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Ebola 2.0...

A health worker walks at an Ebola quarantine unit on June 13, 2017 in Muma, Congo. Credit: John Wessels Getty Images

Topics: Biology, Ebola, Existentialism, Politics

The fact that the erstwhile resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, conman, racist, thug and crook has labeled any countries with shades of Melanin darker than his orange hue as "s-hole countries," don't expect any help from the US anytime soon. As a matter-of-fact, I expect we'll look at Puerto Rico as halcyon days of functionality.

The new Ebola outbreak on the western edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has ignited serious concern at the World Health Organization, with signs pointing to an epidemic that may have been underway for weeks or months.

Though there are only two confirmed cases at this point, preliminary investigations point to cases in several locations that may date back as far as early this year, Dr. Pierre Formenty, the WHO’s top Ebola expert told STAT. There is also fear that two health care workers may be among the infected, which happens often in Ebola outbreaks and can fuel the disease’s spread.

The country’s ministry of health, which declared the outbreak on Tuesday, said then that there are at least 21 people known to have symptoms consistent with Ebola, and 17 of whom have died.

While the outbreak is in a remote area where road travel is taxing and slow, one of the towns where cases may be occurring, Bikoro, is a port on a lake that connects to the Congo River. That opens up the disturbing specter of infected individuals traveling by boat to DRC’s densely populated capital, Kinshasa, or to Brazzaville, the capital of the neighboring Republic of the Congo.

“If it was only the roads, we know that the roads are very bad and that it’s difficult for people to travel. But if you reach Bikoro and you take a boat … everything could happen,” Formenty said in an interview on Wednesday.

“For us it’s a worrying situation in a bad context in terms of logistics. And we need to go fast.”

WHO Officials Fear Latest Ebola Outbreak in Congo Could Spread to Big Cities Helen Branswell, Scientific American

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Marsquakes...

FILE PHOTO: The Mars InSight probe is shown in this artist's rendition operating on the surface of Mars, due to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, U.S. on May 5, 2018 in this image obtained on May 3, 2018. NASA/ Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Topics: Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After decades exploring the surface of Mars, NASA is set for the weekend launch of its first robotic lander dedicated to studying the red planet’s deep interior, with instruments to detect planetary seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.

The Mars InSight probe is due for liftoff on Saturday before dawn from Vandenberg Air Force Base near the central California coast, treating early risers across a wide region to the luminous spectacle of the first interplanetary spacecraft to be launched from the U.S. West Coast.

The lander will be carried aloft for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) atop a powerful, 19-story Atlas 5 rocket from the fleet of United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.

InSight will be released about 90 minutes after launch on a 301 million-mile (548 km) flight to Mars, and is due to reach its destination six months later, landing on a flat, smooth plain close to the planet’s equator called the Elysium Planitia.

The 800-pound (360 kg) spacecraft - its name is short for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport - marks the 21st U.S.-launched Martian exploration, dating back to the Mariner fly-by missions of the 1960s. Nearly two dozen other Mars missions have been launched by other nations.

Spacecraft for detecting 'Marsquakes' set for rare California launch, Steve Gorman, Reuters Science

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Electroceuticals...

Image Source: Eureka Alert! AAAS

Topics: Biology, Biochemistry, Bioengineering, Biomedicine

Light-induced processes at the interface between silicon-based structures and biological ones can be used to remotely control a wide range of biological activities – from single cell calcium signalling to brain activity – without any genetic engineering of the biological systems involved. The new finding could help in the development of “electroceuticals”, in which bioelectric signals could be modulated to treat disease. As well as biomedical applications, the toolkits employed could also be used to study fundamental biophysical processes.

Silicon-based materials are widely used in biological applications. Two examples include silicon nanowire-based transistors for electrically monitoring the signals in cardiomyocytes and bioelectronics implants for the heart. They are rarely found in remotely controlled and interconnect-free device set ups, however. This is because researchers do not fully understand the complex physicochemical processes at play at the interfaces between silicon and biological materials.

Remotely-controlled silicon structures could help treat disease, Belle Dumé, Nanotechweb.org

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Turing Filter...

