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author, fantasy, humor, lab safety, lol, Science, science fiction, Stephanie Beavers, superpowers, unicorns, writer
SCIENCE!
Teleportation, preferably.
SCIENCE! (And unicorns)
07 Thursday Aug 2014
Tag Archives: science fiction
The Future of Computing
30 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in News
Tags
apocalypse, author, computers, computing, machine, Science, science fiction, science news, Stephanie Beavers, technology, writer
So, exciting news! Computers are about to take a quantum leap.
Now, anyone who loves technology has GOT to be excited about this. Can you imagine where this will take us? I’m all gung-ho for virtual reality. Y’know, like Sword Art Online and .hack and the Matrix? Toes have been dipped in those waters, but this kind of processing speed would put things on a whole new level.
And if you haven’t heard, this new technology is a total overhaul of the old; introduce silicon photonics instead of copper wiring, and clusters of specialized cores instead of more generalized ones. We will be able to sneeze at petabytes. Petabytes.
And since it’s not creepy at all, HP is calling this what? The Machine. …Anyone else watch Person of Interest? At least they didn’t call it Samaritan…
One step closer to the robot apocalypse
One step closer to the robot apocalypse.
In all seriousness, however, it’s this kind of power in the hands of the general public that scares me. “Revolution” isn’t a frivolous concept. Computer security will become non-existent if this is released to joe-public all at once. And as much as I love all my freedoms, there are bad people out there who could take serious advantage of this. With that kind of power, hacking a bank would be easy. Easier than easy.
What do you think, dear readers? What excites you about this prospect? What terrifies you? I’d love to hear.
The Blood Countess was right… sort of.
05 Monday May 2014
Posted in News
Tags
animals, author, blood, Blood Countess, history, mice, News, Science, science fiction, science news, Stephanie Beavers, vampires, writer
Did you hear? A new study is showing that Swapping Young Blood for Old Reverses Aging. Essentially, scientists injected the blood of younger mice into elderly mice, and found that many age-related infirmities were reversed. Scientists have high hopes that this discovery could be used on humans to similar effect, especially when it comes to Alzheimer’s and heart enlargement.
We’ll have to recruit vampire cats to kill all the vampire mice that are sure to be bred through this program.
This is awesome, but didn’t someone already discover this? Ah yes, the Blood Countess. She was the most prolific female serial killer in history, and she bathed in the blood of virgins to keep herself young. Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed and four collaborators were convicted for the murder and torture of 80 different girls, but accusations ran as high as 650.
…Okay, so the staying young and even the bathing in virgin blood thing were never actually proven, but still. Does this sound like a coincidence to you? ;)
I For One Welcome Our Vegetal Overlords
14 Monday Apr 2014
Tags
author, batteries, Bionic plants, energy, fun, inspiration, plants, Science, science fiction, science news, Stephanie Beavers, writer
Bionic Plants: Turning Plants Into Energy Producing Factories
First we turn plants into batteries. Before you know it, they’ll go all super-species on us and take over.
Seriously though, this article is pretty awesome. IFLS does the usual layman breakdown (although it’s a tad more technical than many of her others.)
TL;DR? They’ve figured out how to turn plants into energy-producing units. There were some fancy science-problems stopping them from doing this before, but they’re figuring it all out and it could be feasible as an energy source. It’s still in early stages, but to me, this sounds a lot more sustainable than most of the stuff we’ve got going on right now. More plants: yay!
The plants will be so happy to serve us… until they’re not. :o
The Earth Is Awsome: Earthquake Lights
07 Monday Apr 2014
Tags
author, earthquake, earthquake lights, inspiration, News, Science, science fiction, Stephanie Beavers, UFOs, writer
Scientists find records of rare ‘earthquake lights’
So this is awesome. Apparently, under certain conditions, bright lights herald the coming of earthquakes.
Certain types of earthquakes in certain areas can set off blazes of light seconds — sometimes days — before the actual quake. These can manifest as floating balls of light, bluish columns shooting up out of the earth and even reverse lightning, reaching up into the sky from the ground.
Now this phenomenon is extremely rare, so it shouldn’t be depended upon as a warning sign. ;) The article lists the conditions required for earthquake lights to appear, and lists a bunch of recorded incidents where these lights were witnessed.
Unsurprisingly, these lights have been responsible for a few “UFO” sightings.
Not UFOs.
To me, this is just more evidence of how vast, complicated, and utterly amazing our world is. We really have very little understanding of the world around us, although our knowledge grows every day.
It makes you wonder about the rest of the UFO sightings too. I’m a skeptic when it comes to alien life (especially visiting Earth), but it’s not something I rule out. But our minds like to come up with some explanation – sometimes any explanation – to explain those things we don’t understand.
Driving On Air
24 Monday Mar 2014
Posted in News
Tags
author, hybrid vehicles, News, Science, science fiction, science news, Stephanie Beavers, writer
What does this world have tons of? Air! Talk about a renewable resource. Of course, it’s rarely as simple (or cheap) as it sounds. IFLS does a good job (as usual) of breaking down the science, so if you’re curious, take a read.
