Kate Rauner's Blog, page 74

What If Search for ET Found Us? #SETI #alien #science #space

Now that we know how to look for exoplanets… maybe we know how intelligent aliens are looking for us.

Astronomers suggest that future searches focus on that part of the sky in which distant observers can notice the yearly transit of Earth in front of the Sun… Observers in this zone could have discovered Earth with the same techniques that are used by terrestrial astronomers to discover and characterize exoplanets.

This wouldn’t solve any of the barriers to communication – mostly the vast distances involved and the huge transmission lag, even for signals at the speed of light. I’m not sure if it would be exciting or terribly sad to know there was an Earth-like planet out there that we can see and can see us, but we can’t exchange a “hello.”

Filed under: Neat Science News Tagged: alien, ET, exoplanet, Max Planck Institute, search for extraterrestrial life, SETI

Call for Help #Firefighter #Fire #Volunteer

My department about to start a training exercise

A call in the nighttime

Blasts me from my dreams,

Someone’s in trouble

The radio screams.

Don gear at the station

Before taking a truck,

To find the right driveway

Can sometimes take luck.

I have the training

I’ll be okay,

So I can run towards

While you run away.

My fate’s in my hands

From the training I choose,

Equipment and practice

Between win and lose.

Smell of the smoke,

Dance of the flame,

Puzzles to solve

In areal-life game.

It takes up my time,

Puts me in danger,

But I keep volunteering,

Help neighbor and stranger.

By Kate Rauner

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: poem, poetry, volunteer firefighter

Science fiction is a really big place #scifi #hardsf #books #fantasy

Science fiction is huge – there’s a story for everyone.

Amazon’s Kindle offers twenty categories of scifi. Here they are:

One of my favorites – scifi satire

Adventure
Alien Invasion
Alternative History
Anthologies & Short Stories
Classics
Colonization
Cyberpunk
Dystopian
First Contact
Galactic Empire
Genetic Engineering
Hard Science Fiction
LGBT
Metaphysical & Visionary
Military
Post-Apocalyptic
Space Exploration
Space Opera
Steampunk
Time Travel

And that doesn’t include the separate “fantasy” categories.

Here are two books I read recently that seemed to only marginally be science fiction.

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) is the story of orphans growing up in a boarding school and facing their miserable future with resignation. Amazon lists it as a scifi dystopian (though to be fair it’s also listed under Literary Fiction which seems a better fit to me.) Here’s the scifi part: the orphans are clones raised so their organs can be harvested. The book is so acclaimed that I had to finish it, but it left me feeling puzzled.

The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi) is a tale of mean streets – gangs, prostitutes, drugs, corruption and intrigue, and a crusading journalist. Between murders and violence the characters do a lot of ruminating on their situation. It’s a scifi dystopian (and also Literary Fiction/Thriller). The scifi part is that all this misery is caused by climate change droughts that leave vast swathes of America uninhabitable. Not being big into murderous gang wars, I didn’t finish it.

After reading these books, I looked the term up on Google.

sci·ence fic·tion

noun: fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.

Since science and technology permeate our real world, the key for me is “future-advances-changes.”

Richard Treitel found this added element I like, attributed to Ben Bova:

A work shouldn’t count as SciFi unless the science is necessary to it.

Not just adventures (or romances, or …) with high-tech props, resembling science fiction the way Hamlet resembles a history of Denmark. Not just present-day fiction in an exotic setting.

Richard Treitel offers other quotes, too.

Hard science fiction is where science and technology seem real and are ‘characters’ in the story. [Brad Templeton]

Fantasy deals with the impossible, while SF deals with the possible. [Doug Tricarico]

Stories that show us a way of life that has been shaped by the science or technology in the story. [Anon]

Wikipedia says scifi is speculative, futuristic, and explores the consequences of scientific advances – while avoiding the supernatural. They note the original need to tie the story to science-based facts and theories has become “tenuous” over time. It seems hard to find a scifi story today without supernatural characters – and most authors give up altogether on the current physics that puts other star systems vastly out of our reach. We want “new worlds, new life, and new civilizations.”

Are Dragons Always Fantasy? Can They Be Scifi?

Specifically, the dragons in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books. Humans journey to another planet, lose touch with Earth, and build a sort of medieval feudal society. They find creatures like small dragons with traits that say “fantasy” to me – they’re telepathic, and can travel instantly between places and times. They breed these little guys bigger until they can ride them to purge the skies of alien parasites that travel through space from a neighboring planet.

Hmm. Sounds like fantasy despite arriving in a space ship and fighting alien parasites. But on Amazon the books are called space opera, time travel, and colonization under science fiction – but never fantasy! BTW, the stories are still wildly popular after fifty years! I pass on most of the books I read, but recently I picked up a used copy of The Dragonriders of Pern because I missed seeing it on my shelf.

