Hartley 2's jets

post from Planetary Society Weblog on 04 November 2010 05:44:48 PM. © Planetary Society Weblog

It was a very happy set of scientists, engineers, managers, and administrators who filled the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Von Karman auditorium this afternoon to do the postgame show on Deep Impact's flyby of Hartley 2. Project Manager Tim Larson remarked that the spacecraft and its navigators could not have performed better; the aimpoint for the flyby was missed by only two seconds in time and three kilometers in distance, which is pretty ....

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Less Fiction, More Science - Too Bad

post from Physics Buzz on 04 November 2010 04:17:35 PM. © Physics Buzz

Maybe Scientists don't make the best science fiction advisers after all.

Call me a purist. Call me an old fogie. Call me anything you want, but don't call classic science fiction "Roddenberrian nonsense." For some inexplicable reason, that's what Battle Star Galactica producer Ronald Moore thinks of classic Star Trek. It also finally makes it clear to me why I HATED Star Trek Voyager, which Moore also wrote for.

Compared with Star Trek (classic and Next Generation), Voyager seemed to me to be a bunch of psychobabble, which would have worked much better as part of a daytime soap opera rather than a spin-off from one of history's ground breaking SF television shows. In keeping with his anti-Roddenberry approach, Moore has hired NASA scientist Kevin Grazier to make sure that all of the science on a forthcoming Battle Star Galactica series is in line with contemporary knowledge. (Grazier is also author of a book explaining ~~exactly why the science of BSG is so lame~~ how the science of BSG works.)

Great, terrific, outstanding, if you're making a movie about the present or near future. By 'near future', I mean the next twenty years or less. If you're looking out any farther than that, then you're gonna have to bend, stretch, or outright break what we think of as conventional science.

Consider how completely alien our world would seem to someone from 1900. We have jumbo jets, computer piloted trains, tiny portable phones, giant flat-screen TVS, and countless other things they could hardly imagine. If movie producers had followed Moore's approach in making science fiction in the old days, Buck Rogers would have talked on a land line phone, fired bullets rather than ~~lasers~~ rayguns, and traveled mostly by horse cart or Model A Ford. In other words, Buck would have been a cowboy instead of a space traveler.

The upcoming series Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome apparently is supposed to take place in the distant future, but Grazier's job is to make sure none of the science and tech in it is too different from modern stuff. That's absurd because, at the rate that things are changing these days, I suspect that the technology we'll be using by the time I retire will be more alien than the stuff of BSG:B&C.

Now, I'm not saying that we can ever hope to accurately predict what things will be like in the distant future. But I firmly believe that fans of science fiction want more than Moore is willing to give us. I'm also convinced that the weird science and tech, that Moore felt weighed down Star Trek, is precisely the sort of thing that inspires people to study science and stimulates the imaginations and hopes of everyone who watches futuristic shows and movies.

Come on Moore, lighten up, use your imagination to stimulate ours. And don't let Grazier throw cold water on visionary fiction just because modern science can't explain/understand/predict it.

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New Skin Printer Could Print You Some New Skin

post from Singularity Hub on 04 November 2010 03:57:40 PM. © Singularity Hub

Healing your wounds quickly and safely may be as easy as filling an inkjet printer with your cells. Wake Forest’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) and the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) have developed a skin printer that can deposit cells directly onto a wound to help it heal faster. They recently presented [...]

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When arguing with bots, use a bot

post from Bad Astronomy on 04 November 2010 03:00:21 PM. © Bad Astronomy

I see a lot of the same, tired, and totally wrong arguments about global warming over and over again whenever I write about it. "The other planets are warming!", "In the 70s scientists said the Earth was cooling!", "The climate[...]

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Ms Magazine makes amends

post from Pharyngula on 04 November 2010 02:58:11 PM. © Pharyngula

Jen McCreight has published a solid response to the clueless anti-atheist article in Ms magazine…and it's in Ms magazine. It's good stuff, too, with a list of all the godless women the original article ought to have consulted.

Read the comments on this post...

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_makes_amends.php

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Not by argument alone

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 04 November 2010 02:24:43 PM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

I just gave a talk at Gonzaga University called "Not by Argument Alone" in which I tried to show how explanatory reasoning figures into the resolution of philosophical problems. It begins with the observation that we sometimes have equally good reasons for believing contradictory claims. This is the defining characteristic of philosophical antinomies, but it is a common feature of everyday reasoning as well.

Can Invention Survive the Apocalypse Why not have
creatopias

post from MegaMinds: How to Create and Invent in the Age of Google on 04 November 2010 02:23:00 PM. © MegaMinds: How to Create and Invent in the Age of Google

Writers describe the world after serious global warming as one where civilization collapses, bands of dispossessed roam the land, and daily pursuits are anything but creative. Need future life be so dystopian? No, it might well be creatopian.
New kinds of houses could be developed that are very efficient and fun to live in. Delicious food could be synthesized in efficient bioreactors. The computer clouds could harbor all of civilization's knowledge and art for those who would roam there. We just have to reorient our creative thinking.

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Can Invention Survive the Apocalypse Why not have
Creatopias

post from MegaMinds: How to Create and Invent in the Age of Google on 04 November 2010 02:23:00 PM. © MegaMinds: How to Create and Invent in the Age of Google

Writers describe the world after serious global warming as one where civilization collapses, bands of dispossessed roam the land, and daily pursuits are anything but creative. Need future life be so dystopian? No, it might well be creatopian.
New kinds of houses could be developed that are very efficient and fun to live in. Delicious food could be synthesized in efficient bioreactors. The computer clouds could harbor all of civilization's knowledge and art for those who would roam there. We just have to reorient our creative thinking.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MegamindsHowToCreateAndInventInTheAgeOfGoogle/~3/K
gQ2Mi0hpAg/can-invention-survive-apocalypse-why.html

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Secret of bacteria's immune system revealed

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 04 November 2010 02:21:06 PM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

A team of Université Laval and Danisco researchers has just unlocked the secret of bacteria's immune system. The details of the discovery, which may eventually make it possible to prevent certain bacteria from developing resistance to antibiotics, are presented in today's issue of the scientific journal Nature.

Electrical brain stimulation improves math skills

post from Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought on 04 November 2010 02:19:24 PM. © Machines Like Us - Science at the speed of thought

By applying electrical current to the brain, researchers reporting online on November 4 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have shown that they could enhance a person's mathematical performance for up to 6 months without influencing their other cognitive functions.

Method

Hartley 2's jets

Less Fiction, More Science - Too Bad

New Skin Printer Could Print You Some New Skin

When arguing with bots, use a bot

Ms Magazine makes amends

Not by argument alone

Can Invention Survive the Apocalypse Why not have
creatopias

Can Invention Survive the Apocalypse Why not have
Creatopias

Secret of bacteria's immune system revealed

Electrical brain stimulation improves math skills

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