Science

Squish squash scribble

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Happy Easter, to those of you inclined that way.

More egg science.

And as if that weren’t enough, it’s time to play first lines! These are the first lines from everything in progress.

All the Leaves on Mars: “Whisper-thin sheets of stainless steel piled to the ceiling, compulsively stacked, impeccably organized.”

Gray Lady: “The sky was gray, as smooth as if it had been airbrushed, the same shade as the dishes she stacked in the matching cupboard.”

Oyster: “I’m going to find a blue one.”

Stars Move Like Clockwork Across the Sky: “I spring up, spinning to orient myself. Gravity, atmosphere, and that most significant detail: a quarter-moon floating enormous in the night sky.”

A Very Werewolf Christmas (Working title ONLY): “Snow swirled glittering in the streetlights, stinging my cheeks.”

If nothing else, doing this prompts me to polish my titles. It also reminds me that I like these ideas, and want to finish them.

Reading over these also shows me that my sentence-craft has improved in the past year. That’s encouraging.

Or rather, I knew it had, but I can see that in practice.

Hello from rainy Portland

Apr 8th, 2011

by Sarah.

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No, I’m not spending all my time in Powell’s. Of course I’m not.

See, I even finished a new Science in My Fiction post: The Plastic Economy.

I’ve also been working very hard, but today is a vacation day. Watch out Portland!

Changing the Lady

Mar 17th, 2011

by Sarah.

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For the past two years, Ada Lovelace Day has been celebrated on March 24. If you’ve been waiting impatiently to find out which obscure scientific woman I’m going to feature in 2011, I’m afraid you have a bit of waiting to do.

This year, Ada Lovelace Day will be on October 7. That gives me lots of time to choose and research someone fascinating.

Squiggles!

Mar 11th, 2011

by Sarah.

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The internet has been buzzing with news of apparent microfossils found in meteorites. The story was first publicized by Fox News, but rapidly spread across blogs and major media outlets alike.

These carbonaceous chondrites, meteorites that probably once formed part of comets, were split open and examined closely. Richard B. Hoover, in a study published in the Journal of Cosmology presented micrographs of squiggly structures that appeared very similar to terrestrial cyanobacteria (“Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus“, March 2011). The chemical profiles of these artifacts differed from those of the surrounding meteorite matrix. Evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system!

Not so fast. This is a tremendous claim: is it justified? My assessment of this research includes three components: the journal, the author, and the science itself. Is the journal credible, does the author possess the relevant skills and experience to evaluate such a claim, does the evidence support the conclusions and are alternate explanations adequately considered?

An era winding down

Mar 9th, 2011

by Sarah.

5 comments

I and 120,000 other people watched online as the Discovery landed for the last time today.

The shuttle program is the space program I grew up with, for better and worse. I was ten when the Columbia went up for the first time in April 1981. I sat in math class and watched the Challenger explode on the television, over and over and over. I pored over the Space Shuttle Operator’s Manual and dreamed of going up myself.

I never expected the shuttle program to last so long, that we wouldn’t have moved on to better things in the thirty years since that first launch. Shuttle launches became almost routine, something that happened every now and then, until the Columbia reminded us that heading into space is never routine, never entirely safe.

Now Discovery is down for good. Endeavour is scheduled to launch for the last time in April, and Atlantis will make her last flight in June, the 135th shuttle flight.

With the end of the shuttle program, and the cancellation of the Constellation program last year, the US is without a manned space program: a stunning lack of vision. We can watch video from the shuttle cockpit real-time as it lands, but we cannot send people into orbit, let alone to the Moon or Mars. What are the kids now going to watch in awe? What great scientific enterprise will unite the country? What will we cheer, and mourn?

Forget about the flying cars. Where’s my space program?

Hello March

Mar 1st, 2011

by Sarah.

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And goodbye February. I’ve never gotten along with that month. In fact, I blame it for a lot of things. Good riddance until next year.

I was moderately productive in February, in the writing department. I finished and revised two short stories, and am just waiting on my beta reader before I submit them. I started planning a new novel, an urban fantasy I’ve been kicking the rudiments of around for a couple years. Now it has its own Scrivener file, an outline, some character sketches. Fun! I need to devote more time to finishing stuff this year (motto for 2011: “The End”), but its good for me to have several projects in various stages of completion awaiting me. I think I also promised to give a talk on social media for writers to the local writing group next fall.

For the other writer types, or those who spend time with writers: The Writer’s Survival Guide. From the article: “And so I give unto you: coping mechanisms. Fellow penmonkeys, compatriot wordslingers, if you want to do this job and not end up shellacked in your own snot-froth while hanging from the ceiling fan — if you are to survive at all with your mind and spirit intact — then you must do as I say. Do not deviate, lest you be struck down by your own lunacy.”

Here’s something I got from Warren Ellis. It relates to a less-well-developed novel idea that I should get to in a year or so, and I want to save it for then.

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Developing new shiny ideas is more fun than finishing projects in progress, but it is now time to start rewrites on Paper Magic. I alternately feel like I know how to do this and have no clue at all what I’m doing. Fortunately I know enough writers by now to recognize that as normal, and to understand that the only thing to do is keep working.

Changing the subject entirely, if you can’t beat them, eat them: invasivory. Strike a blow for native species by consuming the invasives yourself. Complete with recipes!

And one more topic switch: things you can do with guitars!

Bad Project

Feb 5th, 2011

by Sarah.

3 comments

[Ooops. I wrote this on 26 January, and apparently never hit post. Sorry! You’ve probably all seen the video by now.]

While I’m on a science theme, here’s a new blog, Stars and Spice from a local scientist. She’s collected some excellent science videos, so now you have place to go if I don’t post enough of them.

Werewolfies

Feb 4th, 2011

by Sarah.

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New Science in My Fiction article today: Orbital Mechanics for Werewolves.

Enjoy!

Up, up and away!

Dec 25th, 2010

by Sarah.

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I couldn’t decide, so two selections today.

First, the Apollo 8 astronauts from Christmas 1968.

And a lovely Thea Gilmore song.

(And this is wonderful!)

I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas have a lovely day, with the food you love and the people you love. I wish the same for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas: why should love be restricted to one day and one religion?

Today, science

Dec 22nd, 2010

by Sarah.

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XKCD wins again.

I like to play with data graphics and presentation, looking for ways to present complex information understandably. This video from BBC4’s “Joy of Stats” program (and how cool is that?) does something interesting with a pile of national health and economic data. I wish I had that capability.

This makes me very happy: Eight-year-olds do original research and get it published in a major journal. Most science classes get it wrong (and I can say that having both taken and taught them) and don’t convey anything of what doing science is like.

And finally, today’s science-themed Christmas song.

(Today’s other musical selection.)