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Madness and Hiroshimas...

On August 6, 1945, 8.15 am, the uranium atom bomb exploded 580 meters above the city of Hiroshima with a blinding flash, creating a giant fireball and sending surface temperatures to 4,000-C. Fierce heat rays and radiation burst out in every direction, unleashing a high pressure shockwave, vaporizing tens of thousands of people and animals, melting buildings and streetcars, reducing a 400-year-old city to dust. [1]
Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics

"Fire and fury"...that sounds tough until you denigrate 755 career diplomats an adversary expels in a retaliatory move for [them] interfering in our last election cycle. 755 professionals, their families...and children that will be displaced stateside just as schools are starting. It sounds strong, but when Kim Jong Un thinks it's crazy, it likely is. There will be no "cost savings" or reduction to any payroll, as unbeknownst to most of us, Moscow hasn't raised their flag above our capital (yet). It's an obvious dodge, diverting attention from the ongoing Russia investigation, "playing chicken" with extinction for an ego; the plot for a poorly scripted reality show we're all haplessly in.

We cannot continue "government by tweet and bluster." We cannot call ourselves a federal republic when our leader undermines his own citizens. We cannot continue as a nation, a PLANET or a species.

He was aptly described as a "chaos agent" during the primaries. He proves it daily.

The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 250.000 people and became the most dreadful slaughter of civilians in modern history. However, for many years there was a curious gap in the photographic records. Although the names of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incised into our memories, there were few pictures to accompany them. Even today, the image in our minds is a mixture of devastated landscapes and shattered buildings. Shocking images of the ruins, but where were the victims?

The American occupation forces imposed strict censorship on Japan, prohibiting anything "that might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility" and used it to prohibit all pictures of the bombed cities. The pictures remained classified 'top secret' for many years. Some of the images have been published later by different means, but it's not usual to see them all together. This is the horror they didn't want us to see, and that we must NEVER forget: [1]

Image Source: [1]
Housewives and children were incinerated instantly or paralysed in their daily routines, their internal organs boiled and their bones charred into brittle charcoal. [1]

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August 1945) were the first of their kind. "Little Boy" and "Fat Man"+ were their code nicknames. If this "fire and fury" bluster sounds "familiar," it was likely borrowed from this far more presidential source. 45's impressive uncle likely explained a lot of things to the young millionaire, but his by now well known infamously short attention span, he likely missed a few salient points. Half-life+ is measured in thousands of years, for example. The current yield of thermonuclear versus atomic devices has been proposed to not be measured in mere TNT or megatons, but Hiroshimas.

The pictures above are vile, ugly and a reflection of a dark part of our national soul. "Hindsight being 20/20 vision," our actions may have tragically been utterly and arrogantly unnecessary. [2] We have danced on the edge of this scalpel for three generations that has been the background for a field known as dystopian science fiction, until Carl Sagan's salient warning now bears the hindsight of prophesy. [3] "Duck and cover" drills have become a part of our history of gallows humor, as currently our two malignant narcissistic* heads of state act like prepubescent boys, comparing the size of their phallus symbols, erect and ejaculating like pyromaniacs over the fires of Armageddon. A universe as well as what's left of the Earth will go on.

Humanity: it's been a good run.

1. Hiroshima, the pictures they didn't want you to see, Fogonazas2. The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan … Stalin Did - Have 70 years of nuclear policy been based on a lie? Ward Wilson, Foreign Policy3. “We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark.

Related links:

How Do Nuclear Weapons Work? Union of Concerned Scientists*Malignant Narcissism: Collision of Two Personality Disorders, Rhonda Freeman Ph.D., NeuroSagacity, Psychology Today [Note: since I am not a psychiatric professional, this is not breaking the "Goldwater rule." I am merely a citizen observing the obvious.]No One Should Have Sole Authority to Launch a Nuclear Attack, by the editors of Scientific American, Policy & EthicsPowerful Pictures Show What Nuclear ‘Fire and Fury’ Really Looks Like, Rachel Brown, National GeographicTrump Doubles Down on Threats Against North Korea as Nuclear Tensions Escalate, Peter Baker, New York Times

#P4TC:

Catharsis... March 31, 2013M.A.D... July 20, 2014+Half-Life... August 5, 2016The Minutes... January 30, 2017The Physics of Doomsday... July 24, 2017
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SHOT-OUT to M. Haynes for forwarding this exciting news!

