BLOGS

To give you an idea of scale: a 4°C rise in global temperatures (by itself) equals 39.2°F.

°C * (9/5) + 32 = °F

25°C * (9/5) + 32 = 77°F
26°C * (9/5) + 32 = 78.8°F
27°C * (9/5) + 32 = 80.6°F
28°C * (9/5) + 32 = 82.4°F

29°C * (9/5) + 32 = 84.2°F

25°C equals 77°F (room temperature), so an increase of 4°C is 84.2°F (sweat, fans and AC).

Drought in Yunnan Province, China

Washington Post:

(Sneak peek of my forthcoming novel)

In the North air traffic tower above Old San Francisco, Willie, a short light-brown man with a thick afro, sat in his swivel chair with jazz flowing through his ear plugs and an open book on his lap. Music was one of the few things that hadn’t died with earth’s decline. A few libraries, crumbling dilapidated buildings that they were, had survived. They were free too, for anyone who had a mind to visit them. The diskettes had survived as well, and Willie was a music lover. He had hundreds of them that he kept in his satchel.

The tower was now used exclusively for monitoring extra-terrestrial contact. In the twenty years since the tower had been converted, there hadn’t been any. Only one employee maintained the upper tower staff.

The monitors were blank and, as always, Willie was alone on his night-duty shift. Hence, the ear plugs. It was a dream job. I ain’t got to do nothing but show up…bring some music, a book and ride the clock.

He glanced over at the screens. Flat lines. So what else is new? and dropped his head back to the crime novel in his lap.     

He didn’t hear the young woman come in. She was shapely and dark, with a long braid of hair hanging down her back. And she was dressed in the totally unpractical Early Earth grab, if you weren’t rich, of jeans and t-shirt. She walked over to Willie. He felt her presence, and jumped in surprise at the sight of her.

The young man snatched his ear plugs out. “You ain’t supposed to be in here! How’d you get in?”

“I know the guard.”

Damn she fine! Her pert breasts with their dark nipples were poking through her shirt like bee stings. And she had a tiny waist tapering down to wide, luscious hips. She ain’t wearing a bra, either.

“Well…” he stammered, “what you want?”

The young woman smiled fetchingly, displaying the dimple in the corner of her rosebud mouth, batted her lashes over her big brown eyes, and moved in close so that (censored) was right in front of his face. Willie restrained himself from licking his lips.

“You baby…” she simpered.

The young man’s lips spread in a wide goofy smile. Then he checked himself. This fine **** could be a plant! “You’re not supposed to be in here Miss!” he said again gruffly. “You need to leave. Now.”

In answer, she pulled her shirt over her head. Both her nipples and her navel were pierced.

“Damn!” Willie exploded. She started to unbutton her pants. “Wait!” he said. “Not here!” he jumped up, ran past her to the door opened it and looked up and down the hallway. “Come on!” he hissed waving her over.

They scooted out of the room and into the first broom closet on his left. “I’m Willie…what’s your name?”

“Melody,” she whispered. “I live in your dome…I been watching you…You look so good…” All the while, she was slipping out of her jeans. She wasn’t wearing any panties.

And Willie had stopped listening...

Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers 2012 all rights reserved.

Read the short story atamazon,nookand smashwords. The Full novel will be available later this year :)!

Physics arXiv

One of the central puzzles of spacetime is its structure on the smallest scale.

 

The equations of general relativity are smooth, even at the tiniest scales. But in the early 1960s, the American physicist John Wheeler pointed out that in quantum mechanics, ordinary properties of spacetime, such as position, momentum and so on, have an uncertainty associated with them. That implies that spacetme must be uncertain as well. Wheeler famously described it as "quantum foam".

Physicists would dearly love to study this foam but there's a problem. Spacetime only becomes foam-like on the tiniest scale, at so-called Planck lengths of 10^-35metres or so.

Probing that distance is obviously difficult. One way to do it is by accelerating particles to huge energies, which allows physicists to determine their position accurately, thereby probing very small volumes of space.

But the energies required are around 10¹⁹GeV, many orders of magnitude higher than today's particle accelerators. There's no likelihood of reaching this energy on Earth in the foreseeable future so physicists are more or less resigned to the idea that they’ll never get their hands on quantum foam.

