Kate Rauner's Blog, page 11

2023 will be a big year in space… and for scifi readers too #NASA #scifibooks

If you follow space exploration, you’ll be happy to know NASA has a big year planned. Here’s a 3 minute summary, then scroll down for book offers.

Go to the You Tube page for links to these missions and more. Click here.

I’m not sure what I’m most excited about. Maybe the sample return from an asteroid, or the selection of Artemis astronauts who will take us to the Moon. Missions in planning stages forever (or so it seems) are on the tips of our fingers.

Until the real science rolls in, science fiction makes a great choice for your reading pleasure. Here are selections from Story Origin.

Discounted scifi books, but only for one-week. If you’re still paying off the holiday bills, this is for you. Feel free to share the link with your friends. Click here now to check them out.

Speculative fiction includes scifi, fantasy, horror, and all things futuristic and paranormal. Just as long as the story contains elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nature, or the present universe. These genres have always overlapped and make for stories that can be exciting, intriguing, or just plain fun.

This group of stories is bundled through February 14th. Happy Valentine’s Day! Click here now to see what’s offered.

Looking for a short read? Something in Galactic Empires to fit your busy day? Click here.

The Bassalia Job: Key knows there’s only one way to get the Empire off their backs. Landing on the remote planet Bassalia in search of a “fixer” who can grant them new identities, Key does his best to keep an eye on the Cloud. He’s still not sure of its intentions… and the suspicion harboured by his crew is palpable.

Thanks for scrolling all the way down. People sometimes ask me where my ideas come from. Here’s my secret:

Happy New Year. Best of luck in 2023.

Calendars may be much older than anyone thought #citizenscientist #caveart #anthropology

This could be an archaeological breakthrough, thanks to a curious furniture conservator in London, U.K.

During the Palaeolithic Age, 15,000 and 40,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors in Europe decorated caves with amazing images of animals and people, and some odd markings of dots and dashes. Thousands of people admire the art, and one amateur wondered what those marks meant.

Intrigued by the markings, Ben Bacon launched a meticulous effort to decode them, with a particular focus on lines, dots, and a Y-shaped symbol that show up in hundreds of cave paintings. … Bacon has unveiled what he believes is “the first known writing in the history of Homo sapiens,” in the form of a prehistoric lunar calendar, according to a study published on Thursday in the Cambridge Archeological Journal. vice.com

Bacon speculated the marks might be a calendar of some sort, tracking those animals’ lives. A sort of almanac for hunters rather than farmers. And, okay, he did get some help from “leading archaeologists from Durham University and the University College London to develop the idea and co-author the new study.”

Can you spot the intriguing dots in this cave painting? Me neither until I looked at the journal article. Click here to see for yourself.

Suppose (hypothesis) the Y represented the month for calving, and hunters continued counting until winter set in. There were never more than 13 sets of marks, and there are 13 lunar months in a year. Did they count a year the same way their progeny would for thousands of years?

On to testing the hypothesis – could it be falsified? “The team compiled a database of more than 600 line and dot sequences without the Y symbol, as well as some 250 sequences with the Y, which appear mostly in paintings from France and Spain. These sequences span tens of thousands of years, and accompany many different animals.”

These markings aren’t the first thing that jumps out at me. Some look fairly obscure. Click here to check out the images in the journal article at Cambridge.org.

Statistics happened. Of course, that’s necessary and not trivial. Congratulations to the math whizzes. The sequences fit Palaeolithic birthing and mating seasons. The hypothesis is looking good.

Naturally, these findings will be examined and debated… and whether they hold up is TBD. But tens of thousands of years ago, human beings may have been very much like you and me, planning our next meal, and studying the world around us. How neat is that?

Thanks to vice.com for the quotations in this post. Way to go, Ben Bacon, citizen scientist extraordinaire.

Spaceport Cornwall – wait, what? #space #LaunchUK

You may not think of these countries as players in orbit: Wales, Oman. But if you follow space stuff, you’ll recognize the company carrying their satellites into orbit: Virgin Orbital.

