"You have not been paying attention."

More Bowie . . .

Conspiracy-mongers, start your engines!

NASA struggles to contact lost Mars probe

An unexpected break in communications has NASA struggling to restore contact with its Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. If communication cannot be restored soon, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by having another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, take pictures of MGS.

Problems for Mars Global Surveyor orbiter

Engineers are striving to restore full communications with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor on the 10th anniversary of the spacecraft's Nov. 7, 1996, launch.

The orbiter is the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently active at the red planet. Its original mission was to examine Mars for a full Martian year, roughly two Earth years. Once that period elapsed, considering the string of discoveries, NASA extended the mission repeatedly, most recently on Oct. 1 of this year.

Scientists Say Millions Could Flee Rising Seas

Nations must make plans to help tens of millions of "sea level refugees" if climate change continues to ravage the world's oceans, German researchers said on Thursday.

Waters are rising and warming, increasing the destructive power of storms, they said, and seas are becoming more acidic, threatening to throw entire food chains into chaos.

"In the long run, sea level rises are going to be the most severe impact of global warming on human society," said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, presenting a report by German scientists at a major United Nations climate change meeting.

Here's briefly what I think's going to happen over the next 75 years:

We're going to run out of food, for one. The oceans are heating up, and they're spotted with what scientists aptly call "dead zones." It's only a matter of time until some crucial link in the food-chain is severed, leading to large-scale ecological collapse. Famines -- and attendant wars -- will occupy the resources of poorer nations. Factor in a deluge of climate refugees and territorial conflicts promise to antagonize an already tenuous geopolitical milieu.

One of the many dangers of population displacement is the proliferation of viruses. Climate change promises to provide new and unpredictable vectors. The abandoned and hurricane-battered coasts will serve up novel contagions -- even the least of which, given the disheveled state of emergency relief, will take a massive toll.

And it will be hot -- very hot. Crops will fail, infrastructures will collapse and political regimes will dissolve, unremembered. Entire continents will fall victim to what ecologist James Lovelock has termed a "morbid fever."

But ultimately the fever will have run its course, leaving the Earth irrevocably changed. Humans will be fewer, their resources diminished. For all intents and purposes, the planet will be alien, its landscapes scarred by maverick climate, unruly pathogens and bitter conflict.

But the worst part? We'll look back and realize we had it coming.

Probing Distant Atmospheres for Life

Inevitably, the hunt for extraterrestrial life looks first for the kind of life we find on Earth. But we may have to widen that view, and the key is to make as few assumptions as possible. For if we've learned one thing from the 200+ extrasolar planets found thus far, it's that solar systems around other stars can be utterly different from anything we had imagined.

Even if humanity ultimately takes the dirtnap, the discovery of a living extrasolar planet seems almost inevitable. I wonder what our response will be, gazing at some tantalizing and alien world orbiting another star. What will we have done to ourselves -- and how might our collective predicament color our reception of a confirmed extraterrestrial biosphere?

Although real enough, the new Earth will also play a formative role in our imaginations; it promises to be a liminal frontier as well as an astrobiological focal point -- the locus of new myths, an imaginal haven forged of memes old and new, a distant and beckoning mirror.

Indian scientists favour manned space mission

Top scientists and technologists here today strongly favoured a proposal to undertake a manned mission into space that would catapult India into a select group of nations with such a capability.

(Via Beyond the Beyond.)

Africa's Nobel Laureate Says Plant a Billion Trees

Kenya's Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the first African woman and first "green" activist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, urged people from the United States to Uganda to plant trees to combat global warming and to make a long-term commitment.

"Anybody can dig a hole, anybody can put a tree in that hole and water it. And everybody can make sure that the tree they plant survives," she said on the sidelines of a UN meeting on climate change in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Plant trees? Yeah, like that leaves a lot of room left over for Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

I can't keep up with Paul Kimball. One minute it's the chilling effects of "exopolitics" and the next it's theater reviews, for god's sake. The man is omnipresent!

Another reason why Portishead are one of the best groups of all time.

I found this gem at Information Aesthetics.

The flow along this conveyor belt represents the rate at which babies are being born on the planet, the flow of coffins represents deaths.

You'll notice a disturbing trend: There are way more babies bring born than people dying; we're waging an imbecilic war of attrition on our own planet. This can't last, and it won't last.

