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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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Man investigated by feds for making nuclear reaction in bedroom

The FBI swooped into a house in Rockwall, Texas when it emerged a gamer and physicist enthusiast was trying to create a small nuclear reaction in his house using Uranium.

“People do it in universities all the time,” the man said. “It’s just not usual that somebody does it outside of a university. These things are in your tap water, you know, in the dirt. You could hold a Geiger counter up to a banana and get a count off of it.”

It just goes to show how the internet helps to spread information – the man learnt how to make the mini nuclear reactor using online resources and then the FBI learned he was doing it via his online blog posts about his house doubling in radioactivity.

EDIT: In a similar ‘normal guy gives governments a scare’ vein, it looks like the recent confrontation between US patrol boats and Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the Straits of Hormuz may in fact have been a hoax by a local radio ham who regularly pranks passing ships.

[via Gamespot News]

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Mixed-reality Manchester – Second Life meets real life

This should give your head a pretty good twisting for a Monday morning.

Mixed reality Manchester

I’ll let Wagner James Au explain it, because I can’t condense it any further and still get the story across:

“… last October in Manchester, a big screen display was set up in All Saints Gardens; the park was also recreated in Second Life.  Meanwhile, video cameras in the real park record people who are there, and that live footage is merged in a chroma mixer to video captured in the SL version of All Saints. 

The result is broadcast on the Manchester screen, so people there can watch themselves interact with avatars.  But that’s just the beginning: the mixed reality video is also broadcast into the virtual version of All Saints Gardens in Second Life, so avatars can watch themselves interact with people in the real park, too.”

As Au points out, there’s a whole lot of reality layering going on right there.

“Liberate Your Avatar” was a public art installation by Paul Sermon designed to “expose the identity paradox in Second Life” – you can read more about it at the project’s website (which is where the image above has been borrowed from).

[tags]metaverse, augmented reality, Second Life, identity[/tags]
Blog

2007 Nebula Award longlist announced

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The preliminary list of nominees for the 2007 Nebula Awards have been announced. Below are the novel selections, with the novella, novelette, short story and film selections available at the SFWA site. Some of the novels have free links as listed below, although some require you to be a SFWA member. My favourite of those I’ve read is Chabon’s excellent alternate history. What do people think of the list?

NOVELS:

Ragamuffin, by Tobias Buckell

(Tor, Jun07)    First Third available on his website for free

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon
(HarperCollins, May07)

Species Imperative #3: Regeneration, by Julie E. Czerneda (full PDF on Private Edition)
(DAW, May06)

Vellum: The Book of All Hours, by Hal Duncan
(Del Rey, Apr06 (Macmillan hardcover Nov05 (UK)))

The Accidental Time Machine, by Joe Haldeman
(Ace, Aug07)

The New Moon’s Arms, by Nalo Hopkinson
(Warner Books, Feb07)

Mainspring, by Jay Lake
(Tor, Jun07)

Odyssey, by Jack McDevitt (full PDF on Private Edition)
(Ace, Nov06)

The Outback Stars, by Sandra McDonald
(Tor, May07)

Strange Robby, by Selina Rosen (full PDF and hardcopy offer on Private Edition)
(Meisha Merlin Publishing Jul06)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
(Scholastic Press, Jul07)

Rollback, by Robert J. Sawyer
(Analog, Feb07 (serialized in Oct06 through Jan/Feb07 issues; Tor book, Apr07))

Blindsight, by Peter Watts (free Creative Commons versions)
(Tor, Oct06)

[links from the SFWA page, via numerous editors and authors]

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Friday Free Fiction for 11 January

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A comparatively slow week for free fiction, but there’s still plenty enough if you need it …

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Free fiction at ManyBooks.net:

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At Fantasy Magazine: “Zombie Lenin” by Ekaterina Sedia

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A kind-of sneak-peek from Jay Lake:

“[This is] the original short story “Green”, basis of the novel I am currently writing. At 6,700 words, this originally appeared at Aeon 5 back in 2005 …”

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Good news from Cole Kitchen: the excellent print magazine Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest is getting into the free content game – take a look at Apex Online, with stories from James Walton Langolf and Matt Wallace, and lots of other non-fiction too.

Cole also points us at Transmitter – an online science fiction anthology magazine, according to the strap-line. Whatever it calls itself, there’s free fiction by the likes of Jake Clyde and Jennifer Moore, so go take a look.

Cheers, Cole!

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From Futurismic’s own Edward Willett:

“The release of my new SF novel Marseguro (DAW Books) is coming up February 5, so I’m beginning to do what I can to promote it online…which includes posting the first two chapters online.”

Good luck, Ed!

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Looks like a full complement on the Friday Flash Fiction parade ground this week:

Gareth L Powell has been thinking (and writing) about “Natalie“.

Gareth D Jones is channeling Ray Bradbury with “Built By Moonlight“.

Dan Pawley‘s journey back to his native country must have unnerved him; he’s worried that “The Natives Are Restless Tonight“.

Martin McGrath returns to the fray with a lingering fear of birds: “Sixty-seven Parrots“.

Justin Pickard is equally unnerved (though for rather different reasons) by “Fatima’s Funeral“.

Neil Beynon wants you to look deep into the “Eyes“.

Shaun C Green has been watching too much TV, I think – “The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Trivial“.

And finally yours truly decided to step out of the science fiction mode for a change, and go “Down on the Upside“.

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That’s your lot, ladies and gents. Don’t forget to get in touch with any tips or suggestions – you can find my email address on the Staff page.

Have a great weekend!

[tags]free, fiction, stories, online[/tags]

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