They may change today thanks to a fascinating idea from Jacob Bekenstein, a physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Bekenstein says he has worked out a way to measure the structure of spacetime on the Planck scale using a simple experiment involving little more than a block of glass and a laser.

In essence, the experiment is straightforward. Bekenstein's goal is to move the block by a distance that is about equal to the Planck length. His method is simple: zap the block with a single photon.

The photon carries a small amount of moment and consequently pushes the block as it enters the glass, giving it some momentum. As the photon leaves the block, the block comes to rest.

So the result of the photon's passage is that it moves the block a small distance.

Bekenstein's idea is that if this distance is smaller than the Planck length, then the block cannot move and the photon cannot pass through it.

So the experiment involves measuring the number of photons that pass through the block. If the number is fewer than predicted by classical optics, then that proves the existence of quantum foam.

Physics arXiv blog: How to Measure Quantum Foam With a Tabletop Experiment

ONLI STUDIOS & The Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago. Where people flow through over third Friday  events. We attracted art lovers, fans,  museum founders, collector organizations & city officials. .
Fans, collectors, curators and the curious were surprised to encounter the impact & quality of illustrations created by various Black Age Art Stars."Black Comix", the book, will be prominently displayed as part of the Black Age display.

OPENING RECEPTION NOV. 19th: "20 Years: Living In The Black Age!" This is the Black Age display and group art / multimedia exhibition at ONLI STUDIOS on the 4th floor of the Bridgeport Art Center. Also it will feature a screening of the historic DVD "Black Age Central" featuring the late & great L.A. Banks, from the 2010 Black Age of Comics Convention: Featuring creatives like Arie Monroe, John Jennings, Mshindo Kuumba I, Jamal Igle, Afua Richardson, Corey Greene, Rebeckah Younger, Eric Battle, N. Steven Harris, Turtel Onli and more.   The landmark "Black Comix" coffee table resource book and a variety of Black Age graphic novels will also be available for researchers or collectors.  Ours is such a growing community.  Black Age Central can be seen on YouTube under the same name.  ONLI STUDIOS is located at the Bridgeport Art Center.

Two:  The cafe   

The café is staffed and hosted by server and cook robots that cater and serve humans who have access cards only. Then, a late breaking report flashes on the digital image screens inside the café and outside on the main Washington St. "marauders and rebels and other unknown protesters continue to terrorize and fight against each other and against in a civil war against the federal patrol officers and Incbots that secure the main city streets all over the U.S and the world massive casualties estimate in the thousands, Today we interviewed Officer John Meeks who is the Federal Head Officer and Chief all Operations here in the U.S on Beacon Hill and here’s what he commented on the violent and civil war actions that have been going on since the lockdown law started many years ago “ I’ve been doing this sort of thing for 30 yrs. now, my dad was a federal officer, my granddad was a federal officer before him and so on and so forth, But let me tell all of you rebels, unknowns and low life  street scum marauders one thing my job is to uphold the federal lockdown law and the federal government pays me very, very handsomely to keep things the way they are around here”. “I'm RPG 059 reporting for New Boston World News,” the female robot says as she signs off.

The three men curiously stare at the people around the café who use their iPods, laptops and digital holographic image display devices to keep track of and to state updated on current events, they also see non-English speaking people laughing and conversation with English speaking people using portable global language translator or GLT devices."Can I help you gentlemen?” the small frail looking server robot asks startling the three men. "Yeah, I will have just a coffee, I'm not too hungry" Lee responded. "And you sir". "I have some pancakes, eggs and some orange juice, I just love me some orange juice" Mike sarcastically responds. "And you sir". I'll have toast and sausage and black coffee with four sugars, I like my coffee black and sweet just like my woman Gail" Peter replied. The server robot looked at Peter with a puzzled face not getting the meaning. "Black like your woman Gail sir that’s not on the menu" the server robot responded. "Just black coffee with four sugars,” Peter shouted. " Hey Peter calm down, robots do not know anything about being romantic" Lee said. The three men laughed.