Virgin’s Cosmic Girl. Look closely for the missile-shaped launcher rocket under her wing

A modified Boeing 747 airplane known as Cosmic Girl will take off from Spaceport Cornwall in England. Once it reaches 35,000 feet in the air, the converted aircraft will deploy a rocket, called Launcher One, into space… In addition to being the first orbital launch ever from the United Kingdom, it is also the first commercial launch from Western Europe. npr

If you’re used to launch sites surrounded by empty land, just in case a rocket goes bad, you may not have considered a little island. But using an airplane to achieve the first 35,000 feet, and deploying the rocket from there, makes almost any country on Earth a potential launch site.

Virgin being a private company, tickets are sold out for the official viewing site, but (weather permitting) you could spot Cosmic Girl from the U.K. and Ireland in the first minute of her flight, and seconds later from France, Portugal and Spain.

Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket will launch the “Start Me Up” mission on Monday, January 9, 2023 at 10:54 PM (UTC). It’s not clear if a live feed will be provided, but Click Here shortly before launch to find out.

Mercury is in Retrograde… whatever that means #astronomy #planet #science

Mercury is in retrograde! It started December 28th and will continue through January 18, 2023. Then again April 21 to May 14, August 23 to September 14, and December 13 through the end of the year.

What does that mean, physically? Mercury is an inner planet of the solar system and orbits closer to the sun than Earth does, so…

Mercury, from a 1550 AD illustration. No, the planet doesn’t look like that.

Sometimes, it can appear (from our perspective) that a planet has abruptly switched directions and has started to move in reverse across the sky. This is, of course, an illusion caused by the position of Earth in relation to that of the planet, since a planet in orbit always travels in one set direction and can’t suddenly reverse course. This is why we call the phenomenon apparent retrograde motion, as it only looks like the planet is moving backward. Old Farmer’s Almanac

Say you were driving on a multi-lane highway and you pass another car going in the same direction but a little slower than you. That car appears to move backwards. It retrogrades.

Why should we care? Well, optical illusions can be fun to observe, but they don’t change anything about the reality of orbital mechanics or our love lives. But the night sky has fascinated people for centuries – for as long as we looked up and wondered, I suppose.

During the spiritualism craze of the Victorian era, interest in astrology boomed, with many believing that the stars affected the Earth in a variety of (often inconvenient) ways. Late 19th-century publications like The Astrologer’s Magazine and The Science of the Stars connected Mercury retrograde with heavy rainfall… séances and crystal gazing gradually faded, [but] astrology grew even more popular.

By the 1970s, horoscopes were a newspaper mainstay and Mercury retrograde was a recurring player. Because the Roman god Mercury was said to govern travel, commerce, financial wealth, and communication, in astrological circles, Mercury the planet became linked to those matters as well. Mental Floss

That’s what Mercury looks like

Observations of the planet we call Mercury have been found from the 14th century BC. It’s name then has been translated as “the jumping planet,” which is a nice description of how it shifts from the morning to evening sky and back as it passes on the other side of the sun from Earth’s perspective. Other ancient cultures also documented the planet. The Romans came to the sky party late with their name “Mercury.”

For the next few days, while Mercury is in retrograde, you have a chance to observe (and perhaps to experience) confirmational bias. That’s the all-too-human characteristic we share to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. For those who follow astrology, any disruption can be blamed on that super-heated rock and our earthly view of its orbit.

Clouds permitting, for now you can enjoy catching views of Mercury and Venus (another planet closer to the sun than Earth) in the evening sky shortly after sunset. All five of the classically-observed planets are visible over the night. Click here for more on observing them.

2022 wasn’t all bad – one news story was golden #HappyNewYear #Year2022

Scurvy, rickets, beriberi, pellagra. Do American schools even teach the names of vitamin deficiency diseases anymore? How about xerophthalmia, which is vitamin A deficiency?

Vitamin A deficiency is a major health problem in many areas of the Philippines as well as in other Southern countries. It causes children in particular to go blind, suffer cognitive impairments and die of a weak immune system. Globally, several hundred million children are at risk of these deficiency-​related diseases. eth-news

Rice is a staple food for half of the people in the world, globally providing us humans with about as many calories as wheat. The vitamins found in rice depend on the soil where it’s grown and on the variety being raised, and in many places, while rice may keep you alive, its lack of key nutrients can make you sick, especially due to Vitamin A deficiency.

But that is changing.

Golden Rice grain compared to white rice

This autumn [2022] will probably go down in agrarian history. In October, farmers in the Philippine Province of Antique harvested a substantial amount of beta-​carotene-enriched Golden Rice for the first time – namely a total of 67 tonnes from 17 fields.