How will it end? That's up to us.

OK, I'm going to attempt a far-from-comprehensive list of the very best science fiction writers working today, emphasizing talents you might not have heard of. I know I'm leaving deserving authors out, but that's just because I haven't read them yet.

In alphabetical order:

Richard Calder
Greg Egan
Ken MacLeod
China Mieville
Richard K. Morgan
Alastair Reynolds
Michael Marshall Smith
Charles Stross
Peter Watts
Robert Charles Wilson
Jack Womack

Proof the New Age has not been remiss in anticipating the Singularity:

The White Hole in Time

But as far as planet Earth is concerned we are very significant indeed. Here, in this minute corner of the Universe, a bud is on the verge of flowering. Here, after billions of years, a creature has arisen that has transcended biological evolution. It is our minds, not our bodies, that are evolving. We are a species that can explore and study its world. A species that looks for meaning and understanding. A species aware of its own consciousness. A most creative and ingenious species.

And we have the potential to be much much more. We could be on the threshold an evolutionary climax far more profound than most of us have ever dared imagine.

Will humanity make that shift? Only time will tell. But it would be a pity to have struggled so hard and come so far, and then miss what could be our crowning glory.

(Via PAG E-News.)

Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs

Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.

(Via Unknown Country.)

For humankind's sake, it's probably a good think they "chose" the ocean. I have the feeling they would have outsmarted us while we were still swinging in the trees.

(Interesting alternate world premise there. The dinosaur what-if thing has already been done, of course, but I don't know any techno-industrial cetacean stories . . .)

Last night I felt compelled to document how I felt for reasons more practical than self-pitying; for better or worse, this blog has become a way of sorting through thoughts that may only be tangentially related to standard tropes. (Alien visitation, anybody? Or how about a nice steaming bowl of greenhouse apocalypse?)

Today's been . . . better. At least in the sense that I think I know where I stand. I no longer feel that placating automatic response to choose ersatz happiness over emotional honesty -- or at least I'd like to think so. Time will tell.

Truthfully, I felt slightly guilty even posting yesterday's despairing tirade. The bit about watching the walls, while true enough, was unsettlingly personal. And I didn't want to alarm anyone, because as dejected as I feel I'm not on the verge of complete apathetic abandon . . . although sometimes it can feel that way, and I may have very well given the impression that I viewed my continued existence as a write-off.

More to the point, I want to thank everyone for the unexpected show of support and advice. Not to mention for putting up with the erratic content: Angsty confessionals make for bad blogs.

Now on with the show.

Now reading:

I'm having a difficult time adjusting to the fact that I don't like where I am right now -- both geographically and psychologically. It's one of those truths that, with my own reluctant cooperation, manages to camouflage itself . . . and when detected, it expertly belies its presence with the mentational equivalent of radar chaff.

Thus I rebound from a state of what would likely become stark depression to one of merely bothersome self-loathing. So I drink more espresso, check a few more books out from the library and resume staring at the walls. (I've been doing quite a lot of that lately: literally staring at the walls and vaguely hoping it would all just go away.)

The act of driving across town has become a rite of dull agony. Other people have become gibbering caricatures to be endured. (Which isn't entirely aberrational; most of them really are walking turds.)

Not that I don't have moments of what seem deceptively like inner calm. But they're too easily shattered; I rebound into a world of abject loneliness that I can kill only with sleep and sickly self-assurances that tend to wither under inspection.

To some degree or another, this has been going on for at least ten years. More, counting college -- but I prefer to operate under the plausible fiction that college counted for nothing.

I'm transmitting from a space station that, neglected, is running perilously low on oxygen. I've ignored the flashing red LEDs and the entreaties from mission control. Now a strange clutching darkness has descended as if from nowhere.

Life in the Stars

Given that the mainstream scientific community can't even agree if the poor orbiting mass called Pluto is a planet, it may seem a strange time to ask people to consider whether or not extraterrestrial life has visited our troubled planet-especially since the mere mention of unidentified flying objects conjures stereotypes, reinforced in the media, that undermine credibility.

It's hard to imagine, however, that even the most hardened of cynics wouldn't be compelled by information published on the subject over the past 10 years. Sometimes raising as many unsettling questions as it answers, this serious research not only deserves notice, it demands consideration.

