All posts by Tom James

Stephen Colbert’s DNA to back up the human race

geneUm. I can’t really add much to the title, churnalism be damned, this is good stuff:

Comedy Central announced Monday that the host of The Colbert Report will have his DNA digitized and sent to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the Associated Press, Stephen Colbert’s gene package will be carried there by famed video game designer Richard Garriott, who will travel to the station in October.

All in all, a great day for humanity. Also I wonder what a gene package looks like?

[story via KurzweilAI][image from Joe Madon flickr]

It’s here, just not evenly distributed…

When I imagine what life will be like in ten, twenty, or thirty years time one of the few things I’m pretty certain of is that every flat surface will eventually turn into a video screen of some kind (and will probably be used to advertise stuff).

And here we have an early example of this trend from Esquire magazine:

To commemorate Esquire’s 75th Anniversary, we have published an experimental limited-edition of the October 2008 issue that features something called electronic ink, with moving words and flashing images … It is available at some major bookstores and newsstands.

The most elegantly-described science fictional use of electronic ink-like display technologies that comes to mind are the “mediatrons” in Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age. Described here:

…a thin film of nanobar coupled with a layer of rod-logic nanocomputers and light filters to produce a flexible graphic displayer in the form of a piece of paper, a poster or even wallpaper. Cheap and plentiful, with a higher pixel-count than the human can resolve…

According to the information provided by Esquire we’re not at this stage yet, with the whole setup requiring elaborate arrangements to manufacture.

A helpful individual has created a flickr set showing detailed photographs and detailed video of the limited edition magazine.

[via Slashdot]

It’s the way you walk…

walkingResearchers from Scotland and Belgium have identified a link between a woman’s stride and orgasmic ability:

The results showed that the appropriately trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm through watching the way the women walked over 80 percent of the time. Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women. “This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine,” the authors note.

Another advance in the onward march of science…

In slightly more directly sfnal news scientists have discovered an upper limit to the mass of black holes:

…these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighboring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where – and when – they appear in the universe.

This may affect some of the long term predictions of the future of the universe, as expounded in Stephen Baxter‘s Deep Future, which is well worth a read.

[both stories from Physorg][image from pizzodisevo on flickr]

Professor Calculus’ submarine…

tintin_red_rackham\'s_treasureFans of Hergé‘s superlative graphic novels  The Adventures of Tintin will appreciate this creation of a dolphin speedboat that bears a strong resemblance to Professor Calculusshark (rather than dolphin) submersible in Red Rackham’s Treasure, from Ananova News:

The two-man £30,000 craft has been designed to mimic the shape of a dolphin and self-rights whenever it splashes down.

The mini-submarine has a top speed of 45mph over the surface of the water and half that when it dives under.

The 15ft fibre-glass machine can stay under for long periods as it has a snorkel that supplies air to its 1,500cc, 215hp marine engine.

Awesome!

[story via Slashdot][cover from Wikipedia]

Weird…

Neal Stephenson’s new novel Anathem is to be published on the 9th September (according to Amazon). There is a kinda weird movie that claims to have something to do with the book (made by these folks apparently, though the movie is… vague and weird. I mean, it piqued my interest but I was probably going to buy the book anyway.

Even more compelling is the Amazon promotional video of Neal Stephenson himself reading an extract from the book. There is also a further video here of Stephenson discussing some of the ideas that go into the book:

Looks pretty good.

[via Slashdot]