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Archive for the ‘Science!’ Category

Obviously!

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Today’s question of the day: 

BBC World Service – The Climate Question, Can Science Fiction help us fight climate change?

The acclaimed US sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson is also a star in the world of climate activism because his work often features climate change – on Earth and beyond. Robinson has been a guest speaker at the COP climate summit, and novels such as The Ministry For The Future and The Mars Trilogy are admired by everyone from Barack Obama to former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. 

Now, the answer to this question seems fairly self-evident to me. I see innovation as a conversation, in a way, between what is and what we can imagine will be. And fiction is excellent at helping us imagine new and better worlds.

Other examples of sci-fi ideas made real:

Ten Inventions Inspired by Science Fiction | Smithsonian

6 scientific innovations inspired by science fiction

10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Came True | HowStuffWorks

Look around you. What are our technological and social capabilities? What are our needs? And what do you think we’ll invent next?

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Photo by Cody Dagg on Unsplash

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This Could Get Tricky

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , , on September 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Mr Man and I recently went on the hunt for the perfect blue gift for a friend. We did eventually find a beautiful piece of handblown glass in a dark blue with silver flecks. Lovely.

The only issue, we later discovered, was that our goal should have been a color that was closer to teal. So not the deep blue of a falling dark sky, but the vibrant green-tinged hues of a Caribbean sea over a white sand beach.

Regardless, the piece was still pretty. And it brought up the question of whether one person’s idea of blue is the same as another’s.

And then this site came across my desk: Is My Blue Your Blue?

If you think the page color is blue, click the button at the bottom right. If you think it’s green, click the bottom left. And don’t be surprised when it starts to get tricky!

For more on this topic, check out this article on the variability in color perception, and interpretation, in humans. 

The science of color perception

A lot of factors feed into how people perceive and talk about color, from the biology of our eyes to how our brains process that information, to the words our languages use to talk about color categories. There’s plenty of room for differences, all along the way.

For example, most people have three types of cones — light receptors in the eye that are optimized to detect different wavelengths or colors of light. But sometimes, a genetic variation can cause one type of cone to be different, or absent altogether, leading to altered color vision. Some people are color-blind. Others may have color superpowers.

Superpowers? Yes, please!

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Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

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This Beautiful Dance

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , on September 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

How did we get the landscape that we have today? I’m talking the big stuff, geology, not horticulture. Plate tectonics. We all know what Earth looks like now, but how did we get here?

This animation starts with the world we recognize, then rolls back time to show how the planet’s macrostructure has changed. Fun, right?

Witness 1.8 billion years of tectonic plates dance across Earth’s surface in a new animation

Mapping our planet through its long history creates a beautiful continental dance — mesmerising in itself and a work of natural art.

It’s a beautiful dance.

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Photo by Drew Colins on Unsplash

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Hey September, What’s Up?

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

If you’re the sort of person who enjoys looking up, you might like this list of September skywatching tips from NASA.

What’s on the roster? Another supermoon, a partial lunar eclipse, Saturn doing its ring thing, and something called International Observe the Moon Night, plus more more more.

Check out the article or watch the video here:

Have fun!

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Photo by Jordan Steranka on Unsplash

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You’re Wellcome!

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , on September 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It’s Tuesday (ugh) and it’s practically a Monday thanks to the holiday weekend and I’ve been thinking about Nature thanks to our recent museum visit, so let’s get a little weird, shall we?

Welcome to the University of Glasgow’s Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology!

What’s this, you may ask? A serious science center (excuse me, centre) with a public engagement arm so dedicated and creative that they turned parasites into a comic book? And when the first issue became a surprise hit, went on to produce a five-part series about some of the world’s most impactful parasites?

Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.

You’re wellcome.*

* Heh, see what I did there. Yeaahhh, because it’s that kind of day:)

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Photo by João Pedro Schmitz on Unsplash

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Delightfully Humbling

Posted in Holidays, Science!, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2024| 1 Comment »

The Canadian Museum of Nature is situated in Ottawa’s Victoria Memorial Museum Building, a giant stone edifice built over a hundred years ago. Its mosaic tile floors, carved wooden bannisters and stained glass windows provide a lovely backdrop for exhibits old and new. 

Can’t go in person? Here’s a brief video tour:

We started at the top, in a temporary exhibit on insects. Some icky, yes, but the longevity, creativity and adaptability of that class of creatures is fascinating. 

Next stop wolves, then the Arctic, then Earth, Mammals, Water, Birds and finally, Dinosaurs.

The fossils throughout were impressive. Giant whale? Check. A complete Daspletosaurus torosus (a cousin of T. rex) skeleton? Check! 

A bit of fun from a Museum palaeobiologist:

I also picked up a box of Canadian rocks to remember the beauty and complexity of the geology beneath our feet.

Example rocks include rose quartz, quartz crystal, bornite, amazonite, sodalite, pyrite, amethyst, hematite, copper, labradorite, jade, rhodonite and fluorite. Lovely.

And in the floor of the Fossil Gallery, an embedded spiral* shows the extent of geological history as we know it, complete with a tiny section at the end for the Cenozoic era, age of mammals, with an even smaller epoch at the end featuring the rise of humanity.

