Fungoid Zombies, Teleportation and the Monolith on a Martian Moon...

With what appears to be a slowing of development in VR ,  (it's stalling, frankly)...personally I'm greatly fond of AR (Actual Reality), although I understand the desire to experience extreme sports minus the possibility of actual death. 
It seems that people are not entirely convinced of this ground - breaking stuff.
I suspect that it will go the way of 3D, being a nice optional addition for those who don't mind the weird claustrophobia of the headgear.
Personally, I find the immersion of a good gaming world on a large screen to be more than enough.
It requires a little imagination, but then, so do good books.
Rant over...


We hear that scientists have succeeded in the quantum teleportation of data over a seven mile distance. Okay, it's not  quite ' Beam me down, Scotty' , but even so...teleportation gets closer.


As I write this post at the tail-end of September 2016, we hear tantalising news that NASA will reveal  new images of Europa taken by Hubble today (26  09 2016).
Apparently they hint at activity in a subsurface ocean.
Such an announcement has already stirred the denizens of the online conspirati *, and mutterings of the word 'aliens' are spreading far and wide, despite NASA stating categorically : Not aliens.
Still, to the Conspirati*, denial is complicity, or something like that .

Not to be outdone, word is increasing on the mysterious monolith on Martian moon Phobos.
There is a very 'maybe' Canadian orbiter / lander mooted , called 'Prime' ( Phobos Reconnaissance Imager like Mars Express ) which is to examine the monolith, but exactly when is open to speculation.

 

Given the increasing noise surrounding imminent flights to the Red Planet , I imagine it won't be long until DragonX are offering day trips to Phobos , perhaps with overpriced T - Shirts bearing the legend " I Saw The Monolith ", and on the back, " ...It Sucks "
To be worn by blasé youngsters with glazed eyes...

A recent article postulates that the dimming effect we see on ' Tabbys star', is actually just from random comets .
 In the linked article, Valeri Marakov says that deep space may be full of comets -
 '... dark and cold, and travelling from nowhere to nowhere, basically, forever.”
Just like a journey on the M25, then.

Tracks of moon buggy August 8 1971   NASA

The above image was added to this post apropo of nothing, (I just like it,) but is now almost relevant, as it transpires that Russia are planning to get a manned colony on the moon by 2030.
The slightly worrying extrapolation here is that the USA are claiming Mars, with the Soviets as sole proprietors of the Moon
A new Space Race ?
If nothing else, I suppose it redirects efforts away from the Arms Race...

Whilst we toy with the idea of becoming a multi - world species, the recent developments in genetics tell us that we'd be better off as human / animal hybrids
Why am I even saying all this ?
Surely I should be creating a dystopian fiction in which our future genetically- enhanced selves are quietly colonising the fringes of our solar system when suddenly we are attacked by giant Tardigrades who want their DNA back...



NOT SPACE RELATED...

Finally, back in February this year, I got a signed copy of the Girl With All The Gifts , a lurid dystopian sci-fi  featuring telepathic kids and murderous fungoid zombies - like a British version of ' The Last Of Us', on a budget of twenty quid.
It is filming now in gritty London suburbs like Park Royal.
Which isn't Royal.
Or a Park.
 It is dystopian edginess, though...


Don't forget to like, subscribe, share this blog and stay tuned to Invisible Words - finger on the pulse or something like that !
Cheers !


* conspirati is a word I made up to more easily group those who watch ufos on you tube and believe in mind control and robotic Yetis in a fabled land.
That sort of thing.

Meteorites, Mini Monsters and our Moon

Largest meteorite. Hobart, Namibia      60 tonnes.         

A massive 30 ton meteorite has just been excavated in Argentina , becoming the second largest meteorite in the world.
Personally, I loved the casual nature of the video - just one digger and a smattering of applause.

Staying on the subject of large objects from space, apparently the moon was born as the result of a violent collision between Earth and a wandering planet (about the size of Mars) which resulted in a huge cloud of debris five hundred times the size of Earth which eventually coalesced into the moon as we know it.
This expansion of an old theory has been facilitated by new technology allowing for more precise readings of  moon rocks gathered by the Apollo missions.
I don't want to get bogged down with talk of Nibiru and all that, so let's move on...

What may or may not be a dinosaur 'nursery' has been discovered in the Russian Steppes , but speculation is rife as to whether the little fossil dinosaurs (one metre tall ) are infact a new species of miniature raptor.
Personally, I was most impressed by the fact that the site is only accessible by kayak , being so deep in the Steppes - I doff my cap to the intrepid palaentologists involved  - deep exploration worthy of Indiana Jones.

When ' You Are Here' means nothing...

