Filed under: Alzheimer's, Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Health, Hospice, NASA, Phil Plait, Science, Space, Titan
Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has been at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austen most of this week, and has had a wonderful series of posts about the meeting. He just posted the final one this morning (though there will undoubtedly be follow-up posts once he is home as sorted things out). You can find the whole series on his blog.
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Jacob sent me this note:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16012/1066/
Not exactly related to Communion aside from “tholins”, but I thought you’d be interested.
It is interesting to see that these complex organic molecules have been found in such abundance. The term tholin was coined by Carl Sagan in his early writings about Titan, and I discuss the material extensively in Communion of Dreams (if you haven’t read it -and if not, why not?).
~~~ Thanks, Jacob!
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Speaking of notes, I got this nice one from Carl:
I just wanted to say that I’ve truly enjoyed your posts since you’ve joined UTI and your novel is top-notch. I’m not a big sci-fi fan, but your characters and description held me all the way through.
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A brief update on my MIL’s condition: the visit from the hospice nurse on Thursday confirmed what we’d seen this week – continued deterioration. Her BP is very low, pulse weak, and heart rate very high (all worse than they were the previous week), and her lungs have diminished capacity and evidence of fluid. Once again we have tweaked her meds and treatment procedures, but this is mostly just an effort to keep her as comfortable as possible. I think part of the exhaustion my wife and I feel is just ongoing anticipation.
I’ll keep you posted.
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Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Jupiter, Man Conquers Space, movies, Paleo-Future, Phil Plait, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Writing stuff
It is said that it was a single photograph taken by one of Columbia’s crew during Christmas 1961 that changed the course of history. Showing the Earth from the perspective of the Moon changed the mind of the commander of Eagle One from claiming the Moon in the name of the United States (as required by his military commanders) to claiming the Moon for all mankind. After Eagle One’s touchdown in July 1963, followed closely by Eagles Two and Three, the Moon becomes a new and vigorous outpost of humanity. Successive missions range far and wide over Earth’s satellite, discovering sites that in the decades to come would become bases, sources for mining resources, and even a large colony.
Celebrating the early history of space exploration and eventual exploitation, leading up to the recent landings of three manned missions on Mars is a fantastic new documentary: Man Conquers Space.
Wait a second . . . say what?
Via Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comes news of the Paleo-Future project, an excellent alternative-history of the middle and end of the 20th century. From the website for the project:
This film is based on an alternative timeline to the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era of reality – it is based on the premise that all that had been proposed in the early 1950’s in Collier’s actually came to pass – and sooner than they expected.
Through the expert use of special visual effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI), the world of wonder and imagination expressed though Collier’s has become real. The film Man Conquers Space looks like a documentary made today, and is peppered with archival footage from the dawn of the space age during WWII, through to today, narrated by the people who were there – the engineers, the astronauts, the scientists, the visionaries, the politicians.
Wow. This sort of alternative history is what I have done as the background for Communion of Dreams, leading to a more robust space-faring tech by our own time, and setting the stage for the colonization of other planets in our system by the time of the novel 50 years hence. Fascinating.
I’m very much looking forward to the release of this movie. But in the meantime, poke around their site and check out some of the clips they have posted online.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Cassini, NASA, Phil Plait, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Titan, Writing stuff
Via Phil Plait, news that in observation of the 10th anniversary of the Cassini launch, NASA has just released a bunch of very cool images and vids from the probe. Given that I set the bulk of Communion of Dreams there in the neighborhood of Saturn, I always find it stunning to see actual images which reflect what I envisioned. In particular, the scene in the book when the first research team is approaching Titan is perfectly caught in this image. Wow.
And here’s a passage from Plait’s post which precisely echoes my own sentiments, and would be prophetic if Communion was real rather than fiction:
We don’t go to these exotic locations in the solar system because we know everything that’s going on, or because we know what we’ll expect to see. We go because we don’t know. But we also go because we need to have our positions rattled, our notions shaken, our ideas tested. When we see Saturn from above, or co-orbit with a moon, or see a rainbow reflected in particles of ice a billion kilometers away, the only thing we can be sure of is that we’ll see new things, unexpected things.
Unexpected things, indeed.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Firefly, Government, Guns, Joss Whedon, movies, Phil Plait, RKBA, Science, Science Fiction, Serenity, Society, Space
So, a few weeks back, I mentioned that I was going to order in the whole series of Firefly, the brilliant but (therefore?) short-lived Science Fiction series created by Joss Whedon. Well, I did, and off and on since I’ve been thinking about writing something about the series, never getting around to it. Hey, a lot of other stuff has been on my mind, and besides, it’s not like there isn’t a ton of blogging and fandom out there about the series.
Suffice it to say that I watched it all the way through three or four times, then turned it over to a shooting buddy who has good taste in SF (well, obviously, since he really liked Communion). I knew that with his appreciation of good guns and fine Science Fiction, it would be a perfect match. The fact that the series actually ‘gets’ guns, does a good job with ballistics and physics, wouldn’t hurt matters.
Anyway, this morning an item over at Bad Astronomy caught my eye:
Another Firefly movie??
ZOMG.
There may may may be another Firefly movie.
ZOMG.
Ain’t It Cool is throwing some harshness on this. Still. Still.
BTW: Alan Tudyk: on my ManCrush list.
Phil Plait is just so cute sometimes. Not that I disagree with him about the prospect of another movie. Not at all.