I’m not so interested in gang warfare or boarding-school romance in my scifi. My own writing takes me to space, most recently to the first colony on Mars – all in a believable-future. They’re stories of people who could be real, using technologies we don’t yet possess but may sometime soon, doing things you might do yourself in their place – fighting to survive hostile worlds and human conflicts. Take a look. :)

But science fiction is a very big place. You’ll find a home here.

Filed under: Kate's Books, Science Fiction Tagged: best scifi, genre ficiton, Sci Fi, SciFi, sf, what is science fiction

Glory on Mars in top 6% of its #kindle #scifi category

Forgive me if I brag.

I just checked the ranking of my book Glory on Mars in Amazon’s kindle store. It’s listed under science fiction in three categories: space exploration, colonization, and hard science fiction.

In its top category – hard science fiction – Glory is in the top 6%. Not bad in the other categories either – 18%

Yee ha – thrill for me! Thanks to you!

If you haven’t read it yet, download a free copy today – see how here.

Please post a review or rating on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you hang out. Reviews help keep my ranking up which means other readers can find my book. I really appreciate your help.

Thanks to all my followers and friends.

Amazon ranks are always changing, so I better hurry and post this.

Filed under: Kate's Books, Science Fiction Tagged: Amazon, best scifi, book, ebook, kindle, Mars colony, Sci Fi, science fiction, SciFi, sf

Brian’s Spider #science #biology #poem #poetry #spider #physics #gravity

A related fishing spider – Brian’s spider is newly identified

Waves across the universe

Ripple time and space,

While on the Earth a spider

Finds waves more to its taste.

Oh, to be so famous,

One of physics’ best.

Oh, to be immortalized,

Known for your quantum quest.

Oh, to be so honored,

To have your name applied

To another bit of nature

That on a waveform glides.

A dark and leggy spider

That dives in southern ponds

Or strides across their surface

Until its prey is found.

Your name will ride, oh Brian Greene,

On waves of gravity,

Or maybe longer will endure

In a name that’s spidery.

By Kate Rauner

Physicist Brian Greene is also a founder of World Science Festival, an annual event in New York City – alas, half a continent away from me – and for the first time in Brisbane, Australia – even farther.

Brian explains the discovery of gravity waves here. Who says string theory never leads to anything real?

Thanks to Filed under: Poetry Tagged: fish eating spider of Australia, gravitational wave, gravity wave, Physics, water spider Dolomedes briangreenei, World Science Festival

Stupid Worse Than Evil? #science #robotics #technology #artificialintelligence #AI

In my science fiction story about colonizing Mars, I send robots ahead to prove out construction methods and then work with the colonists. They have an Artificial Intelligence, too, to rely on. It seems unreasonable to write about humanity’s near future in space without robots and AIs.

But are they a good idea?

Some have speculated robots might kill us off even if programmed to create maximum happiness – since humans are a sorrowful lot, an AI might decide eliminating humans would make the world a happier place. Or maybe they’ll just decide we’re too stupid to keep around (which is sorta what happens in The Terminator.)

Or disaster may be our own fault.

Humans can be way too trusting of robots—and that our

HAL – not evil but deadly

inclination to follow our robotic overlords could actually be a very dangerous human behavior that needs to be taken into account when designing everything from autonomous vehicles to emergency evacuation tech.

Scientists developing robots to lead people in high-rises to safety in case of a fire discovered people would follow the robot even when it made obviously dangerous and ridiculous errors. We seem all too ready to shift our brains into neutral and follow orders.

I see echoes of this problem in myself. I can no longer remember the date because my phone will tell me. I hop in a car without a thought to where I’m going because the GPS will tell me. I’m ready to hop into a self-driving car, too. Good luck to me.

How about you – ready to let an AI drive you to the grocery store? or fly you to Mars?

Thanks to fastcodesign.com

Filed under: Kate's Books, Neat Science News, Science Fiction Tagged: AI, Artificial intelligence, best scif fi, hardsf, Mars colony, near future in space, programming, robot, science fiction, sf

Natural GMO #GMO #poem #poetry #science #biology #evolution

What never lived

But yet evolved?

Retained itself

In species broad?

Shares DNA

But never sex?

Familiar beast

You don’t expect?

Rhyming riddles are hard to write – feel free to offer your own couplets in the comments. I bet you’ll do better than I did. Kate

Researchers from Boston College, US, are studying an ancient group of retroviruses that affected many modern mammal ancestors 30 million years ago. Viruses that colonized our ancestors and, “over the course of millions of years, however, viral genetic sequences accumulate in the DNA genomes of living organisms, including humans.”

