Philcon Schedule!

 Here's my schedule for Philcon, which is in the very near future. I'm not vending this year, but will be doing the following programming items:

Friday, 6pm, Reading (Room 923)

Friday, 7pm, You Got Horror in My Sci-Fi (Plaza 3)

Friday, 9pm, Climate Fiction - Hopepunk or Dystopia? (Plaza 3)

Saturday, 11am, Signing. I will have a limited number of books available for sale.

Saturday, 3pm, My First Time (Getting Published) (Plaza 4)

Saturday, 5pm, Queer Protagonists (Plaza 3)

Sunday, 11am, So You Want To Become A Panelist at an SF&F Con (Plaza 3)

Sunday, 12pm, Vintage RPG Discussion (Plaza 5)

Sunday, 1pm, Are Fictional Aliens Too Much Like Us? (Crystal 2)

I'm taking suggestions for what to read.

Fri 6:00 PM    25 Min        Room 923                   205         Readings: Jennifer Povey                          
Fri 7:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    333         You Got Horror In My Sci-Fi!                      
Fri 9:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    261         Climate Fiction—Hopepunk or Dystopia?           
Sat 11:00 AM   50 Min        Autograph Table            215         Autographs: Neil Clarke, Jennifer Povey           
Sat 3:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 4                    281         My First Time (Getting Published)                 
Sat 5:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    256         Queer Protagonists                                
Sun 11:00 AM   50 Min        Plaza 3                    240         So You Want to Become a Panelist at an SF&F Con   
Sun 12:00 PM   50 Min        Plaza 5                    364         Vintage RPG Discussion                            
Sun 1:00 PM    50 Min        Crystal 2                  258         Are Fictional Aliens Too Much Like Us?            

Fri 6:00 PM    25 Min        Room 923                   205         Readings: Jennifer Povey                          
Fri 7:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    333         You Got Horror In My Sci-Fi!                      
Fri 9:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    261         Climate Fiction—Hopepunk or Dystopia?           
Sat 11:00 AM   50 Min        Autograph Table            215         Autographs: Neil Clarke, Jennifer Povey           
Sat 3:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 4                    281         My First Time (Getting Published)                 
Sat 5:00 PM    50 Min        Plaza 3                    256         Queer Protagonists                                
Sun 11:00 AM   50 Min        Plaza 3                    240         So You Want to Become a Panelist at an SF&F Con   
Sun 12:00 PM   50 Min        Plaza 5                    364         Vintage RPG Discussion                            
Sun 1:00 PM    50 Min        Crystal 2                  258         Are Fictional Aliens Too Much Like Us?            

It's Just 90 Light Years Away...

 ...and it's very, very dead. A white dwarf not that far away from us...10.7 billion years old...has "planetary debris" around it.

It was a larger star than the sun, but did not go nova. Instead, it swelled into a red giant and then collapsed into a white dwarf...the eventual fate of our own solar system.

And now the star itself is "polluted" by debris, and it proves that there were rocky worlds in that system.

These planets...and any inhabitants...died before the Earth was formed.

Maybe we have missed our neighbors in time as well as space.

Slime Molds...

 T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is apparently a bit obsessed with them, just saying.

But slime molds have no brain or nervous system...but can solve problems. Slime molds are members of the protist kingdom, which is where we file the extremely weird shit.

A slime mold is one cell but with lots of nuclei. Basically, the nuclei never bother to separate themselves with cell membranes.

P. polycephalum, a common slime mold, can navigate mazes if you bribe it with, of all things, oats. (It doesn't eat the oats, it eats bacteria that lives on oats).

It can solve the traveling salesman problem.

It has memory.

It can fuse with other slime molds to pass on that memory. I.e., communicate.

One researcher tried putting one on a growth medium used for mammal cells and it promptly tried to escape by building a weird three-dimensional structure to pull itself out. The theory is it hated the taste!

No, it can't handle abstract reasoning, but it solves its own problems, the ones it needs to.

And it tells us cognition does not, in fact, need a brain.

There's Gold In Them There...

 ...asteroids.

NASA's Psyche mission missed its launch window this year, but is apparently still going to happen. And the target is 16 Psyche, which is worth more than...

...the entire economy of Earth. No, I'm not kidding. From what we can tell, it just has that much gold in it.

This is why futurists who dream big like asteroid mining. Gold is not just for pretty jewelry, it's vital for electronics.

The issue, of course, is getting all that gold where it will be useful.

However, other materials found in asteroids might be used right where they are found; as a way to not have to bring metal out of a gravity well.

The mission will also test a form of infrared laser communication that will increase the bandwidth we have to communicate with deep space craft.

Are Neanderthals Extinct Because We Were Too...

 ...sexy? Hot?

A new paper theorizes that the reason for Neanderthal extinction is that too many of them were mating with modern humans...and not with each other.

And it also notes that Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has been lost, which might indicate that there was only one successful breeding...between a male Neanderthal and a female modern.

When breeding equine hybrids, the vast majority are mules (male donkey, female horse). Hinnies (male horse, female donkey) are much rarer because it is harder for a stallion to get a jenny pregnant. People tend only to breed hinnies when they really like the cross as it often takes several matings to be successful. And in ligers, the mating is indeed only successful in one direction. (The loss of the Neanderthal Y chromosome is indicative of a feline-type hybrid pattern, which also includes the first generation males being infertile).

Also interesting...the late Neanderthal sequences don't show any modern DNA.

Which might also tie into that if the humans that expanded into Europe were matrilocal. In a matrilocal society, you become a member of your mother's clan or tribe. Neanderthals appear to have been patrilocal in Siberia, but we don't know in Europe. It's also possible that a lot of these matings were trysts rather than longer term relationships, perhaps due to the language barrier. But the theory is that Neanderthal individuals were joining modern groups (I know that's an awkward phrasing, but both species are, in fact, human) and removing themselves from the Neanderthal gene pool.

If the vast majority of hybrids were born to anatomically modern mothers and stayed with those mothers, then our ancestors benefitted from useful Neanderthal genes...but not the reverse.

So, it's possible Neanderthals are extinct because Neanderthal men couldn't resist modern women.

InSight is almost done.

 The InSight lander will run out of power some time in the next few years. The craft's solar panels are now completely clogged with dust (this is why solar power is not honestly great for Mars. Any settlements would be better served with a small nuclear reactor, or somebody will be constantly cleaning panels).

The four year old lander has studied seismic activity on Mars and given us an idea of the red planet's composition and interior.

ForeSight, the model used for testing, will be crated up. Likely its ultimate destination will be a museum.

It's sad, but Mars landers and rovers have a finite life...and the big reason why is that pesky dust.

Again, We're Not All Going To Die...

 Well, eventually, but please ignore the tabloid headlines about a "planet killer" earth crossing asteroid. Does it exist? Yes.

Is it going to hit Earth? Maybe...centuries from now.

Let's worry about climate change...by that point either we'll be extinct or we'll have planetary defenses.

And none of US are going to be alive to worry about it.

(Yes, a 1km wide asteroid hitting the Earth would be very, very bad, although it's still a lot smaller than the one that killed the dinosaurs, which was about 12km wide...)