So, Neanderthals were the last other hominid to survive...

...nope.

The Denisovans may have survived on certain Asian islands until as recently as 15,000 years ago. (Which also meant they had a quality that as far as we know Neanderthals didn't: They were seafarers).

Unfortunately, we're still no closer to knowing what they looked like. Which makes me wonder.

The Neanderthals generally buried their dead.

We haven't found a Denisovan burial site.

What if the reason Denisovan fossils are so rare and hard to find, and tend to consist of bone fragments when they do...

...is because they burned their dead.

Just an out of the box thought.

Science has us Beat

Or, rather, medicine.

Occasionally, somebody comes up with something that science fiction writers didn't, for once, predict.

In this case, somebody thought of putting contraceptive patches...on jewelry. Like your favorite earrings, or your watch, or a name bracelet.

The idea is that it might improve contraceptive compliance, but the science fiction writer in me jumps to the intriguing idea of contraceptive jewelry that's explicitly designed to advertise that you are protected from pregnancy (or, in the future, that you are on the male equivalent).

The story might come in when somebody lies...

"The size you ordered never fits...and that goes for spacesuits"

Yeah.

NASA had to cancel the planned all-female spacewalk because they discovered that the suit prepped for astronaut Anne McClain was...well.

Too large. It might be that it fit her on Earth and that bit of muscle atrophy that happens in space did it.

Fashion jokes aside, the incident has highlighted that pressure suit fitting is hard.

Right now, the best suits we have, have a solid torso, and that's the part not fitting McClain properly. If the torso isn't snug, it makes maneuvering hard and accessing controls difficult.

For safety reasons, they decided to switch her out for a male astronaut, Nick Hague. Suits have to be prepped for EVA, and there was no time to prep a correct-sized suit.

So, what's the takeaway from this?

It's actually a simple one.

NASA needs better spacesuits. The best suits we have? They're from the shuttle program!

Next generation suits keep being designed and then not made. (Maybe there's a niche here for a commercial company to step up).

Boeing has designed launch and reentry suits, which are a slightly different thing from EVA suits (called EMUs) that are superior to anything NASA has, and NASA may well be purchasing those suits. SpaceX has also designed suits.

But these suits are just backup life support for if you get a hole in your spaceship while launching.

NASA only has 11 of the shuttle era EMUs left. Oh, and we have no surface suits for walking on the moon and Mars, which are also a different thing.

Right now NASA isn't seeking input from outside experts, but if we're going to get boots on the moon...or even keep up activities in low earth orbit.

We need better spacesuits.

Ideally ones that don't come in medium, large, and extra large.

Exoskeletons are heading mainstream

The idea of an exoskeleton isn't new, and bulky "wearable robots" already exist, designed for construction work and military purposes.

But the next thing? It might just be partial exoskeletons designed to be worn under your clothes. The first of these is a mechanical ankle brace of sorts, designed to assist elderly or disabled people to walk. There might also be a market amongst hikers or people who work on their feet all day.

The new buzz word? Mechanical clothing. And I suspect we'll start to see more and more of it.

NASA doing spin gravity experiments...

...right here on Earth. Volunteers will spend sixty days strapped to a bed with their head lower than their feet to simulate the health effects of microgravity.

Then they will test various centrifuge systems on them. The goal is to come up with a "gravity" effect to keep astronauts healthy and fit on the long trip to Mars. Science fiction writers have long talked about spin gravity, but we haven't actually tried it yet. Until now.

Uh oh, "Gray Goo"

Researches at the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science have made so-called "particle robots" that have no centralized control network at all.

We know where this ends.

(If done right, in many amazing things. If done wrong...)

You know that...

...science fiction trope where your toilet tells you how healthy you are?

Just going to leave this here.

Did a UFO Land at Tunguska?

Two tabloids are claiming so. But they're tabloids, so I don't believe them.

As cool as it would be to think that Tunguska really was a starship crash and their people finally got here to investigate, it's not true.

(But it would make a good novel, wouldn't it. Go away. I don't need any more ideas).

Florence Pugh Joins the MCU

Florence Pugh has been cast in the Black Widow movie to play "across from" Scarlett Johansson, as a spy on the same level.

So, the question is, who is she?

My guess is she's going to be the other Black Widow, Yelena Belova. She definitely has the right hair.

