Sometimes I get the feeling my readers think I'm pretty single-minded, unable to write about anything except aliens, Martian archaeology and technological esoterica.

Here's proof they're mistaken.

While searching Google, I ran across this helpful round-up of transhumanist-oriented weblogs. (And yes, Posthuman Blues is included.)

Girl to Ghost

For the finale of Alexander McQueen's runway show last week, Kate Moss appeared as a hologram: "Inside an empty glass pyramid, a mysterious puff of white smoke appeared from nowhere and spun in midair, slowly resolving itself into the moving, twisting shape of a woman enveloped in the billowing folds of a white dress. It was Kate Moss, her blonde hair and pale arms trailing in a dream-like apparition of fragility and beauty that danced for a few seconds, then shrank and dematerialized into the ether."

(Via Boing Boing.)

Truly an "Idoru" moment.

New Face on Mars

Is it a message from aliens, or the coincidental drill marks of a robust NASA rover? Bet your money on the latter.

How ironic. Now we're making our own faces on Mars.

Here's a photostream devoted to the Ballardian (or is that Cronenbergian?) fusion of eroticism and PC innards. Inevitable, really.

Jotted down during this evening's pilgrimage to Starbucks:

Curvature of space-time
Anonymous curves of pixel hips
Rendered in vacuum diagrams

And . . .

Mounds of fossil light
defining excavations at the edge of time
The afterglow diffuse like
the weave of synapses
through a cosmology of meat

Katrina Stirs Up Issue of Lead Levels in Soil

"That is sediment that came from the contaminated industrial canal," said Pam Dashiell, a neighborhood activist and long-time resident of the Lower Ninth Ward. "The sediments in the industrial canal were absolutely contaminated. Our neighborhood association had a study done (before Katrina) that found all kinds of toxic sediments, heavy metals -- arsenic lead -- far above the standards of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. And post Katrina all of those chemicals were found in the soil."

Quite a planet we've made for ourselves here. I probably wouldn't believe it if I wasn't a resident.

A Force More Powerful

Can a computer game teach how to fight real-world adversaries -- dictators, military occupiers and corrupt rulers, using methods that have succeeded in actual conflicts -- not with laser rays or AK47s, but with non-military strategies and nonviolent weapons? Such a game, A Force More Powerful (AFMP), is now available. A unique collaboration of experts on nonviolent conflict working with veteran game designers has developed a simulation game that teaches the strategy of nonviolent conflict.

(Via Future Feeder.)

It's only a matter of time until some enterprising geek releases the "World of Warcraft" mash-up.

Tonight I began reading "UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge," a scholarly examination of the UFO controversy edited by historian David Jacobs (probably better known for his books "Secret Life" and "The Threat").

The first two essays, focusing on the academic bias against scientific ufology, are exceptionally promising. I disagree with many of Jacobs' conclusions regarding his work with "abductees," but he seems to have done a good job of fashioning an even-handed introduction to the field.

Five more interesting people with websites worth checking out:

Colin Bennett (scholar)

Stanton Friedman (ufologist)

Kara (aka Spacetramp) (blogger)

David Deutsch (physicist)

Michael Marshall Smith (author)

Rudy Rucker: The "Blade Runner"-ish info-deluge of Times Square as metaphor for the postsingular "orphidnet"

Bruce Sterling: Okay, wait a minute, what planet was this, exactly?

(The critter in question looks like something dreamed up by the team that concocted the fauna for that Discovery Channel "Alien Planet" special.)

Make that a posthuman espresso macchiato!





What do John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna and Mac Tonnies have in common?

We can all be found adorning the walls of a certain Starbucks (!) in California. Artist eWarrior informs me my portrait is located next to the entrance; if that's not appropriate, I don't know what is.

For more information, click here.

NASA probe achieves Mars orbit

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena erupted in cheers when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which left Earth in August, signalled that it had achieved orbit around a planet that has defeated two-thirds of the probes sent there.

What a delicious excuse to revive the Cydonian Imperative.

