I Want Mars, But Not Like This

Since Curiosity landed, the scientific community has been all kinds of excited about mankind's plan for Mars. While generally, the most reputable organisations are keeping fairly low-key about their plans and expectations beyond learning a few bits of stuff, some people got really excited.

For a while, there was a fair amount of talk about Mars One. And it did seem legitimately cool. And, while it didn't seem likely to happen immediately, it didn't seem all that far-fetched in the long run. It admitted that it was a fairly new project that still required a lot of work and it was backed some really cool people, including Nobel Prize-winning CERN scientists. Who else are you going to trust with your trips to Mars?

And then this happened.

And it broke my heart.

I won't say I had the best hopes in the world for Mars One, but I really did love the idea. I thought that if something like that could really get done, then maybe humanity was finally learning something. It would finally learn to work together, to watch how a society can work when it started over from scratch. It could teach us so much about what we're doing wrong here on Earth and make a huge difference to the way society is run.

And that's on top of all the cool stuff we'd learn about Mars.

Which would have been a lot.

And would in turn have taught us more about the universe, the solar system, our own planet. We could have made so much progress from being there. It is literally a whole other world for us to explore and learn from and utilise.

And even if Mars One didn't work out like it had hoped to, it would have at least made some kind of headway in getting us to Mars. Having a well written plan might have been enough to make a difference to what other organisations are doing about space exploration.

So I feel bad for everyone involved. I'm happy that I missed out on what looked like an incredible opportunity.

I'm aware that, given Lansdorp's response, there is room to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don't think I want to. I'm sick of putting my faith into people who claim to care about something other than profits.

And what disturbs me is that once people decide this is a scam, they'll start to gradually stop caring about the genuine ventures people want to take. All too often, people make assumptions based on one experience. Or one high-profile story. And it does damage to the enthusiasm behind legitimate enterprises. And it's going to happen now.

I'm still excited about exploring Mars - about exploring all of space. I'm still going to follow Curiosity. And Cassini. And the Voyagers. Because I enjoy learning about the universe. I think it's the most exciting thing there is. Space didn't do anything wrong.

But I'm disappointed in people. And, while that's not new, it still hurts.

If I Needed Proof to Suspect We Were Living in a Video Game ... Mothafuckin' Pain Rays.

I am beginning to think that the Americans are the bad guys.

Alright, I'm not. They might be a bit slow sometimes, but they're not evil.

But they do have the kinds of weapons you would expect of Darth Vader and his dark side ilk. Over the past few decades, for instance, the US military has spent $120 million developing a pain ray.

And the fucker works.

Every aspect of the pain ray - officially titled the Active Denial - feels like it has stepped right out of some shithot sci fi. The key bit of hardware required to make it work is even called a 'gyrotron', which amplifies microwaves by rotating a ring of electrons held in place by cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets. The electrons and the microwaves resonate, and the resulting waves are passed to an antenna, which shoots the beam at the target.

That just sounds cool, doesn't it? In fact, it sounds so cool that I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't mashed together out of sciencey-sounding works by the writers of Futurama.

Actually, since the late 1980s, the Air Force Research Laboratory has been working with military contractor Raytheon Company to develop this beast of a machine.

The Active Denial target pain receptors called thermal nociceptors, which are less than 0.4mm beneath the skin. In a matter of seconds, the target feels as if the surface of their skin is being roasted. The sensation begins with a tingly warmth which rapidly becomes excruciating, a fiery torture encompassing the whole body until either the beam is switched off or you get the hell out of its way.

And then you feel fine again.

The intensity of the pain is such that the body's natural instinct will be to flee. Once said body is out of the line of fire, it just goes away. The pain subsides and you feel better. There are no measurable side effects yet seen, and research done on this gun has been exemplary in its depth and thoroughness. In more than 11,000 tests, less than ten people received any injuries from the Active Denial at all. Six of the injuries were blisters, none larger than a pea; the worst of the injuries were small burns, none more dangerous than a bad sun burn, easily dealt with and free of complications.

The Active Denial has been designed for use in prisons, war zones and riot situations. It causes less damage than current methods of subduing those who get violent, such as batons and tasers. Those currently in use have to be carted around on the back of huge trucks, but the developers have managed to scale them down to the size of a large rifle. They are working on making them more portable still, but the authorities are reluctant to use them.

All the research suggests that this thing is safe. Various experts support it. Its flawless performance is almost what makes it so scary that something with go terribly wrong. But, as far as non-lethal weaponry goes, this is some of the most advanced technology going.

And it is kind of mind-blowing.

It's a motherfucking pain ray.

Shi-min Fang; a science writer’s hero.

Alright, so I’m not a science writer, and I’m not even an aspiring science writer because I already know that I would get far too fangirly around all those physicists with their big, sexy brains to do it with any degree of serious professionalism. But I do like science and writing, and I respect more than anyone else the people who take risks to get the truth out there into the public sphere, especially when the risks are so high.

Shi-min Fang is a Chinese science writer who has risked far more than just libel cases (which are bothersome enough as it is) to expose the straight-up lies of some people in China. He has recently won the Maddox prize – which is typically awarded to people who promote science despite perhaps facing difficult or hostility in so doing – for exposing scientific misconduct in China.