She could also be the Russian mercenary Sofia, who wanted to kill Natasha and take her place out of jealousy.

A more obscure possibility is Recluse, daughter of the Red Room's "headmistress."

But I'm going to guess they're going to do something with Yelena Belova as a fellow Red Room graduate who was sent after Natasha to get her back.

(Other question: Will we find out what happened in Budapest?)

Friendship and Space Battles (Captain Marvel Spoilers)

Yup, I saw Captain Marvel, and have some thoughts.

First of all I'm going to address the elephant - that being the repeated allegations that Captain Marvel is imperialistic war propaganda. Admittedly, this impression is not helped by the military ads that appear to be airing with quite a few showings.

The elephant might be very small with large ears, if it's even there at all (Incidentally, the Dumbo live action remake looks awful and pointless. Ahem).

Captain Marvel is not imperialistic war propaganda. The imperialistic warriors are the bad guys. In a bit of a shift from the comics idea of the Kree-Skrull war as something which was the fault of both sides, the MCU has come down firmly...on the side of the Skrull. (And no, I was not expecting that).

One of the movie's two most important themes is "Don't blindly follow orders, schmuck."

Carol's arc is literally her transformation from "Vers," the Kree soldier who only cares about the mission back into Carol Danvers.

This is a movie about how war dehumanizes you. Literally, in this case, as she's transformed into part Kree. It's about getting your humanity back after what war does to you. Characters directly talk about how a good man (in this case, a rookie Coulson) learns to know when to follow orders and when not to. It's a movie that eviscerates the "I was just following orders" defense.

For all of the spectacular space battles, Captain Marvel isn't pro-war.

It's anti-war.

So, what's the second theme?

Friendship.

Platonic relationships.

Yes, tons of people are shipping Carol and Maria, and I'm not going to say they should stop.

But the movie literally hangs on the friendship between Carol and Maria and the friendship between Carol and Fury. There's no romance. This is a movie which says "Men and women can be friends without anything happening." This is a movie which hinges everything on friendship, and leaves sex and romance completely out of it to the point where you could legitimately head canon this version of Carol Danvers as asexual. The writers resist the temptation to bring romance or even sexual tension into the relationship between Danvers and Fury, as some writers probably would have. There is amazing chemistry on screen between Larson and Jackson (And the CGI de-aging is a little jarring at the start, but I got used to it), but it is clearly and obviously platonic. They just don't let anything leak in.

They become friends almost instantly and they stay friends.

Which brings me to another interesting thing about Captain Marvel. It's Captain Marvel's origin story. It's her coming into power as a hero and making the transition from good little soldier to one woman protector. (And they don't skint her power levels, either. They don't nerf her at all).

It's also Nick Fury's origin story.

The Nick Fury we see in Captain Marvel has just been promoted from field ops to "riding a desk." He's not quite sure where his career is going. He's less cynical, more fun loving, but also a lot less sure of himself.

And as Carol learns how not to be a good little soldier and that following orders is no defense, Fury learns that there's more to the world than he thought. You can see him take the first steps down the road to becoming the cynical spymaster we all know and "love." You can see why Fury becomes what he becomes. He's not a supporting character, he's the co-lead. (Oh, and Jackson is clearly having so much fun in this movie).

As a side note. Yes, they completely change Mar-Vell. I'm sure that annoyed a few fans. It sideswiped me a little, but I liked the replacement character enough that I forgive them.

Oh, and yes. It is true. The cat stole multiple scenes. (They had four different actors, but I couldn't tell them apart, so good casting there).

Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?

...and don't you have too many legs.

I won't show pictures here without warning, but a new genus of spiders in Columbia have been named Stormtropis.

Why?

Because they are all the same size. Their remarkable uniformity made somebody think of clone troopers, I guess...

So, yeah.

Stormtrooper spiders.

They're "bald legged" spiders, which are closely related to tarantulas,

Oh, and they're also kind of clumsy.

Don't worry, though. They're completely harmless.

But then again, we've seen how Stormtroopers shoot...

Heath Ledger, the Joker, and Actors' Brains

So, there's an entire field of people who study what happens to our brains when we do creative pursuits.