A promising start. Credibility plummets, however, when the author cites Philip Corso and Steven Greer.

An MP3 of my "Strange Days . . . Indeed" appearance has been posted.

(Thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp.)

1959 UFO contactee book

In the 1950s, two sisters named Helen and Betty Mitchell claimed to have met humanoid creatures from outer space in a St. Louis, Missouri coffee shop.

Hey, I've met aliens in coffee shops too!

Plastic Trash Vortex Menaces Pacific Sealife - Study

This swirling vortex, which can grow to be about the size of Texas, is not far from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, designated as a protected US national monument in June by President George W. Bush.

The Greenpeace report, "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans" said at least 267 species -- including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish -- are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.

'Silent aircraft': How it works

Engineers from the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have unveiled a radical design for a "silent aircraft".

The team says any noise from the concept aircraft, known as the SAX-40, would be "imperceptible" beyond the boundaries of an airport. It would also burn far less fuel than conventional planes.

Could technology of this sort explain some reports of massive, silent "flying triangles"?

(Hat tip: Mondolithic Sketchbook.)

I found this stunning video on YouTube using the search phrase "Franz Kafka."

"God is an American."

Remembering Camille Flammarion

"What intelligent being, what being capable of responding emotionally to a beautiful sight, can look at the jagged, silvery lunar crescent trembling in the azure sky, even through the weakest of telescopes, and not be struck by it in an intensely pleasurable way, not feel cut off from everyday life here on Earth and transported toward that first stop on celestial journeys?"

The idiots across the hall are playing their TV so loud I can hear every word. I can't think. My world is ceaseless canned laughter and blaring political advertisements. I'd knock on the door and ask them to turn it down but I'm afraid I'd suffer reprisal -- if not me, personally, then my apartment. Or my car.

"Sanity" in this society is a brittle veneer. Most people secretly hate themselves; the most they can do is hope to numb the pain. But the facade invariably cracks and barbarism comes seething through the fissure in an eager red tide.

The dead walk.

I went to Starbucks tonight, where I finished Strieber's "The Grays." Later, in the parking lot, a teenager informed me that he'd watched someone key and ram my car, apparently under the impression that I'd infringed on his parking territory. The account was enraging; I tend to avoid nice people, let alone indulge morons in vehicular turf-wars.

I scoped out the damage, which seems confined to a couple scrapes on the hood. I stopped by a gas station on the way home and checked the tires, which look OK. At least, no obvious punctures.

I hate the fucking suburbs.

Spacewear fashion show: looking fly in zero-g

Winners of the contest, which is organized by Tokyo-based fashion designer Eri Matsui with the support of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and many others, will help design the clothes for use on Rocketplane’s space tourism flights set to begin in 2008.

New Frontiers Symposium Diary - The Day After (Greg Bishop)

Allowed to sleep until after noon, I did. When I rolled over and looked at the clock, it was 1:15PM. Still on west coast time, I guess. Lobby assembly time was 1:30. Will and Lisa Wise and Nick were already lounging about when I arrived. We had to call Mac's room to get him out the door.

This was embarrassing. I hadn't forgotten the time or anything. Had I fallen back to sleep? I can't remember what the problem was. "Missing time"?

The Fate of Gaia

As much as I like the Gaian Hypothesis, I don't like the conclusions many have drawn from it. I like to take a different view of the matter, one that was hinted at by the author of The Millennial Project, and one expressed by many other space enthusiasts and space activists. What if humans were evolved for a purpose? As much destruction as we have caused, Gaia might have evolved humanity to become agents of its creation. If Gaia is a living organism, then we should expect that it will do what all organisms do. Gaia will die whether or not humans are the cause of its demise. It may happen tomorrow, or maybe not for billions of years. The only way to "escape" it is to reproduce. That is the idea of the Pregnent Mother Earth metaphor. By evolving an intelligent and "handy" species, Gaia has evolved a reproduction system. As it stands, humanity is the only species with the ability to travel from Earth and into space, and is thus the only means for the transmission of life into space.