Since 2000, Shi-min Fang has been exposing fraudulent ‘scientists’ who took advantage of China’s celebration of any science and technology to publicize nonsensical, pseudoscientific articles, flog fake medicines and carry out dangerous medical procedures without clinical trials. He has made it his business as a science writer to root out those who are fakers and expose them, despite whatever threats they offer him, using his website New Threads to make this information accessible to the Chinese general public.

Many have fought his allegations, no matter how truthful they were. He has been sued more than ten times and, due to the inefficiency and bias of the Chinese court, has even wrongly lost once, as well as being assaulted with pepper spray. In 2010 hired thugs attacked Shi-min Fang with a hammer with the intention of his murder when he challenged the efficacy of a surgical procedure developed by their boss as well as the heavily padded CV he used to persuade people of his worth. Shi-min Fang is responsible for opening up a forum for criticism and debate in a society that was otherwise devoid of such freedoms.

Despite all the dangers he has faced, he maintains that it was all worth it because of the good he has done for the scientific community and the general public in China. His one concern, he admits, is the danger faced by his wife and children.

Frankly, that takes balls. And he deserves that prize, and the £2000 that comes with it, and so much more.

And he is not the only one who does. He is one of many people who risk so much just to make the world a little bit more honest. Here is hoping that one day we won’t need people like Shi-min Fang. But until then, let’s just be glad they’re around.

The Future of Gaming is Oculus Rift!

Given the advances of gaming technology in recent years, there is little left preventing us really getting into the virtual world of our games.

Now Oculus VR has developed a virtual reality headset which is said to have the potential to hugely shift gaming as we know it a step closer to that ideal, which is especially impressive as it began life as a project on Kickstarter. It managed to raise nearly two and a half million US dollars and has been doing some pretty awesome shit with it.

Specifically, this awesome shit:

The Oculus Rift got loads of attention at its CES debut this year and was said by TechRadar.com to "easily surpass every other virtual reality headset". It is designed to make the player feel like they are actually in the virtual world, rather than looking at a flat screen or even a 3D screen. This will mean that gameplay changes will be necessary to implement the "head-tracking" technology, but that sounds nothing less than amazing and definitely not much of a sacrifice.

The technology works by providing a separate image for each eye, in the same way that eyes work in real life. The visuals that this creates have already been described as being "extremely fluid and natural" (TechRadar) and update at a pace of 60 frames per second. However, it does have the potential to cause unpleasant nausea in people who suffer from motion sickness. Oculus VR's representatives say that this is common among first-timers, but that most players get used to it.

Testing the developer kit

At the moment, a developer kit is being built so that the prototypes can be tested. For the time being, it has relatively low resolution (720p rather than 1080p) but, according to the Oculus VR website, apparently still "delivers a compelling, immersive 3D VR experience". The resolution will be improved in time for the launch of the finished product. The current prototypes work only on PC, but there are plans to expand it to mkae it compatible with Xbox, Playstation and Wii consoles in the future.

Sadly, we have missed out on being developers and the Oculus VR website advises against ordering a developer kit (unless you're a really hardcore gamer and want one just for its value as a piece of gaming history), which will be shipped out to testers in April 2013, but the consumer version is promised to "improve on almost every aspect of the developer kit".

In November 2012, it was announced that DOOM 3 BFG Edition and Hawken would be the first official Oculus-ready games. The developers hope that the technology will become popular and get integrated into other new titles and maybe have new games designed specifically for it. There is even talk, in the distant future, of improving the gear so that it can be used for other activities like watching films, although for now it is specifically for gaming.

Something that pleased me about the headset is that it is said to be surprisingly beneficial for the eyes; I have to wear glasses and I put it down to reading by moonlight and letting my eyes relax in front of close screen for many hours longer than is healthy. The Oculus Rift is designed to allow the eyes to focus as they would normally, converged in the distance at all times and able to relax without causing eye strain.

For now, Oculus VR is being somewhat vague about when the Rift will be launched to the consumer market and how much it will cost, but the website is adamant that they are "working tirelessly to make it available as soon as possible" and that it will "deliver the highest quality virtual reality experience at a price everyone can afford".

I personally think that, once this is commercially available and if it is even half as good as it is expected to be, I will retreat for a while from society and resurface some exhausting weeks later greatly dissatisfied by reality.

Finally, A Break for the Bacon-Loving Vegetarian!

A little while ago I came across this lovely story. Featuring bacon at its centre, it inevitably caught the attention of nerds (such as myself) from across the world.

Probably the chickeniest
McNugget ever made...

Basically, some clever Dutch bunnies have developed a way of growing bacon, and other kinds of meat (but mostly importantly bacon), from stem cells. This means that a burger can be grown in a lab. It means that there is no need for a chicken to live, suffer and die horribly just to end up as whatever sliver of a McNugget actually is chicken.

Although still in its early stages, this innovation has the potential to remove the need to farm animals for food from modern civilisation because meat - and all it's lovely, protein-y, meaty goodness - can go from stem cell to plate without the bother of raising and harming any animals.

Accepting for the time being that stem cells are all very well and good (which they are), this could mean massive benefits to the world. It would mean less animal cruelty on farms and it would mean that there is a more efficient way to feed the starving millions in third world countries who are in desperate need of more nutritious food.

Plus, it would mean that pigs could be bred for cuddling instead of eating...

It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!!

And now I sort of understand why you would avoid eating them...

