Fantasist's Scroll

This is too fascinating to pass up!

According to this article on Scientific American, blue crabs have two skeletal systems. The first, which is familiar to us all, is their shell. But, when they molt, they use another kind of skeletal system which relies on hydrostatic pressure to get around.
This leads me to imagine an intelligent alien that has a second, invisible, “back-up” skeleton, for emergencies. Or perhaps to make them flexible in some way. Imagine a shelled creature that escapes from a jail by shedding its shell and slithering out an air vent. Or, a humanoid wrestler or warrior who’s neck can’t be “broken”. Really, the possibilities are endless.
Just think about them some, then write about them!

The Argos is going to look at sunken ships in the Black Sea.

The Argos is a robot explorer, for anyone who’s not familiar with it. And its owner/operator, Robert Ballard, is going to look at some very well preserved ships from the Byzantine era. According to this article on Wired News, these 1,500 year-old ships are preserved so well due to a lack of oxygen. Apparently, the little beasties that ravage shipwrecks can’t survive in an oxygen-free environment.
So, it looks like scientists are going to get a much better picture of what life was like in the Byzantine era. The researchers are hoping for everything from cargo to documents that might shed some light on the people who were running around at the time the ship sank. They might even be able to prove the “world flood” that seemed to take place and was recorded as the Flood that Noah survived in the Bible. Kind of cool.

Okay, this is an old concept, but it’s back in the news, so…

Data-goggles. Info-shades. Whatever you want to call them, they do the same thing. They’re an on-line manual that you can see, and sometimes hear, hands-free while working on something else. According to this story on EE Times, there are auto manufacturers that are actually using them right now on assembly lines to cut training costs and improve effieciency.
Of course, this is a staple of science-fiction. William Gibson used it in Virtual Light and there was a manga (Japanese comic) that used something similar, too. So, once again, we move a little close to science-fiction becoming our reality.
Personally, I’m waiting for a scene like the commercial where the guy is shouting buy and sell orders to, apparently, pidgeons. How soon before we have this technology available to the public? How soon after that will people crash cars because they’re looking through a goggle display instead of looking at the road?

One day, we may all have them.

Yeah, right. Well, okay, it would be fun, but somehow I have a hard time picturing science advancing that far anytime soon. According to this article on Wired News, though, it could be a reality. The article details various “super powers” and the very real science that might, eventually, lead to their creation. Mainly, it’s just a fun article that opens up some creative thinking in regards to the science in science-fiction.

Now, this is just cool!

When I read this article on Wired News, and in Wired Magazine, I was totally entranced. The idea of a working anti-gravity drive is just so mind-boggling and, really, the “Holy Grail” of every science-fiction fan that it’s easy to get carried away. Of course, the article eventually debunks the “anti-gravity” portion of the story, but it opens a new possibility… An efficient, working ion drive. Hmmm, now that’s something to think about. Imagine a single-stage-to-orbit craft that uses an ion engine to get up where the atmosphere is thin, then ignites a rocket engine to finish it’s assent. Or, even a lander that uses the ion engine, powered by solar energy, to explore, say Mars. (In fact, that’s just what NASA is contemplating!)
Now, if they can get this working with a form of ionization that works in a vacum… Well, it wouldn’t be anti-gravity, per se, but it would be just as good.

Cheap computing makes research easier and more feasable!

Researchers are using low-cost “super computing” ala Linux to figure out how species differentiate, according to this article on Wired News. They’re also investigating the relationship all these sub-species have to each other currently. It sounds so simple that I think it’s deceptive. They’re inputing tonnes of data, including habitat, diet, and reproduction statistics. Then, they’re analyzing all that for subtle relationships that might not be obvious to human researchers.
But, what’s cool is that they’re doing it on a budget using an Open Source operating system! Truly, we are all standing on the shoulders of giants as we march into this new century of high-technology. And, that, as far as I am concerned, is very, very cool.

Of course, I also wonder what they will find. Can we ever know how things evolved? More importantly, can we begin to predict in what way things will continue to evolve? Will we then try to steer that evolution? Should we? As always, new improvements in science and technology provoke moral and ethical questions that we, as a race, will need to answer eventually. We try to skirt these issues now, but we must deal with them or they will deal with us!

(And, again, this appeared on my other blog earlier this month. This, BTW, is a shameless attempt to promote my Diary of a Network Geek.)

Will memory that remembers make faster, better hand-helds?

Well, maybe, but I’m waiting to see the actually products. See, according to this article on Wired News, there’s a new kind of memory coming that doesn’t get emptied when it looses power. So, the upside is, allegedly, faster startups and better hand-held devices. The down side, to me, is that when you want to clear memory, it’s going to be more complicated than just killing the power. Still, it’s being backed by Motorola, and I’ve always enjoyed their technology. Of course, it helps that my older brother works in Motorola’s R&D department, but, still, they are innovators.
Well, maybe it will help invigorate the IT industry. Now, you’ll have to be an expert to reboot your machine!

(Oh, yeah, this post also appears on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek. Go check it out!)

How old is it all, really?

Well, this might seem like an esoteric topic, but it really effects how we percieve the universe quite a bit. According to this article on MSNBC, scientists think that there’s a planet that’s much older than it should be. Which means that the entire universe is older than people thought, which, in turn means that life, the universe and everything may have developed at an entirely different rate than was previously thought. So, while a little heavy on the theoretical side, it can really change some things we “knew” about the universe.
Makes you wonder what really did happen a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.