Alan Turing, pictured in a slate sculpture by Stephen Kettle, is known as a computer scientist and code breaker, but also made forays into mathematical biology. Credit: Steve Meddle/REX/Shutterstock

Topics: Biology, Computer Science, Diversity in Science, Mathematical Models, Nanotechnology

Researchers in China have developed a filter that removes salt from water up to three times as fast as conventional filters. The membrane has a unique nanostructure of tubular strands, inspired by the mathematical-biology work of codebreaker Alan Turing.

The filter is the most finely constructed example of the mathematician’s ‘Turing structures’ yet, and their first practical application, say researchers. “These 3D structures are quite extraordinary,” says Patrick Müller, a systems biologist at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory in Tübingen, Germany. The filter’s tubular strands, just tens of nanometers in diameter, would be impossible to produce by other methods, such as 3D printing, he says. The work is published on 3 May in Science.

British mathematician Alan Turing is best known for his code-breaking exploits for the UK government during the Second World War, and as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. But he also produced a seminal work in the then-nascent field of mathematical biology in 1952, just two years before his death.

In it, he proposed a mathematical model for a process by which the cells of an embryo might begin to form structures — limbs, bones and organs. In this process, two substances continuously react with each other but diffuse through their container at very different rates. The quicker-diffusing reactant — called the inhibitor — pushes back against the slower one, called the activator, effectively corralling the resulting product into a pattern of spots or stripes. (The terminology was coined by biologists Hans Meinhardt and Alfred Gierer, who independently formulated an equivalent theory in 1972.)

Water filter inspired by Alan Turing passes first test

Membrane's structure predicted in mathematician's lone biology paper.

Mark Zastrow, Nature

#P4TC: Turing Test...June 10, 2014

IMDB: The Imitation Game

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For Godot and Star Trek...

Mind the gap: Around 13% of last authors in physics were women – a figure that is currently increasing at a rate of just 0.1% per year (courtesy: Jarmoluk on Pixabay)

Topics: Diversity in Science, Existentialism, Star Trek, STEM, Women in Science

Cultural reference in blog title: Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett (Wikipedia)

Much has been seen recently in the #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #TimesUp and subsequently, #MarchForOurLives movements. Things that are and have been systemic in our society are being questioned by those groups affected. Indignities and injustices aren't being tolerated anymore. Even the March for Science is a reaction to the adversarial relationship between science and power, as in many cases the answers research may yield not fitting well with the agreed dogma of political forces.

Many women and minorities were inspired into STEM careers due to the Roddenberry franchise, itself born of the often violent and lethal unrest in the sixties, and a hope we would resolve our differences both national and personal through rational actions and discourse, personified in the character of Spock played by the late Leonard Nimoy. Despite his alien origins, he was an outsider of two worlds: Earth and Vulcan; part of each and not fully accepted by either. What we saw was a possibility of acceptance based on merit, not blocked by gender, culture or preconceived biases.

Alas, science is not populated by dispassionate Data's devoid of emotion chips. Every single one of us comes into the field with our life experiences and conditioned prejudices of a person's worth in our particular fields. I have no doubt that part of the issue is how we're socializing our children into preassigned roles. For example, I remember my "toys" being G.I. Joe with the "Kung Fu" grip; a chemistry set, an erector sets, a microscope, a telescope and a junior construction tool kit. My female neighbor friends mostly had Barbies and teddy bears. I don't think much has changed.

We may be forcing the solution to society's most daunting problems in pigtails with dolls, rather than electronic snap kits and microscopes. The current estimate of gender parity puts us in the fictional Kirk era. That's assuming we survive as a species, daunted by current population growth, our projected population growth and a lack of starships.

Physics has one of the largest gender gaps in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) according to an analysis of more than 36 million authors of academic papers over the last two decades (PLoS Biol 16(4) e2004956). The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia, says that at current rates it will be more than two centuries until there are equal numbers of senior male and female researchers in physics.

While the proportion of women in most STEMM fields is increasing, Luke Holman and his colleagues used computational methods to estimate the speed of change. They did this by estimating the gender of 36.6 million authors on 9.7 million papers the databases PubMed and arXiv. In the latter, for example, the researchers say they were able to estimate – with 95% confidence – the gender of 1.18 million authors from 538,688 preprint published since 1991.

