Kate Rauner's Blog, page 9
July 14, 2023
Indian rover on its way to the Moon! Real-life #moonlanding and a #scifibook
A new rover is on its way to the Moon. Will India join the small number of countries to achieve a successful landing? We’ll have to hold our breath until August to find out.
The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions. NPR
Someone’s going to make it. Someone’s going to land robots… and people… on the Moon. And soon, as space flight goes. Good luck, India.
Until we’re on the Moon in real-life, science fiction will have to do. Join a rambunctious pilot on her company’s lunar base. Fly with her in Earth orbit chasing a nefarious probe that’s attacking satellites. Can she escape a villain who will stop at nothing?
Click here to fly to the Moon with Winnie Bravo, Space Pilot.
Weirdest fossil ever #fossil #paleontology
What could this 20 million year old fossil be telling us?
I’ve seen my share of photoshopped fossil images, and at first, I thought this was another. But, no. This is real.
One of the most unusual fossils ever to be found are strange tall structures recovered across Nebraska, primarily in the state’s northwestern badlands and in neighboring parts of Wyoming. Known locally as Devil’s Corkscrews… dozens of examples of the giant spiral structures [with] reporting on them in 1892…
Smithsonian
Are these fossils fresh water sponges? A plant’s root structure? Burrows?
Arguments ensued, and more evidences accrued. For many years, the mystery lay fallow.
Enter Larry Martin, an expert on fossil mammals at the University of Kansas. In the early 1970s, Martin and his student Deb Bennett studied many of the Devil’s Corkscrews in the field and in the lab. Their research on Daimonelix, published in 1977, painted a completely new picture of these strange spiral structures and their origin.
Smithsonian
Ancient beavers! The spiral descent seems to have controlled humidity for the burrows and offspring below, and also encouraged plant roots. “Gradually, the root-lined walls became mineralized and eventually the entire burrow was filled in with silicified roots.” Not exactly news to researchers in the field, but news to me. I never would have guessed.
July 11, 2023
Amazon Prime Days gets you two deals on science fiction, plus two more #scifibooks #kindledeals
Amazon.com runs Prime Days every year – sort of like Black Friday in July. This year, find deals on July 11th and 12th.
Prime Days are aimed at bigger purchases than books, but why should readers miss out? I’ve set up big discounts for two of my science fiction kindle books on July 11-12, plus a bonus. Book 2 in each series will be on sale July 19th and 20th. Or read the complete trilogies anytime on Kindle Unlimited.
On Saturn’s frozen moon, technology fails, society collapses, and a young engineer is trapped at the center of it all.
Jul 11-12, only 99 cents, 80% off. Click here to go to Amazon.
The story continues in Titan Insurgents. July 19-20, only $2.99, 40% off. Click here to go to Amazon.
There’s more scifi for you.
Winnie Bravo, space pilot. She’s brash, reckless, and more than a little annoying. Out to prove herself, Winnie chases a nefarious probe through Earth orbit, but someone’s willing to kill to stop her.
July 11-12, FREE. Click here to go to Amazon.
Winnie’s mission continues in Asteroid. July 19-20, only $2.99, 40% off. Click here to go to Amazon.
See you in space. Happy summer reading, and please rate the stories on Amazon. You’ll be helping others find my books. Great for your karma.
June 23, 2023
Proof that eluded math for millennia… proven #maths #mathematics and, since they are still undergrads, #citizenscientist
Since the Babylonians, we all knew that the basis of trigonometry can’t be proven. It must be assumed. Until today, when a new proof has been presented!
Pythagoras’s theorem, a2+b2=c2, which says that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the opposite two sides of a right triangle. It’s the basis of trigonometry, so mathematicians have long held that any trigonometric proof of the theorem would be fallacious: circular reasoning. That’s because you can’t validate an idea with the idea itself. Craig Good – sign up for Skeptoid’s Wonder of the Week
Well! At the American Mathematical Society’s March meeting (okay, it wasn’t today, but I’m just catching up) two undergraduates challenge that venerable notion.
In the 2000 years since trigonometry was discovered it’s always been assumed that any alleged proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem based on trigonometry must be circular. In fact, in the book containing the largest known collection of proofs (The Pythagorean Proposition by Elisha Loomis) the author flatly states that “There are no trigonometric proofs, because all the fundamental formulae of trigonometry are themselves based upon the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem.” But that isn’t quite true: in our lecture we present a new proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem which is based on a fundamental result in trigonometry—the Law of Sines—and we show that the proof is independent of the Pythagorean trig identity \sin^2x + \cos^2x = 1. Session abstract
As an engineer, I am only an egg when it comes to math. I stand in awe of such an accomplishment, and am happy to share my humble amazement. Perhaps a mathematician or member of the AMS can offer more intelligent comments below this post. Will this proof withstand scrutiny?
Congratulations to Ne’Kiya D Jackson and Calcea Rujean Johnson of St. Mary’s Academy, New Orleans, LA
June 1, 2023
Blast into orbit – Brash young pilot chases a nefarious probe – Join the adventure with a free kindle today #scifibooks #sciencefiction
Start the summer with a bang. Join Winnie’s adventures with a free kindle – limited time offer – Thursday/Friday/Saturday.
