We Just Found...

 ...okay. We just got an image of a star that is 28 billion light years away. That also means that the image is 28 billion years old.

That's a number that's really outside what we can easily grasp. This star is, of course, a big one. They aren't sure, but it's far, far brighter than the sun. It's almost certainly a supergiant.

And the nickname is "Earendel" which at least one site blathers on about the Old English when we all know the truth...

...somebody at NASA is a Tolkein fan.

But 28 billion light years. And that's with the old space telescope.

Now I'm waiting to see what data NASA is about to release from Hubble that's apparently "one for the record books."

It's probably not aliens.

Life on...Pluto? PLUTO?

It seems absolutely ridiculous, but it turns out that Pluto is cryonically active...that is to say there are active ice volcanoes on this tiny little world. Somehow, despite being all the way out in the Oort cloud, there's enough energy for that.

Which by our current theories isn't even possible. But it also means there might be liquid water, fairly close to the surface.

Which means it's not impossible for there to be some kind of life.

Oh...and that means the starseed theory, natural version, is back on the table again. If it's possible for there to be life on one Kuiper belt object, which may be exchanged with other stars, then it's possible for that life to survive on a comet long enough to be dropped on a nice virgin planet.

In other words, science fiction writers, go ahead and base everything off of DNA because we may just all be related.

Or not.

Dark Void Magazine Issue #1!

The release date was supposed to be April 1...but guess what dropped a little early!

That's right, it's the first issue of Dark Void Magazine, containing my story "Only the Rain," in which colonists find the environment more hostile than they expected.

It also contains original sci-fi horror stories by Nelson Stanley, Marissa James, and David F. Shultz.

You can get your copy in Kindle or paperback here.

In other news, I got the edits back for the first Council of Worlds book, Kyx. It's still going to be a while as I get all five books squared, but the pandemic hiatus is coming to an end.

The Sun Still Has Secrets...

 ...and no I don't mean the tabloid.

Analysis of 25 years of observation of the sun has detected "high frequency retrograde" waves...fast waves that circle the sun against the angle of rotation.

And we have no idea what causes them, which is far more exciting than any answers you can give me.

Maybe the solar observatory can give us some clues...

Unleavened Pizza?

 So, some guy in Italy is so allergic to yeast that he decided to set out to make pizza that rises without yeast.

Of course, right now it requires an autoclave, and the pizza he made was a pizza bite. But it has to do with adjusting pressure and blowing gas.

So here is the question:

Is gas leavened dough kosher for Passover?

Sound on Mars is Weird

 So, one of the things we've been working on is confirming the speed of sound on Mars. Due to the thinner atmosphere, sound moves more slowly there...about 240 meters per second as opposed to 343 meters per second on Earth.

But the speed of sound isn't exactly the same across the entire bandwidth. On Earth this doesn't matter.

On Mars, it does. On Mars the speed of sound changes right in the middle of the bandwidth we can hear.

Which means if you were outside on Mars, which you probably won't be because unbreathable atmosphere and all, you would hear the high notes of a piece of music noticeably before the lower ones.

One could base an entire SF plot around this, although I don't quite have one yet.

Space Lettuce...

 ...which might matter here on Earth too. I know GMOs are a bugbear to many people, but the transgenic lettuce produces a hormone that stimulates bone growth.

This could be grown on space stations (lettuce grows hydroponically and doesn't mind microgravity, which is why they used lettuce) to keep astronauts from losing as much bone mass.

It could also be grown in ares on Earth that have poor infrastructure and eaten by postmenopausal women to stave off osteoporosis.

Yay lettuce. I don't even like lettuce, but part of me goes "Lettuce or pill? I might take the lettuce..."

Orcs in Space

 No, not the DND variety, but apparently we have Odd Radio Circles which somebody really wanted to spell ORC.

Somebody Australian would be my guess, so it's not just NASA that are geeks. Or maybe a Kiwi?

We don't know what causes them...they're either explosion remnants, debris from star formation or energetic jets spewed out by galactic black holes.

Or Gandalf is blowing smoke rings again.

Exoplanet "Danger"

 Using transits to spot exoplanets is a good method.

Until you accidentally find a star. Specifically, Kepler-854b, Kepler-840b and Kepler-699b appear to be small stars not planets.

Don't worry, they're going through the catalogue to find more of these imposters. Additionally, Kepler-854 appears to be larger than they thought, so...comparatively, 854b is large. Three times the size of Jupiter, which is too big to be a planet!

Because Somebody Needs It

There has to be somebody out there who needs a baby porcupine this morning.

Especially as they're called porcupettes and born with soft quills!

He already has a name, FoFo, and he is absolutely adorable. He's the kind of porcupine that lives in trees and has a prehensile tail.

And yes, he is thoroughly adorable.

Should We...

 ...recreate the Christmas Island rat? I mean, it's adorable, and it seems like a better idea than mammoths (not to mention easier). Also, we know it's extinction is our fault.

But should we? It's apparently 95% similar to the Norway brown rat, so it wouldn't be a lot of work. However, we don't have the full sequence and it would have a messed up sense of smell.

Which seems a horrible thing to do to a rat. Just saying.

Nebula Finalists 2021

 Some I agree with, a couple I don't, and some I haven't got around to reading yet:

Novel

1. The Unbroken, C.L. Clark.

2. A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark

3. Machinehood, S.B. Divya

4. A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine.

5. Plague Birds, Jason Sanford

My pick: Plague Birds, although this might well change after I read A Desolation Called Peace given my love of Martine's work. The Unbroken is also exciting. Haven't read A Master of Djinn either. So, very tentative pick.