One of the experts is a guy named Dr. Steven Brown, who works at the McMaster University in Canada. And he got a bunch of actors, stuck them in an MRI machine, and got them to play Romeo or Juliet, depending.

What he discovered was interesting.

Brain activity in part of the frontal lobes went down. Actors, when they are fully in character, literally turn off part of their sense of self.

And some actors engage in method acting. Which means that they embrace the character 24/7, for an extended period of time. They let the character dictate what they eat, what they sleep.

Which brings us to Heath Ledger. Ledger locked himself in a hotel room for six weeks, during which time he was the Joker. Full time. His performance was incredible. He had rituals that were designed to keep the Joker in check, mind, and apparently switched back fine during filming.

But before the film was completely edited, Ledger was dead, of an accidental overdose. Before his death, Ledger said that he could no longer sleep, and he may have had walking pneumonia, caught while filming his next role. While insomnia was a problem he had had, it was apparently worse.

There has long been speculation that the intense method acting played to inhabit a psychotic character may have contributed to Ledger's death.

What if he couldn't switch himself back on all the way?

And, related, we have Jared Leto, who also insisted on method acting the Joker. His harassment of his coworkers, of which the "best" part was sending a live rat to Margot Robbie (Don't worry. She kept the rat until her landlord found out and told her to get rid of him, at which point she gave the rodent to Guillermo del Toro. The rat is fine).

Leto's antics may have affected the ratings of Suicide Squad - I know quite a few people who refused to see it when it came out. And his solo movie has apparently been shelved.

Is there something about the Joker? Maybe, but Mark Hamill, the iconic voice of the Joker is just fine. So, maybe it's something about method acting.

Or about certain actors.

The discovery that acting actually affects your brain is something we need to think about. Should casting directors be very careful who they cast to play villainous and/or insane characters? Actors tend to have an ego - is this a reaction to having to turn off who they are - and should casting directors be looking for the right kind of ego for certain characters?

Should actors who have played intense roles be required to get therapy? Should they put it in their contract that post-shooting therapy is paid for by the company? How should therapists who are already treating actors use this information?

Drama is a vital part of the human experience and is, in some ways, sacred to who we are. And most actors walk off the set, turn back into themselves, and are fine. We just might need to give a bit of help to those who lose themselves in a role a little too much.

And maybe keep a bit of an eye on the next Joker, Joaquin Phoenix...

Quantum Physics

...is enough to give one a headache. I actually think I find the concepts easier to grasp than most, but they still make my brain go "Wait a minute."

This week, two experiments are enough to make us question reality:

1. Russian physicists teamed up with Swiss and American teams to, uh. Reverse time. Actually, they wrote a quantum algorithm that had that effect for a pair of qubits in a quantum computer. The point is to make quantum computing more accurate. It doesn't really reverse time, but rather cause a system to devolve (yes, that's right) from chaos back to order.
2. Heriot-Watt University had two scientists independently observe the same quantum state. As we know, when you observe the cat it becomes alive or dead. Except...one of the scientists saw a live cat and the other a dead one, or more accurately, they each saw the particle in a different state. This means objective reality doesn't actually exist at the quantum level.

Maybe that second one means that what we call reality is the consensus of all of our observations overlapping each other? Who knows.

Quantum stuff is just freaky.

Mars Needs...

...women. Yup, we've all heard the joke.

But NASA head Jim Bridenstine has actually come out and said that the first human being on Mars is "likely to be a woman."

This might sound like a publicity stunt, although with half of the latest astronaut class being female, it does seem more likely.

However, for those who have been following discussion on Mars trips: Yes, it's very likely, unless politics intervene, that the first "man" on Mars will be a woman. And the second. And the poor schmuck who has to babysit the ship while they play.

But, what?

It's been quietly known for years that the most efficient composition for a Mars crew is: All women.

Why?

It's simple math. Women are:

Typically smaller than men. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but on average.
Have lower energy needs, which means you have to ship and/or grow (a Mars mission would grow some of their own food via hydroponics) less food. Some women consume half as many calories as a large man when under the same levels of stress and exercise.
Tolerate G-forces and thus extreme or prolonged acceleration better.

Face it guys, women make better astronauts.

How about the obvious objections?

