk at the NSBP conference in Austin, Texas. Nobel Prize next, Dr. Mason!
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Dr. Maria Goeppert Mayer....

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 4, 2015 at 6:39am
Dr. Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Laureate

Topics: Diversity, Nobel Prize, Nuclear Physics, Women in Science


Born: 28 June 1906, Kattowitz (now Katowice), Germany (now Poland)

Died: 20 February 1972, San Diego, CA, USA

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

Prize motivation: "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"

Maria Goeppert Mayer was born on June 28, 1906, in Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, then Germany, the only child of Friedrich Goeppert and his wife Maria, nee Wolff. On her father's side, she is the seventh straight generation of university professors.

She went to private and public schools in Göttingen and had the great fortune to have very good teachers. It somehow was never discussed, but taken for granted by her parents as well as by herself that she would go to the University. Yet, at that time it was not trivially easy for a woman to do so. In Göttingen there was only a privately endowed school which prepared girls for the "abitur", the entrance examination for the university. This school closed its doors during the inflation, but the teachers continued to give instructions to the pupils. Maria Goeppert finally took the abitur examination in Hannover, in 1924, being examined by teachers she had never seen in her life.

Maria Goeppert Mayer - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 3 Mar 2015. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1963/mayer-facts.html


Maria Goeppert Mayer Award

To recognize and enhance outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career, and to provide opportunities for her to present these achievements to others through public lectures in the spirit of Maria Goeppert Mayer. The award consists of $2,500 plus a $4,000 travel allowance to provide opportunities for the recipient to give lectures in her field of physics at four institutions and at the meeting of the Society at which the award is bestowed and a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient. The award will be presented annually.

American Physical Society: Maria Goeppert Mayer Award

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Karen Torrejon...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 3, 2015 at 7:06am
Still from You Tube

Not sure where she is in the process, but hopefully she's close to completion if not already a PhD. There is no reason at all that there aren't more women in STEM fields except for bias and discouragement along their matriculation K-12 and post secondary. See last month's post: STEM and Other Biases. There are certain things we should discourage, as in our current obsession with living the lives of "reality TV stars," and encourage more of this. Otherwise, as I said in the post, we're shooting ourselves collectively in the foot, and wondering how the hole got there!

CNSE: College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

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Dr. Marie Curie...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 2, 2015 at 7:54am
Image Source: Nobel Prize - Biographical (link below)


Topics: Chemistry, Diversity in Science, Nobel Prize, STEM, Women in Science

Synopsis


Born Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win the award in two different fields (physics and chemistry). Curie's efforts, with her husband Pierre Curie, led to the discovery of polonium and radium and, after Pierre's death, the development of X-rays. She died on July 4, 1934.

Early Life


Maria Sklodowska, better known as Marie Curie, was born in Warsaw in modern-day Poland on November 7, 1867. Her parents were both teachers, and she was the youngest of five children. As a child Curie took after her father, Ladislas, a math and physics instructor. She had a bright and curious mind and excelled at school. But tragedy struck early, and when she was only 11, Curie lost her mother, Bronsitwa, to tuberculosis.

A top student in her secondary school, Curie could not attend the men-only University of Warsaw. She instead continued her education in Warsaw's "floating university," a set of underground, informal classes held in secret. Both Curie and her sister Bronya dreamed of going abroad to earn an official degree, but they lacked the financial resources to pay for more schooling. Undeterred, Curie worked out a deal with her sister. She would work to support Bronya while she was in school and Bronya would return the favor after she completed her studies. [1]

1. Biography.com: Marie Curie
2. American Institute of Physics: Marie Curie: Her Story in Brief
3. NobelPrize.org: Marie Curie - Biographical

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New Book Release! Tales of Wild Space - Book 1: "Lifemates"

Posted by Brandon Hill on March 2, 2015 at 1:32am

Wild Space Saga is a massive, sprawling webcomic trilogy by Brandon Hill, author of From Slate to Crimson and The World of Five Nations series, and co-writer and artist Terence “Pegasus” Elliot, weaving an epic tale of mankind’s struggle to survive in a far-flung sector of space in the distant future, against impossible odds. 