OOPARTS and Tubal Cain

Here is something else from outside the UFO field (and that I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for access to the Internet), Tubal Cain is a secret Masonic phrase, and something that certainly wasn’t well known in 1852. So now the question becomes is this tale of a metallic vessel found in solid rock true or does it have some significance to the Masons and the use of Tubal Cain is the clue. I confess that I don’t know. I am more than a little disturbed to learn of the history of Tubal Cain and the reference to it, or him, in this particular article. There is no reason for those other writers to have made anything out of the reference, unless they themselves were Masons and knew the code.

(Via The Anomalist.)

Got a craving for space? Take a look at Space Feeds, a blog that, well, feeds you space. And lots of it!

Here's a video of a strangely shaped object over (I think) Nellis AFB. It's unclear (to me) if this footage was taken from the ground or from the air. Interestingly, the "lobed" configuration has been observed -- and videotaped -- elsewhere.



Hoax? Experimental technology? Or something else?

Send your name to Mars. Gloat about it to strangers. Receive weird looks.

Vote for the 2006 Zorgy Awards

If you read this blog and are at all interested in the paranormal, it's your duty.

R.E.M. in a great live rendition of "The One I Love":

U.N. says 2005 set greenhouse gas record

Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2005 and are still increasing, the U.N. weather agency said Friday.

The measurements coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization show that the global average concentrations of carbon dioxide, or CO2, and nitrous oxide, or N2O, reached record levels last year and are expected to increase even further this year, said Geir Braathen, a climate specialist at the Geneva-based agency.

"There is no sign that N2O and CO2 are starting to level off," Braathen said at the global body's European headquarters. "It looks like it will just continue like this for the foreseeable future."

A friend in Toronto FedExed me "Art of Imagination," a sprawling look at science fiction and fantasy illustration dating back to early pulps such as "Weird Tales" and continuing to the present.





Not only is it a perfect coffee table book, it's big enough to be a coffee table.

Thanks!

Ocean Fish, Seafood Could Collapse By 2048 - Study

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," Worm said in a statement. "In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."

Viral Fossil Brought Back to Life

In a controversial study, researchers have resurrected a retrovirus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago and now sits frozen in the human genome. Published online by Genome Research this week, the study may shed new light on the history of these genomic intruders, as well as their role in tumors. Although this particular virus, dubbed Phoenix, is a wimpy one, some argue that resuscitating any ancient virus is inherently risky and that the study should have undergone stricter reviews.

"Phoenix." How lame. How about . . . Behemoth?

Biomimetic Ocean Power

BioPower says the BioWAVE (kelp-like) generator captures the widest and deepest swath of wave energy of any device that does not require a huge rigid structure. It also rotates freely, so it automatically orients itself to the wave direction to maximize output. In storms, it can also lay itself flat on the ocean floor to avoid the extreme forces which would rip apart a rigid generator.

This flu's still not finished with me. I've spent the last two days confined to my apartment, drinking coffee, napping, alphabetizing my hate-mail, and having long philosophical conversations with my cats.

Halloween was without incident, although I considered zapping trick-or-treaters through my window with my laser-pointer; what's a few burned retinas in the name of fun?

Very Short Stories

We'll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

A couple of my favorites:

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
--Vernor Vinge

It cost too much, staying human.
--Bruce Sterling

Hammering Shells Into E[s]presso Machines

"The shells were dropped in Ethiopia during the war with Eritrea," Mr Azmeraw says. He uses old mortar shells, which stand about one metre high, to make his coffee machines.

Think of it this way: Iraq has a promising future in the homespun coffee machine industry.

Study Shows Rich People Kill The Poor With Status Alone

They offer two possible explanations: poor people living in rich areas may have to pay more for housing and other services, magnifying the effect of poverty; alternatively, their health may suffer from stress caused by continually being reminded that they are at the bottom of the economic pile. "I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive," says team member Catherine Cubbin, now at the University of California, San Francisco.

Reconsidering Viking on Mars

Now a new paper argues that the Viking methodology was flawed. In fact, similar experiments don't even find organic molecules in the Atacama Desert between Chile and Peru, where dry conditions seem conspicuously Mars like, and where experiments on remote life detection have continued at a robust pace. Yet updated testing reveals carbon at these sites.

And Rafael Navarro-González (National Autonomous University, Mexico) says in the new study that if the Viking scientists had known these results thirty years ago, they would have interpreted Viking's work differently.