Thanks to phys.org/news

Filed under: Poetry Tagged: biology, DNA, evolution, genetically modified organism, germ, GMO, microbiology, science, virus

Potatoes for Mars #Mars #NASA #space #science

A few of the many potato varieties

Who knew there’s an International Potato Center? There is – in Peru. They’re teaming with NASA to grow potatoes in soil taken from the Atacama Desert. Peru has 4,000 varieties of potatoes to choose from.

[Like Mars, Atacama soil has] extremely low levels of microorganisms and organic material as well as high levels of oxidizing chemical elements. For these reasons, the soils in Atacama have been used as analogous to Mars in research scenarios.

They’ll freeze the potatoes they grow and try to revive them. Is it possible The Martian could have revived his frozen potatoes? That would have made life on Mars a lot more comfortable.

Eventually, NASA wants to grow potatoes in zero gravity, in an enclosed atmosphere inside a CubeSat in space. Then, someday, in an enclosed greenhouse on Mars.

Growing potatoes for Mars will teach us about feeding people on Earth, too.

We see the science, educational, and humanitarian goals as being intertwined. In the process of working together toward establishing a community on Mars, our students will also be establishing a community on Earth.

Science fiction has settled on the potato for Mars colonists. I’d like to see NASA confirm that guess.

Eat like a Martian – at least, like a scifi Martian:

fish supper

mealworm snack

cassava

practice for Mars on Earth

Banana beer from Born on Mars

And Liz, in Glory on Mars, tries to make bhang, though she doesn’t have all the ingredients.

Thanks to scientificamerican.com, Eureka Alert eurekalert.org, and other outlets.

 

Filed under: Kate's Books, Neat Science News, Science Fiction Tagged: colonization, International Potato Center, mars survival tips, NASA, potato, science, space

How #Mars Will Kill You #poetry #science #space

Spirit Rover views rocks on Mars

There could be solar flares

on the journey there,

Don’t forget crash landings

could happen, to be fair.

Water’s on the surface

but in a frozen brine.

Assume that you can boil out

enough to drink in time.

The atmosphere is toxic

but there is more to heed.

It’s less than one percent

of the pressure that you need.

Besides the lack of atmosphere,

no magnetic force surrounds,

So cosmic radiation

will force you underground.

Orange dust will be the bane

of your solar collectors,

Of moving parts and human lungs,

And of your airlock doors.

If your heating system fails

you will likely freeze,

And if you find your thumb’s not green,

Starvation adds to these.

You better hope you like your fellows

and avoid some fights.

It would be a shame to kill

each other in the night.

Your life’s a tough routine,

Your dangers aren’t a thrill.

Mars is unrelenting.

With its slow motion kill.

You’ve missed the deadline to apply to NASA’s astronaut program for Mars! But, maybe that’s okay. cnet.com/au/news

Join science fiction Mars colonists in my On Mars series. Colonists find all the dangers as they explore and build a home on Mars.

Filed under: Kate's Books, Poetry Tagged: dangers on Mars, hazards, mars, Mars colonist, Mars colony, mars survival tips, NASA, poem, poetry, science, space, Spirit rover

Latest Group of Martians Finish Their Mission #Mars #space #explore

Could you live for eight months in a dome – about the size of two two-car garages stacked one on top of the other – sealed in with five coworkers? You’d be monitored via surveillance cameras and body-movement trackers. You’d have email and internet, but with a twenty minute lag (makes my rural-America internet look great!) You’d have some work to do outside your dome, but you’d have to wear a space suit.

Sound like a new reality show?

It’s a NASA Mars Analog – the third mission ended recently. They’re learning what makes life more bearable – I noticed a few recipe contests – and what personality traits go into the best teams.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa leads this study, with support from team members at Cornell University, Michigan State University, Arizona State University, University of South Florida, the University of Maryland, the Institutes for Behavior Resources, Smart Information Flow Technologies, Blue Planet Foundation, and from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES). http://hi-seas.org/

NASA’s not the only outfit worried about the technical and psychological problems that may assault the first humans on the Red Planet. The Mars Society has run over a dozen short Mars simulations.

Not all the obstacles can be tested on Earth: not the effects of low gravity, invasive dust, and the fact that no one can help you – at least, not for a long time. But we can study the social, interpersonal, and cognitive factors that affect teams. Biosphere Two tried a two-year experiment and that team had numerous interpersonal conflicts.

Of course, eight months may not be long enough to simulate what it will be like to be a Martian. Some volunteers are ready to spend the rest of their lives on Mars. It will be difficult and dangerous. Would you go?

Filed under: Neat Science News Tagged: Biosphere Two, explore, Hi-Seas, living on Mars, Mars One, Mars Society, mars survival tips, NASA