"Signs of retreat"

Huge ice chunks break away from Antarctic shelf

Researchers said the quality and frequency of the ESA satellite images have allowed them to analyze the Wilkins shelf breakup far more effectively than any previous event.

"For the first time, I think, we can really begin to see the processes that have brought about the demise of the ice shelf," Vaughan said.

He said eight ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have shown signs of retreat over the last few decades.

"The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and the largest of its kind," he said.

The Wilkins shelf, which is the size of Jamaica, lost 14 percent of its mass last year, according to scientists who are looking at whether global warming is the cause of its breakup.

You're going to like this.

I promise.

The art of Dominic Elvin

You can find more of Dominic Elvin's futuristic imagery here.

The fabric of reality is going up in computational smoke.

Dead Pixel in Google Earth

Helmut Smits figured out a way to add a "dead pixel" to Google Earth. He created a 82 x 82cm burned square, the size of one pixel from an altitude of one kilometer.

Smile!

Dummies and body-snatchers

Veteran UFO researcher Kevin Randle's latest post dissects the Air Force's bizarre claim that "anthropomorphic dummies" were responsible for descriptions of "alien" bodies found near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Unfortunately, Randle fails to address Nick Redfern's thesis that the alleged bodies might have had a perfectly terrestrial (if secret) origin.

Could the AF's 1997 "Case Closed" report have been drafted, in part, to distract UFO researchers who might otherwise have pursued the role of human experimentation?

I wonder.

The edge of human

George Dvorsky (Sentient Developments) poses essential questions about the slippery status of "personhood" and suggests some useful philosophical strategies:

What is a person?

Looking to the future, and as we move forward with NBIC technologies, we run the risk of denying essential basic liberties to intelligent and sentient beings should we fail to better elucidate what it means to be a person (whether they be non-human animals or artificially intelligent agents). As Glenn notes, we need to be prepared to ask, "How can we preserve our human rights and dignity despite the fact that our 'humanness' may no longer be the exclusive possession of Homo sapiens?"

Although Dvorksy is addressing animals, humans and posthuman intelligences, it's worth adding that his criteria will almost invariably discover further validity in the event that we establish contact with extraterrestrials.

The very definition of "alien"

A New World, if We Can Take It (Whitley Strieber)

In reality, the way the visitors function and what happens to people in their proximity suggests that they perceive the world very, very differently from the way we do. For example, when you are face to face with the small gray beings that form such a large part of the presence we see, and figure so extensively in its folklore, there is no sense that you are with people. Rather, it's like being with animals who are much more intelligent than you are. This is because there is absolutely no cultural familiarity at all. None.

How can officials engage with somebody whose meaning lies beyond a gap far more vast than that between us and, say, dolphins? We haven't the slightest idea what cetaceans may be saying to each other, or even what language means to them, if anything. And our visitors -- even those who appear to engage with us verbally -- are far, far more different from us than any earthly species.

"Between the Stars"

(Thanks: Ectoplasmosis.)

My pad or yours?

10 fantastic green cities of the future

Scouring the Web, we found the 10 best examples of green future cities from design visionaries, each one encompassing innovative and sustainable construction techniques, green energy technology, and creativity from your wildest dreams.

Plus one more you might have missed.

Irrationally, part of me still prefers the black, rainy streets of "Blade Runner."

Arachnophilia

This monstrous robot spider looks like one sweet ride.



Pink Tentacle brings you full coverage!

(And don't miss these dead aliens . . .)

What cloning isn't

Framing cloning - the media and genetic science (Paul Raven)

To some extent, science fiction can be blamed for misconceptions about cloning. The more serious and thoughtful books on the subject have been somewhat overshadowed by sensationalist TV and movie plots or the technophobia of writers in the Michael Crichton mould.