But I do have a question for those who choose not to indulge in the general loveliness of bacon.

Look at that. How can you resist?

The point is, if you have up until now, do you still have to?

I am genuinely curious about this, but I am not really close enough to any vegetarians or vegans to demand that they read articles and offer opinions purely for my benefit. So, Intenet; it is up to you.

Excusing those people who choose not to eat meat for medical reasons, and focussing instead on those who choose to avoid meat because they think that eating the flesh of a once-living thing is immoral, would this meat be alright to eat? Would you consider trying genetically-engineered, no-animals-harmed, test-tube-to-frying-pan bacon?

I Like Trains. Especially When They're Roller Coasters.

I could not be more excited if someone had told me that they were considering building a helter skelter between my flat and the street. I would be a bit more excited - say, if someone actually had built a helter skelter between my flat and the street - but this incredible innovation is in Japan.

But with good reason.

Tohoku during the 2011 tsunami.

Following the devastation caused by the tsunami last year, a company called Senyo Kogyo (which designs rollercoasters and other amusement park rides) along with a team from Tokyo University's Institute of Industrial Science have designed the Eco-Ride, a train that will use largely its own inertia to move.

It will have no engine and be very light; gravity will do most of the work, so what little energy is required will cause next to environmentally unfriendly emissions. Its speed is controlled  by 'vertical curves' in the tracks and should be able to travel at up to sixty kilometres per hour.

Numerous areas of Japan are already interested in installing Eco-Ride trains and it is hoped that they will expand to be used all over, to get around cities and towns but also by big business and sprawling university campuses that take a lot of time to walk around between, for instances, important meetings or lectures. The first train is expected to be built in 2014. It is due to be built in Tohoku, which, aside from being necessary to help survivors of the flood get around the ruined landscape, is said to be the perfect environment for Eco-Ride trains because of the slope between the relocated accommodation on the high ground in comparison to the businesses at the lower sea level.

Alight, these people have had their home washed away by furious, broiling sea water, but very soon they will be able to get a roller coaster to work.

With all due respect, sympathy and wishes for a quick recovery from the tragedy ... I am a little bit jealous...

Fine. Go Extinct. We'll Make More.

Worried about animals going extinct? Afraid for the polar bear whose home is melting or the panda that simply refuses to fuck the other pandas? In all seriousness, these are important issues. Forget for a minute that more than 99% of all the species that have ever existed on the planet are already extinct, and remember that there are a few things that we more highly developed beings can do something to make things easier for our lesser evolved companions. All over the world, people are doing all sorts of things to help animals – they are prohibiting hunting and helping to preserve wild habitats and creating artificial habitats that are considerably safer and all sorts of other lovely helpful things.

But now Embrapa, the agricultural research agency of Brazil, has decided that, if those things do not work, then it is alright.

Because they are just going to make more. 

They have decided on a number of animals that are classed as “near threatened” on the IUCN list of endangered species to try to clone successfully, and hopefully push them into a safer zone. These include jaguars, the black lion tamarind, the bush dog, the coati, the collared anteater, the grey brocket deer and the bison. They set to begin work cloning the maned wolf very soon.

The maned wolf; cloning attempts will
begin within a month.

They acknowledge that cloning should be a last resort, but that does not mean that the potential of this plan is pretty damn cool.

What they need to be able to clone these animals is some living cells from each of them. Embrapa already have 420 wild tissue samples that they intend to use to create these clones.

Dolly the sheep, now stuffed.
I agree. It's sort of creepy. I love it.

This is not the first time that the cloning of endangered animals has been attempted. In 2009, an extinct species of mountain goat called the Pyrenean ibex was cloned, but it died at birth. Other animals that have famously been cloned include Dolly the sheep, as well as rarer ones including the ox-like gaur and the mouflon … whatever they are.

Since then, however, innovations in cloning have been much more advanced and, as a skill, cloning has vastly improved. The scientists working on this project have high hopes for it and are hopeful that it will serve as a bloody good back-up for when conservation just is not enough, and we will never have to say a permanent goodbye to these beautiful beasts.

Black People Officially Cool, Says Science

So, if this...

... when compared to this...

...isn't evidence enough that white guys have absolutely no innate sense of cool, then take a look at this evidence from genuine scientists that suggests that black people actually are the coolest people in the world.

Or, at least, in America. And on Twitter.

Jacob Eisenstein and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology examined thirty million tweets sent from various places within the US between December 2009 and May 2011 and watched for the emergence of new slang terms. They team built a mathematical model that precisely explains the flow of new words between cities.

It showed that areas with large African American tended to be the ones that generated the new terms. There was no conclusive evidence about why terms spread between certain places, and they could not pinpoint one specific area that produced new language more than any other.

But the overwhelming finding was the black people generally created and shared new words and phrases that were cool more than any other demographic in the world.

So, science has finally generated some evidence for the simple fact of the matter that black people are cool.

Plus, they've got the moves...

Who Needs Hogwarts When You Have Science?

Scientists have been trying to create an invisibility cloak since 2006, following David Smith's theory of 'transformation optics', which explains how electromagnetic fields can be bent around an object and render it transparent. In the years between then and now, there has been some success, but they were not what you would call amazing.

Well, they were amazing, but they were not quite Harry Potter standard...

