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: Architecture, Flu, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science, Society, Space, tech, Writing stuff
Couple of items of interest from the news.
First, researchers have figured out a way to produce what I called “plasteel” in Communion of Dreams, and used as the basis for a lot of the architecture of the future. From PhysOrg.com:
New plastic strong as steel, transparent.
By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that’s as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.
It’s made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue.
Engineering professor Nicholas Kotov almost dubbed it “plastic steel,” but the new material isn’t quite stretchy enough to earn that name. Nevertheless, he says its further development could lead to lighter, stronger armor for soldiers or police and their vehicles. It could also be used in microelectromechanical devices, microfluidics, biomedical sensors and valves and unmanned aircraft.
Ah, I love to see my predictions actually coming true. (Not that I knew exactly how this would be achieved, but it was clear that materials science will reap a huge benefit from nanotech advancements.)
Now for the bad news:
Bird flu virus mutating into human-unfriendly form.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday.
The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans,” said Kawaoka, who led the study. “The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus,” Kawaoka said.
This is unbelievably bad news. The thing which has kept H5N1 from becoming a real threat is that it is difficult for it to move from one human to another – almost all the deaths attributable to the virus so far have come in animal to human transfers. Part of this is due to the fact that the virus just doesn’t find us all that good a place to set up shop. But once it does, it will only be a matter of time before you start to see human-to-human transfers. And then it’ll be “hello, pandemic!” And depending on how virulent that strain is, it may or may not precipitate the sort of global catastrophe I envision as the basis for Communion.
That’s one prediction I’d really love to have completely wrong.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, Flu, Government, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Politics, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism
[This post contains spoiler information about Communion of Dreams.]
Twin news items to make you nervous:
Well, it makes me nervous, anyway. First we have a report on how with the increased accreditation of so-called high security labs has seen an increased incident rate for those labs. In the last 4 years, more than 100 incidents involving very dangerous biologic materials have occurred. From the first news article:
The mishaps include workers bitten or scratched by infected animals, skin cuts, needle sticks and more, according to a review by The Associated Press of confidential reports submitted to federal regulators. They describe accidents involving anthrax, bird flu virus, monkeypox and plague-causing bacteria at 44 labs in 24 states. More than two-dozen incidents were still under investigation.
The number of accidents has risen steadily. Through August, the most recent period covered in the reports obtained by the AP, labs reported 36 accidents and lost shipments during 2007 — nearly double the number reported during all of 2004.
And the second one involves cattle ranchers who are concerned about the DHS plans for a new animal disease research lab, and how the proximity of such a lab near livestock operations poses a threat. (Disclosure note: my hometown of Columbia was recently removed from a list of potential sites, in part thanks to efforts of friends of mine who opposed such a facility being placed here.) The threat is not theoretical – it is little known in this country, but recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain have been tied to a similar research lab in that country. Yet this is what we hear from the government:
“No matter where we put it it’s going to be safe and secure,” said James Johnson, Homeland Security‘s director of national labs and the program manager for the planned lab.
I’m sure it will be, Jim. Just like all those other high-security labs around the country.
See, the problem is that people being people, mistakes happen. Under the best of conditions. And when you’re messing around with really dangerous shit, the potential harm of an error goes way up. And that is only being concerned with mistakes.
[Spoiler alert.]
Because what happens when some one or group decides to exploit the system in place to redirect something really nasty for their own purposes? This is what I use as the source of the original ‘Fire Flu’ for Communion, though that isn’t revealed until late in the book. Impossible? Oh? Remember the 2001 Anthrax attacks which killed five people and shut down the Senate’s postal facility? That whole episode is still unsolved.
I don’t know about you, but when the same people who let New Orleans die tell me that I should trust them to secure biologic agents which have the potential to wipe out our (overly concentrated) livestock, cause widespread crop failure, or even start a pandemic plague of some variety, I shudder.
Jim Downey
I got back from my morning walk with the dog to find my wife helping her mom take her after-breakfast pills. Not just encouraging her, but actually placing the pills in her mouth for her, helping her hold up and drink from the glass of juice.
I changed the dog’s collar, put away his leash. Took off my knee braces and the little belly pouch I wear for walking the dog which contains some treats, a small bottle of water, plastic bags for droppings. Removed my light jacket and MP3 player. Went back into the kitchen and leaned against the counter opposite where my wife and MIL were sitting. My wife looked up.
“Another T.I.A.?”