The universe of Wild Space Saga has many tales to tell, fraught with adventure, romance, and tragedy. Tales of Wild Space brings to light the untold tales of this universe in times both past and present. 

The Hunter and the Tiger 

Ni’Linya, a indentured Feylan pleasure girl is the only friend in the life of Cole, a world-weary human assassin for the Second Imperium. For the past four years, each finished job takes him back to the penthouses of Xiao, and into the arms of his “Tiger”: the beautiful female to whom he pours out his heart, and whose bed he shares. As they indulge their nights, his Tiger sweetly calls him “Hunter,” and to his chagrin, refuses his money until the events surrounding one fateful mission to a hostile planet bring about revelations and changes in the small world of the star-crossed couple, both tragic and blessed. 


Combat Pay Blues 

Desperate for the considerable pay offered by a shady android, Isibar, a freelance spy for the Planetary Alliance and sometimes space pirate, takes on an assignment that no one has yet been brave (or crazy) enough to accept: infiltrating the reclusive world of Icona, the heart of the despotic, expansionist Second Imperium, in order to divulge their deepest, darkest secrets and ensure the safety of the free human worlds. Despite its initial ease, Isibar soon learns that this is a job that comes with far more hitches than he ever bargained for, and reveals far more sinister goings-on than he ever would have ever imagined. 


Her Hand in Mine 

Zynj used to be the shining capital planet of all human worlds until that fragile First Imperium fractured in a series of horrific wars. Now it is a burnt, polluted husk, with all humans living in underground cities and scrapping the once proud cities of the surface for raw materials to sell off-world. On this planet of provincial attitudes, Jules Galway, a lonely scrap hauler, reunites with Sar'vana Van, a Felyan friend from his childhood, who has returned with her people for routine maintenance on the systems that keep life for humans possible on the ruined world. The two happily continue their relationship where it left off ten long years ago, only to discover that in spite of the purist ways of Jules’s society, their feelings have grown beyond the puppy love of their youth. On a world that chafes under the fact that they live by alien charity, Jules and Sar’vana, having lived mutually peaceful lives until now, are exposed to internal and external perils they never thought would find them.



Come and enjoy the anthology of adventure and romance by me and Terry!  


Lifemates - Amazon Link

Read more…

Showcasing

Posted by Patricia L Graham on March 1, 2015 at 6:30pm

So I put some poetry up on Poetry Soup - here's a link to my page in case you want to take a little journey - and it is free.

 

http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poems_by_poet.aspx?ID=41163

 

And here's the beginning of a short story I published in 2013.  I'd done a project with the UK National Archives and it prompted me to write the story with a Jamaican theme.

 

THE GALLERY OF LIFE

 

Ella found herself in a room full of black and white pictures taken around the 1950’s.  She guessed the images were from across the West Indies.  It was confusing, uncertain as she was about how she had come to be in the gallery.  However, the photos captivated her interest, drawing her to speculate on whether she recognised anything.

   There were scenes of people working in cane fields, women carrying loads on their heads, children bathing in a cove, fishermen: one of alligators thrashing their tails in a river, sweeping up a spray of water.  As she moved along the elongated room, the images gradually phased into colour and became more vivid, alive; whispering tantalising secrets locked in the portrayal of tones, hidden in full view.

 

   She halted before one exhibiting a Jonkonnu in explosive colourful progress.  A man on stilts wore the head of an alligator and sporting a red bow tie while smoking a large cigar.  Panning across from him was a lady dressed in a powder blue suit and framed sunglasses.  The image held Ella’s eye.  She shifted uneasily to the next picture which depicted near enough the same scene.  On closer inspection, the woman was in fact holding a little girl’s hand.  As she studied the scene, she recognised the woman to be none other than her own mother and the child, herself.  This realisation was a shock.  She gasped: froze.

 

(Excerpt from: The Gallery of Life © 2013 – Flight of Fantasy Collection

***

 

 

 

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Leonard Nimoy

Posted by Rasheedah Prioleau on March 1, 2015 at 9:00am

Just when you thought you were done crying over the loss of Leonard Nimoy.  You read this:

Leonard Nimoy's Advice To A Biracial Girl In 1968

FEBRUARY 27, 2015 7:19 PM ET
GENE DEMBY

It wasn't supposed to be "Leonard Nimoy + Biracial Kids Day" here at Code Switch, but the news takes you where it takes you.