Please leave a review. It just takes a minute and a few words – you’re not in school and this isn’t a book report. Help other readers find Winnie’s story by leaving a rating. Thanks!
May 19, 2023
Collection of Short Scifi and Fantasy Stories – Free kindle – get the paperback before Amazon’s summer price increase #scifbooks #anthology
Now in its third year in the top 100 of its Amazon categories Science Fiction Anthologies and Fantasy Anthologies, this collection by four wonderful authors (including me) is free as a kindle.
Prefer paperbacks? Get ahead of Amazon’s summer price increase on printed book! Order the paperback before June 20th and you’ll save about a dollar. Maybe a dollar isn’t a lot, but if it inspires you to read this great collection, it’s golden.
More links! Amazon outside USA and more favorite online book stores! Click here now.
May 15, 2023
Do you want to read books written by robots? Do you care? #chatGPT #amreading
As a science fiction writer, this article gave me chills:
Open AIs CEO. Funny… he doesn’t look like a Bond villain.The rising deluge of chatbot-assisted stories is now so bad that it’s even forced a temporary submissions hiatus for one of the internet’s leading science-fiction magazines [Clarkesworld]… According to Reuters, Amazon’s e-book store includes at least 200 titles openly listing ChatGPT as an author or co-author. popsci
You might wonder, how would that work? Something like, upload a popular novel into the AI, prompt it to change names and setting, and see what it produces. Get more skilled at prompting the AI (which some folks will say is a creative act on its own,) do an edit run-through (or not if you’re in a hurry,) and… poof… a book to sell.
What do you, as a reader, think? Do you care who or what or some combination creates the book you read? Should you pay full price for an AI-assisted book? Should the book-seller be required to tell you if an AI was used? If you enjoy the book, do you care?
I promise you, every word of every one of my stories (including the good and the bad) is 100% human-created – click here. If that matters.
May 12, 2023
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure – what to know about polls #polls #statistics
I’m bombarded by polling results that make cheap TV (that’s my opinion – I have no unique insight into TV. ) Roll out some results and ask a bunch of talking heads to comment. The more outrageous, the better the ratings, and the more likely that talking head will be invited back – maybe for money, maybe for a chance to push their latest book.
Statistics have bedeviled us since this guy started probability theory in 1713Polls can be done scientifically. Even simple questions can be tricky to ask. For example, Do you prefer Candidate # or Candidate % ? There’s a human tendency to select the first option offered (in various sorts of questions, not just about politics.) If you are seeking information, you must ask half the people if they prefer Candidate # or Candidate %, and the other half if they prefer prefer Candidate % or Candidate #.
[You may] assume that the pollster is trying to collect accurate data. Are there any other purposes for polls and surveys, particularly in the way their results can be used? Of course there are. Learning something is not necessarily the reason many polls are conducted. Consider who hired the pollster, and why they were hired.
All of the complications that can skew the results of a survey or poll are problems that knowledge-seeking survey designers have to be aware of and account for; but to the spin doctor, or the political campaign, or the think tank, or anyone else in the propaganda business, they comprise a toolbox of nifty little tricks to get the data to say what they want it to say. Primacy bias is just the beginning. skeptoid
You don’t have to be cynical or paranoid to know the world is full of trickery. Check out more polling errors (or ways to spin results) by clicking on this Skeptoid article and podcast here. Primacy bias, acquiescence bias, context effect, sampling bias, mode effect, social desirability… all factors that affect a poll’s results. There’s a reason conducting sound, scientific polls requires professionals. Professionals seeking knowledge, that is.
Personally, I would add that I am suspicious of any presentation that tries to make me angry or fearful. Also, as an engineer, I learned to look twice at data that confirms my preference or my opinion, because no matter how satisfied I may feel in the short-term, reality will win in the end. Reality is important to me.
With the political season heating up in the USA, this is a good time to stop and ponder the news you consume, and not allow it to crawl into your head unexamined.
May 3, 2023
Nature’s imagination beats mine #nature #marine
MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) dives deep into the ocean to reveal some of the strangest lifeforms. Science fiction can’t come up with any weirder aliens than Mother Nature has right here on Earth. Wouldn’t it be amazing of probes find creatures like these on moons around Jupiter or Saturn? There’s really not much more I can add, except, check out their videos on You Tube.
Here’s one sample:
April 15, 2023
Birds hitching a ride #nature #birdwatching
Why fly all the way across the ocean when you can chill out by the pool? Hakai
Watching for a liftBirds are turning up in places where they haven’t before. Not big flocks – small numbers. Storms have blown migrating birds off course before, but what’s going on regularly?
Ship-assisted migration.
Flying over large bodies of water is tiring, so birds are learning to land on a boat, take a rest, and even pick up a meal. Some stay for the entire voyage.
A few million birds may do this each year, which isn’t a lot compared to the total number migrating, but nice to know human activity sometimes helps our feathered friends.