MOTHER is coming...

...that's right, Octavia Butler, the mother of Black science fiction, is coming to a television near you through Ava Duvernay! Early yesterday it was announced that Duvernay would be creating a television series based off Octavia Butler's novel, Dawn. This marks the first time Butler's work makes a television appearance, and hopefully Mother Butler will once again make way for other Black speculative authors to follow in her footsteps! Take a look at the article here and set your DVRs now!

https://shadowandact.com/ava-duvernay-octavia-butler-dawn-victoria-mahoney-macro

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Milky Way and Einstein...

This artist’s rendition shows the orbits of stars circling the supermassive black hole (blue halo) at the Milky Way’s center. A close analysis suggests the stars’ orbits are showing subtle effects predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Credit: ESO/M. Parsa/L. Calçada
Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Einstein, General Relativity, Gravity

A giant star near the center of our galaxy hints, once again, that Albert Einstein was correct about gravity.

A group of astronomers in Germany and the Czech Republic observed three stars in a cluster near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Using data from the Very Large Telescope in Chile, among others, the researchers tracked how the stars moved as they went around the monster black hole.

One of the stars, called S2, showed slight deviations in its orbit that might indicate relativistic effects, scientists said. If the observations are confirmed, then it shows that Einstein's theory of general relativity holds even under extreme conditions — in gravity fields produced by objects like the galactic center's black hole, which contains the mass of 4 million suns. General relativity says that massive objects bend the space around them, causing other objects to deviate from straight lines they would follow absent any forces on them.

Closest Supermassive Black Hole Tests Einstein’s Relativity, Jesse Emspak, SPACE.com and Scientific American
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Quantum Engines and Entropy...

Image Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 
Topics: Modern Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics

ABSTRACT
Two testable schemes for quantum heat engines are investigated under the quantization framework of noncommutative (NC) quantum mechanics (QM). By identifying the phenomenological connection between the phase-space NC driving parameters and an effective external magnetic field, the NC effects on the efficiency coefficient, N, of quantum engines can be quantified for two different cycles: an isomagnetic one and an isoenergetic one. In addition, paying a special attention to the quantum Carnot cycle, one notices that the inclusion of NC effects does not affect the maximal (Carnot) efficiency, NC, ratifying the robustness of the second law of thermodynamics.

Quantum engines and the range of the second law of thermodynamics in the noncommutative phase-spaceJonas F. G. Santos, Alex E. Bernardini, Physics arXiv
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Black America" Series to be Produced and Written by Will Packer & Aaron McGruder

"http://afropunk.com/2017/08/hbos-confederate-amazons-black-america-minimize-massive-injustices-u-s-founded

https://www.moviefone.com/2017/08/01/new-black-america-series-has-everything-twitter-wanted-confederate/

"The Black Count" by Tom Reiss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Count:_Glory,_Revolution,_Betrayal,_and_the_Real_Count_of_Monte_Cristo

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Sweethome3d is bitter sweet. The one company makes two dark skinned characters that are stiff compared to an assortment of light skinned characters. An after thought, perhaps. Reminds me of my art class days, I was the model for the day and it took three tries and the teacher cursing before cartoonish me gave way to realistic me. Thus we have to present ourselves in digital space ourselves as ourselves. Think this is bad you should see the female, holy ancient mime ma, lean back a little you'll fall forward. OK, I had to rant of the digital space lacks. And this is at you 3d character designers of the dark skin clans. Don't forget regular people characters, you know, the ones who are not unplugged, the walk-ons and walk-bys, movie extras. They are essential in any drama and are cool if you need to show regular black folk living in that fancy modeled house (or spaceship) to a prospective black client. Yeah mon, Nubian I think.

Just for a sneek experiment I found a brown person face map and swapped it with the map on one of the white (there I said it) characters. What a monster (LOL)! We need to be who and what we are in digital space. Alas I am a plug and play guy and so I wait for a crew of pre-posed digital black persons to be free-ware or reasonably priced. I wonder if digital people know they are slaves to sentient beings? Story!!!