Now, David Smith and a graduate student called Nathan Landy have modified the old cloaks and have come up with one that they describe as being 'perfect'. As in, Harry Potter perfect.

Sadly, I can find no photos of Smith and Landy's prototype. This depresses me immensely. Then again, maybe there are pictures of it, but I just can't see it. In the mean time, I have found this, which is pretty fucking awesome:

When they originally composed the theory, they believed that it was highly unlikely that they would ever come close to perfect. They were wrong. I am deliriously happy.

With science this successful, really ... who needs Hogwarts?

Gingers More Susceptible to Cancer, Say Scientists

It shouldn't be funny. But it sort of is. First they have to be ginger, and now this.

David Fisher and his team at Massachusetts General Hospital did an experiment on mice with either red or black hair to see how they responded to the introduction of a gene linked with melanoma. They wanted to know more about melanoma after exposure to UV light; focussing on how much it damaged the fair skin of people - or creatures - with red hair.

But before they could observe anything relevant to their hypothesis - all the ginger mice got cancer.

This was completely unexpected, so they did some new experiments on ginger mice to find out what had actually happened. They bred some hybrid mice that were half-ginger and half-albino and tested them to see if it was the ginger gene or ginger pigment that was the issue. The specially bred mice had the ginger gene, but white hair, and they also tested on mice with both the ginger pigment and the ginger hair.

They tested again to see how they were affected by melanoma-inducing UV. All the white-haired mice were fine, despite carrying the MC1R (ginger) gene.

The mice with ginger hair all got cancer.

Ouch.

It's a shame really. Turns out Voldemort isn't the only thing this lot have to worry about...

One Step Closer to Cyborgs

Of all the cool gadgets and gizmos and random weird shit that sci-fi promises us will happen eventually, there are few that are expected to be achieved within our lifetimes. Given that I am younger than Game Boys, this means that there a good few decades of innovation awaiting us before we're all going around in hover cars.

But recently, it has been revealed that Federico Parietti and Harry Asada from MIT have brought mankind one step closer to cyborgs.

Remember when Bender sported these bad boys...?

Well, what was not made clear in that episode was that they were invented much closer to now than to then. And that they work on humans as well as robots.

Parietti and Asada have developed the prototype of a pair of semi-autonomous arms that are worn like a backpack and extend around the body. They are designed to be intelligent enough that they can be of assistance without needing a lot of tricky programming; they will learn and anticipate what their wearer wants them to do, having been programmed to perform specific tasks.

The work is being funded by Boeing and the prototypes were shown at the Dynamic Systems and Control Conference in Florida earlier on this year. The arms are being designed to help factory workers with jobs that require two pairs of hands; they are supposed to increase efficiency by letting that guy who would usually be the second pair do something more important with his time than just holding stuff.

They seem like they would be really useful once they have reached a point that they are available to industries. However, it is only a matter of time beyond that before they become commercialised and nerds like me get their hands on them and do awesome cosplays of this dude!

The New Contender in the Energy Market: Air.

Evironmentally, you really can't win. Statistically, I am kind of winning; my life is quite environmentally friendly - I am frugal with electricity, I walk most places and get the bus to all other places, I have a Friends of the Earth hoodie - but that it because I am a poor student and I live in expensive London and Tim Minchin was at the Friends of the Earth gig, so I don't really have much of a choice in these matters. For people who can afford choice, you're pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't. Using technology is necessary, but bad. Driving a normal is bad, but driving an electric car makes you a pretentious prick. Also, electricity is bad. And electric cars are ugly as fuck.

But this could be about to change. The G-Wiz will still be hideous and you will still look like a douche if you even consider getting into one. But it won't be your only option.

Because of these dudes. These wonderful nerds - and I do love nerds - at Air Fuel Synthesis are making fuel out of air.

Out. Of. Air.

Earlier on in October 2012, they revealed the first successful demonstration of their techniques, showing how carbon, hydrogen and oxygen can be taken from carbon dioxide and water in the air to be converted first into methanol and then into petrol.

They didn't even have to go into any more detail to blow my mind. The idea has been around since the oil crisis of the 1970s, but it still feels a bit like science fiction to me. So they offer this helpful graphic to explain to nerd-groupies like me who have no real nerd credentials aside from enthusiam:

The problem with it at the moment is the energy efficiency of the process. Obviously, it would not be environmentally beneficial if more energy was put into it than is created by it, and this is still being smoothed out, but that makes it no less cool.

With funding, it will get there. Eventually. There are huge plans for the technology which could revolutionise the way that energy is created. The maths for its development on a much larger scale is already sorted out and, once it has some firmer backing from governments, it is hoped that it will be a contender against oil in the energy market.

Hopefully it won't make the same mistake as some of the other companies that have tried to save the world and will offer us some technology that isn't too ugly to touch.

$1.4 million Raised for Nikola Tesla Laboratory: Faith in Humanity Goes Up Ten Points

(Before you ask, I'm not keeping a tally but, if I was, Tim Minchin and his wonderful nerdy ilk would be responsible for most of them.)

Hardcore nerdism is apparently rife in Shoreham, New York, where the Tesla Science Centre at Wardenclyffe group has raised $1.4 million via online crowd funding to buy Nikola Tesla's laboratory in order to turn it into a museum. As a soon-to-be owner of a Nikola Tesla T-shirt, this excites me very much.

