All posts by Paul Raven

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Bees and “electrosmog”, Bayer and Clothianidin

bee hive honeycombWe’ve mentioned Colony Collapse Disorder – the official name for the disturbing trend of bee colonies failing around the world – a couple of times before, and it’s a syndrome troubling and mysterious enough to have baffled any number of scientists for a few years now. [image by rockymountainhigh]

Some research has suggested that “electrosmog” (a technophobic UK tabloid media term for the electromagnetic radiation emitted by modern technology) may be the culprit, but via Shaun C Green we find there is a far less widely reported (but far more plausible) explanation of what may be at least a partial cause of CCD – a commercial pesticide called Clothianidin.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Clothianidin, is understandably keen to play down the possibility of its product having such an effect on bee colonies. The substance – rebranded as “Poncho” – was passed for use by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2003, but the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency claims the studies submitted as evidence were seriously flawed, and the German government suspended registration of Clothianidin and similar chemicals in May of this year.

So – are bees being killed off by electrosmog or Clothianidin? Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither… but given the choice of the two, I know what Occam’s Razor is telling me, and it’s the answer that doesn’t make such a sensational headline.

Fiction

NEW FICTION: THE PLASTIC ELF OF EXTRUSION VALLEY by David McGillveray

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This month David McGillveray returns to Futurismic with a new story, “The Plastic Elf of Extrusion Valley”. Strange things are afoot in the computer-controlled fabrication farms of Germany’s Altes Land…

The Plastic Elf of Extrusion Valley

by David McGillveray

A cold October breeze came down from the North Sea, but no leaves rustled in the plastic forest. Instead, an eerie, fluting music played in the valley as the wind moved over the tall cylinders like a kid blowing over bottle tops.

My midnight walks were one of the few pleasures I took from working in the extrusion fields. Despite the approaching winter, the soil was warm against the soles of my feet. I imagined with equal measures of fascination and disquiet the seething activity below, the billions of nanoconstructors setting molecule upon molecule, endlessly building. These fields never lay fallow: four harvests per year, as kilometres of commercial piping grew fresh from the magic soil, regular as quarterly budgets. Continue reading NEW FICTION: THE PLASTIC ELF OF EXTRUSION VALLEY by David McGillveray →

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Friday Free Fiction for 29th August

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Happy Friday, free fiction fans! This week’s selection may be missing a few items, because I’ve had to precompile it on Thursday (I’m off on holiday, don’t you know). For the same reason, there won’t be a Friday Free Fiction next week, but I’ll be saving up the links as per usual for a bumper edition on 12th September.

If you’re worried about going hungry for new material, though, bear in mind that there’ll be a fresh new Futurismic story out on Monday 1st… keep watching the skies! Now, on with the list…

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From ManyBooks.net, a classic pulp “Hitler won” novel: The Sound Of His Horn by Sarban

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Feedbooks.com are still catching up on the Futurismic back catalogue:

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Project Gutenberg drags out Anthem by the enduringly controversial Ayn Rand.

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At Tor.com, a new story from Steven Gould: “Shade”

Xareed had been waiting for the water truck for two days, seated in the dirt at the edge of the camp, his family’s plastic ten-liter water-jug tied to his ankle.

He didn’t like being on the edge of the camp. Except for the piece of cardboard he carried impaled on a stick there was no shade. The poet Sayyid had said, “God’s Blessing are more numerous than those growing trees,” and Xareed hoped so, for there were no trees in the camp or outside. So the blessings had better be more numerous, not less.

Also via Tor, we hear that Mur Lafferty has released an electronic version of her new novel Playing For Keeps in parallel with the dead-tree launch.

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More heads-up notices from the SF Signal posse:

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From Apex Online: “Scenting the Dark” by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Via the Scalzi, an excised chapter from an early version of The Last Colony goes up at Subterranean Online: “The Secret History of the Last Colony“.

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The Shadow Unit never sleeps: the latest DVD extra is called “Mirror Writing“.

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From Gary Reynolds:

Issue #2 of the Concept Sci-fi ezine is now available to download in both PDF format and Mobipocket format. This issue includes short fiction from; Walter Jon Williams, Susan Murray, Ben O’ Neill, Andrew Males and Michael Kechula. We also have a piece of poetry (our first one!) and an interview with Marianne De Pierres.

I really hope that you enjoy reading it – feel free to subscribe and get future issues delivered directly to your Inbox.

You heard the man – go check it out.

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Jayme Lynn Blaschke is up to instalment #22 of Memory:

“Lassie, I’m nae a performing dog what’ll sit up and do tricks on command for ya,” Flavius growled. “Nae matter what ya ken of me, with all this talk about ‘lesser sentients’ and the like, I’m more than a plaything for the women of the Eternal Dominion. I’m descended of Bellona’s bridgroom and Sajal be damned, I’ll nae jump to when ya snap yer fingers. I’ll thank ya to remember that!”

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And finally, Greg O’Byrne missed the Friday Flash Fiction boat last week, so here’s his micro-flash of “Hard Luck on Mars“. I’m sure the other Fictioneers will supply their own links in the comments in my absence!

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And that’s your lot, folks. Keep the tips and plugs coming in as usual, and I’ll cobble them into a post in a fortnight’s time. Until then, bon voyage!

Blog

Viropiracy – because safeguarding ‘intellectual property’ is more important than saving lives

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embroidered flu virus cross-sectionThis is just a *face-palm* of epic proportions – welcome to the concept of “viral sovereignty“.

This extremely dangerous idea comes to us courtesy of Indonesia’s minister of health, Siti Fadilah Supari, who asserts that deadly viruses are the sovereign property of individual nations — even though they cross borders and could pose a pandemic threat to all the peoples of the world.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, there is a precedent for developing nations protecting the intellectual property implicit in their native biome – the West has shafted them in the past, after all. But as Jamais Cascio points out:

… it’s extraordinarily important for information about potential pandemic diseases to be made as open as possible, if we want to avoid a global health disaster. Withholding viral data, and refusing to provide samples of the viruses, out of a misplaced fear of viropiracy (or more paranoid fantasies), is simply criminal.

I think you’d have to be very paranoid to not see the logic there, really. But anyway – if you catch a virus, it replicates in your body, right? So if viropiracy became a part of international legislation, would you technically be infringing the IP of a nation if you caught a unique disease there but crossed the border before the symptoms started to show, and end up liable to be prosecuted for piracy as well as smuggling? Probably not… but it highlights just how bloody stupid an idea it is, doesn’t it? [image by Noii]

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Everything Can And Will Be Hacked: digital testing systems

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classroom testIt’s an old story, but worth bringing up because of the fundamental truth it teaches us. Back in the nineties, a company called Edutron Systems was trying to get schools to upgrade from the hopelessly antiquated pencil-and-paper test system to its disk-based gizmo, with predictable results:

It took all of one test for the students to find a flaw in the system: if one received an unsatisfactory score, he could simply retake the test. Classroom Assistant didn’t bother recording how many times each test was taken. Sure, retaking the test several times was time-consuming, but generally worth the effort.

On the second test, students found a slightly easier workaround: they could simply run a different test. Since the results screen did not indicate which test was taken, all one needed to do was open up the “Test Taking Tutorial” test and pass it with flying colors.

It gets worse as it goes on, of course – kids are resourceful when they want to avoid something onerous.

And so, the lesson is: everything can and will be hacked; the greater the motivation for a successful hack, the faster it will occur. Maybe time to back off on those ambitious plans for biometric passports, eh? [story via Hack A Day] [image by ccarlstead]