Intrepid explorers have also ventured inside a cave which has apparently been isolated from the outside world for some 5.5 million years, give or take a few hundred thousand...
The atmosphere in Movile cave, Romania,  is toxic, being very sulphurous , and the permanent darkness and harsh conditions have led to a wealth of strange creatures, proving that life can thrive in the most inhospitable environments
Remaining in the realm of intrepid exploration, a recent survey of an extinct underwater volcano off the coast of Hawaii found  a plethora of oddities...

This lends more hope for the future exploration of places like the ice-bound and possibly waterlogged Saturnian ( is that a word ? ) moon Enceladus.

Enceladus from 30km

As we near the end of Rosettas planned mission , commemorative stuff goes into overdrive , heck you can even buy a plush version of Rosetta / Philae .
The final 'resting place' of Rosetta will be on the opposite side of the asteroid to Philae, so no 'reunited' scenario .
I remain impressed by the fact that I am alive at a time when we landed a probe on a comet - even moreso by the fact that we've been photographing and tracking it in such amazing detail for over a year
Now that the Osiris rex mission to Bennu has been launched, we will soon see the next phase, when an explorer takes a sample from a comet and returns with it...
Yay, go, science !

13 -Unlucky for some....

'Astrology is not science' is a phrase NASA had to use recently following an overly keen journalistic spin on their summary of astrology, its history and origins.
In this online world of assumptions based on half truths and third - hand hearsay, it quickly became reported as fact that NASA had added a new sign to the zodiac.

People, please !


Finally, we hear the sad story of Voyager , which collided with the end of the known universe, and received some damage as a result.
Sad to know that it will become space debris in the bottom right hand corner of the universe...

Exploding Payloads, Hellish Planets, Impossible Drives and The Zombie Plague From Space

It's not a great week for Elon Musk as a Space X  Falcon 9 rocket goes up in flames on the launchpad  .
He quickly moved to quash initial reports of an explosion , saying instead that it was a ' fast flame' , which led to some wag continuing the euphemism, by stating that it was a 'fast flame leading to rapid disassembly' .
No-one was hurt, but I imagine the recruitment drive for a manned flight to Mars might suffer.
Mark Zuckerberg was also dismayed as part of the payload was a satellite aimed at bringing the internet to deprived African areas.
Fortunately, there is a 'plan B' , so all should be well.

Artist impression    Cannae

Meanwhile, that pesky Emdrive just won't go away.
Infact, not only is it still confounding many (breaking laws of physics) but it is being sent into space for a ' test drive '.
The space-bound version is known as the ' Cannae Drive ', which in Scottish slang, means it's a non-starter, but hey - that's just me being facetious - ahem.
Roger Shawyer is the engineer behind this seemingly impossible drive , which is now being crowdfunded...

Even in space, you can find urban legends.
The idea of a careless employee making a gross miscalculation by using metric instead of imperial units , or vice versa, seems to be a familiar trope -
yet even in an area defined by rigorous testing and peer group reporting, myths can take hold - the report of a failed Venus probe reminds me of something I read years ago - or did I ?
Speaking of hellish planets, further pictures emerge from Juno , currently orbiting Jupiter and attempting to survive its toxic atmosphere...

Southern lights of Jupiter  ( infrared image )   NASA

On September 8th 2016, NASA hope to launch Osiris Rex, heading out to asteroid Bennu, returning with a sample in 2023.
It will be the first ever sample return mission from an asteroid, with plenty of nail-biting moments ahead.
Of course, the media angle is the THREAT to EARTH posed by the asteroid, and comparisons are already being drawn with apocalyptic films ( cue Bruce Willis in a vest gazing into the middle distance).
I laugh at such foolishness, of course, because the REAL threat is from the asteroid sample which will contain the zombie plague from space.

Sticking with the asteroid thing, we end on a high, as they found the plucky little comet- lander Philae, our ill - fated explorer !
Sadly, it's too late in the day for any meaningful contact , as the Rosetta mission draws to a close .
A call has gone up for Rosetta to target Philae when the mission ends later this month (September 2016) so they can at least be reunited for eternity, which is almost touching.
Humanising toys and animals seems to be a fairly widespread  thing, but this is way beyond that...

Still, I'll be watching.
I'll definitely say ' goodbye'
And I'll probably say aww

Invisible Words, Exoplanets and our place in Geological history...

Dear Everyone,

Invisible Words has always been about oddities that I find interesting (and I hope that someone else does, too).
Battling with my worsening condition makes it a struggle, and the eternal angst of  'what's the point?' constantly threatens to undermine me.
Today , though, I discovered that someone has unearthed sixty years of extensive notes by Charles Hoy Fort, taken from his tireless research in the New York Library .
This puts it in perspective for me-
it wasn't so long ago that search engines were actually people surrounded by books.
Where there's life there's hope.
Rant over , thank you for listening.