If we want to see 50% of physicists being women sooner we need to implement new initiatives to do this – over and above any currently-running initiatives

Luke Holman, University of Melbourne

Gender gap in physics among highest in science, Michael Allen, Physics World

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Color contours account for the creation of mean kinetic energy along the spanwise direction. Positive values (red) indicate a turbulent kinetic energy flux in the negative spanwise direction, while negative (blue) values denote a flux in the positive spanwise direction. For both set of simulations, by increasing the tip speed ratio, the entrainment of mean kinetic energy increases for a given streamwise distance from the rotor disk.

Topics: Alternative Energy, Computer Science, Economics, Economy, Green Tech, Jobs, Mathematical Models

A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) has developed a new way to extract more power from the wind. This approach has the potential to increase wind power generation significantly with a consequent increase in revenue. Numerical simulations performed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) indicate potential increases of up to six to seven percent.

According to the researchers, a one percent improvement applied to all wind farms in the nation would generate the equivalent of $100 million in value. This new method, therefore, has the potential to generate $600 million in added wind power nationwide.

The team reported their findings in Wind Energy in December 2017 and Renewable Energy in December 2017.

In the branch of physics known as fluid dynamics, a common way to model turbulence is through large eddy simulations. Several years ago, Stefano Leonardi and his research team created models that can integrate physical behavior across a wide range of length scales — from turbine rotors 100 meters long, to centimeters-thick tips of a blades — and predict wind power with accuracy using supercomputers.

New Energy Control Strategy Helps Reap Maximum Power from Wind Farms

Aaron Dubrow, Texas Advanced Computing Center, University of Texas, Dallas

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Phonon Heat Transfer...

Illustration of the quartz plates used to measure heat transfer. The coloured regions are electrodes used to position the plates. Courtesy: M Ghashami et al/Phys. Rev. Lett.)

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Experimental Physics, Thermodynamics

New insights into why heat transfer between objects is enhanced at very short separations have been gleaned by Keunhan Park and colleagues at the University of Utah and University of Pittsburgh in the US. The team made exquisitely precise measurements of how heat moves between two quartz plates that are positioned just 200 nm apart. They found that energy transfer is enhanced by about 45 times at tiny separations, which they ascribe to the coupling of surface photon polaritons across the gap between the plates.

Normally, the heat transfer between two objects at different temperatures can be approximated by assuming that the objects are “black bodies”. These are ideal entities that absorb all radiation falling on them and emit thermal radiation according to Planck’s law. Physicists have known for some time that this breaks down when objects get to within a few hundred nanometres of each other, where they exchange heat much faster than predicted by the black-body approximation. Indeed, this “near-field” enhancement has already been used in some technologies including heat extraction and thermophotovoltaic systems.

However, more widespread use of the enhancement has been hampered by a poor understanding of the effect – which is a result of significant experimental difficulties in measuring heat transfer between objects separated by just a few hundred nanometres. These challenges include controlling unwanted heat flow and achieving precise control over the orientation and separation of the two objects.

Surface phonon polaritons boost heat transfer, Hamish Johnston, Physics World

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Funnel Booster...

a) Schematic shows the band structure of the semiconducting HfS2/HfO2 when under strain, and the consequent charge funnelling. b) The strain is induced in the semiconductor by creating a region of oxide using intense laser light. c) A photocurrent map of the device; the photoresponse drastically increases when a region (dashed circle, bottom) is oxidized, compared with the same device before oxidation (top), a sign of the charge funnelling effect. Figure reproduced with permission from the authors and Nature Communications.

Topics: Green Energy, Green Tech, Laser, Nanotechnology, Semiconductor Technology, Solar Power

Note: Radiant solar energy = 1.1 x 10^18 kilowatt hours/year; 3.013 x 10^15 kilowatt hours/day. We're literally "leaving money on the table"... for fossil fuel greed.

Source: United Nations World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability

Funnels are efficient tools for channelling liquids into containers with narrow openings. Now, researchers in Exeter have demonstrated the first funnel for electrical charges on a chip. The discovery builds on the ability to oxidize the atomically thin semiconductor, hafnium disulphide (HfS2), with a high-intensity UV laser. The non-uniform strain between oxidized and non-oxidized regions, and the subsequent band-gap modulation, generates electric fields, which effectively funnel the charges in the semiconductor flakes to areas where they can be more easily collected. This concept could enable a new generation of solar cells with 60% efficiency (currently around 21%), thanks to the increased efficiency in collecting photo-excited charges and the potential for hot-carrier extraction.