But sometimes I wonder if oil’s grasp on the world will ever loosen. There are all kinds of hybrid vehicles operating on different sources of energy out there, but it seems like they’re all just too expensive. The problem is this – they need infrastructure to be feasible. So do gasoline-powered vehicles, but since theirs is already in place, let’s face it, it’s “cheaper.” Like with electric cars, I see the plug-in problem here. How does one recharge without plugging in at some point, and where/how are we going to get the resources wide-spread enough for it to be feasible? It’s great to hear that hybrid technology is becoming (at least a bit) more cost-effective, but I have to wonder.
Are we waiting for an apocalypse to overhaul everything? :P
So what do you think? Will we be seeing a new kind of vehicle (not necessarily air-powered) widespread on our roads in the future? What form do you think they’ll take, if they do?
And where are our flying cars?
Invisibility Cloak, Here I Come
03 Monday Feb 2014
Posted in News
Tags
inspiration, invisibility, metamaterials, News, Science, science fiction, stealth, Stephanie Beavers
So I ran into this brief article on the potential future of invisibility: How do you make things invisible?
“Metamaterial” is apparently the future of stealth: not just invisibility, but undetectability. Now, I was curious for a more in-depth look at the stuff, so I of course consulted Wikipedia. I was subsequently reminded that my degree was a BA, not a BSc. As it turns out (and it’s not really a surprise), metamaterials are pretty complicated.
What I took away from it though, was that a Harry Potter-esque invisibility cloak was unlikely. This caused the fangirl portion of my brain so lose most of its interest, although a healthy dose of academic curiosity remains. So while I failed to achieve a comprehensive translation of the entirety of the article, I learned that metamaterials actually have potential uses in many areas (including various sensors and communications). Despite my lack of a thorough understanding, I am still inspired. I love it when I can walk away from even a short article going, “That is awesome.”
So here’s to science. Keep being awesome. (And keep making awesome things.)
Psychic Books?
27 Monday Jan 2014
Posted in News
Tags
books, fun, interactive, interactive books, Science, science fiction, sensory fiction, Stephanie Beavers
So I read this article the other day: Book changes temperature or vibrates, depending on the plot The article is really short, and here’s the main quote from it:
This “Sensory Fiction” project is the creation of MIT’s Media Lab, who explain:
The ‘augmented’ book portrays the scenery and sets the mood, and the wearable allows the reader to experience the protagonist’s physiological emotions. The book cover animates to reflect the book’s changing atmosphere, while certain passages trigger vibration patterns.
Changes in the protagonist’s emotional or physical state triggers discrete feedback in the wearable, whether by changing the heartbeat rate, creating constriction through air pressure bags, or causing localized temperature fluctuations.
My first response was “huh, cool. I doubt I’d spend money on it (since it would probably be really expensive), but it’s pretty cool nonetheless.” Then I began to wonder if it was really a good idea. Empathy is already a pretty powerful tool for immersion and feeling what the characters in the book are feeling. Is it healthy to push it further? Or would “sensory fiction” even be able to do what it claims? I’d be willing to try it, but I have my reservations.
Well readers, what do you think?
We Live On The Holodeck
16 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in News
Is The Universe a Hologram? Physicists say it’s possible. I’ve always been fascinated by the multitude of theories that proliferate in the scientific community that try to explain the nature of the universe, and even more controversially, its origins. Now, I have my own opinions on the matter, but since they’re rather controversial and that’s not what I want my blog to be about, I’m not going to go into them. Suffice to say, I’m a Christian, and many of my beliefs stem from there.
No, here I want to look at articles and theories like the ones from the article linked above from a perspective totally different from what’s “right.” Instead I want to regard it from a position of awe. Let’s face it: we don’t have any solid idea what the universe really is or how it works. It’s possible we’re not even capable, as human beings, of full comprehending it. But every time I see science advancing (or at least expanding) in this area of research, I’m drawn in, fascinated and inspired.
What I find interesting about the article is that they touch on the idea that the universe is a hologram (and how it could explain so much about science if it is), but they don’t reflect on what that would mean. So if it’s a hologram, WHY is it a hologram? Was it designed to be that way? Is it just that way through some fluke of the universe? HOW is it a hologram?
This is why I keep tabs on science news. How amazing is this world we live in? What amazingly inventive idea will we come up with next? And how might our world surprise us by (at least seemingly) verifying some of the most bizarre of them?
So the universe is a hologram. What happens if someone turns it off? :P
Land of the Giant Mushrooms
09 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in News
Tags
Elder Scrolls, fandoms, fantasy, giant mushrooms, News, Oblivion, prehistory, Science, science fiction, Shivering Isles, Stephanie Beavers
According to science news, Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms.
So like the Shivering Isles?
Elder Scrolls IV’s Shivering Isles. Giant mushrooms and crazy starscapes ftw.
Honestly, after reading the article, I had a hilarious mental picture of a bunch of bespectacled men in labcoats hucking grocery-store mushrooms at each other while they argued whether a fungus, lichen, or other similar organism could grow to 8 meters. It’s a valid question, but imagining a reasoned debate around a microscope was too tame. (Although I suppose if the thing’s 8 meters the microscope wouldn’t always be necessary. Stereotypes ftw!)
Seriously though, I love it when scientific data leads people to painting pictures of what the planet looked like before we started writing things down. Barring time travel, we have no way of knowing – and that’s awesome.
Stephanie Beavers 