Fantasist's Scroll

Nope, it’s not Star Trek science…

Though, I have to admit, when I saw the article, the term “phage” caught my attention. The Phage was a kind of disease or plague that a species of “bad guys” suffered from on Star Trek Voyager.
In this article from Wired News, though, it’s something different. In the real world, it may be a viable alternative to the massive use of antibiotics that we’ve fallen to using everytime someone gets the sniffles. My wife still suffers from a wounded resistance to common colds and flus thanks to an overuse of antibiotics. Though, a far more disturbing trend is strains of bacteria that are more and more resistant to antibiotics. That is what these “phages”, short for “bacteriophage”, are designed to attack. Bacteriophages, or “bacteria eaters”, are designed to destroy one particular bacteria, leaving all the beneficial bacteria alone. Unlike antibiotics.

Okay, now for the science-ficiton bent… Can anyone see how this technology might go horribly wrong?

A new kind of lightning has been discovered.

Or, more accurately, lightning in a new level of the stratoshpere has been discovered. All this time, there’s been high altitude lightning and no one has know. How is that possible? How could we have missed it all these years? I’m not sure, but according to this article on Wired News, that’s just what’s been happening. Anyway, it seems like a cool thing and I’m sure there’s some kind of science-fiction plotline in there somewhere…

Well, not really. But they had binary code!

No, really! According to this news story at the Independant, the Incas had a kind of knot code that was very similar to our own binary coding. They seem to have kept fairly detailed messages in a seven-bit binary code knotted into decorative textiles. So, now we know how it was they had such a detailed, complicated society and legal systems without seeming to have a written language! They just had a kind of writing that we never considered.
I guess it was too hard to imagine a “primative” culture capable of creating binary code. And, really, knotting thread is a pretty inventive and creative way of recording information. The tie-closure on a bag could describe its contents and owner. Shoot, it could even have a shipping address included in it! Such a code could have been woven into other textiles as well. Even the simplest of fabrics could have had messges in them.
Obviously, this is pretty exciting to me. The ideas that this spawns for a created culture are almost endless! And, think of how original it would seem to the average reader of fantasy fiction. After all, this has sat in front of experts for ages before they figured it out, so to we who are less experienced in such things it’s nothing short of brilliant and new and, well, fantastic!

Okay, this is just too cool.

This article from the Guardian talks about the scientists in Taiwan who created genetically modified zebra fish that glow. Apparently, they’ve found a way to incorporate glowing jellyfish genes into these fish and have them breed true. They’re working on more glowing species.
Several groups have spoken out against this, but I think it’s cool. Okay, sure, we’re tampering with genetics and life and no one knows where it will all go and what all the ramifications are. But, if we don’t do a little experimentation, how will we ever know what the ramifications might be? Besides, think of all the science-fiction plots that will be spawned (pardon the pun) by this!

Imagine the entire universe laid out in a three-dimensional map.

Well, imagine no more, it’s a reality. According to this article on Wired News, a couple of scientists in New York have made just such a map. It’s not as accurate as they’d like, but that’s mainly because our actual knowlege of the universe is pretty limited. Still, it’s a three-dimensional map of the heavens that can be navigated in pretty fast “real-time”. Though, real time would take hundreds of years to get us from place to place, so it’s actually a lot quicker than that. A very cool learning tool that will, hopefully, inspire legions of future astronomers and space scientists.

You can experience the magic, in a more limited fashion, right on your desktop. The Hayden Observitory, who created the “big” map, also created Partiview, which let’s you see the same thing they show at the observatory at home, though it’s not quite as spectacular.
Enjoy!