Intense laser light means oxidation, oxidation means strain

In general, bulk semiconductors can only sustain strains up to 0.4% before breaking. However, a layer of semiconductor that is only a few atoms thick can support strains of up to 25%. This amount of strain changes the band gap in the energy dispersion by up to 1 eV. In this work, Saverio Russo and his group at the University of Exeter, induce the strain in the HfS2 using a 375 nm laser to remove sulphur atoms, which are then replaced by oxygen atoms. According to calculations performed using density functional theory, the hafnium atoms have different separations in HfS2 and HfO2. This produces a 2.7% strain at the boundary between the oxidized and non-oxidized regions. Electrical contacts anchor the material to a substrate, so a strain gradient is present across the whole flake, shifting asymmetrically the conduction and valence bands to higher energies, and opening the band gap by 30 meV.

Funneling charges to boost solar-cell efficiency, Lauren Barr, PhD, network contributor for nanotechweb.org

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A Creeping Reaper...

The 100th meridian west (solid line) coincides with the climate divide between the relatively moist eastern U.S. and the more arid West. Climate change may already be pushing the divide eastward (dotted line). Credit: Richard Seager Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Topics: Climate Change, Greenhouse Gases, Weather

I used to live in Central Texas where an average summer temperature is 110 degrees Fahrenheit and a "cold front" is 90 degrees in comparison. I also suffered mightily from "Cedar Fever," a pollen from a popular local genus of tree. I also remember it being particularly lethal for senior and younger citizens as temperatures climbed. My wife has had her bouts with pine in New York and now North Carolina.

So CBS News reported in March that the intensity of allergy seasons may be extended by climate change as well as associated health risks from malaria to kidney stones and waterborne parasites. It makes it personal; denial hard to do when you're on an antibiotic more than you'd like to be.

The unfortunate part is, I think through denial and selfishness, we've waited beyond a window where we could do anything about it.

*****

To travel westward across the U.S. is to experience a striking landscape metamorphosis. Stately hardwood trees give way to squat shrubs, verdant cornfields to brown wheat and lush grasslands to cacti and creosote bush. The air dries out and the land is often parched. This rather abrupt shift from the humid east to arid west occurs along a border that slices neatly through the Canadian province of Manitoba, then the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and into eastern Mexico. The divide is so stark airline passengers can see it—a patchwork quilt of green farms on one side, a vast expanse of brown and gold on the other.

And now this boundary is on the move, creeping east as global temperatures rise, according to new research published last month in Earth Interactions. Given the line’s historical role in shaping U.S. westward expansion, its shift could alter the agriculture that plays a crucial role in the economy of the Great Plains states. [1]

Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas that is roughly 30 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide (CO2). Both gases are produced in thawing permafrost as dead animal and plant remains are decomposed. However, methane is only formed if no oxygen is available. Until now, it was assumed that larger amounts of greenhouse gases are formed when the ground was dry and well aerated—when oxygen was available. Christian Knoblauch and his colleagues have now demonstrated that water-saturated permafrost soils without oxygen can be twice as harmful to the climate as dry soils—which means the role of methane has been greatly underestimated.

Knoblauch has, for the first time, measured and quantified in the laboratory the long-term production of methane in thawing permafrost. The team had to wait for three years before the approximately 40,000 year-old samples from the Siberian Arctic finally produced methane. The team observed the permafrost for a total of seven years, an unprecedented long-term study.

They found that without oxygen, equal amounts of methane and CO2 are produced. But since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas, it is more significant. Because methane production couldn't be measured, it was assumed that in the absence of oxygen only very small amounts of it can be formed. "It takes an extremely long time until stable methane-producing microorganisms develop in thawing permafrost," explains Knoblauch. "That's why it was so difficult to demonstrate methane production until now." [2]

1. A Nation Divided: Arid/Humid Climate Boundary in U.S. Creeps Eastward, Shannon Hall, Scientific American

2. Thawing permafrost produces more methane than expected, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Phys.org

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Human Bean Writing Co. Presents- Dis-Oasis

Greetings Black Science Fiction Society!

