Archive for January 10th, 2008

h1

Science Etecetera Jupiterday, 20080110

Thursday, January 10th, 2008
  • 2007 10th warmest year for USA.
  • Time Magazine has an interesting perspective on Time Travel in the Brain, the evolutionary adaptation that allows us to replay and re-experience events at whatever speed we want.
  • Scientists add protons to a worm’s digestion process to get its pooping mechanism working.
  • Bottled water is seriously bad for the environment, and a thoughtless waste of money to boot. That doesn’t stop Chicago’s Bottled Water Tax from stirring up controversy.
  • The latest weapon for winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? Anthropologists. It seems wise to me, but the American Anthropological Association has some ethical problems with it.
  • This video of the Planets and stars size in scale had me thinking of the Yakko’s Universe Song:



    •  

    Posted in Science Etcetera, science | No Comments »

    h1

    Mind Webs: 49 hours Worth of Speculative Fiction Radio

    Thursday, January 10th, 2008

    Mind Webs CD Cover

    Mind Webs CD Cover

    Here’s an online treasure trove of audio files brought to you by the Internet Archive of the 1970s radio series Mind Webs. The show featured the greatest speculative fiction stories from top-notch authors of the day. You can find a summary of plotlines here. I’ve been listening to the shows for weeks in my car now, and enjoying them immensely.

    Some of my personal favorites:

    Harry Harrison’s The Ever Branching Tree, about an elementary school field trip back in time to observe evolution as it happens.

    Robert Silverberg’s wonderfully satirical and observant When We Went to See the End of the World, which is even more relevant as a commentary on today’s world than the one it was written for 30 years ago.

    Brian W. Aldiss’ The Night That All Time Broke Loose involves an alternate reality where “time gas” allows people to cause various elements of their surrounding reality, their dinner, home decor, even bodies, to travel back in time, dialing them to desired states. It seems like a miracle technology, until a gas line breaks at the time gas plant and starts de-evolving everything.

    Posted in Ionian Enchantment, science | No Comments »