It being in America both disappoints and thrills me. I am disappointed because, unless by some miracle I suddenly get very rich, it is unlikely that I will be able to go. However, considering the sheer stupidity that has come out of America, I am overjoyed that this has happened at all. Reading about it only makes it seem so much better.

The point of the museum is that it is a place that is dedicated to science and education with Nikola Tesla - an inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist and futurist whose work led to the way electricity is used today - at its foundation.

Tesla was born in Serbia in 1856 and emigrated to America in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison. He soon moved on to work for himself and conducted high-voltage, high-frequency experiments, which resulted in inventions that made him world famous. Essentially, he made explosions out of electricity for a living, which is pretty damn awesome as far as I am concerned, never mind everything else for which we have to thank him.

In typical mad-scientist fashion, he spent as much money as he made on more and more experiments and ended up dying penniless in January 1943. But still managed to keep his hair suspiciously neat, judging by the pictures of him.

In 1901, Tesla bought 200 acres on Long Island's north shore where he established what is now his only remaining laboratory. It was purchased with the intention of building a wireless transmission tower but was never fully operational. Wardenclyffe Tower - also known as Tesla Tower - remaining, even if in diminished form, as a tribute to his life and achievements is amazing. It seems only fitting that that the group also hope to have it provide space for companies to perform scientific research.

Aside from his brilliance as a scientist, Tesla was one damn incredible human. He lived his life by a strict routine, squishing his toes one hundred times per foot in the belief that it stimulated his brain. Judging by his work, he may well have been right. He worked from 9am to 6pm, at least, every day, often continuing until 3am once he had had his dinner. He walked 8 to 10 miles ever day to keep in shape; he was elegant, stylish and incredibly groomed (just look at his hair!). His gray-blue eyes, he claims, used to be darker until they lightened due to so much use of his brain.

Tesla never married, but even he admitted that it was a bit of a loss to the world that his genes were not preserved. Then again, he also said that being celibate allowed him a lot more time to devote to his work, which was most certainly a good thing. However, he was sociable, and everyone who knew him loved him. He was considered to be charming and lovely and poetic, and it is almost no surprise that so many women threw themselves at him.

After all, he made shit like this possible...

He was wonderful. If he were alive today, he still would be. It is a shame more men are not like him in this world. I am a little bit in love with him. And with good reason.

If I ever get the chance, I am going to that Tesla museum and I am going to behave like a stalkery little fangirl and I am going to love it.

Funds are still being raised on the Tesla Science Centre website to continue with the restoration of the laboratory and the creation of the museum.

It is going to be awesome!

Neal Stephenson Is Making All My Dreams Come True and Blowing My Mind

Everyone who knows me know that I am quite the little nerd - and proud to be. My hero is Dr Ben Goldacre and there is a video somewhere of a tipsy me describing how I would abuse my patient privileges if he was my doctor. I blog about planets and bacon and the Higgs boson particle, for fun. I love New Scientist magazine and have been grappling with the desire to buy a subscription for a few years. I volunteer at the Science Museum in London and my face nearly exploded with joy when I got offered the job. My Twitter feed is flooded with tweets from groups like The Science Plaza and PhysOrg Science News. I love libraries, book shops and Forbidden Planet. I once cheered aloud when I stumbled across a repeat of Professor Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe and again when I found Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time for £2 in a charity shop. I kind of have a thing for Iron Man (not Robert Downey Jr.; his kid is nearly my age, so that would be weird - I like Iron Man ... but it doesn't hurt that he has Robert Downey Jr.'s face, body and personality). I am addicted to TED talks. I have cried on three separate occasions when I did not get tickets to see the recording of Infinite Monkey Cage from the BBC (damn them). I have a favourite moon, and it's not even one of ours. I wept in a room full of strangers at the beauty of Adam Rutherford's video about all the history of NASA, with all its achievements and failures, simply because science is beautiful.

But I study Creative Writing and English Literature, which is one of those arty-farty degrees at which real scientists probably sniff. I am an amateur nerd, really, and this is unlikely to change any time soon. I am very much a nerd groupie, but that is hardly the same thing. A friend of mine told me that this is silly of me and that I should be studying particle physics or something, but I would just get too excited being surrounded by all those huge sexy nerd brains all day. I simply could not do it.

Some lovely, lovely nerds, including Ben Goldacre, who is all kinds of lovely,
and Tim Minchin and Adam Rutherford,
who have both made me cry by being wonderful

I do try to combine the two. I once wrote a poem about how the colour magenta exists only in the mind. It referenced The Matrix. I could have written the same one about the colour cyan, because human brains and eyes are strange and wonderful things. I did it because it is true and because it blows my mind a little bit.

But it was not a huge contribution to the mating of science and the creative arts. It was hardly Storm (which licks tits). It was not really significant at all, in fact. But it was an effort, a start, an attempt to combine what these two things that excite my brain cells.

A real achievement in this area, though, has to be the Centre (or Center, as it is in America, but my British computer does not like that) of Science and Imagination. I first came across this in an edition of New Scientist magazine that I had purchased to entertain myself while locked out of my flat (no, really). A couple of days later, it was all over my geek-heavy Twitter feed.

It looked fucking ace.

Yes, I did need to swear. It is just that exciting a development in the world. And my life.