Thanks, Paul.

:-)

As wild fowl spread avian flu over continents, UN preps for human pandemic

With wild birds spreading the avian flu virus further into Africa and Europe, the United Nations system was stepping up assistance to countries in their efforts to contain the virus in birds and conducting simulation exercises to prepare strategies for quick action on a human future pandemic, the official in charge of the effort said today.

In case you haven't heard . . .

NASA'S CASSINI DISCOVERS POTENTIAL LIQUID WATER ON ENCELADUS

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion - that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

The real excitement hasn't even begun.

"12 Monkeys," here we come:

Biowar for Dummies

Making DNA turns out to be easy if you have the right hardware. The critical piece of gear is a DNA synthesizer. Brent already has one, a yellowing plastic machine the size of an office printer, called an ABI 394. "So, what kind of authorization do I need to buy this equipment?" I ask.

"I suggest you start by typing 'used DNA synthesizer' into Google," Brent says.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Site o' the day: Spacesounds

More Sunspots to Come

A stunning new scientific report predicts that the next sunspot cycle will be massively more powerful than the one just past, which was among the most powerful on record. This is going to cause intense climate disruptions on earth, including surface heating from coronal mass ejections, which is believed to have caused numerous forest fires during the last solar max.

The next solar max is expected to reach its peak in 2012. Because global warming is causing widespread drought, such effects could be massive.

2012 -- the end of the Mayan calendar. I'm wary of prophecies concerning sudden, dire change; I really don't anticipate any pyrotechnic "end of the world" scenario. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that the Mayans actually knew something we don't.

If they did, could it have had something to do with the health of our sun? Perhaps we'll have to wait and see.

New Animal Resembling Furry Lobster Found

Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.

It's cute and menacing! This crab deserves a prize!

Many human genes evolved recently

Human genes involved in metabolism, skin pigmentation, brain function and reproduction have evolved in response to recent environmental changes, according to a new study of natural selection in the human genome.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

And we're going to keep evolving. Even if transhumanists are mistaken and our destiny is defined solely by blind mutation and natural selection, we will ultimately become something else . . .

I don't think we'll be seeing this at Engadget anytime soon.

Paul Kimball has returned from a major UFO conference with tales to tell. I'm betting The Other Side of Truth will be pretty entertaining in the days to come.

(And I agree wholeheartedly with Paul's taste in guest speakers.)

Bruce Sterling:

You know what's even weirder and geekier than the scene here at Emerging Tech? Clifford Pickover's version of a myspace crowd, that's what's weirder and geekier.

Ye Gods in heaven, just look at these people. Imagine being stuck in a convention hotel with them. Imagine if they had their own offshore data haven.

A convention hotel! Yes, that's precisely what we need!

First a proposed constitutional ban on transhumanism, now this:

State bill proposes Christianity be Missouri's official religion

The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."

(Via No Touch Monkey!)

Just how is it that I live here?

The Net is beginning to simmer with stories about the weird "red rain." Could this be unequivocal evidence of ET life?

Is mysterious 'red rain' first evidence of life in space?

Amazingly, according to Dr Louis, they seem to be able to split and replicate, despite apparently containing no DNA -- the chemical reproductive code which is common to all life on Earth.

For this and other reasons, Dr Louis and his collaborator, Santhosh Kumar, one of his research students at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, have rejected all the explanations so far offered for an Earthly origin.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Here's physicist David Deutsch's contribution to the UFO debate.

Funny guy, that David.

Imation Flash Wristband

The Imation Flash Wristband redefines wearable technology design by combining a portable flash drive that doubles as a wristband. Durable and stylish, the Imation Flash Wristband is the new, convenient way to transfer, share and save digital files.

(Via Tech Swarm).

I wonder if this will catch on . . .

Missouri to vote on constitutional ban on transhumanism

The initiative is called "Regulation of Human-Animal Crossbreeds, Cloning, Transhumanism, and Human Engineering Is Reserved to the People." As resources on the the "mad scientists" that they want to stop they link to the IEET, the IEET's Journal on Evolution and Technology, the World Transhumanist Association, Reason magazine, Peter Singer, and Nick Bostrom's Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.

