All posts by Edward Willett

I'm a freelance writer in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I've written more than 30 books (I've lost count) on a variety of topics. My nonfiction titles include books on computers, diseases, genetics, and the Iran-Iraq War, some for children and some for adults. I've also written several biographies for children, on individuals as diverse as J.R.R. Tolkien, Orson Scott Card, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. I've loved science fiction and fantasy since I was a kid (thanks, Andre Norton, Madeleine L'Engle and Robert A. Heinlein!) and have also written young adult fantasy and science fiction. More recently I've turned to adult science fiction. My first adult SF novel, Lost in Translation, was published by Five Star in hardcover in 2005 and reprinted in paperback by DAW Books in 2006. My new SF novel for DAW, Marseguro, will be out in February, 2008. I write a weekly newspaper science column, I love good wine and good food, I'm married and have a daughter, and I'm a professional actor and singer when the opportunity presents itself, and act and sing just for fun when I can't find anyone to pay me for it. My website is at www.edwardwillett.com, and my blog is at edwardwillett.blogspot. com. And that is probably more about me than anyone could possibly want to know...
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It’s not molecular manufacturing, but you can see it from here:

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Vacuum chamber of scanning tunneling electron microscope A new $15 million research project is being launched to enable manufacturing at the almost unimaginably small scale of one atom at a time. (Via Responsible Nanotechnology.)

The technology is based on the established ability to remove individual hydrogen atoms from a silicon surface using a scanning tunneling microscope, and could enable a wide variety of devices and products, including:

* Ultra-low-power semiconductors for cellphones and other wireless communications.
* Sensors with ultra-high sensitivity.
* Data encryption orders of magnitude more secure than existing technology.
* Optical elements that enable unprecedented performance in computing and communications.
* Customized surfaces that would have an array of applications in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.
* Nanoscale genomics arrays that would enable a person’s complete genetic sequence to be read in less than two hours.

The Atomically Precise Manufacturing Consortium is being led by Zyvex Labs LLC, a molecular nanotechnology company based in Richardson, Texas. The project includes a mixture of funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and cost sharing from the team members.

As Mike Treder at the Responsible Nanotechnology blog notes:

This is still not quite equivalent to molecular manufacturing, but it does represent a major step along the way. And make no mistake, that is the eventual goal of this team.

(Image: Kristian Molhave, via Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]nanotechnology, molecular manufacturing, technology[/tags]

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To sleep, perchance to dream…

labmice A long-time staple of science fiction has been the concept of suspended animation. It’s one of the ways to get around the immensely long travel times astronauts heading to the outer planets or other solar systems must endure. The usual SFnal approach has been “cold sleep,” where the suspended animation is achieved by means of extremely low temperatures: a kind of cryogenic suspension, with undefined futuristic technology somehow prevent cell damage and death in the human icicles.

Turns out, there just might be another way: low doses of hydrogen sulfide, the stinky gas that is responsible for the unpleasant odor of rotten eggs, and which is fatal in large doses, can, in small, controlled doses, safely and reversibly depress both metabolism and cardiovascular function in mice, producing a suspended-animation  like state (Via EurekAlert):

In all the mice, metabolic measurements such as consumption of oxygen and production of carbon dioxide dropped in as little as 10 minutes after they began inhaling hydrogen sulfide, remained low as long as the gas was administered, and returned to normal within 30 minutes of the resumption of a normal air supply. The animals’ heart rate dropped nearly 50 percent during hydrogen sulfide adminstration, but there was no significant change in blood pressure or the strength of the heart beat. While respiration rate also decreased, there were no changes in blood oxygen levels, suggesting that vital organs were not at risk of oxygen starvation.

Of course, it’s always a large and fraught step from mice to humans, but if this discovery is transferable to humans, it could be used to allow organ function to be preserved when oxygen supply is limited, such as after a traumatic injury, the researchers say. the next step will be to study the use of hydrogen sulfide in larger mammals. It’s possible, they say, that in larger mammals hydrogen sulfide could be delivered via intravenous drugs, which would prevent lung toxicity.

Warren Zapol, MD, the chief of Anesthesia and Critical Care at Massachusetts General Hospital and senior author of the study, sums it up: “This is as close to instant suspended animation as you can get, and the preservation of cardiac contraction, blood pressure and organ perfusion is remarkable.”

Start booking those flights to Alpha Centauri!

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

[tags]medicine, suspended animation, mice, space travel[/tags]

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A world without trucks?

CargoCap_Halle_460 Trucks are noisy, smelly, intimidating if you’re in a small car, and just generally a nuisance. So why not get rid of them? Transport your goods instead via automated subterranean networks. (Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Sound a little kooky? Maybe, but:

Some Western European countries are getting serious about transporting consumer goods through automated subterranean networks – introducing a fifth transport mode next to road, rail, air and water. This rare combination of low-tech sense and high-tech knowledge could lead to a further economic growth without destroying the environment and the quality of life. Super fast underground cargo transport is a favourite subject of futurologists. Yet, the key to the feasibility of the proposed systems is their very low but constant speed.