But that's not for want of the facts being available; as the known sf geek in my local social circle, people ask me about topics like cloning quite a bit, and I try to give them the most realistic overview of the topic I can. It rarely works. The truth is not as compelling a story as a rogue-science thriller or a riff plucked out on the heart-strings. Perhaps I'm just not a good enough storyteller.

Cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra."

More right here.

The finger pointing at the Moon is not the Moon.

It looks like Chris Wren, one of my favorite bloggers, is throwing in the towel for the greener (?) pastures of Facebook. His "final thought" is worth the read:

Our creations may be fascinating and superficially exciting. They may make certain aspects of our lives more convenient, but they're never going to change who we are in any meaningful way. We can change our natures, improve ourselves and strive to create a better society. But as always, we still have to do that ourselves. That's the real meat of science fiction for me - it's not about technology changing us, it's about us having the vision to change who and what we are.

And while you're at it, be sure to take a look at Mondolithic Studios if you haven't already.

Mars and the probability of life

Life Beyond Earth in 10 Years or Less?

Peter Smith feels pretty certain we'll be finding life on Mars within the next decade.

Smith, the University of Arizona professor who led NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission, made his predictions to a spellbound audience during a lecture at the University of Delaware earlier this month, and he discussed his ideas by phone on Thursday. He carries a "sense of optimism" about finding life on Mars, he said, because of the tantalizing clues Phoenix sent to Earth.

[. . .]

"I think the next decade is a very active time for searching for signatures on Mars," he said, "and my personal belief is we'll find them."

I'll make an even bolder statement: If we haven't conclusively established the presence of life on Mars within the next decade it won't be because it's not there; it will simply indicate that we're not trying hard enough.

Are they accepting colonists yet?

Lightest exoplanet yet discovered

Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, "e", in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. These amazing discoveries are the outcome of more than four years of observations using the most successful low-mass-exoplanet hunter in the world, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.

Strange "helpers"

The latest illustrated anecdote from "Kartott":

I sometimes see these entities during meditation (eyes barely open, soft focus). They stand (float) about me, seeming to modulate a field of energy around me (I especially sense their hands, "combing" the energy). There always seems to be one primary entity, usually right in my face, others are more in the background. I don't get any verbal communication from them.

As the description above illustrates, the "Gray" archetype seems to possess the ability to manifest in a "visionary" manner. If so, who's responsible? We could be dealing with a hardwired neurological phenomenon, as argued by researchers like Michael Persinger and Albert Budden. Conversely, recurrent images of the Grays -- in varying stages of physicality and in a multitude of contexts -- beg the idea that they exist independently of the brain (at least temporarily).

The close encounter literature is rife with accounts in which "abductees," convinced their visitors are flesh-and-blood, encounter their assailants in apparent "out-of-body" and similarly altered states, suggesting that the Grays (and their kin) can maneuver in and out of our ontological framework at will. What might this say about the origin of our visitors (if indeed we're dealing with an externally imposed intelligence)?

Perhaps, instead of hailing from space, the "Grays" emanate from a much closer source. As Whitley Strieber suggests in "Communion," they could be an unacknowledged aspect of the human psyche and thus indistinguishable from mental aberration. As pioneering consciousness researcher Dr. Rick Strassman has shown, the aggressively psychedelic compound DMT can produce tellingly similar encounters, offering the novel idea that our brains can function as receivers or portals. (Ultimately, some of us might serve as nothing less than transportation devices for incorporeal intelligences, which might explain why some individuals seem predisposed to contact and the pageantry of strangeness that often accompanies it.)

"I'm sure I saw a flash of light in the sky."

I'm stealing this from Greg Bishop, who has more to say about it here.

Video tribute to J.G. Ballard

0164 (a tribute to J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009) from Jesús Olmo on Vimeo.

"When you cut into the present the future leaks out."

Cut-Ups from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo.

We shall see.