I have just started a Sci-Fi Dystopian Series on my website https://www.patreon.com/hbwritingco

Description:

Dis-Oasis is a black sci-fi fantasy adventure centered on a new implementation of chattel slavery in a world mysteriously reduced to ashes. Set in a not so distant future, the story focuses on the journey of runaway slaves and the defiant daughter of a prominent slave master who are in search the promised land. But no one knows if this place exists, or if it is just a dream. However the reality of the unforgiving desert of ash and relentless pursuers will force our runaways to uncover the truth.

* I will posting chapters here weekly, with permission. Then I will submit chapters bi-monthly once the first act of the story is completed.

** Please feel free to comment and share what you see here. Message me with any feedback you can think of. I am growing as a writer and I am ready to hear any suggestions how to improve.

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Doublethink...

Image source: 1984 - Part 2, Chapter 9 by Luca

Topics: Commentary, Climate Change, Existentialism, Politics

Scientists are worried that EPA’s new plan to increase transparency will undermine it instead.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt yesterday unveiled a long-awaited plan to require that EPA studies used in future regulations must have open and transparent data. Pruitt said the proposed rule is part of his larger effort to dramatically reform the way science is used at the agency, which also included the removal of Science Advisory Board members who received EPA grants and were replaced with industry-friendly researchers.

“The science we use is going to be transparent, it’s going to be reproducible, it’s going to be able to be analyzed by those in the marketplace, and those that watch what we do can make informed decisions about whether we’ve drawn the proper conclusions or not,” Pruitt said yesterday at EPA headquarters.

But some of the biggest critics of Pruitt’s plans are scientists who say they’ve already been working to boost transparency for years.

Researchers have long grappled with how to make the peer-review process more accessible, how to make more research replicable and how to better share data, said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Scientists are always discussing ways to make their work more transparent, accessible and instructive for the community at large, Goldman added. The proposed EPA rule establishes a set of political hoops for researchers that will take more of their time, she said. And many won’t be able or willing to devote more effort to the additional red tape put up by Pruitt.

Blogger Marc Morano presented his book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” to Pruitt yesterday. Morano/Twitter

“This is not about all of the details that scientists need to scrutinize each other’s work. That information is already widely available, and scientists spend a tremendous amount of time disclosing all of their data and methods to get their work published,” she said. “This is adding additional burdens; it’s not the information that is required for appropriate peer review and reproducibility of studies. This is clearly just a political move.” [1]

*****

The prevailing mental condition is controlled insanity.

The rules of the Inner Party are held together by adherence to a common doctrine. In a Party member not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated. But it is also necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner. And if it is necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper with written records, then it is necessary to forget that one has done so. The trick of doing this can be learned like any other mental technique. It is learned by the majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, "reality control." In Newspeak, it is called doublethink, though doublethink comprises much else as well.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.

Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing them and to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able - and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years - to arrest the course of history... [2]

1. Scientists Favor Transparency, but Say EPA Plan Will Limit It

Directive to exclude certain research will harm public health and environment, critics say, Scott Waldman, Scientific American

2. Orwell Today dot com: Doublethink

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Need Members to Review My Comic Story!

Here's what's up BSFS!

For the past few years,  I have been putting together a comic book story that I would like to share with 50 other people.  The trouble is getting them to be invested in the story.  Why can't this be done here?  If you would review the comic pages for the others, then it would it would be like an investment of your time and effort which will be rewarded (unpaid co-ownership). Thank you for considering this opportunity to build my brand!  Leave a comment if this sounds like something you can do and I will send you a pdf.

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Family Legacy: A Short Story

>>>> Please excuse the typos and mistakes. This is still a work in progress, but I wanted to share it here first<<<<<

During the first season of my life my great-grandmother played an intricate role in shaping who I was to become. During our times together after school or on the weekends my mom decided she wanted go have a good time with my dad or her friends, she taught me lessons. Some lessons related to the things a child would experience in the school yard and in their daily comings on a goings. Other lessons, when I look back now, were well beyond my experience, but even as a seven year old somehow I understood her perfectly.

By the time I was born most of the grandfathers in my life had either passed away or were in the process of drinking themselves to death. During that time it wasn't much else for black men in Mississippi to do. You would either be worked to death, drank to death or in most cases both. So the closest I ever got to Mama Fancy's other half was an old black and white picture of him proudly standing in front of our house in Easter day. 1958 was the date on the picture, long before my arrival in 1979.