Shiny!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Bipolar, Carl Zimmer, Cosmic Variance, Fermi's Paradox, Flu, Genetic Testing, Health, Music, Pandemic, Pharyngula, Phil Plait, Plague, Predictions, Saturn, Science, Science Fiction, The Loom, Writing stuff
They’re mixing with the population
A virus wearing pumps and pearls
Lord help the lonely guys
Hooked by those hungry eyes
Here come Tomorrow’s Girls
Tomorrow’s Girls
Donald Fagan, “Tomorrow’s Girls” from Kamakiriad
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I can always tell when I’m feeling better, or have gotten a bit of sleep and am able to think (somewhat) again: I get that little rush of energy, mind jumping and drawing connections between ostensibly divergent topics. It is a shadow of the way I feel when my bipolar condition swings to the manic phase, and all things seem clear and possible.
Such is the case this morning.
I read a lot of science blogs. Pharyngula. Cosmic Variance. Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy. The Angry Toxicologist. But even before he started blogging at The Loom, I was aware of the science reporting of Carl Zimmer. And recently Carl posted a link to his Seed Magazine cover story “The Meaning of Life.” It’s not terribly long, and you should just go read the whole thing.
But among the entire very interesting article is this wonderful idea: that it is a mistake to try and define what life is right now. Philosopher Carol Cleland of NASA’s Institute for Astrobiology is very much in the thick of this, saying that we do not have the necessary perspective. As Zimmer puts it:
Instead of trying to formulate a definition of life, Cleland and Chyba argue, we need to develop a theory of life—an overarching explanation of nature that joins together a myriad of seemingly random phenomena. Biologists have discovered a number of theories–the germ theory of disease and Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, for example—yet they have no full-fledged theory of life itself. The underlying uniformity of life is one of the great discoveries of modern biology, but it’s also an obstacle. It represents only a single data point, and blinds us to the possibilities of “weird life.” We have no idea exactly which features of life as we know it are essential to life as we don’t know it.
A theory of life would allow us to understand what matters to life, what possible forms it can take, and why. It would let us see connections that we might otherwise miss, just as chemists can see the hidden unity between a cloud in the sky and a block of ice. Scientists are already trying to build a theory of life. A number of researchers have been developing a theory in which life is a self-organized system that can be described using the same principles physicists use to describe hurricanes or galaxies. As biologists learn more and more about how the millions of molecules in a cell work together, these theorists can put their ideas to more precise tests.
For Cleland, the most promising way to build a theory of life is to look for alien life. In 2013, the European Space Agency plans to put a rover back on Mars. Called Exomars, it will drill into the Martian crust to seek out signs of life. NASA has plans of its own on the drawing board, including one possible mission that would bring Martian soil back to Earth for intense study. Meanwhile, other promising habitats for life, such as some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, beckon. Cleland argues that finding alien life would allow us to start figuring out what is truly universal about life, rather than just generalizing from life as we know it. Only when we have more data, she reasons, will we have a basis for comparison. As it stands now, says Cleland, “we have no grist for the theoretical mill.”
Brilliant. This is not unlike the revolution in perspective which occurred with the transition to a heliocentric model of the solar system. It necessarily moves us from the bias that our version of life is the only possible model. I’ve written about this previously, but it is good to see such a complete treatment of the topic as Zimmer gives it.
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It looks like scientists have discovered the likely culprit in the collapse of the honey bee populations in the US: a virus.
Virus implicated in bee decline
A virus has emerged as a strong suspect in the hunt for the mystery disease killing off North American honeybees.
Genetic research showed that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) turned up regularly in hives affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
Over the last three years, between 50% and 90% of commercial bee colonies in the US have been affected by CCD.
And from the same source:
Also open is the question of how the virus arrived in the US. One finger of suspicion points to Australia, from where the US began importing honeybees in 2004 – the very year that CCD appeared in US hives.
The researchers found IAPV in Australian bees, and they are now planning to go back through historical US samples to see if the Antipodean imports really were the first carriers.
If they were, the US might consider closing its borders to Australian bees.
The way the researchers determined that a virus was involved is also interesting. Since the honey bee genome has been ‘solved’ (completely mapped), they were able to assay the entire genetic contents of a hive and then remove the known components. What was left included some bacterial agents which are probably in symbiotic harmony with the bees, and various fungi and other items. By comparing a healthy hive’s genetic assay with one suffering from CCD, they were able to identify possible culprits – in this case, the IAPV.
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Communion of Dreams is set in a post-pandemic Earth, where a viral agent was responsible for widespread death and sterility some 40 years prior to the time of the novel. One good model of exactly how that could happen is CCD with the honey bees, though that has occurred in the time since I first wrote the book.
Now, how does this all tie together? Well, only because the researchers looking into the honey bee problem had the tools of genetic mapping available to them were they able to understand what was (likely) going on. Something similar happens in Communion on two fronts – resolving the riddle of the orphan girl and understanding the threat of the new virus. But perhaps more importantly, there is the mystery of the alien artifact and its connection the the superconducting gel, which I describe as “more alive than not” – this gets to the very heart of the issue of understanding the true nature of the universe, and discarding our previous biases.
Oh, and lastly, I’m sure we’ll see something from Zimmer about the IAPV discovery. Why? Because one of his specialties is the nightmare-inducing world of parasites, and looking at the evolutionary struggle between hosts and diseases.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 