So if it is not too much fuss, you could apply SweetHome3D to 3D storyboarding. If you have a more powerful PC than I, I am sure the rendering shots are useful. And by the way Sweethome3d is free. There is no excuse for ones just getting into it to get in on it. And as toys go, this is dollhouses on steroids. I think I am going to insert SketchUP 2d "face-me" figures into sweethome3d, like living with life size paper cutouts, cartoonish effect.

Now read the coded message in the picture. House with roof blown, horse in house but it's cool (shades), dark guy is still in the box, light guy in Armoni and tennis shoes is running things. Who knows, the Shadow do.

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B-Doped Q-Carbon Superconductors...

FIG. 1. SIMS profiles of (a) as-deposited boron and carbon layers with the inset showing a schematic of the alternating layers of amorphous carbon and boron deposited on c-sapphire using the pulsed laser deposition technique and (b) pulsed laser annealed (B-doped Q-carbon) thin films with the inset showing a schematic of B-doped amorphous Q-carbon formed on c-sapphire.

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Science, Solid State Physics, Superconductors

ABSTRACT
Following a brief report on high-temperature superconductivity in B-doped Q-carbon [Bhaumik et al., ACS Nano 11(6), 5351–5357 (2017)], we present detailed structure-property correlations to understand the origin of superconductivity in strongly bonded lightweight materials and methods to further enhance the superconducting transition temperature (Tc). Nanosecond melting of carbon in a super undercooled state and rapid quenching result in a strongly bonded unique phase of B-doped Q-carbon. The temperature-dependent resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements demonstrate type II superconductivity in this material with a transition temperature of 36.0 ± 0.5 K and an upper critical field of 5.4 T at ∼0 K. It has also been shown that in B-doped Q-carbon, the upper critical magnetic field (Hc2(T)) follows Hc2(0) [1-(T/Tc)2.1] temperature dependence and is consistent with the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer formalism. In the present study, B-doped Q-carbon thin films are formed on sapphire substrates by employing pulsed laser annealing (PLA) using a nanosecond excimer laser. This process involves the rapid quenching of highly undercooled melt of homogenously mixed B and C. Through the structure-property correlation measurements in B-doped Q-carbon, we estimate a higher electronic density of states near the Fermi level. Higher density of states near the Fermi-level along with higher Debye temperature and phonon frequency are responsible for the enhanced Tc. As a result of rapid melting and quenching, we can achieve 17.0 ± 1.0 or higher atomic % of B in the electrically active sites of Q-carbon which leads to the formation of shallow electronic states near the valence band maximum. From the critical current density versus field moments, the value of critical current density (Jc (2T)) in B-doped Q-carbon at 21 K is calculated as 4.3 × 107 A cm−2, which indicates that this novel material can be used for the persistent mode of operation in MRI and nuclear magnetic resonance applications. This discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in B-doped amorphous Q-carbon shows that the non-equilibrium synthesis technique using the super undercooling process can be used to fabricate materials with greatly enhanced physical properties.

A novel high-temperature carbon-based superconductor: B-doped Q-carbonAnagh Bhaumik1, Ritesh Sachan1,2, and Jagdish Narayan1,a)Journal of Applied Physics 122, 045301 (2017); doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4994787
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latest explorations

The nerd artist life. Hard to describe, I do draw with gel pens and I do fancy a bullet nose marker. The great god Harold and the Purple Crayon (they made a movie, well a cartoon) would be proud.

My tools consist of an XP era desktop and an engineering laptop. They are overworked but hang in there quite well. The laptop has a removable graphics card. It has gone black 5 times and 5 times I have revived it by baking it in the oven. A trick I learned from British PC Techs on U-tube. I also have a 8" tablet that use to be a phone and has no flash for the camera replacing the 10" tablet I can't fix. Android apps are handy.

I am a Linux guy. Nuff said. While the programs it runs are limited in commercial success they excel in freeware, join the league of remarkable programmer projects, open source and sorry it also comes in Mac and Windows versions software.

I know you know about GIMP the not really Photoshop and Inkscape the no where near Illustrator so I won't go there. By the way they work fine for me and they are both free.