PG&E Announces Solar Power From Space By 2016

The project is expected to cost around $2 billion, which will mainly go towards the R&D of the base station and launching the satellites. SolarEn CEO Gary Spirnak has complete confidence in the concept and the company's ability to develop this system. In fact, he projects that they will be able to generate 1.2 to 4.8 gigawatts of power at a price that is comparable to other forms of renewable energy. PG&E is also committed to the idea and has entered into a 15 year contract with SolarEn to produce enough power for 250,000 homes.

Welcome to the AlloSphere.

This first thing that struck me while watching this video is that the AlloSphere resembles the hyperspace transport device depicted in "Contact." But the comparison doesn't end there; the AlloSphere is perhaps the closest humans have come to devising a vehicle for exploring exotic worlds at the very edges of physics.

Ashes to ashes

Ancient Solar Systems Found Around Dead Stars

A team of astronomers have found evidence that between 1-3 percent of white dwarf stars are orbited by rocky planets and asteroids, suggesting these objects once hosted solar systems similar to our own. White dwarf stars are the compact, hot remnants left behind when stars like our Sun reach the end of their lives. Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers have determined that asteroids are found in orbit around a large number of white dwarfs, perhaps as many as 5 million in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Recreating Stonehenge

(Thanks to Paranormal Musings.)

The art of Fernando Vicente

I sense more than a little Ballard in Vicente's morbid eroticism.

Goodbye, J.G. Ballard.

J.G. Ballard, one of my favorite writers, has died. (The frightening prospect is that his apocalyptic legacy might be just beginning.)

Here's an interview with me about Ballard's influence on my own ideas.

To share your own Ballard remembrances, visit Ballardian.

Back-up strategy

Don't Wait for the Lifeboat: A Response to Geoengineering

What's wrong is that we have no real reason to believe that he can, in fact, build a working lifeboat from scratch in time -- or that we can, in fact, intervene in the planet's climate on a vast scale without disastrous consequences -- yet right now, those benefiting from inaction are already using the idea of possible lifeboats as an argument against fighting the fire, so to speak, with the idea being that since cutting emissions is "unrealistic" it's good we have a back-up strategy.

This is not good science, and it's not good science policy. At very least, serious proponents of geoengineering need to acknowledge the severe limitations on our actual knowledge of geoengineering, and point out that emissions reductions are a far more certain and safe approach.

Tweenbots

From the official Tweenbots site:

But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone.

(Thanks again to Michael Garrett!)

Coming to an epidermis near you

Conductive bodypaint

The material allows users to create custom electronics and interact with technology through intuitive gesture. It also allows information to be sent on the surface of the skin from person to person or person to object.

The formulation is carbon based and water-soluble: skin-safe and non-invasive. It may be applied in a number of ways including brushing on, stamping or spraying and has future potential for use with conventional printing processes on the body.

I'm reminded of the (still-conceptual) animated tattoos depicted here.

New photos

I took some new photos on a walk today. (It was a short walk, as I'm still recuperating from a nasty virus.)





You can find the rest on my Flickr stream.





As a special bonus, I've included rare, never-before seen footage of my cats (above).

Didn't you know? I'm a Rastafarian now.

The bald thing was getting old.

Today Cliff Pickover blogged an image of a "human bookshelf."

So I'm upping the stakes with this photo of Salvador Dali's desk.





(To see the bookshelf, click here.)

Straight out of Cronenberg's "Crash"

It's My Scar: One Of A Kind Jewelry Tells Your Story

Scars can fade, but the memories of what we went through when they were caused live on. It's My Scar memorializes each individual's journey by recreating their scar as a pendant on a necklace, a ring, or another form of wearable art; so while the scars may fade, the memories are always able to visibly live on.

(Via Grinding.)

Impressive. Now what about emotional scarring?

The art of Alexey Andreev

For more, click here (or here, if you're down with Cyrillic).

(Hat tip: Justin Pasieka.)

Ready to get sleazy?

Then what are you waiting for?

(Thanks to Michael Garrett for the tip.)

"We will not apologize for our way of life."