 One: Downtown Boston 2199   

It is early spring in Boston, Massachusetts. The city is inhabited by humans and robots that walk and drive there hover cars and hover cycles in the streets carrying out there everyday tasks. Officers who uphold the national lockdown law patrol the streets. They walk on the streets carrying their laser rifles and pistols they also patrol there riding their hover cycles. 12 ft. 2000lb metal bipedal robots called IncBots who are heavily armed with laser weapons aid them. Two hover cars descend and land down on the surface of Tremont St. The car doors vertically open up. Three men get out of the car, one Asian man named Lee who is 5ft 7in tall, stalky build one black man named Mike who is 6ft 5 in. tall, athletically build and one white man named Peter who is 6ft even, muscular build. One of them takes one drag from a cigarette then he exhales the smoke and then thumps it on the cement sidewalk. "Hey you put your litter in its proper receptacle that's an order" the 2000lb, heavily armed bipedal Incbot shouted. "Sure thing" Peter replied. Mike walks over to the other hover car parked in back, the window rolls down on the driver's side. The beautiful face of an Indian woman whose name is Shana is revealed. "You all coming in the café with us" Mike asked. "No baby, we're going to ride around the town a bit, see what's happening" Shana responded. Mike runs his hand through Shana's long, ebony black silky hair and kisses her lips. "See you later baby,” she said. "Not if I see you first" Mike replied winking his eye at Shana. The window rolls up, the hover engine ignites and the car vertically and emerges into the ongoing air traffic. Mike, Peter and Lee walk into café, they sit down at a table at the far end.

HubbleSite

HubbleSite: NASA Great Observatories Find Candidate for Most Distant Galaxy Yet Known

Scientific American - more at link below

Starts With a Bang: So just what is out there beyond the Standard Model?

Since I've started writing sci-fi my research has been turning up some truly interesting science tidbits. We've all seen the Earth and other planets get annihilated left and right from 'gizmo beams', etc. But when you look at the Earth seriously, though it's much smaller than the Gas Giants it's the largest of the all the rocky planets including the planet-like moons in the solar system. When you seriously consider the Earth, it's really a giant ball of iron with some rock along with thin sheets of water and air over it. It is strongly believed early in the Earth's existence a collision with a rogue planet contributed to it's current mass and gave us the Moon as well. They estimate the planet was around the size of Mars but even that wasn't enough to obliterate the Earth! Here's a list of the Top 10 Ways to actually Destroy the Earth:

The Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

Physics World

Physics World: Millikelvin cooling of large molecules is no myth

VLT studies allowed first guesses as to the planet's composition, as seen in this artist's impression

BBC: 'Rogue planet' spotted 100 light-years away

Fast lane. Within the carefully sculpted waveguide, (left) light waves typically overlap to make a banded pattern (middle). However, depending on the width of the waveguide, waves of a certain wavelength travel infinitely fast, making the whole waveguide light up. Credit: AMOLF and University of Pennsylvania

Science NOW: Nanoscale Device Makes Light Travel Infinitely Fast

Technology Review

Technology Review: Europe Proposes Cheap Quantum Optics Link to ISS

National Institute of Advanced Industrial and Science Technology (AIST)

The FULL title (below) is quite a mouthful!

Our friend and resident Astrophysicist Dr. Holbrook is on Facebook and will be tweeting with regard to the Eclipse, today. I have excerpted some information but encourage you to read the entire update she posted at: 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=63615542&l=1f85b8f1e7&id=338846586205682

Here are the particulars on when the tweeting begins!

Join us and find out, as we live tweet (in Australia, the eclipse occurs at 6:39 am on Wednesday, 11/14; In the states: today Tuesday, 11/13 at 1:39 pm PST, 3:39 pm CST, and 4:39 pm EST) at @blacksun2012doc and @astroholbrook

Please support the post-production efforts of Black Sun 2012. Your tax-deductible donation will help part our "financial clouds," and can be made today at https://www.austinfilm.org/film-black-sun

PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!