I will touch on Sweet Home 3D. It is a JAVA program and it draws your walls in 3d while you draw the floor plan. Then you can add doors and windows and furnishings, trees, cars and whatever else many people have contributed in the way of models. You can alter material colors, map  patterns and it does alpha channels. If you need clear or tinted glass, hey.

Then it does rendering from fuzzy and flat to reflections and lights, shadows. I have found that if you design a thing in say SketchUp, you can export DAE/OBJ/KMZ, you can import it into Sweet Home3d and it will be right at home, sweet pun. It will also do walk through movies. Now who said you can do just houses, "this is the construct............." Anyway even though I am not Syd Mead, here is a picture of my artwork in a modeled space and both are my artwork.

And also a sea container studio with windows inspired by Boba Fett's cloner facility apartment. You could model scenes and throw in some 3d characters.

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the imagineer

I am not much for fantasy, sometimes sci-fi can be a stretch, a futurist, yeah. For a digital artist it can be rough. The concept of fine art looms large with its smell of oil or the quick drying acrylic glaze. The image of one who holds the brush as it were a light saber. The image of the imager frozen in framonite to hang before the gazers with hand to chin. Mind gawkers, all of them, peering ever so close to see if brush hairs were inadvertently glued to the surface. The gallant gallery head bobbles with cha-ching. Then I bring my digital print. Doesn't matter if it is an eleven by eight point five inch print or forty by sixty foot print, they ask the same question with a slight distain, "where is the original?". I am ready this time, "I have it right here" and whip out a tiny micro dot on a business card. "You really can't see it until you put this in a computer or print it out as a did for your easier viewing." "And I got some fume of linseed oil in a Glade mister. I expect the same respect you give lithographers and photographers and block printers. And no you can't do this on your office printer......................ever!" Wait till they start putting human brains in automatons, "ooh where is the original?"

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Titan the Ultra Man Needs YOUR Help!

$400 Needed To Reach Our Goal!!

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!

Our current Kickstarter for TITAN THE ULTRA MAN #2 is underway but we need your support to bring the book to life!  We're seeking funds to get the book printed and distributed with only $400 dollars away from meeting our goal.  We are so very close but need your support to get to the finish line!


Some of the available rewards for backing the book are shown here along with the cover and interior page art from the TITAN THE ULTRA MAN #2 comic.

A review of the comic by Geekery Magazine can be seen here - http://www.geekerymagazine.com/2017/07/28/review-titan-the-ultra-man-2/

Here's How To Show Your Support:

To bring the comic book to print, the $1,000 funding goal must be met.  We are currently halfway towards meeting our goal.

You can pledge as little as ONE DOLLAR - Every dollar counts to making the goal!

Thank you for your time and your support!

Tony Kittrell

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Listen to this book for FREE when you try Audible.
With a 30-day Audible trial

Planet of Doom excerpt

By Lawrence Johnson Sr.

It was a dark time for The Planetary Alliance.  Two of Princess Arianna’s highly regarded warriors Dajus and Mallobo had gone rogue.  Their attacks on the Planetary Alliance and their master computers have thrown the entire galaxy into chaos.  Following the attack and destruction of the intergalactic transport ship the Star Lighter and it 8,000 passengers, members of the Planetary Alliance put in a call to Da’Quan, the best intergalactic detective of his time.  His job seemed simple, locate Dajus and Mallobo and the alliance would do the rest. 

It would be a simple task if it were not for the fact that the two outlaw warriors had the ability to appear and disappear at will.  It would be some time before Da’Quan would meet with his new employers.  As luck would have it Da’Quan’s ship was forced to crash land on the Planet of Doom.

Just before the crash Da’Quan saw the red flashing lights on the Spirit’s console.  He could also hear the warning message constantly blaring over his pa system he named Nano.  “Alert, crash imminent, take preventive measures.”  Something was pulling his ship down to the planet below.  As he struggled to keep his craft airborne Da’Quan noticed a small island up ahead.  It was touch and go for a while but Da’Quan was able to get out a distress call to a friend and land his ship without breaking any bones.

The tall dark haired Da’Quan carefully maneuvered his toned six-foot frame into the chair in front of the console.  ‘Where the hell am I?’ he asked himself. 