She nodded.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
From MedlinePlus:
Transient Ischemic Attack
Also called: Mini-stroke, TIA
A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is a stroke that comes and goes quickly. It happens when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in your brain. This causes the blood supply to the brain to stop briefly. Symptoms of a TIA are like other stroke symptoms, but do not last as long. They happen suddenly, and include
- Numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body
- Confusion or trouble speaking or understanding speech
- Trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Loss of balance or coordination
Most symptoms of a TIA disappear within an hour, although they may last for up to 24 hours. Because you cannot tell if these symptoms are from a TIA or a stroke, you should get to the hospital quickly.
TIAs are often a warning sign for future strokes. Taking medicine, such as blood thinners, may reduce your risk of a stroke. Your doctor might also recommend surgery.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
They’re coming more frequently now. We saw the first (that we noticed) early this year. I was helping my MIL out to the car for a hair appointment, and all of a sudden she just slumped, slipping straight down, knees buckling to the pavement before I caught her.
The first time you see a T.I.A. hit someone, you’re completely bewildered by it. Well, at least I was. My MIL, who was capable of standing and stepping with care and help, and who is usually somewhat plugged into her immediate surroundings, just seemed to “shut down”. I got her in her chair, but she slumped over. She seemed unaware of anything around her, barely responsive to my questions and prodding. It was early in the day, but she was acting like it was the very end of the evening, when she would usually be deep into ‘sundowning‘, exhausted and ready for bed. So, I put her to bed.
Then I called my wife, did some research. I had thought it was likely a T.I.A., and brushing up on the available info confirmed it. So did my MIL’s doctor, who my wife called.
What to do? With someone of my MIL’s age, and with her other medical issues? Nothing really to be done. Bed rest, note it. Roll with it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
When we’d had a couple more T.I.A.s this summer, and with the other indications we’d seen (some of which I’ve mentioned), we decided the time was here to again seek Hospice. In the month since, my MIL has had several more T.I.A.s, about one a week. Each time, the treatment is the same: get her into bed, let her sleep it off. After a couple of hours she’s back to what passes for normal. We note it, and are sure to tell the Hospice nurse when she comes for her weekly visit.
A T.I.A. itself isn’t really that big a deal, as noted on that site cited above. It is, however, something of a warning. As the Wiki page on T.I.A. states under “Prognosis”:
Patients diagnosed with a TIA are sometimes said to have had a warning for an approaching cerebrovascular accident. If the time period of blood supply impairment lasts more than a few minutes, the nerve cells of that area of the brain die and cause permanent neurologic deficit. One third of the people with TIA later have recurrent TIAs and one third have a stroke due to permanent nerve cell loss.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
So, we wait. For either another T.I.A., or a full-fledged stroke. And we try to make her days as comfortable and enjoyable as we can, within the constraints of our own exhaustion and need to pace ourselves for what could yet be a long haul.
And in the meantime, tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversary. For the most part, observation of same is postponed until later by tacit agreement between my wife and I, though we will make a favorite meal and bake a cake. We have one another, the details will sort themselves out later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Climate Change, Flu, Flu Wiki, General Musings, Global Warming, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Science, Society
You’ve probably seen it – the media is filled with reports of the brain-eating amoeba which has killed six. Here’s a sample:
PHOENIX – It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.
“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”
Scary, eh? And tying it to climate change makes it even moreso.
But explain to me why this is more frightening than the 8 new cases of Ebola reported in Congo. The Ebola hemorrhagic fever family of viruses have no treatment, no vaccine, a mortality rate up to 90%, and are easily passed from person to person.
Or why six people dying from swimming in lakes is worse than the 65 people who have died already this year from H5N1, according to the FluWiki. This influenza virus (and related variants) is considered to be the most likely cause of the next global pandemic.
Oh, never mind. I know why – because it’s here in the US. And it eats brains. And it is an easy connection to the effects of climate change. And because it is new. Fear sells, as I discussed in comments in this post a couple of weeks back.
But really, either Ebola or H5N1 are a much greater threat, as any public health official or doctor will tell you. They just don’t have the cool name of “Zombie Amoeba.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Expert systems, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Predictions, Press, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
Several quick items this morning…
First off, last stats I saw (yesterday morning), over 5,400 people have downloaded the novel. That’s like 1,200 this month alone. Yay!
Hits to this blog have also continued to rise – over 5,000 so far. So have submitted spam ‘comments’, of course, now over 2,000. Glad that the filtering software catches the vast bulk of that stuff.