The evening light poured into the living room window casting a hard shadow of the window's checker board pattern. And although dinner was about forty-five minutes ago, the fried chicken's aroma still permeated the front half of the house.

“Is that skillet still burning on the stove?” My grandmother asked.

I my mother hopped up off the couch running into kitchen.

“Yes!” Mom shouted back.

“Shit, I told you to turn that skillet off! Girl, you don't want no grease fire up in here. Them be the hardest ones to put out. And I ain't got no more flour either. I used the last little bit frying that chicken.”

“Sorry Mama. I forgot.” My mom said opening the back door then fanning the air in the kitchen with a damp dish towel.

“Don't be sorry, be careful.” Grandma said. “Make sure nobody mess with that cake before Brenda and Ogdan gets here.

Aunt Brenda and Uncle Ogdan were my mom's older brother and sister. They both had lived in Jackson and had good jobs. My grandmother was always proud of their accomplishments. My mom was the only child to put having kids before getting a college degree. This caused a lot of animosity between her and her older siblings, especially Aunt Brenda.

“Why are they coming here today?”

“Because, we have to talk about mama and the thing that been going on lately.”

A pained look cross my mother's face at this answer. “Mama, don't say that. It's no where near time for that yet. You know how Mama Fancy just likes to talk out of her head sometimes. We shouldn't even be thinking about this.”

“Yes, we should and we is. I remember how it happen to Big Mama and now mama is doing the same stuff. We got to face it head on and make sure what needs to be done is done. I'm sad about it too, but it's only right.”

Uncle Ogdan's laugh could be heard throughout the house. He scooped up huge chunk of chocolate cake onto his fork stuffing it into his mouth. I wondered if there would be any left for the rest of us. My grandmother sat in the corner sipping her signature searing black coffee. I sneak and tried it once while she had her back turned. It took a whole day to get the taste of coffee beans out of my mouth. I still don't drink coffee in any form to this day. My Aunt Brenda sat beside her proudly talking about her new teaching assignment in the biology department at Jackson State University. My mother on the hand, fixed a nice hefty plate for Mama Fancy who preferred to take her meals in her bedroom lately.

The change in Mama Fancy started a month ago. Her conversations grew short and her memory even shorter. She started to obsess over being a burden to all of us. And most troubling, she started talking about the past. First it was the recent past such as fond memories of recently holidays or events. Then it was the distant past, very distant past. She spoke of people and things and places we never heard of or knew existed.

After finally being allowed to have our fill of the delicious chocolate cake, me along with my cousins were sent to my room to play and allow the adults to have their private conversation. However, I was more interested in hearing what they had to say bout Mama Fancy than playing Barbie dream house with my cousin Hannah.

“A choice got to be made soon.” My grandmother said.

“Well, I'm sure everything will work out in it's perfect timing.” Aunt Brenda smiled with confidence. “Don't worry so much mama. This has been done before and it will continue to be done.” She added rubbing grandma's back.

“I know it's been done before” Grandma pulled away from her. “Just this time I don't know if she in her right mind to do it. She barely know where she at half the time. This time, I... I think we gone have to choose it for her.”

“So now you want to take that away from her too?” My mother cut in. “You already treat her like a helpless child! Now, not only do you want to rush the process, you willing to take away her last dignity too.”

“Don't you accuse me of wanting to take nothing.” Grandma hissed. “It got to be done whether she can do it or not.”

“Is all of this really important?” Uncle Ogdan asked. “Can't we just let this end and live like a normal family? You know, try to be normal people who have to deal with normal things. Hell, we might even like it!”

Aunt Brenda nodded in half-hearten agreement. My mother scoffed and rolled her eyes at his absurdity. But Grandma leaned back and sat quietly then said, “You speak like a fool. The more you educated the dumber you get. Don't you get it? What this family got... What she got is more than any college or grad school could ever teach.” She pointed a long, curved shaky finger at my uncle. “If we lose this, we lose everything.”

“Well.” Aunt Brenda looked around at her mother and each of her siblings. “The choice is obvious.” She shrugged.

“Let me guess.” My mother said. “It should be you.”

“Well, yes!” She replied. “I am educated and successful. I can do a lot more with what I already have to offer.”