Novella

1. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

2. Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

3. And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed

4. Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters by Aimee Ogden

5. Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

6. The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler

7. "The Giants of the Violet Sea" by Eugenia Triantafyllou.

No pick because I somehow have managed not to have read any of these.

Novelette

1. "O2 Arena" by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

2. "Just Enough Rain" by PH Lee

3. "(emet)" by Lauren Ring

4. "That Story Isn't the Story" by John Wiswell

5. "Colors of the Immortal Palette" by Caroline M. Yoachim

My pick: "That Story Isn't the Story." Not at all tentative, I have read all of these and while I might read them again to check recency bias, I'm fairly strongly leaning towards the Wiswell. That said, any of these deserve it.

Short Story

1. "Mr. Death" by Alix E. Harrow

2. "Proof by Induction" by José Pablo Iriarte

3. "Let All the Children Boogie" by Sam J. Miller.

4. "Laughter Among the Trees" by Suzan Palumbo

5. "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" by Sarah Pinsker

6. "For Lack of a Bed" yb John Wiswell

My pick: "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather", but this is likely to change as I've only read that one and "Proof by Induction"

Andre Norton

1. Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders

2. Thornwood by Leah Cypess

3. Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

4. A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

5. Root Magic by Eden Royce

6. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

My pick: Uh...yeah...uh...YA reading, what's that? My guess is it will probably be Redemptor because I loved the first book, but...yeah. I'll let you know after the package comes out.

Ray Bradbury

1. Encanto

2. The Green Knight

3. Loki: Season 1

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

5. Space Sweepers

6. WandaVision: Season 1

7. What We Do in the Shadows: Season 3

No pick because COVID has kept me out of movie theaters and I haven't seen any of those streaming series either. Probably not going to be able to vote.

Game Writing

1. Coyote & Crow

2. Granma's Hand

3. Thirsty Sword Lesbians

4. Wanderhome

5. Wildernyth

My pick: Uncertain. The only ones I've looked at (Wildermyth is a video game) are Granma's Hand and Wilderhome. I didn't much care for Granma's Hand and Wanderhome is a wonderfully written game I have no interest in playing. I actually suspect it will end up being Thirsty Sword Lesbians but I need to actually read it.

They Found Shackleton's Ship!

 Underwater archaeologists have located the wreck of the Endurance! I wish I'd been in the room when the robot came around the stern...and was able to clearly read the name.

Due to the fact that the waters around Antarctica contain no driftwood chomping microbes, the ship is in absolutely fantastic condition. It's been colonized by various marine life, but if you check out the slide show...

The wreck is not going to be raised as it would be nearly impossible to do so without destroying it. Instead, it will be studied in situ, giving us a wealth of knowledge about how the ship was constructed and the life of those aboard...the sub has already seen abandoned crockery and boots.

Everyone escaped the wreck when the ship fell through the ice, but they sure as heck didn't have time to retrieve their stuff.

Arachnophobes be warned!

 Anelosimus eximius is a swarming spider. Up to 1,000 of them live in each colony, and they work together to build massive webs and then swarm their prey.

I like spiders, and even I find that a little creepy!

China Plans to Join the Reusable Rocket Club

 The Chinese want their next manned rocket after Long March to be reusable. Honestly, this is a good thing...reusable rockets are cheaper access to space and use fewer resources from Earth.

One interesting thing, though. Instead of landing on legs like SpaceX, they're going to try hooks and cables, kind of like the tailhook on an aircraft carrier. We'll see who's system works better!

(And really China, stop denying the thing which just hit the moon was yours. It's not like it hit anything important).

Friday Updates

 No new news, but various projects are ticking along.

I'm soon going to be looking for a disability consultant. I need somebody who is a full time wheelchair user due to paralysis (i.e., paraplegic). This is a paid gig and I will negotiate rates with whoever it is. I prefer somebody familiar with science fiction tropes, obviously.

Stone Age People Were So...Primitive

 A site excavated near Beijing shows otherwise. The site appeared to have been a workshop were ochre was processed and specialist tool kits made for sale. Over 380 small tools were found on the site.

We don't know what they were using the ochre for, but some traces on tools showed one of the things they may have been doing was coloring leather. And the local geology indicates that it was probably red ochre.

Oh, and we don't know whether these were H. sapiens, although it seems most likely...they could also have been Neanderthals or Denisovans.

Either way?

They had a small factory going and we really need to stop thinking that these people couldn't, ya know, organize themselves.

And Meanwhile, in the Paleontology Fandom

 There's something refreshing with all that's going on in the world to find out about a good old fashioned science fight.

Somebody said Tyrannosaurus rex should be three species and the fandom is heating up.

But in a nice friendly manner and I'm imagining people in tweed sipping tea while they argue about claw lengths and I'm kind of there for it right now.

We have alignment!

 The James Webb telescope can now focus on a star with all of its mirrors without creating multiple images. This is called image stacking, and follow this link to see what HD84406 looks like to the telescope now.

It also has the star-flake image from earlier!

Okay, there's still quite a bit of alignment yet to do, and it will still be mid summer before we can do any SCIENCE, but everything is going well so far.

I want SCIENCE!