The dried and polished grains are going to be distributed to households with pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers or preschool children who are at risk of diseases caused by vitamin A deficiency. eth-news

Golden Rice has been under development for years – since 1992. In 1999, a prototype version was presented. Improvements in the grain’s beta-​carotene content followed, and this past year, Golden Rice was farmed on a large scale. Not enough to feed a nation, but enough to celebrate.

Rice varieties are currently being optimized for each country. In Bangladesh, GR2 is all set for sowing. eth-news

Hurray, you say. But do you know how Golden Rice was developed? It’s a genetically modified plant. Science has incorporated several genes from other plants into rice, starting with daffodils and later with corn. Yes, Golden Rice is a Frankenfood, and the technique of its creation is feared and despised by many.

If mass media had told stories about Golden Rice before Roundup-resistant soybeans, I wonder if we Westerners would have a different reaction to GMOs. Like much in our modern world, good and evil come down to you and me: to people. Figuring out the difference between those two extremes isn’t always as easy as it might seem, but I see Golden Rice as sitting on the “good” end of the spectrum. So I say “Hurray.”

Santas and Books #giftideas #scifibooks

This is a busy time of year, so in case you missed it, here’s another look at my Santa collection, and another chance for some good reads.

I’ve collected quite a few Santas over the years. My favorite isn’t even the most expensive – he came from Big Lots, an overstock store.

I guess you can tell I’m frugal. That goes for Santas and for books. Scroll down to find stories to add to your eBook collection.

We can all use a bargain during the holiday season. How about, FREE. Claim some science fiction and fantasy stories at Story Origin.
Don’t miss out – click here now.

These scifi books are bundled for you on Story Origin for one week only.
Check them out – click here now.

My Mars colony Box Set is included in the bundle.

You’ll find all my books at my Amazon Page

and at my Author Site.

Christmas is almost here! with Boxing Day to follow! Hanukkah continues! Kwanzaa is about the begin! Omisoka on the old year’s last day! New Year’s Eve and Day! Probably more I’m forgetting, and I never want to miss a celebration! Happy Holidays to the World!

Santas and Books #giftideas #scifibooks

Merry Xmas! Did you see my collection of Santas? My favorite isn’t even the most expensive – he came from Big Lots, an overstock store.

I guess you can tell I’m frugal. That goes for Santas and for books. Scroll down to find stories to add to your eBook collection.

We can all use a bargain during the holiday season. How about, FREE. Claim some science fiction and fantasy stories at Story Origin.
Don’t miss out – click here now.

These scifi books are bundled for you on Story Origin, but only through December 31st.
Check them out – click here now.

My Mars colony Box Set is included in the bundle.

You’ll find all my books at my Amazon Page

and at my Author Site.

Christmas is almost here! with Boxing Day to follow! Hanukkah continues! Kwanzaa is about the begin! Omisoka on the old year’s last day! New Year’s Eve and Day! Probably more I’m forgetting, and I never want to miss a celebration! Happy Holidays to the World!

Happy Christmas to all…

…and to all, a goodnight.

from A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

Where’s Santa? Track his journey around the world #SantaTracker #MerryChristmasEve

Follow Santa now, with help from NORAD. Click on the link:

https://www.noradsanta.org/en/map

Collecting Santas and Books #giftideas #scifibooks

Have you decorated for the holiday season? I’ve collected quite a few Santas over the years. My favorite isn’t even the most expensive – he came from Big Lots, an overstock store.

I guess you can tell I’m frugal. That goes for Santas and for books. Scroll down to find stories to add to your eBook collection.

We can all use a bargain during the holiday season. How about, FREE. Claim some science fiction and fantasy stories at Story Origin.
Don’t miss out – click here now.

These scifi books are bundled for you on Story Origin for one week only.
Check them out – click here now.

My Mars colony Box Set is included in the bundle.

You’ll find all my books at my Amazon Page

and at my Author Site.

Christmas is almost here! with Boxing Day to follow! Hanukkah continues! Kwanzaa is about the begin! Omisoka on the old year’s last day! New Year’s Eve and Day! Probably more I’m forgetting, and I never want to miss a celebration! Happy Holidays to the World!