Beautiful, vivacious and made to order! The Android PAnd0RA 001 returns in the last week of November in a new episode and with new cover art! The uncannily human-like android is finding her mission to 'bond' with her new human companion challenging. What does one do when their companion sees them as nothing more than an a machine? Not even a planetary network full of data holds the answer to that difficult question. Somehow PAnd0RA must solve that equation. She'll get her chance during a big upcoming event aboard the Corporate Interstellar Transport DROMEDARY! Meanwhile, the owner of that mysterious BOX wants it back and is going to take extraordinary steps to retrieve their property. Here's a sneak preview from EPISODE TWO:

MILKY WAY GALACTIC AUTHORITY EREBUS Class Deep Space Planetary Station -

OASIS 10
      Station Commander Sette Clavon waited anxiously as a single technician worked the hard light display’s Particle Wave Receivers controls. To have been awakened in the middle of his sleep cycle for reception of a classified transmission of personnel from PROMETHEUS GROUP Security was unsettling. For an MHG 1.5 like himself gaining command over a DSPS had been a monumental achievement even if he only got to see actual sunlight once every ten Earth Standard Years on his leave cycle. One of the major downsides of commanding a critical jump point in a Black Zone between five stellar systems was having to oversee important transmissions such as this. The arrival of a classified team from the Galaxy’s think tank could not be a good thing.

      The Commander watched the viz feed as a large Direct Transport Cube coalesced inside the Reception Chamber. He whistled between clenched teeth at the thought of those inside it undergoing direct site to site Particle Wave Transmission. Direct Transmission was a much faster method than traveling by transport as there was far less mass to compress within a warp bubble. However, the bubble time from site to site could last for decades! No one could travel in this manner without being in stasis.

      Problem was even in stasis, the mind must have periods of activity in order for humans to be fully functional upon arrival. On rare occasions, the activity cycles are not properly calibrated to match the individual. When a person is brought out of stasis, they are always disoriented. If their mental activity cycle was off calibration for decades, the individual would come out of stasis quite mad often, violently so.

      Amber scanning beams swept over the Cube revealing six stasis containers and one large Transport BOX. Each beam after having swept over a container registered with a green ‘CLEAR’ graphic on the technician’s display. The beam scanning the BOX suddenly flashed red and the display’s AI audio feed said, “Warning! Unauthorized unknown materials detected. Initiating security containment field.”  Abruptly a blue hard light energy field enveloped the BOX and the Commander exclaimed, “What in the Stygian Cloud did they bring aboard my station?” The Display’s AI then announced, “Unauthorized unknown materials contained at Level 6. Stasis Cycles complete. Six personnel are now online.”  

      Pointing to the display the Commander said, “Technician, display arriving personnel files. To the Commander’s dismay five of the files were blocked by the red CLASSIFIED graphic. However, one was viewable. A 2D image of a dark-skinned high-level Modified human male stared at him with fierce eyes making Commander Clavon involuntarily flinch. “PROMETHEUS GROUP Security Operations Officer Rewar Talvi? Who in the Black Cloud was this savage and what were he and a classified team doing on my station?” It would be several minutes before the arrivals would be cleared to embark the station. Somehow, Commander Clavon did not believe he would like the answers.”
© 2012 H. Wolfgang Porter. All Rights Reserved.

Now is the time to support a project that is truly legendary in the making. Learn about this character and his world.  If you're truly a warrior for change in the comic and novel industry now is the time for you to act and to tell others. Thank you for reading this post.  My name is Eric Cooper and I approve this message.

Knight Seeker KickStarter Preview. Goes live Nov 16th Friday

The scientist, who is director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, was approached in late summer by DC Comics, home of the long-running Superman series.

Originally, the comic book makers just wanted permission to feature Tyson and the planetarium in an upcoming issue of the series where Superman would view the demolition of his home planet, Krypton, which orbits an alien star named Rao.

"I said, 'Why don't I get you an actual star?'" Tyson told reporters during a meeting Thursday (Nov. 8), the day of the comic book's release.

"I was proud and honored that our institution could serve this role," Tyson said. "If they're just making stuff up, they don't need us."

How a Real-Life Astrophysicist Found Superman's Planet Krypton: The Inside Story by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor

I am part of the group of people putting forward a bid for the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) to be in Detroit in 2014: http://www.detroitin2014.org is our website, which is just getting started.

If the bid is successful I am optimistic that we will have strong program tracks in black sf and local black history, which is quite rich. We are open to suggestions of themes and topics, as well as suggestions for Guests of Honor, which will not be revealed until we either win or lose the bid.

Let me know your thoughts!