At this, my mother raised up from the back of her chair. “So you believe education and success and money makes you deserving of it? We was all taught that those things were fleeting. What about the things Mama Fancy taught us, like kindness and character and respect for spiritual things. You barely believe in going to church, Brenda.”

“Stop this.” My grandmother spat. “When the time comes...”

“If!” Mom cut in.

“If and when the time comes, I will do the choosing. We won't mention this no more, for now.”

That night I decided to ask to sleep with Mama Fancy. All the talk about her had me very worried. I needed to be near her. I didn't want to take my eyes off her or leave her side.

Come on in baby.” Mama Fancy said looking over her should at me. “Close that door all the way so the cool won't get out. The cool night air from the box fan in the window hummed a tune that I knew would soon sing me to sleep. “You can fold that big cover back, baby. The sheet will be all you need tonight. It's been so hot lately, but I feel like Fall is still coming sooner than it did last year.”

Yes ma'am” I replied. It was a long silence before I said, “They was talking about you tonight.”

I know.” She replied. “They just worried things won't work out. Yo grandmama always been a worrier, every since she was a child.”

They said they don't think you can decide.” I snitched. To this she laughed a rough coughing laugh.

Folks in this family been choosing for a thousand years or more, the choosing ain't about to stop now. If you want the honest truth I don't choose nothing. My job is to assign. God do the choosing.” She said.

So God gonna choose?” I asked.

He already did.” She said. “He choose seven years ago.”

Just then the blinding green light illuminated from her eye sockets and nostrils and mouth connecting to mine. Fright poured into me as my body froze in instant suspended animation. And although she didn't physically speak, she spoken to me in thoughts. “Don't be scared, Sadie. This is what's necessary to pass on the knowledge of our family, the things that lay secret in our blood. God showed me it was you. The day you were born I saw the light surround you. We was taken from our home, our land and our people. But it didn't get took from us. We made it we kept it, all of it. We made sure it survive. And now you will too.

A flood of unfamiliar memories spill into my mind. There were memories of my grandmother as a young woman raising a family. Then the memories went back further to when she was just a little girl running around in her father's yard barefoot playing with sticks in the dirt. I even saw the moment that she received the family's legacy. It was her mother who passed it to her.

Then the pictures and sequences further back into time. I saw members of my family on plantations and then sailing to this land chained up in the belly of ships surrounded by blood, bowels, sickness and death. Suddenly we were back in Africa, watching daily tribal life play out when there was peace and freedom and wholeness playing out among the people. There was a shaman who created an elixir to be given to bride who was at least six months pregnant. “This life will not always be. There is trouble ahead and everything you are, know and love you will be stripped away from.” He said. “But with this gift, I can never be stripped away from you.”

The pregnant woman drank the elixir in it's entirety. I saw her thoughts go back deeper than anyone could think humanly possible, all the way back to the beginning of time to the birth of what we consider the universe. And all went black. I fell into a deep comatose sleep among newly birthed stars that were looked upon by my ancient nonhuman ancestors, the ones who were the first and to my recently acquired knowledge, will be the last.

The next morning I awoke to my mother's screams. From that day to my last day I will remember every thing I saw. My mother said at the kitchen table wailing as my held Mama Fancy's body up in a chair to keep it from falling onto the floor. Later, I was told that Mama Fancy awoke early that morning walked into the kitchen (something she hadn't done in over a week), fixed a cup of coffee, happily took several sips and died.

After her funeral members of my immediate and distant family gathered to sort things out. First it was the mundane subjects like money, property and personal belongings. It wasn't long before the subject of the family legacy came up. The collective consensus was that it was lost. Everyone assume Mama Fancy died before she could choose a successor to pass it along to.

Most of family were distraught over the loss. My grandmother's sister Delilah even went so far as to blame her for now caring for Mama Fancy adequately. But there were a few who were relived. I guess they felt that since the great superstition was gone we could now be what society deems as a normal family.

But I knew. I knew it all and felt it and experienced it on a daily basis. Which each new day there was a new lesson for me to learn. I knew download about the history of our people and sometimes the origins of this world. My grandmother passed away the year I turned 23. I last time saw her was that Fall. It was her birthday so I went to visit her in the nursing home.