It is not a surprise that science fiction fuels real science. Creative nerds come up with cool technology that they wish existed and scientist who agree that it is awesome try to come up with a way it could work in the real world. Take, for instance, the once imaginary flying machine, or the still semi-imaginary hover car. Just because it is still a work in progress does not mean it is not happening. Also included in this long list is Neal Stephenson's stratosphere-reaching tower, designed to study weather patterns, dock planes and launch rockets; it is currently being studied by Keith Hjelmstad at the Arizona State University to try to conceive of a way in which it could be made in real life.

This is all supremely cool; it always has been.

Author Neal Stephenson, as well coming up with the concept of the 20km-high tower, is taking it one step further, and blowing my mind in the process.

His work has largely been speculative fiction which explores mathematics, philosophy and science. The fact that he also looks quite like a wizard only makes him more my kind of nerd.

He is currently collaborating with the Arizona State University to attempt a project that will bring together writers, artists, scientists and engineers: The Centre for Science and Imagination. Its aim is to further science with radical thinking, to get scientists to go beyond the current parameters of technology and innovation to push the limits of knowledge to achieve the kind of advances that led scientists to the industrial revolution. It maintains that science should remain ambitious and that discoveries made now can be as incredible and life-changing as those made in the past few centuries. The belief is that creative thinking leads more effectively to tackling challenges still faced by mankind, that by not acknowledging the limits we set on technology we can find new ways to create that have not been previously considered.

Its progress - as well as forums encouraging discussions that could fuel these great innovations - can be followed on Hieroglyph, and anyone can join and participate. It is truly an amazing project that could well change the way that technology evolves in the coming century.

I'm Going to Mars!!

It is virtually undisputed that outer space is supremely cool. It is creepy and mysterious and captures the imagination of people across the world. People devote their lives to the study of it, whether in the more abstract and often less accurate joy of science-fiction writing or in the pursuit of answers through hard study and research. It has warranted the creation of NASA, which is one of the most amazing things ever to have come out of America. Outer space is where the secrets of the universe lie; pretty much everything we can learn about Earth has been learned and all the mysteries left to solve are somewhat further afield. The only people who disagree tend to be unimaginative and drab, rather like this idiot, who can’t even structure a sentence properly:

Some dickhead's ignorant opinion, courtesy of Facebook

(I considered ranting for a bit about precisely why this is ignorant and about how beneficial ALL scientific research is, even when it's an accident, but I already did it, here, so I figured I didn't need to do it again.)

Very recently, NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed safely on Mars and has started sending back pictures already. They are amazing. They aren’t the best quality photographs in the world, but they did come from Mars. Obviously, this made me very excited and I enlisted Google and Twitter to take me on a big old nerd binge.

Bas Lansdorp

In doing so, I stumbled across the Mars One Project. It is a private enterprise run by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp and its aim is to set up a colony of human beings on Mars over the space of the next few decades. The mission objective is to “establish the first human settlement on Mars by April 2023”. The Mars One team has been working on the plan for it since early 2011 and have the support of a number of “ambassadors”, including the Chairman of the Netherlands Space Society, the co-creator of Big Brother and CERN physicist Prof. Dr. Gerard ‘t Hooft, who was presented with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999 for his work on the quantum structure of electroweak interactions.

The first forty astronauts to be sent to Mars will be selected in 2013. They will all have to train for ten years so that they are prepared for their trip. A replica of the Mars One settlement will be built in the desert on Earth to serve as a place for the astronauts to prepare and train as well as to test the equipment. In January 2016, the “supply mission” will be launched, sending 2500 kilograms of food and other supplies in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. In 2018, a rover will land on Mars to explore the selected area to find the best spot for habitation. In 2021, two living units, two life supports units, another supply unit and another rover will have arrived on Mars, prepared for the arrival of the astronauts. All “water, oxygen and atmosphere” production will be ready by the beginning of 2022 and the first group of astronauts are due to be launched towards Mars on September 14^th 2022.

The first astronauts will be due to land on Mars in 2023 after an estimated 7-month journey, where the rovers will take them to their new home. More astronauts will be launched in groups of four every two years so that the colony will have reached 20 settlers by 2033. The Mars One team plan to send more hardware up with each additional group so that more and better exploration can take place as well as providing them with updated technology and providing better quality of life.

The plans for the 'settlement' to be built on Mars

Getting back from Mars is a hell of a lot harder than getting to Mars – look at how long it took for us to develop rockets on Earth. The astronauts will not be visiting, but emigrating to Mars, where they will be expected to stay, possibly for the rest of their lives. They will have to leave everything on Earth behind in the attempt to learn more about the red planet. Training for the astronauts before they leave will include staying in simulation bases to see how they cope with being secluded, away from everything they have ever known and loved, and being left with only the other astronauts. They must be extremely intelligent and able to cope in unfamiliar environments, as well as being able to solve any problems that may occur by themselves, especially those in the first team of four who will be alone for two years on a different planet. They must also have a knowledge of engineering, in case anything goes wrong with the technology, as well as the ability to cultivate crops and see to any medical problems. The team at the moment predict that they may well stay there for the rest of their lives, but it does not exclude the possibility that the technology necessary for a return rocket can be sent to Mars after a few years so that astronauts can return if they wish. Considering the state of technology now, and given the amount of time for proliferation between now and when the return rocket will be required, this is not an unreasonable estimate.