Wow. Looks like these fuckwits really know how to Google.

Jupiter's got a new red spot

Backyard astronomers, grab your telescopes. Jupiter is growing a new red spot. Christopher Go of the Philippines photographed it on February 27th using an 11-inch telescope and a CCD camera.

The official name of this storm is "Oval BA," but "Red Jr." might be better. It's about half the size of the famous Great Red Spot and almost exactly the same color.

This is how it starts: an innocuous-seeming bit of astronomical weirdness.

People look on in wonder, quietly speculating before returning to more mundane affairs. Little do they know that aliens from the far reaches of the galaxy are using Jupiter to open a wormhole into our neck of the biocosm; soon their ships will emerge and start taking apart entire moons right before our eyes.

And as we watch, horrified and awe-stricken, we wonder: "Are we next?"

Let's hope Dick Cheney doesn't get his hands on one of these.

Listless evening. I configured my cellphone to send email (10 cents a shot, but hey) and discovered that Barnes & Noble has ceased carrying my Mars book in its warehouses -- not exactly a thrilling revelation on the best of days. However, I'm pleased that Borders still carries it; in fact, I have yet to visit a Borders that doesn't.

I've been struggling with a garden-variety case of writer's block. Fortunately (?) it's not because of a lack of ideas but because I have too many of them. I can't even settle on genre.

Fiction or non-fiction?

Novel, novelette or short-story?

Near-future eco-disaster a la "The Sheep Look Up" or rousing posthuman philosophical thriller -- assuming, for argument's sake, that I'm capable of either?

A publisher has expressed interest in my forthcoming manuscript on alien intelligence (I've been dotingly referring to it as a "unified theory of cybernetics and ufology"). I should probably stick to that, put my science fiction ambitions on hold for the time being.

Air Force Plan: Hack Your Nervous System

Details of this emerged in a heavily-censored document released to Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project under the Freedom if Information Act. Called "Sensory consequence of electromagnetic pulsed emitted by laser induced plasmas," it described research on activating the nerve cells responsible for sensing unpleasant stimuli: heat, damage, pressure, cold. By selectively stimulating a particular nociceptor, a finely tuned PEP might sensations of say, being burned, frozen or dipped in acid -- all without doing the slightest actual harm.

The skin is the easiest target for such stimulation. But, in principle, any sensory nerves could be triggered. The Controlled Effects document suggests "it may be possible to create synthetic images . . . to confuse an individual's visual sense or, in a similar manner, confuse his senses of sound, taste, touch, or smell."

(Via Reality Carnival.)

I suspect this technology has already been deployed in an effort to produce "alien" encounters. Ask yourself a simple question: If you were a black-ops project manager with access to technology of this sophistication, could you resist?

Blogging ouroboros:

Posthuman Blues has a question about when physicists will arrive at the theory of everything. If a TOE is accomplished, he wants to know, do you think it will have any unexpected effects on human consciousness? If so, of what kind?

(Via The Galactic Question Center.)

I already knew the "pyramids on Mars" meme was alive and well long before such features were actually discovered on the Red Planet, but until Bob Harrison notified me of the latest addition to his excellent Mars/Cydonia website, I had no idea there were fictional murmurings of giant faces as well . . .

I've posted new book reviews here and here.

Ice sheet really is shrinking, and fast

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have used data from a pair of NASA satellites orbiting Earth in tandem to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet, which harbors 90 percent of Earth's ice, has lost significant mass in recent years.

The team used measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to conclude the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, annually. By comparison, the city of Los Angeles uses about 1 cubic mile of fresh water annually.

I'm getting back into my science fiction-and-coffee mode. This evening I finished "Hominids" and started "Child of the River" by Paul J. McAuley. While "Hominids" was a good book, it holds little in the way of surprise; it's essentially a "stranger in a strange land" story and shares much of that template's limitations.

