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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Scientist creates dark matter in the lab!

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Black Corvette No, not that dark matter, but rather the darkest known material, about four times darker than the previous record holder. (Via PhysOrg.)

It’s a carpet of carbon nanotubes that only reflects 0.045 percent light, making it, as the Houston Chronicle puts it, “100 times darker than a black-painted Corvette,” (which seems like a fairly imprecise measurement standard, but never mind). The previous darkest known material was a nickel and phosphorus alloy that reflected about 0.16 percent of light.

The material’s ability to absorb light could be beneficial to solar panels and, since it minimizes the scattering of light, it could also benefit telescope manufacturers.

It also minimizes the scattering of light, making it a potential boon to telescope manufacturers.

(And, yes, you’re absolutely right: I posted this just so I could use that headline. The photo was a bonus.)

(Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]physics, materials, light[/tags]

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Inaudibility cloaks, like invisibility cloaks, theoretically possible

800px-Ripples_waves_bee It’s remarkable how often science advances by one scientist hear some other scientist say, “Such-and-such is impossible!”, responding, “Oh, yeah?” and then proving the first scientist wrong.

That seems to be what’s happened at Duke University, where Steven Cummer read a research report suggesting that it was impossible to build a 3-D acoustic cloak, a device that would make whatever was inside it disappear from sound waves. (Via ScienceBlog.)

Cummer and associate David Schurig had already reported a theory showing that a two-dimensional cloak as possible, and Cummer refused to believe that a 3-D cloak couldn’t also be built, especially considering researchers already know that a cloak invisible to electromagnetic waves is possible, and in fact have built one that operates at microwave frequencies.

“In my mind, waves are waves,” he said. “It was hard for me to imagine that something you could do with electromagnetic waves would be completely undoable for sound waves.”

So he sat down and figured out how such a cloak would work, and has shown that, in theory at least, it’s entirely possible to create an inaudibility cloak that allows sound waves to travel seamlessly around an object and continue on their way without distortion. With such a thing (which would have to be built from exotic metamaterials), you could build a stealth submarine that couldn’t be detected by sonar, or improve the acoustics of a concert hall by removing distortion caused by pillars or support beams.

And if you can build cloaks for electromagnetic and sound waves, what about other waves? How about structures unaffected by seismic waves, or boats unaffected by ocean waves?

The researchers’ full paper will be published in the January 11 Physical Review Letters.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]physics, acoustics, stealth[/tags]

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Rogue black holes wander the galaxy, seeking whom they may devour

blackhole There’s a science fiction tale or two to be dug out of this little science item, I’m thinking:

If the latest simulation of what happens when black holes merge is correct, there could be hundreds of rogue black holes, each weighing several thousand times the mass of the sun, roaming around the Milky Way galaxy.

The simulation in question is focused on “intermediate mass” black holes, and there isn’t really even any strong evidence that such things, weighing a few thousand solar masses, exist. (Via PhysOrg.)

Still, if they exist, and two of them of different sizes and rotating at different speeds combine, the simulation indicates resulting merged black hole gets a kick in the pants that can hurl it away in an arbitrary direction at a velocity that averages 200 kilometres per second but in some instances can be as high as 4,000 kilometres per second–enough in either case to allow the black hole to escape the globular cluster where these intermediate black holes (if they exist) are predicted to form.

The researchers are reassuring:

“These rogue black holes are extremely unlikely to do any damage to us in the lifetime of the universe,” Holley-Bockelmann stresses. “Their danger zone, the Schwarzschild radius, is really tiny, only a few hundred kilometers. There are far more dangerous things in our neighborhood!”

Of course, anything with a mass of a few thousands suns wandering close to the solar system is going to play havoc with planetary orbits…but fortunately, space is very, very big.

It’s probably nothing to worry about.

(Image: Ute Kraus, Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Golm, and Theoretische Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen, www.spacetimetravel.org)

[tags]astronomy, space, black holes[/tags]

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The personal food analyzer: one step closer to a tricorder

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Tricorder Philips has come up with a design for a tiny food analyzer, something that small food companies could afford: and something that raises the distinct possibility the day may not be far off when you’ll be able to carry your own personal food analyzer around with you to make sure you really are eating steak and not soy, or drinking Guinness and not somebody’s backyard brew with a load of food coloring in it (although if you can’t tell if you’re drinking real Guinness, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to drink it, anyway).

It’s all being made possible by “lab-on-a-chip” technology which puts the components for this kind of analysis on a single computer chip–just like in a Star Trek tricorder. (Via New Scientist, which made the Star Trek comparison first, so don’t blame me!)

Read the complete patent application.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]food, technology, Star Trek[/tags]

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"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him…better…faster…stronger…"

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Touch Bionics' i-LIMB bionic hand Scottish scientists report that they have produced an artificial arm that is “more powerful than the real thing.” (Via MedGadget.)

According to The Scotsman newspaper:

The researchers say their new arm is capable of repeatedly lifting a weight of 10kg up above head height and could do so all day, compared with the average human being who would tire within minutes. The wrists could rotate 360° and anyone using it could perform hundreds of push-ups.

This raises an ethical question: a patient with such an arm could possibly hurt themselves or someone else. As a result, the arm’s power might actually have to be scaled down.

(Kudos to David Gow, the lead developer, for pointing out in the article something Steve Austin [The Six-Million-Dollar Man of television fame] really should have had to worry about, but never did: “You have to attach it to the patient’s body and that could cause damage if the weight is too heavy. It could snap their ribs.”)

The arm was developed by Touch Bionics, and is designed to complement the the world’s first bionic hand, pictured above and announced last year. Touch Bionics calls its technology i-LIMB.

(Image: Touch Bionics.)

[tags]bionics, technology, medicine[/tags]