An intriguing essay on the treatment and development of antimatter(or “contraterrene” matter) in science fiction from physicist William S. Higgins:
In 1940, Rojansky speculated that some objects in our solar system might consist of contraterrene matter. Certainly, some do not; fallen meteorites contain the same elements as terrestrial materials. If, however, a contraterrene object were orbiting the sun or passing through the solar system, it would be steadily bombarded by ordinary dust and gas. The resulting annihilation would gradually heat and erode its surface, causing volatile materials to escape and surrounding the object with a cloud of debris. In other words, it would look very much like a comet. Were some comets contraterrene?
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This sparked John Campbell’s restless imagination. He imagined that space-going miners might pursue contraterrene asteroids as a rich source of energy, despite the deadly radiation risks in handling untouchable material. After author Robert Heinlein turned down the idea, Campbell offered it to veteran writer Jack Williamson. Williamson set to work.
His story, “Collision Orbit,” appeared in the July 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the pen name Will Stewart. In it, engineer Jim Drake struggles to exploit the energy of contraterrene asteroids by finding a way to manipulate them without touching them, using magnetic fields. (Read the logbook from this issue for more information.)
Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.
I think most of us can agree on the latter point, but I’m not sure about Ladhe’s idea of making the rewards of government service more attractive at baseline… but if it actually resulted in people who genuinely wanted to make a difference to the world (rather than just their bank balances) taking the reins of government, it’d be no bad thing.
Of course, how much respect you have for the political philosophy of a just-cashed-out hedge fund manager who made a fortune from the sub-prime crisis probably depends on how close to meeting your own monthly budget you are right now…
Like all digital technologies, the iPhone has yet to achieve the hard-grained, Spartan elegancies of the steely Leatherman. It makes up for this with its cannibal appetite for other tools. Leathermans will disappear—I commonly give mine away—but iPhones devour other tools, digesting them into virtualized application services: phone, camera, e-mail, Web browser, text-messaging, music and video players, whole planet-girdling sets of urban Google maps, house keys, pedometer, TV remote, seismometer, Breathalyzer, alarm clock, video games, radio, bar-code scanner … the target list grows by the day.
It does indeed. Plus you can take an iPhone on a plane without anyone accusing you of being a terrorist… for the moment, at least. [via Warren Ellis]
Web/SF/transhumanist-crossover titans such as Warren Ellis, Charles Stross, and gerontologist Aubrey de Grey are interviewed in this free 1st edition pdf of H+ Magazine.
Whatever your thoughts on transhumanism, it’s all well worth reading.
About 2000 tons of mercury from human-generated sources enter the environment every year, but tracing natural versus human sources, and sorting out local pollutants from distant sources, has been been a problem. University of Michigan scientists say they’ve taken a big step towards reading mercury “fingerprints.”
“For some time, we weren’t sure that it was going to be technically possible, but now we’ve cracked that nut and have shown significant differences not only between mercury from coal and, say, metallic forms of mercury that are used in industry, but also between different coal deposits,” [ecologist Joel] Blum said.
How it works:
The fingerprinting technique relies on a natural phenomenon called isotopic fractionation, in which different isotopes (atoms with different numbers of neutrons) of mercury react to form new compounds at slightly different rates. In one type of isotopic fractionation, mass-dependent fractionation, the differing rates depend on the masses of the isotopes. In mass-independent fractionation, the behavior of the isotopes depends not on their absolute masses but on whether their masses are odd or even. Combining mass-dependent and mass-independent isotope signals, the researchers created a powerful fingerprinting tool.
An intriguing essay on the treatment and development of antimatter (or “contraterrene” matter) in science fiction from physicist William S. Higgins:
In an open letter explaining why he’s quitting the hedge fund business, 