Fred Astaire in the White House

It's true that unlike the previous inhabitant of the White House (remember him?), Barack Obama is sane, intelligent, and mature. He's responsive to what others think. He hopes to institute real change in education, health care, the environment.

But even with his great charisma and silver tongue, he's a proper soldier for the system which is ravishing the planet. As he said in his inauguration speech in January, already aware of the huge financial mess he was inheriting, "We will not apologize for our way of life."

What do these words mean? They mean that the mall-i-zation of the planet will continue. They mean that the commercialization of all of life will not stop. They mean that our massive so-called footprint will never be substantially downsized.

And they mean that the force which has erased indigenous cultures and plant and animal species, which has sullied our air and soil and water, will essentially not be called into question, no matter how many of its most glaring excesses may be curbed.

"A Life Connected"

Update: I find the sentiments espoused by the above video genuinely inspiring and worth striving for. I wish I could claim to embody them in their entirety. As Mike Clelland asks in the comments, what do I feed my cats? And aren't I sometimes seen wearing a leather jacket?

(Tip of the hat to The Teleomorph.)

The hunt is on.

Planet-Hunting Spacecraft Beams Home First Images

The planet-seeking Kepler spacecraft has beamed home its first images of a patch of the sky where NASA hopes to find Earth-like planets circling distant, alien stars.

Some 14 million stars are estimated to lurk within the first views from Kepler, which NASA released Thursday. The images reveal a swath of stars between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra that fill an expansive area of our Milky Way galaxy which, when seen from Earth, is about the size of human hand held up against the night sky at arm's length.

"HAL"?

HAL exoskeleton can boost strength 10 times

The suit's "voluntary control system" works by capturing bio-electrical signals detected on the surface of the skin, before the muscles actually move. The system analyzes these signals to determine how much power the wearer intends to generate and calculates how much power assist must be generated by which power units. The power units then generate the necessary torque and the limbs move. All this takes place a split second before the muscles start moving, allowing the relevant robotic joints to move in unison with the wearer's muscles.

I'm not sure calling this thing "HAL" was the best marketing decision. I don't envy the person whose exoskeleton decides it has better things to do than, say, lift bricks.

Part of me sincerely hopes this isn't a hoax.

But the other part is rather insistent that it must be.

Sir Ken Robinson on creativity

A must-see for anyone who's been dragged, kicking and screaming, through a compulsory schooling system governed by soulless morons. I'm 33 years old and I still resent my brush with formal education, up to and including my involvement with classes ostensibly designed for the "creatively talented." We need the revolution Robinson discusses and we need it now.

Welcome.

Won't you stay a while?

Bruce Sterling: ufologist?

I've been on sick leave and hope to be back up to speed shortly.

In the meantime, this photo of cyberpunk hero Bruce Sterling is worth a look.

Faded star

Evidently Russia's Star City has devolved into a sort of Ballardian theme-park in which Kafka might have felt quite at home:

Russia's cosmonauts prepare for letdown

Designed by Soviet secret-keepers in the depths of the Cold War, Star City lies deep in the pine and birch forests on Moscow's edge, and even now you can't find it on many maps. The men at the gates and checkpoints ask for your documents, and when you get inside the legendary cosmonaut training center, you expect to find something splendid -- a glimmer of the cosmos, a flash of eternal striving.

[. . .]

But the hushed fields and deep woods have an eerie, deserted feel. Between research buildings, stray dogs pick at frozen mud scabbing the snow. Here and there, retired engineers in fur-lined hats stroll unsteadily among the buildings of the compound, a cross between a village and an industrial park.

[. . .]

In front of a bank of control panels and computers, two middle-aged women discuss methods of cooking potatoes and sausages. There are some men too, one of them in camouflage. Except for the cosmonauts in their bright blue jumpsuits, you can't tell what any of them are doing, and you are not supposed to ask.

Think you know the Easter Bunny? Think again.

The original's right here if you're curious.