After taking a minute to scan his computer charts Da’Quan slumped down into his seat.  He took a deep breath and double checked his charts hoping that he had made an error but there was no doubt about it, Da’Quan had landed on Akanon, better known as the Planet of Doom.  His only hope was to try and repair his ship and leave before he was discovered. 

http://amzn.to/2veRpim

 

It was midday, the weather was warm, there were no signs of Artificial Intelligence but within a few minutes Da’Quan could hear voices headed in his direction.  

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Nanotomography...

A vertical slice of the internal magnetic structure of a sample section. The sample is 0.005 millimetres (5 microns) in diameter and the section shown here is 0.0036 millimetres (3.6 microns) high. The internal magnetic structure is represented by arrows for a vertical slice within it. In addition, the colour of the arrows indicates whether they are pointing towards (orange) or away from the viewer (purple). Graphics and text: Paul Scherrer Institute/Claire Donnelly
Topics: Atomic Force Microscopy, Atomic Physics, Electromagnetism, Optical Physics, Nanotechnology

Thanks to a technique called hard X-ray magnetic tomography, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland, the ETH Zurich and the University of Glasgow have succeeded in imaging the magnetization in 3D bulk-like magnets and observe features down to just 100 nm. In particular, they have observed structures known as Bloch points, which were predicted theoretically more than 50 years ago but never actually seen in an experiment until now. The new work could help us better understand the relationship between the magnetic structure and the behaviour and performance of bulk magnets, and so improve the everyday applications in which they are employed.

“Although it was possible to image the arrangement of magnetic moments in 3D before now in films of up to around 200 nm thick using soft X-rays and electrons, it was not possible to study the internal micromagnetic structure of larger, bulk, systems,” explains team member Claire Donnelly of the PSI. “In general, it is not possible to slice down a magnet to investigate its structure because the magnetic configuration will change accordingly. Scientists have tried to overcome this problem in the past using neutron magnetic imaging, but they were only able to achieve a spatial resolution of tens to hundreds of microns using this approach.

“In our new work, we are able to study the internal magnetization within a micron-sized system with 100 nm spatial resolution and observe micromagnetic details within the bulk for the first time.”

The researchers, led by Laura Heyderman, imaged the internal magnetic structure of a micron-sized pillar made of the magnetic material gadolinium-cobalt using hard X-ray magnetic tomography, a technique developed at PSI during the course of this study. “We had to make a number of advances in developing this method,” explains Donnelly. ‘First, we developed hard X-ray magnetic imaging with nanoscale magnetic resolution (this work was published last year). Hard X-rays have a much higher energy than soft X-rays and thus a much larger penetration depth, which allows us to study thicker samples with high spatial resolution.

X-ray nanotomography reveals 3D magnetization structures, Belle Dumé, Nanotechweb.org
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ComicCon in Seoul!

So this year marks the first time ComicCon, the US comics convention, came to Seoul, South Korea. The good Korea (Pyeongyang is the bad one). 

"So, who was there, how was it, did you get any good pics?" you're probably wondering.

Lots of shows, not much for the English language viewer. Many of the exhibitors spoke a bit of English, and few were working on English Language projects.

I even got a part time job offer! DynaComics is looking for English writers to transcribe their partner comics. Their Korean translators will change your transcription into Korean language so readers can read it in a special Android/IOS app. I see potential for BSFS comic artists to get their comics in another audience. Swing by dynacomics.com or email support@dynacomics.com if you're interested.

Also I saw the infamous Dark Tower exhibit. I won a ticket in their shooting game. BUT...they had one of their exhibitors in blackface. Honestly, I thought it was orange-face because it was too orange. 

Lots of beautiful cosplay- and a lack of groping! I didn't hear or see any groping. Also, the costumes were put together well. Most of the cosplayers used sturdy costumes after the infamous ComicWorld brawl in Busan City when Link fought Tracer and Captain America because they damaged his costume somehow.

 

 Even the kids got into it

And the 501st Legion paid a visit.

If you're into Cosplay, two Cosplay experts from Russia showed up to talk about how they make their stylish and amazing costumes. I took a few videos of their explanation.