A friend sent me the current issue of the American Ceramic Society Bulletin. Unfortunately, items he wanted to share with me are not available through their site, but with about 10 seconds of searching, I was able to pull up more complete information on the two things I wanted to mention. Sheesh – when will people figure out that hiding basic information behind a subscription firewall is not only pointless, but aggravating to the average person? Now, rather than linking to their content (and increasing their traffic/exposure/possibility for advertising), I’ll link to the other sources.
First of these is about the latest developments in transparent transistors. This is the thin-film tech I stipulate for the best computers in Communion of Dreams which are not based on the superconducting Tholen gel.
Second is how scientists have discovered a way to embed silicon nanowires right into living cells without causing damage to the cells. This is the basis of the mind-machine interfaces that I use for the computer and communications tech in Communion, though I don’t go into the details of it in the book.
In both cases the tech is further along than I had expected when I first wrote the novel, but it is good to see that my predictions about how things would likely develop were on track.
Lastly, there will be a newspaper feature about my wife and I caring for my MIL in the local paper this evening. I’ll post about it with a link probably tomorrow.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Flu, Flu Wiki, General Musings, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space
Fulfilling about 2/3 of all Science Fiction tropes ever created, it seems that there may be a connection with the impact of a meteorite and a mystery illness in a rural Peruvian village:
LIMA (AFP) – Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.
Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.
Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a “strange odor,” local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.
It wasn’t a little thing, either – it left an impact crater reported to be about 100′ wide and 20′ deep.
Now, it remains to be seen whether this is anything more than a simple case of mass hysteria. I mean, if you’re some llama herder and a big damn fireball lands outside your village, it’d be pretty easy to get a case of the vapours over it.
But that don’t mean that it isn’t possible that there’s actually something to this. Panspermia (or more narrowly, exogenesis) has some fairly solid evidence behind it, enough to suggest that it is possible that there is some form of life capable of surviving coming to Earth on a meteor. And, if that form of life is similar enough to us, it could become a problem. A problem our biology might not be able to handle. One that would make a pandemic flu look like a nice little summer cold. One that generations of SF writers have speculated about. Except that in this case, it might actually be true.
Frightened yet?
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing.)
Filed under: Apollo program, Astronomy, Buzz Aldrin, Constellation program, General Musings, Google, Government, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Peter Diamandis, Predictions, Press, Science, Society, Space, tech
As I mentioned the other day, news of the new Google Lunar X Prize organized by Peter Diamandis is getting a fair amount of attention, and appropriately so. It’s good to see Diamandis pursuing his dream, as I wrote about in this post about the Heinlein Centennial Gala:
And then Peter Diamandis‘ brilliant, inspiring presentation about how he considered Heinlein to have written not just visionary fiction, but had actually mapped out a functional business plan with The Man Who Sold the Moon. Diamandis said his dream, his goal, was to be there to welcome NASA back to the Moon when the Constellation Program vehicle arrives. This brought a standing ovation and cheers.
Indeed. And with the new Google Lunar X Prize, there’s a fair chance that could actually happen. If private space companies can land a remote-operated vehicle on the Moon under the prize guidelines by 2013 (most people are of the opinion that it’ll happen sooner), then I’d bet that scaling up the tech used to accomplish that to have people – perhaps even Diamandis himself – on the Moon before NASA’s target date of 2020 for Constellation is certainly possible. Remember, we went from having barely function sub-orbital craft to the Apollo 11 Moonshot in just 8 years.
One of the things I find particularly interesting is a bonus possible under the Google Lunar X Prize guidelines. Here it is:
• BONUSES: An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).
That one bit right there in the middle that I bolded is what I’m talking about. It simultaneously nods to the accomplishments of NASA and also thumbs its nose at the agency. It perfectly sums up the mixed emotions many in the private sector feel about the government’s involvement in space exploration and development: respect for what was accomplished in the past, yet a burning desire to prove that the private players can do more, do it faster, and do it for less money.
I haven’t begun work on it yet, but one of the ‘intervening’ novels of my future history series (between Communion of Dreams and the prequel I’ve started titled St. Cybi’s Well) would be set sometime in the 2030s at one of the Israeli colonies on the Moon. The main character would be an artist who is on sabbatical there, exploring how the space environment effects an aesthetic sensibility. And one of the scenes I’ve envisioned would have him visiting the site of the first Lunar Landing, which has been carefully secured to preserve it as it was left by Armstrong and Aldrin, in order to use the site as inspiration. I must admit, I sort of hate the thought that there would be additional rover tracks there in order that someone could claim a bonus for the X Prize.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 