1. Women aren't strong enough. Truth is? The job of a modern astronaut requires brains, not raw physical strength. Additionally, if extra strength is needed, they could probably find room in the payload for a military exoskeleton, which are currently being tested.
2. Periods. What about periods? Guys are going to ask that. Fortunately, women know there are multiple contraceptive methods which can lighten periods or stop them altogether. Presumably the female astronauts who go to the ISS are using something because, yeah, nobody wants to menstruate in space.

So, there are reasons other than "crazy feminism" why Mars needs women.

Horseshoe Crabs Aren't...

...crabs, that is. As a lot of us suspected, they are, in fact?

Spiders.

Yup. Horseshoe crabs are more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to other crabs. By a lot.

Also, the ISS astronauts kidnapped Elon Musk's earth plushie and won't give it back. Somehow, he's surprised?

We have splashdown

The SpaceX Dragon crew capsule successfully splashed down after its test mission. The capsule landed on schedule, but a full mission report has yet to be completed. Of particular interest, the state of the crash test dummy, "Ripley," who was the only crew on board.

Arrow to end after season 8

It appears to be official: Season 8 will be the last for the CW's premiere DC show Arrow.

And I'm not remotely disappointed. If anything, the show has been marking time lately while the sharks circulate. It hasn't gone over yet, but it's close.

The story is told and CW's worrying habit of doing shows to death was looming on the horizon.

However, the Arrowverse, as it's popularly known, will continue. It is almost certain that Arrow will be replaced by Batwoman, which will be the first superhero show with an openly lesbian lead.

All of the other shows have been confirmed to continue. A rumor that Legends of Tomorrow was also going to end remains unconfirmed and with the formal announcement about Arrow seems unlikely.

Five shows is probably as many as is wise for CW to have in a single franchise, so I don't expect to see any additions until they decide to end another show. Flash is the second longest-running.

But here's an intriguing theory.

CW is building up to Crisis. This could bring Supergirl's Earth-38 in collision with Earth-1, putting the shows on the same Earth.

Supergirl has introduced several Legionnaires.

Nora West-Allen, the Flash's daughter, is not using the Kid Flash name, as one might expect for a replacement for Iris West Jr.

She's using XS.

XS is the codename of Jenni Ognats, who was originally Barry and Iris' granddaughter.

And a member of.

You got it.

The Legion of Superheroes.

Is there an ultimate plan to replace Legends of Tomorrow with a Legion show in a few years? (Now it could be that they just didn't want two Kid Flashes...)

Woot!

Temple of Children (Jan/Feb) Analog got a really good writeup from Reviews & Robots. This story has gotten some mixed responses.

Oh, and I'm almost finished with the first draft of Arana.

Solar Power Stations

China is talking seriously about launching a solar power station by 2030. This might be optimistic - there are problems with both getting the station up there (likely, it will have to be mostly constructed in orbit) and with power beaming (laser or microwave to a receiver on Earth).

There's a reason we've been talking about this for decades and never actually done it. In fact, it may require the rocket technology being developed by Space X to get modular parts of the station up there...

...so if we worked together we could do it. And power sats may be part of the answer to global warming. Can our politicians get their heads together, overcome our difficulties and start creating these things at the international level. Build one of them each, maybe?

Who knows. But China's demand for fossil fuels and levels of pollution are ridiculous. They have far more of a motivation than we do to do this...and it would help everyone in the long term. Of course, there's also death rays from space...don't get in the way of the power beam!

Welp, it worked

SpaceX's man-rated Dragon capsule made a successful unassisted (that is to say, they didn't have to use the arm) docking with the ISS, loaded with a test dummy named Riley and, apparently, a plush Earth (A gift to an astronaut? Elon Musk being frivolous?).

However, the hard part is still to come - re-entry is the most dangerous part of any space mission.

It's not a shuttle replacement, but it'll do for now. (The Russians were apparently nervous about the docking and made everyone hang out in the Soyuz).

Staying up tonight?

If you have the energy, there's a good reason to: The launch window for SpaceX's Demo-1 is 11:49...Pacific.

I don't think I'm going to make it to 2:49am myself, but Demo-1 will be the first full test of the human-rated Dragon capsule, going all the way to the ISS and back. The capsule will contain some materials, experiments, and a special dummy with sensors designed to take the place of an astronaut.

If successful, it will provide another way to get there other than the aging Russian Soyuz capsules.