The settlement on Mars will include “inflatable components which contain bedrooms, working areas, a living room and a ‘plant production unit’, where they will grow greenery”. Within the settlement, the Mars One website predicts that the astronauts will “lead typical day-to-day lives”. There, their task will be building and researching. They will have to prepare for when the other groups land as well learning about Mars. Their research will include how people and plants respond to life of Mars as well as things like Mars’s geology and biology. Essentially, imagine everything the scientists throughout history have learned about Earth - forty people are going to be sent to do all of that on another planet.

Reading the information offered by the website does seem like they have thought of everything. It does not go into great detail, but it does offer an FAQ page as well as a contact address for anyone with further questions. The page explaining why and how the astronauts will emigrate to Mars is quite cool. They claim to have found a place where there is water ice beneath the surface that can be cultivated to provide hydration for the astronauts. They describe how everything will be powered by solar panels so that they do not need to go to the hassle of building a nuclear reactor for energy. They go to a lot of effort to ensure that people know that they understand what they are undertaking.

The Mars One website has a Sponsorship page, inviting businesses and companies of all sizes to sponsor the project and “play a significant role in creating World History” and “make the next giant leap for mankind”. However, the project will mainly be funded by having the whole thing being as a reality TV show. Suddenly it makes sense that the Big Brother guy is involved; otherwise, he really stuck out as a bit of a loser in amongst all those people with physics doctorates…

From the selection and preparation of the first astronauts, right through the launch of the first rover to the point at which a colony has formed on Mars, everything will be broadcast on television and be made available online for the public to view. The Mars One team insists that there will be no gimmicky bullshit like in most reality TV shows, that the integrity of the mission itself should be more than enough to attract people to watch. I know I would watch, but I’m a nerd, and generally I hate reality TV, so I don’t really know if I’m a good example.

I actually think this is brilliant. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t think that there have been enough critical analyses of the plans by people who have a lot of in-depth knowledge about all the necessary science for me to draw any proper conclusions. I have had a look at the Wikipedia entry for Mars One as well as the one for Prof. Dr. Gerard ‘t Hooft, the most advertised of the team’s “ambassadors”. I have had a very long look at the website and I, with my nerdy but nonetheless layman’s knowledge, think it is pretty awesome, but it only makes sense to remain sceptical before I have a bit more information. They seem very determined that everything go right and well and that all the science be absolutely fool-proof, so that they are taken seriously and so that they don’t end up stranding forty well-meaning astronauts somewhere between Earth and Mars without food or oxygen. It does feel a little bit like that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer went to space, but science is not about feelings – it is about doing research and getting results and using the information gleaned from crazy ventures just like this to make a better world for generations to come.

Now I know I’m not exactly astronaut material right now – but if Homer Simpson can do it, anyone can. Besides, there is another year before the selection begins and I will be thirty when the first team is launched, so I've got time to prepare. I won’t lie, I have already signed up for some free online study groups beginning in January of next year that focus on biology and other things that may come in handy with my application, but I was already signed up for one about astrobiology and I don’t have much going on during the time of course, so my nerdism probably would have led me to do them anyway.

I would like a bit more information about it, maybe some objective opinions about it from more than a handful of people. I would like to see the specifics of the plans – more details, for instance, about exactly how they expect me not to die. If this project really is as good as the website makes it out be (which it probably won’t be; nothing ever us, but we may as well be hopefully), I would happily sign up. Never mind that my nan doesn’t like me living as far away as London and is such a technophobe that there is no way she will trust the video messaging system, even though I know for a fact that they guys at CERN currently use Skype (Brian Cox did it at Uncaged Monkeys in December 2011; I was there, it was awesome).  Never mind that the minimum age limit is 25. Never mind that it may mean spending most of my life on Mars and much of the time beforehand training and studying to be competent enough to go to Mars. Never mind that if I do spend a lot of time studying and training and then end up not making the final cut that I would have wasted as much as ten years of my life (provided I start working for it now, or at least in the next six months or so) for something I never will do. None of that matters.

This is Mars. The planet. This is a chance to go down in history. This is dangerous and exciting and amazing and unbelievably nerdy. Space exploration is one of the coolest and most incredible things that mankind has achieved and it is all done by amazing nerds, which Hollywood will have you believe are all also total babes. This is not always untrue.

The fact is that Mars is the next thing that mankind has to explore. Maybe we haven’t learned everything there is to learn about the moon or even the Earth, but we will, and why shouldn’t we be heading off to Mars too, so we're there ready to start working when everything else is done? We all know it is going to be awesome, but you don’t have to believe me, because my opinion is only mine and I am obviously not the best spokesperson for this sort of thing.

Rather, believe Carl Sagan:

The Creepy Sex-Death of the Male Anglerfish

The term 'anglerfish' can be applied to over 300 different kinds of animal, spanning almost twenty species, named for their method of hunting prey with a fleshy lure dangling off its head which can be wriggled in such a way that prey believe it is food. This development of the anglerfish is an ingenious twist of nature; it is not only practical, but has made it somewhat famous in the animal kingdom, not only for its scarily accurate portrayal in Finding Nemo.