* I should have taken a picture of this but did not, and can’t find a picture of it online. Here’s a different version to give you an idea. 

Jarred C Lloyd, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This is why I love history in general, and museums in particular. On the one hand, a long-term perspective is very good at making one feel small, but on the other hand, there is real joy in knowing that you are a part of something so very big.

The experience was both humbling and delightful.

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The aforementioned spiral is at the feet of this fine fellow. D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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Thinking Odd Writer Thoughts, or What’s Wrong with the Classics?

Posted in Other, Science!, tagged , , , , on August 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Here’s an interesting puzzle: How Do You Send a Warning 1,000 Years into the Future? – Now I Know

Think back to what the Earth was like a thousand years ago — the year 1,015. Almost everything would be foreign to modern eyes and ears — even the language would be incomprehensible. For all intents and purposes, humanity from a millennium ago may as well be an alien species (culturally, at least) with similar DNA, which simply happens to have lived on the same planet we do now.

How do we communicate with people so far removed from our own language, culture, and assumptions? It’s a great question, whether you’re thinking about the safest approach to nuclear waste disposal or contacting aliens.

In order to keep the people of the future safe from the radioactive goop created today, we need a way to tell them to watch out. And more likely than not, very few aspects of today’s society will be around to do that. Even a sign warning travelers of potential dangers would be insufficient — who among us could translate runes from the Middle Ages?

(My mom, that’s who, but point taken.)

What particularly interests me about these proposed solutions (an Atomic Priesthood dedicated to perpetuating knowledge through myth? color-changing cats?!) is that they seem to have skipped over the most obvious approach. How to conjure the fear of death, to warn people away, and to alert the future not to what is there, but what will happen if it is disturbed?*

This is a plague panel from the early 17th century. If you saw this on a house, would you go in or turn and run the other way?

Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the end, the U.S. Department of Energy plan opted to go with warning signs in multiple languages illustrated with images of people in pain. Still, I wondered, what’s wrong with the classics?

Another odd writer thought, brought to you by an odd writer.

* Also, the real problem seems to be the gap between exposure and untimely demise. If you break into a tomb and die immediately, that sends a pretty strong message. And no one has to tell people not to build on an active lava flow, but a peaceful-looking mountain with fertile soil close to the bustling port of Naples and the dynamic town of Pompeii (circa 78 AD)? What’s not to like?

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Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

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Moon (Part 1)

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , on August 20, 2024| 1 Comment »

Last night there was a dramatic super blue moon. If you missed it, try looking up tonight, it should seem almost as impressive. 

Supermoon Blue Moon 2024 — Top photos from around the world | Space

And if clouds or smoke block your view, not to worry! The next three full moons will be super, too.

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Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

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Uptime, Downtime

Posted in Entertainment, Science!, tagged , , , , , on August 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The folder where I keep post ideas is filling up with space stories. Many of them are about Mars, but let’s start with something a little closer to home and go more than 250 miles above Earth to the International Space Station.

NASA’s site has lots of info and fun facts like these.

Did you know that the ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2000? That you can track its position live? Or that the station’s live/work space is larger than a six-bedroom house? 

View from NASA spacewalker Thomas Marshburn’s camera via Flickr

Sounds like the place is downright homey. And that’s a good thing, as Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts who have been stuck at the ISS due to problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, will no doubt attest.

How Two Stranded Astronauts Are Camping Out in Space | TIME

Williams’ and Wilmore’s short stay may now not be over until February—stretching an eight-day mission to an eight-month one….

Initially, they were to spend most of their eight days aloft working in the Starliner—checking its communications, life support, power, and other systems. But they long since finished up that checklist and have instead been assisting the rest of the crew with science experiments and maintenance chores, including such unglamorous work as repairing a urine processing pump.

That sounds super fun (actually, it kind of does), but it’s not all work up there. Are they staring out the viewport at Earth, pointing out their house sixteen times a day? Competing in the Space Olympics? (Not a thing, as far as I know, but astronauts do have to exercise two hours a day to maintain muscle mass and general health.) Have they used their spare time to compose a space-themed version of the Gilligan’s Island theme song? (Did I ask AI to do this? Maaaaaybe. But if I did, it wasn’t very good.)

Speaking of television, perhaps they’re catching up on their favorite shows. Did you know that astronauts can binge-watch just like the rest of us?

Every TV Show Astronauts Can Watch on the ISS Right Now

There are, of course, space-themed shows like Hulu’s The First with Sean Penn from 2018, the critically acclaimed alt-history drama For All Mankind, and the Trump-era comedy Space Force. Other new series include Book of Bobba Fett, The Crown, and the cooking show Chopped. Other sci-fi series include Andor, Star Trek Discovery, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica. 

Still no word on who gets to hold the remote.

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Photo by Jared Allen on Unsplash

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An Elegant Symphony

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’m reading a nonfiction book that is fascinating, detailed and (so far, at least) very well written. My favorite sentence from the bit I read at lunch is this perfect illustration of how to set the tone as well as the stage:

The lighting is subtle, the decor an elegant symphony of beige.

— Gretchen Bakke, The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future

Can’t wait to read the rest!

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Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash

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