When my mother and her siblings decided to put her in there, she fell into a state of depression. But with time, she grew accustomed to her new living situation and even started participating in the extra curricular activities. The fishing rodeo was her favorite. However, around the time of her birthday during her second year there her health began to fade.

The strong ointment odor pierced my nostrils before I even stepped into her room. I took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dull white light that spilled itself upon the room. Her frail weak hand grasped the crisp what sheet that draped itself across her lower abdomen and legs. “I told you I don't need another sheet. It's hot as it is!” She complained.

It's me grandma, Sadie.” I said

Oh hey baby.” She smiled. “I thought you were that new girl. My god, she thinks everyone in here is about to freeze to death.”

I'm sure she's just trying to do her job.” I said moving across the room to sit in the chair next to her bed.

Yeah, I reckon so. It's been weeks since anybody came to visit. Your mother and aunt called. But, I have a feeling your Uncle Ogdan will make an appearance since it's my birthday. Yeah, his witch of a wife will allow it, I reckon. She barely wants him to keep up the money I need to stay in this place.” She said turning to face me. “With all his smarts and wit, how did he manage to marry such a woman?” She asked herself more so than me.

I don't know, grandma. I guess he just... He just fell in love.”

She grinned. “I guess so. That's the only way anybody can explain it I assume.”

I smiled and took her hand in mine. “Is that for me?” She asked finally noticing the small round chocolate cake sitting on the table.

Yes ma'am.” I replied. “Happy birthday grandma.”

She softly stroked my hand and a serious look appeared on her face. “I always knew it was you.” She said. I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could speak she spoke again. “That morning... The morning she died I was so worried that it was lost.”

Then you came out of her room. Standing there in your little white gown, I saw the spirit all around. It was in your eyes and I knew that all was not lost and that everything would be alright. She knew too, that's why she didn't worry, because she always knew it was you.”

A week later she made the transition. And although her, along with Mama Fancy and so many others are gone now, I still feel them all around me. I feel their hopes, their fears, dreams and aspirations. Not only can I feel their past, but also their wants for their descendents today. I do not know who will come after me, but whoever it may be, I must remember that all will never be lost.

- END -

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The Year Without a Summer....

Map of unusual cold temperatures in Europe during the summer of 1816 Credit: Creative Commons, authored by Giorgiogp2

Topics: Climate Change, Existentialism, Global Warming

The summer of 1816 was not like any summer people could remember. Snow fell in New England. Gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe. It was cold and stormy and dark - not at all like typical summer weather. Consequently, 1816 became known in Europe and North America as "The Year Without a Summer."

Why was the summer of 1816 so different? Why was there so little warmth and sunshine in Europe and North America? The answer could be found on the other side of the planet - at Indonesia’s Mount Tambora.

On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora, a volcano, started to rumble with activity. Over the following four months the volcano exploded - the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. Many people close to the volcano lost their lives in the event. Mount Tambora ejected so much ash and aerosols into the atmosphere that the sky darkened and the Sun was blocked from view. The large particles spewed by the volcano fell to the ground nearby, covering towns with enough ash to collapse homes. There are reports that several feet of ash was floating on the ocean surface in the region. Ships had to plow through it to get from place to place.

Fun facts: this was the year Mary Shelley wrote the first science fiction (and admittedly dystopian novel) Frankenstein; poet Lord Byron wrote "Darkness," inspired by all the gloominess. Mary's husband Percy was apparently a poet too. When writers get cooped up by dismal weather, they tend to go stir crazy!

This was and is climate change.

The less-sexy, mouthful term is anthropogenic climate disruption. You can't soundbite it and make it into a riff, either for or against. I guess technically, this was "volcanic climate disruption." Global weirding - then, and now - is probably more apropos:

I prefer the term 'global weirding,' coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, because the rise in average global temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy things — from hotter heat spells and droughts in some places, to colder cold spells and more violent storms, more intense flooding, forest fires and species loss in other places. Source: Wiktionary

One wonders...instead of prose or poetry, what would have been inspired if Twitter had existed?

Muse for post title:

Mount Tambora and the Year Without a Summer, Center for Science Education

Related book:

The Madhouse Effect, by Michael Mann, Climate Scientist and Tom Toles, Pulitzer Prize political cartoonist

#P4TC links:

Terraforming Earth...April 8, 2015

On Stupid...June 2, 2017

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