"Child of the River" (the first book of the Confluence trilogy) is something else altogether. Seemingly spliced from the novels of Mervyn Peake, Jack Vance and Michael Swanwick, it has a cryptic allegorical flavor delivered in scenes that are equal parts "steampunk" and space-opera.

Site o' the day: CowAbduction.com

This obsessive robotification of the zoosphere (in the name of defense, as always) is interesting stuff. Remember "Jones," the dolphin from William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic"?

Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas

That team is among a number of groups around the world that have gained ethical approval to develop implants that can monitor and influence the behaviour of animals, from sharks and tuna to rats and monkeys. These researchers hope such implants will improve our understanding of how the animals interact with their environment, as well as boosting research into tackling human paralysis.

More controversially, the Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Where London Stood

Much of the rural imagery from the works of the Romantics included aestheticised, picturesque ruins from a previous age (usually, although not always, Classical temples, columns and statues). Early on, I noticed similarities between these images and images of the modern city in ruins in various Science Fiction films or read descriptions of in Science Fiction novels. It occurred to me that the image of a well-known city in ruins was a powerful one that people might use in a variety of ways to express a variety of ideas. What does it mean? Why the fascination?

(Via Mondolithic Sketchbook.)

For years I've had excruciatingly detailed fantasies (waking and otherwise) of abandoned, ruinous cities. Not so coincidentally, many of my short-stories take place after unspecified disasters. In the novel I'm wrestling with now I've tried to imagine a near future of unremitting suburban sprawl: lots of decaying megaplexes and dilapidated shopping malls baking under a discolored sky.

I recently had the opportunity to see a long-standing mall -- a sterile ghost of its former success -- ravaged by wrecking balls until one could imagine it had been uprooted by a nuclear blastwave. I found the landscape perversely attractive and enormously predictive, reminiscent of time-lapse footage of moss and fungi overwhelming animal remains and setting the stage for a new phase of unbridled growth.





This contrasts sharply with my imagined future, in which there is simply no room left among the dated concrete scenery to casually reduce failed shopping complexes to rubble and rebuild from the ground up. Instead, stripmalls become "stackmalls" -- unruly towers of commercial transience much like geological strata. Inexorably, our comfortable world of video rental franchises, ATMs and home super-stores gels into an uninterrupted heat island with profound effects on the climate and irreversible psychological consequences.

The distinction between "city" and "suburb" thus dissolved, people find themselves lost in what might as well be an alien landscape . . . foreign not because of any sense of unfamiliarity, but because of sheer directionless uniformity, the kind of rootlessness one experiences pondering an M.C. Escher drawing.

So while the world may in fact be growing at an exponential rate as the population climbs frantically skyward, into new electronic tombs and horizontal forests of demeaning fluorescent light, continuity is severed. The past becomes a dim montage, an Olduvai of the psyche.

Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage -- along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press -- show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

And yet not a day passes when I don't see creepy little bumper-stickers in support of this guy.

I've long since given up on politics as an effective way of saving ourselves from ourselves. That said, I overwhelmingly support the The Chimp's impeachment, if for no other reason than the effort might force us to consider climatological issues that threaten the lives of millions.

Water Wars: Climate change may spark conflict

John Reid warns climate change may spark conflict between nations - and says British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence

Question for readers . . .

Would you like to see an ad-hoc discussion forum available to compliment this weblog? I was just looking over QuickTopic, which might be a way to do this if the interest is there.

Oh, and be sure to sign the guest map so I can dispatch nanobots to ensure your sector of the geosphere is spared devastation from gray goo!

Ghost of Elvis Appears on Office Depot Receipt

Over 200 curious onlookers have viewed the auction in its first few hours. "I've already received several emails commenting on how the images could be anyone from James Dean to Abraham Lincoln", states Jenna. "But the lips---the lips are definitely Elvis", she says.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Elvis? James Dean? Abraham Lincoln? Come now, people. The visage is obviously that of Morrissey.