Here is a little news from space...

Artist impression of planet orbiting Proxima Centauri

To be precise all eyes are now focused on the latest exoplanet , ' Proxima b ' , discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri , a mere 20 years distant , if you were travelling at 20 % the speed of light .
Which we can attain using the mooted Project Starshot technology.
The downside is don't pack your bags just yet, the payload on a Starshot is teeny.
Like one camera teeny.
Not even a selfie stick.
Besides, the fact that it's in the 'Goldilocks Zone' doesn't mean it's liveable - or worse yet, it might already be fully occupied .

 Jupiter by Juno                    pic NASA / EPA

Nearer to home, photos were recently posted from the closest approach of  the explorer Juno to the gas giant Jupiter .
Allegedly taken from a mere 2600 miles away.
Except, apparently they weren't.
Which makes me happy, because they looked a bit - meh
Apparently the good pics are yet to be processed, and these are just  ' teasers '.
 Online debate has already opened with interweb 'experts' arguing the pros and cons of Juno cam versus Hubble.
I won't get involved, but one camera I have been impressed with is the one used by Curiosity which has recently sent pictures of rock strata on Mars that makes me wonder whether there could be anything fossiliferous in there...

 Mars - Astronaut for scale !       pic NASA/ JPL / MSSS / Sean Doran

Alien molluscs - the mind boggles.
Meanwhile , in recent news from halfway up a volcano in Hawaii , the NASA  Mars simulation has just ended, with a brave team of six people being released back into the wilds of Hawaii after a year of incarceration (they were only allowed outside if wearing a space suit).
Despite the claustrophobia, no-one has gone on a rampage, so it bodes well...
Elon Musk has announced that a manned Dragon flight will be ready to leave soon , and so that next step of Earth expansion looms closer.
Which is just as well, as geologists are already debating when to add the human Holocene and Anthropocene markers into the strata of our world.
Seriously, we are officially part of geological history.


Speaking of aliens , which we weren't, but did you hear of the new radio signal causing waves (pun intended) amongst the SETI community ?
Emanating from a star some 95 light years distant, it could be hard proof of extraterrestials of a Kardashev I or II civilisation ...

Screenshot by Ella Morton

...or it could be a microlensed piece of galactic background noise; but, like the x-files poster - I want to believe.
On that note, I say farewell until next time  - stay positive !

Mammoths, Moon Express and MOFs

Extensive samples and research by hardy types who don't mind extreme cold, tells us a wealth of detail about former mammoth denizens who populated Wrangel Island , Siberia and St Pauls Island , Alaska, until relatively recent times - well, approximately 5000 years ago.
Isolated island populations with no real predators to worry about, so why the decline ?
It turns out that these isolated populations became extinct through riverbank erosion, and the gradual decline of water sources.
No fiery comet from above, just the everyday depletion of resources.

Wrangel island

All aboard the Moon Express!
For the first time ever, a commercial company has been cleared to fly to the moon . Ticket prices are yet to be finalised, though, and I'm personally concerned about which sunblock to wear.
Obviously factor 10,000 in some places - but on the dark side ?


It has been claimed that the reason we are alone in the universe is that we are too early , and there could be a gap of a few trillion years before we find other intelligent species to show off our snapshots of lunar holidays and such - ahem.
I think this is a defeatist idea, and we should rather devote resources to actively looking for such aliens - for instance - how about a giant ' x ' in space ?
Too obvious ?
Apparently a giant x-shaped structure has been found at the centre of the universe, although for the life of me I can't see it in the photos.
black holes can kill us from a distance - more bad news for those who prefer to impose order on their worldview.
Luckily we are just a tad too far away...allegedly

The strange case of ' Tabbys Star' continues with new measurements from Keppler that seem to confirm that there is indeed unnatural stuff going on.
The excitement is almost palpable , and now that crowdfunding to buy telescope- time is complete, we should soon have further evidence .
Of course, it wouldn't be social media without someone raining on the parade, so it has been mooted that this possibly epic event happened 1500 years ago, and even if we arrived almost immediately, it's quite possible that the advanced race of beings are no more.
Ho-hum, but hey - let's not be defeatist, they could also be heading our way, bearing gifts and the secret of good wi-fi connections, that sort of thing.

Bio - luminescent technology is becoming quite the buzzword.
The idea that we can encode organisms to grow in any form and provide bacteria - based illumination is creeping out from the realms of sci-fi , and into reality.
I think hybrid bio - mechanical forms have the potential to greatly enhance our environment - as long as we resist the Gigeresque mutations...in the same vein (pun intended) , deep in a Siberian mine, they have discovered unique elements which are known as MOFs - metal organic frameworks.
These oddities are very rare, but bursting with potential.
Their appearance would seem to be partly due to thawing permafrost - so it's not all bad...don't forget though, about the recently awakened anthrax from the thawing permafrost - also, in Greenland, we learn that all sorts of debris from Cold War military base ' Camp Century' , and toxic waste from project ' Iceworm' will come to light soon, as relentless thawing ice reveals its secrets.
Oops...
 