BuzzFeed's Leonora Epstein uncovered this blog post from the blog My Star Trek Scrapbook, which features a letter from a 1968 issue of the defunct teen magazineFaVE! In a letter addressed to Mr. Spock, a young biracial girl laments that she doesn't fit in with either her black or her white peers.

"I know that you are half Vulcan and half human and you have suffered because of this," the girl named F.C. wrote. "My mother is Negro and my father is white and I am told this makes me a half-breed. ... I guess I'll never have any friends."

Nimoy was so moved by the letter that he responded at length in the next issue. "[Spock] said to himself: 'Not everyone will like me,' " Nimoy wrote. "But there will be those who will accept me just for who I am."

Read the whole exchange below:

A young girl with a white father and a black mother wrote to the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock for advice on fitting in.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/02/27/389589676/leonard-nimoys-advice-to-a-biracial-girl-in-1968?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150227

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Mary Graham...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 1, 2015 at 9:00am
Image Source: Link Below

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Nanotechnology, Women in Science


I believe her title these days is Dr. Mary Graham. If we want more women in STEM fields, this needs to be encouraged in the K-12 levels and post secondary, not when our collective backs are against the wall as a nation. A quote from "Capital in the 21st Century," Thomas Piketty:



"Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills."

World News: SUNY NanoCollege welcomes record number of interns

CNSE: College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

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Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

Posted by William Hayashi on February 28, 2015 at 10:44pm

Don't lament the lost days of cutting your fingers on pristine new novels or catching a whiff of that magical, transportive old book smell just yet! A slew of recent studies shows that print books are still popular, even among millennials. What's more: further research suggests that this trend may save demonstrably successful learning habits from certain death. Take comfort in these 9 studies that show that print books have a promising future:

Click here for the full story

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New "Godzilla Planet" Is 17 Times Heavier Than Earth

Posted by LN Gibson on February 28, 2015 at 10:43pm

Among the haul of hundreds of new planets discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, many have qualified as super-Earths -- worlds that are several times larger than Earth, are rocky like our own, and reside in the habitable zones of their stars. But never before had scientists detected a world like Kepler-10c, a "mega-Earth" that looks a lot like home but is 17 times heavier than our planet.

When Kepler first spied this new planet, astronomers measured its diameter to be 29,000 kilometers, or about 2.3 times larger than Earth's. That would have been remarkable, but not recording-setting. However, when scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) looked at Kepler-10c using the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, they measured the planet's mass and found it to be so heavy that it must be made of rocks and other dense materials.

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On Genre

Posted by Patricia L Graham on February 28, 2015 at 3:22pm

Basically I just put pen to paper when I begin to write but I would say I mostly write in the vein of Sci/fantasy, time travel (which probably allows me to touch on almost everything anyway), soft and certainly metaphysical.  Naturally I have the Diaspora element in there - as active and reflective.

With "First Lost Risen" - which came out of a poem I wrote - I wanted to bring Jamaica into sci/fantasy.  Guess I touched a lot of nerves in one book ...

Thanks for the "chat" the other night guys.  It helped me to focus some.

Looking forward to listening to Genesis on You Tube! A lot going on here.

Bless

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‘Fantastic Four’ Reboot: Why The Characters Needed To Be Updated

Posted by LN Gibson on February 28, 2015 at 2:02pm

Since rumors and reports first revealed that director Josh Trank was looking at a non-white actor to play Johnny Storm a.k.a. Human Torch in Twentieth Century Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four, the project – which already had a stiff uphill climb against expectations – has unavoidably been a subject of controversy. It didn’t help skeptical fans that the FF marketing campaign didn’t begin until a few weeks ago (with good reason though – see why here).

Josh Trank began early Fantastic Four development even before his first feature Chronicle (which got him the FF director’s chair) opened in theaters, and his original ideas for a modern take on the FF and casting remain largely intact. The plan was always to reboot the franchise by using the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics as a source of inspiration, especially when it comes to the younger team dynamic and science fiction aspects of it. The other part of the plan was to cast Miles Teller andMichael B. Jordan as Mr. Fantastic and Human Torch, respectively.

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