The goods would be transported via electric motors at low speeds of under 35 kilometres per hour along what would essentially be an automated subway line. Belgium, Germany and Holland have all explored or are exploring the possibility:

In Belgium, the University of Antwerp designed and proposed an underground logistic system that would transport large 40-ft containers from the newly built container dock in the harbour to an existing marshalling yard and a planned inland navigation hub on the other bank of the river…

In Germany, the Ruhr University of Bochum is working on a rather different concept, called the CargoCap project. The German system is designed for much smaller loads and makes use of unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel through pipelines with a diameter of only 1.6 metres. Each vehicle, called a ‘Cap’, is designed for the transportation of two European standard pallets…

The German system resembles research that was conducted in Holland almost ten years ago. The Dutch then investigated the possibility of an underground logistic network that spanned the whole country…with one hub for every 1,000 to 5,000 homes, which boiled down to a maximum walking distance of 750 meters to pick up goods…

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right: the biggest problem will be the initial cost. The proposed Dutch network would have cost 60 billion Euros ten years ago. Which is why nothing more has been done on it. But the German and Belgian systems might actually come to fruition…and make a little more room on the roads.

And after all, it’s not as if something like this has never been done.

(Image: CargoCap.)

[tags]transportation,technology,traffic[/tags]

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European company plans to mass-produce sub-orbital spaceplanes

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EADS Astrium spaceplane in flight Astrium, the division of the European aerospace company EADS that makes the Ariane rocket, plans to mass-produce a commercial vehicle to take passengers on jaunts above the 100 km altitude that marks the edge of space. (Via BBC.)

Astrium’s market assessment suggests there would be 15,000 people a year willing to pay 200,000 euros for the trip, enough to support a production line turning about about 10 spaceplanes a year.

Robert Laine, CTO of EADS Astrium, announced while delivering the 99th Kelvin Lecture at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London.

Astrium doesn’t intend to fly the craft itself, but supply them to companies that want to start up a space tourism business.

How far along are they? They’ve done wind-tunnel testing; and run the rocket engine for up to 31 seconds. The plan is for the four-passenger, single-pilot craft to take off using regular jet engines, climb to 12 km, then ignite the rocket to shoot straight up, climbing beyond 60 km in just 80 seconds, then riding its velocity to the 100 km level and beyond.Once it has re-entered the atmosphere, the jet engines take over again for the landing. (Watch an animation: I particularly like the opening text of “Until now, the closest you could get to your dream of travelling into space was to immerse yourself in a good science fiction novel…”)

Laine believes this is the first step toward super-fast intercontinental passenger transporters:

“Today we don’t know how to go to space cheaply. Being able to climb on a regular basis to 100km will give us the motivation to develop the plane that goes, not just up and down to the same place, but from here to the other side of the Earth.

“When the Ariane 5 takes off, 15 minutes later it is over Europe; and 45 minutes later it is over the Pacific. The fastest way is to go outside the atmosphere and that will be the future.”

I’d love to ride one of these things…but not for 200,000 euros. Give it time, though, and the price will surely come down.

(Image © EADS Astrium / images MasterImage 2007)

[tags]space travel, space tourism, aerospace, transportation[/tags]

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Actors, scientists collaborate theatrically in Untitled Mars (This Title May Change)

mars sunset Here’s some science fictional theatre with a difference. Called Untitled Mars (This Title May Change), it’s a collaboration between Budapest’s Pont Muhley theatre ensemble and a team of research scientists who will be (literally) phoning in their performance, live via satellite from the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. The production previews Tuesday, April 8, and opens Sunday, April 13, at Performance Space 122, 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street, New York. (Via Broadway World.)

Directed by Jay Scheib, it’s the first in a trilogy of live performance pieces collectively known as SimulatedCities/Simulated Systems. According to the press release:

Untitled Mars is a mind-bending excursion into an interplanetary future defined by Scheib’s signature multi-media aesthetic.  Rewriting fiction with reality, Untitled Mars caps a year of collaboration with an international team of Space industry visionaries, artists, and research scientists and students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Is it possible to live on Mars?  Just ask people who are selling real estate on the Red Planet.  Going to Mars with a one-way ticket was out of the question years ago but how far away from that idea are we today?  Mars Analog Research Stations are working hard to learn how to live and work on another planet.  Are you ready to pick up and leave?  Scheib’s creation will be able to give you an idea.

Meanwhile, the theatre’s own website describes it thusly:

Taking a cue from the space industry, Jay Scheib’s latest work pits hard Science against Philip K. Dick as interplanetary speculation runs amok, the indigenous population gets screwed, and a strange “anomalous” kid seems to hold all the answers.

Whereas Jay Scheib’s website says:

Would you go to Mars knowing that you wouldn’t be coming back? Ever. The proposed one-way mission to colonize Mars continues to gain momentum, since its suggestion by the legendary Joe Gavin, former director of the Apollo Lunar Module Program. Through a series of cinéma-vérité portraits and an intense physical performance style, Untitled Mars  puts the scientists who are working to make life on the Red Planet a reality, side by side, with some of the fictions that have captured our imagination for over a century. Science vs. Fiction in this new work for six performers and a simulated Martian environment–a story about moving society to Mars–and what happens when we succeed…

So what will you see if you go? Your guess is as good as mine. But it ought to be interesting!

(Image: Sunset on Mars, NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell)

[tags]science fiction,Mars,theatre,plays[/tags]