I saw quite a few black Cosplayers. A Storm, a Black Panther, a Brock, few others. Everybody gets into the spirit of "adult costume day". LOL

Steven Yeun was the main guest along with a famous Marvel artist. Mikkelson I think. I didn't spend the extra money to see them. Not really my thing. He got amazing crowd support.

There wasn't much in the way of food, but there was Shwarma, the mideastern food eaten at the end of Avengers. Mine was cold. Was it supposed to be cold? But no matter. COEX has a large food court and many upscale places to eat, so why bother selling food?

Saw some VR activities. You'll be seeing more of those in the future.

My drone piloting could use some work. It flew out of the tent and attacked random people walking by. 

Everybody was pretty excited to be there. It was packed but it wasn't an elbow grinder like the other ComicCons are.

Would I go again? Sure! 

Should BSFS spend $3,000 on a booth for three days? Well...we'd need one helluva product to make back what we spent.

These overseas events are a lot of fun! If you're patient and want to learn artistic things, they can be useful as well.

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The Flying Bullet: Graphic Novel

Print Edition and E-Book Available

SUPPORT THE CAUSE RIGHT HERE

Lt. Curt Masters, a Tuskegee Airman, is flying a combat mission over the skies of Nazi Germany in 1945. He encounters an alien craft. He engages the craft unsuccessfully. Soon, he is aboard the UFO and is charged with Obstruction of Galactic Operations. He and the people of earth are on trial for their survival. Can Curt Masters free himself from over a billion miles away? Will he ever return home? Or will he die at the hands of The Warlord. In this new universe, he meets Aliena-a Galactic Police officer, Sutter-a mysterious friend or foe and ARC, who is an android without a will of his own. Curt will learn that once you Look Forward you can Never Go Back. Written by Chris Love, this graphic novel offers new worlds and possibilities. A companion feature film has been adapted from this graphic novel.

DIVERSE BOOKS RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW

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The Flying Bullet:

THE FLYING BULLET

Lt. Curt Masters, a Tuskegee Airman, is flying a combat mission over the skies of Nazi Germany in 1945. He encounters an alien craft. He engages the craft unsuccessfully. Soon, he is aboard the UFO and is charged with Obstruction of Galactic Operations. He and the people of earth are on trial for their survival. Can Curt Masters free himself from over a billion miles away? Will he ever return home? Or will he die at the hands of The Warlord. In this new universe, he meets Aliena-a Galactic Police officer, Sutter-a mysterious friend or foe and ARC, who is an android without a will of his own. Curt will learn that once you Look Forward you can Never Go Back. Written by Chris Love, this graphic novel offers new worlds and possibilities. A companion feature film has been adapted from this graphic novel.

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Borrowed Stuff...

A pair of nearby galaxies where "intergalactic transfer" may be happening. (Fred Herrmann)
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology

EVANSTON - In a first-of-its-kind analysis, Northwestern University astrophysicists have discovered that, contrary to previously standard lore, up to half of the matter in our Milky Way galaxy may come from distant galaxies. As a result, each one of us may be made in part from extragalactic matter.

Using supercomputer simulations, the research team found a major and unexpected new mode for how galaxies, including our own Milky Way, acquired their matter: intergalactic transfer. The simulations show that supernova explosions eject copious amounts of gas from galaxies, which causes atoms to be transported from one galaxy to another via powerful galactic winds. Intergalactic transfer is a newly identified phenomenon, which simulations indicate will be critical for understanding how galaxies evolve.

“Given how much of the matter out of which we formed may have come from other galaxies, we could consider ourselves space travelers or extragalactic immigrants,” said Daniel Anglés-Alcázar, a postdoctoral fellow in Northwestern’s astrophysics center, CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics), who led the study. “It is likely that much of the Milky Way’s matter was in other galaxies before it was kicked out by a powerful wind, traveled across intergalactic space and eventually found its new home in the Milky Way.”

Milky Way’s origins are not what they seem, Megan Fellman, Northwestern University
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Tagging...