The first thing you notice about the anglerfish is that it is fuck ugly. In every species. It is hideous. It has protruding teeth and bulging eyes and some species are covered in spiny hairs and others look like they are already decaying so that they fit in with the scum on the ocean floor. Most of them live at the bottom of the sea where it is so dark that everything is ugly, but the ones that glow have no excuse. The bioluminescence has evolved to attract prey, but it would seem only sensible to avoid something with a face like this...

And that's the female.

Actually, all of the big, scary ones are female. The males are rather more puny and not half as repulsive. They aren't as worried about feeding, so they don't have to be as predatory as the females. They don't need the big teeth, distending jaw, expanding stomach or light-proof gut lining (so they don't get caught having eaten something luminescent). They are a hell of a lot smaller than the females and their eyes and teeth aren't half as daunting. The male Photocorynus spiniceps is only a quarter of an inch long, one of the smallest vertebrate in the animal kingdom; it is near enough half a million times smaller than its female counterpart.

Some of them are even quite cute.

Sort of.

All that matters with the males is their testicles and their primary concern is mating.

They have very sensitive eyes to seek out their mates in the gloom of the ocean. They also have an amazing sense of smell with which they can sniff out the pheromones of females through the water. Once they have sought out a mate, they latch onto her with their sharp little teeth. He bites into her skin and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her side so that they fuse together. Over the next couple of weeks, his whole body is absorbed into her until all that remains of him is a pair of testicles attached to her side.

In response to the to hormones in the female's bloodstream, the testicles release sperm into her system so that she has an available mate whenever she is ready to breed. Many males can latch onto any given female. A female was once discovered with eight pairs of testicles hanging off her.

In most species, if the male does not find a female with which to mate, he dies. In some species, however, the males are able to swim away into a dark and private part of the ocean where they grow massively and turn into a female in place of their missing mate.

It really puts it into perspective how great it is to be a creature that doesn't die just because it can't get laid...

A Rant: Stupid People

Once upon a time, a bit more than thirty years ago, some nerds, who were brilliant at their job and have greatly benefited mankind, began a project called ENQUIRE. They used it to send each other digital messages from different points on the globe so that they could exchange information and the research they were doing into intensely difficult particle physics could come along a bit more quickly. In 1993, it was announced that the internet would be free to use by anyone. Now, less than 20 years later, it is difficult for some people in the modern generation to imagine how people lived without it. It's general lexis has bled into everyday speech. It has had a huge impact on society and, quite frankly, it was unbelievably generous of those first nerds to allow everyone in the world unlimited access to anything they could possibly want for free. Some of the most intelligent people in the world spent decades working and studying to come up with this and they shared it with the world to do with it what we will, which is why shit like this annoys me:

I am all for freedom of speech but, personally, I try not to comment on things that I don't understand so that I do not confuse or mislead people who trust my judgement; clearly these morons don't want to offer people the same courtesy I do.

And now I could rant a bit more about how intellectually frustrated this barefaced bullshit makes me feel and I could hopelessly bemoan the state of humanity, but I think that this does it well enough for me:

The Most Amazing Person You've Never Heard Of: Norman Borlaug

79 years and 3 days before I was born, a brilliant man was born in America. In his lifetime, he won many awards for his achievements and saved so many lives that people lost count long ago. Yet, very few people know his name or why it is important.

Norman Ernest Borlaug received in PhD in plant pathology and genetics in 1942 and then moved to Mexico, where he researched wheat. The research he conducted in the team of plant pathologist George Harrar led him to develop various genetically engineered strains of wheat which was high-yield and disease resistant. His work there spanned sixteen years, during which time he bred many successful crops. Altogether his work meant that a lot more wheat could be harvested from any given crop and his work in Mexico alone saved at least a million people from starvation.

After that, his career took him through numerous starving communities including places in India, China and various countries in Africa. In each one, he studied and improved the crops so that more could be gathered and more people fed. In the mid-1960s, he started to spread his powerful crops in war-torn India, which saved millions more from acute famine. He took his crops to Pakistan where wheat yields nearly double and, in the space of three years, the country became self-sufficient and no longer depended on foreign aid in order to stave off starvation.

In 1970, Borlaug was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the world food supply. At that time, it was estimated that he had already saved over a billion lives.

When he retired from travelling through starving countries, he continued to teach and research to continue his legacy. His died of lymphoma at the age of 95 in December 2009. His achievements saved the lives of more people than you will ever know. He dedicated his life to easing the suffering of others and ending hunger in the world and no one can say that he did not achieve just that many times over. Throughout the course of his life, he was honoured with numerous awards and prizes for his work in helping others – and rightly so.

The sad thing is that so many people will never hear his name. He is no celebrity and he is not taught in schools, except to speciality students focussing on plant genetics. The amount of people he has saved from starvation increases every day as more and more people in developing countries survive on the crop strains that he developed and introduced to their ecosystems.

But the worst thing about people not knowing about Norman Borlaug and his amazing work is that it breeds so much ignorance among people who think they know about genetically engineered food. People campaigning against GM crops claim that it is harmful to people and that it will mutate them, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is that people make ignorant comments about it and stupid people listen; then stupid people get into power and they take the crops away from all the people who are benefiting from them. That wouldn’t be a problem if this wasn’t something that was necessary to save lives. People are already starving even with GM crops – without them, the world would not be able to feed two thirds of its population.

It’s only thanks to people like Norman Borlaug that mankind is becoming truly self-sufficient. Maybe people should stop complaining and thank him.