Conceptual illustration by Yuen Yiu, staff writer Image credits: zhouxuan12345678 via flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Topics: Biology, Biophysics, Biotechnology, Consumer Electronics, Nanotechnology

Electronics small enough to fit inside cells may one day help scientists track individual cells and monitor their behavior in real time, a new study finds. These new devices could help analyze diseases from their origins in single cells, researchers said.

The new electronics are microscopic radio-frequency identification tags, which are essentially bar codes that can be read from a distance.

An RFID tag usually consists of an antenna connected to a microchip. A nearby reader known as a transceiver can emit electromagnetic signals at the tags, and the tags can respond with what data it has stored, such as its identity, when and where it was made, how to best store and handle it, and so on. Many RFID tags do not have batteries -- instead, they rely on the energy in the signals from the transceivers.

These tags are already being used in many applications today, including key cards, toll passes, library books and many other items, but the typical RFID tags are millimeters to centimeters in size. The new microscopic tags in comparison are only 22 microns wide each, or roughly one-fifth the average diameter of a human hair, making them the smallest known RFID tags, the researchers said. They detailed their findings online July 26 in the journal Physical Review Applied.

Tiny Electronic Tags Could Fit Inside Cells, Charles Q. Choi, Inside Science
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Photoresist-Free...

A true-colour image containing around 8 × 105 RGB subpixels directly photopatterned using Cs2N3– capped quantum dots. Scale bar, 5 mm. Courtesy: D Talapin
Topics: Applied Physics,  Nanotechnology, Optical Physics, Semiconductor Technology, Quantum Dots, Quantum Mechanics

Photolithography is an important manufacturing process widely used in the semiconductor industry that employs photoresists (usually made from polymers) whose solubility change when illuminated with ultraviolet light. Although it is precise and can generate patterns with nanoscale resolution, it is limited in that it cannot easily pattern nanomaterials such as quantum dots (which are increasingly being used in flat-panel displays, for example). A new photoresist-free technique, developed by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory, both in Illinois in the US, could help overcome this problem.

“Our new technique, dubbed DOLFIN (for Direct Optical Lithography of Functional Inorganic Nanomaterials) can be used to optically pattern a variety of inorganic materials, including metals, semiconductors, catalysts and magnetic materials without using photoresists,” explains team leader Dmitri Talapin. “No residual polymer-based impurities are present in the patterned layers, which means that they have good electronic and optical properties. Indeed, their conductivity, carrier mobility, dielectric and luminescence properties are on a par with those of state-of-the-art solution-processed materials.”

DOLFIN involves first preparing patternable materials in the form of nanoparticles with the desired size and shape. Next, the surface of these nanoparticles is decorated with special molecules designed to decompose when they are illuminated with UV light.

Optical lithography goes photoresist-free, Belle Dumé, Nanotechweb.org
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Aiming at Einstein...

Images Source: Link below

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Einstein, General Relativity, Diversity in Science, Women in Science

If you cast an observational lasso into the center of the Milky Way galaxy and pull it closed, you will find a dense, dark lump: a mass totaling some four million suns, crammed into a space no wider than twice Pluto’s orbit in our solar system.

In recent years, astronomers have come to agree that inside this region is a supermassive black hole, and that similar black holes lurk at the cores of nearly all other galaxies as well. And for those revelations, they give a lot of credit to Andrea Ghez.

Since 1995, Ghez, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has used the W.M. Keck telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to see fine details at the center of the galaxy. The observations that Ghez has made of stars racing around the Milky Way’s core (alongside those of rival Reinhard Genzel, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany) have proven to most astronomers that the central object can be nothing but a black hole. But to be able to see these fine details, Ghez had to become a pioneering user of adaptive optics, a technology that measures distortions in the atmosphere and then adjusts the telescope in real time to cancel out those fluctuations. The technique produces images that look as if they were taken under the calmest possible skies.

In Ghez’s mind, new discoveries require that scientists take risks. “If you have a new idea, the thing you are going to encounter first and foremost is ‘no, you can’t do it,’” she said. “I can’t tell you how many times in the course of this project I have been told ‘this won’t work.’” Her first proposal to image the galactic center was turned down; two decades later, Ghez, now 52, has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among other awards, and was the first woman to receive a Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Black-Hole Hunter Takes Aim at Einstein, Joshua Sokol, Quanta Magazine

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