Dolly the Sheep, the Great Red Spot, and the outbreak of Ancient Disease...

 Farewell to Philae, the ill fated lander . Philae was the first man - made explorer to land on a comet - still there, but inoperative to all intents and purposes.
The mothercraft, Rosetta is still taking and returning photos of the comet, and in September will crash-land on the surface , bringing an end to the mission - leaving us with a legacy of space debris orbiting the universe forever.
Quite a big deal, when you think of it like that.

Remaining with space, we find the alleged solving of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter - okay, it's a storm system as big as two Earths, but it also generates heat in the upper atmosphere, which may explain the temperature similarity to Earth, despite the greater distance from the Sun.
I imagine further revelations will be due very soon, now that Juno has entered orbit around the gas giant.
Did I mention the fact that Juno was the wife of Jupiter in ancient mythology , and that Galileo named its moons after the mistresses of Zeus ?

the only sheep honoured with a plaque...

In other news, the worlds first cloned sheep Dolly died at only 6.5 years old (half the average life expectancy for a sheep) , which created a new fear that clones were short lived .
Luckly though, clones were made of Dolly, and they are all aging normally.
I remember the huge issue surrounding the whole Dolly thing, the idea of 'meddling with nature '  so the news that there are more clones is not at all comforting.
It begs the question, what are they not telling us ?
But don't worry - only four of the tested thirteen clones were derived from Dolly .
So that's okay, then...
I mean if there are 13 cloned sheep (fourteen, counting Dolly), who knows how many cloned people there are ?
Perhaps we should scan photos of Trump rallies more closely.

The temptation is to write 'wake up, sheeple...'

The Siberian permafrost is thawing, global warming in action - the immediate result is an outbreak of anthrax, supposedly from old reindeer corpses .
That's pretty bad, but of course, what else awaits us, hiding in the distant past ?
The Black Death which decimated medieval Europe ?
TB, Polio and other nasties once thought eradicated ?
 It doesn't bear thinking about, so let's lighten the tone...

Hello to new life - yes, apparently even on this old piece of rock there are still surprises, with the recent discovery of new species - specifically beaked whales, which have recently been cropping up around Alaska - eight in total, none of which are previously known about; in the heady rush to colonise / occupy outer space, it seems that we still have vast unexplored swathes of this blue world.
Even our understanding of the world as it once was, is frequently called into question - most recently by the discovery of  minute air bubbles in grains of rock salt - the specimen grains being 815 million years old, it implies far higher oxygen levels in the Earths atmosphere than previously thought.
This in turn means there is a large gap between oxygen and complex lifeforms evolving.
So there would seem to be something else missing from the equation.
Like the time it took for aliens to arrive and give Earth 'the nod'.

ALIEN 1- "This'll do, but let's start with simple forms like aquatic amoebas, sponges and ultimately cephalopods and fish, then land-based murderous creatures."
ALIEN 2 - "Don't you mean humans ?"
ALIEN 1- "Same thing, different Modus Operandi "
- instantly we have intelligent aliens who understand Latin; or at least watched stray galactic transmissions of CSI.
Which brings us neatly to -
Apparently grammar could easily create a barrier to our ability to understand aliens.
Of course, the whole issue could be irrelevant given the continued lack of contact (wired magazine have just explained the Fermi Paradox again, for those who wonder)
I touched on this previously - damnit there I go again, without a decent referential database to mine for past subject matter.
I need a robot to list all my previous subjects on this blog.
Oh, wait, that will be me, then.
Doh

Robotic Stingrays, Vanishing Explorers and Virtual Hunters

This time around, we have a number of  truly strange developments , so we'll begin with something that is almost mundane - it appears that peas can gamble 

Reality trumps fiction as we move casually into the world of living / artificial hybrids, with news of a
robot stingray made from cells taken from a rat.
Making use of low energy propulsion , the robot stingray has odd implications for the future.
They could be used for  aquatic exploration , but also for the underwater exploration of other worlds.
Our solar system is teeming with possible subsurface oceans, so a swimming robotic explorer would be highly prized.
It really ought to have a seriously good camera , too.
Then of course, there is the problem of having nowhere to keep samples - perhaps a tiny backpack ?
which brings us conveniently to the new craze for ' Pokemon Go', an app that strangely enough, is drawing people together, in a bizarre new form of bonding over the hunt for cartoon characters in virtuality

Already, pleas have gone out that people should not play 'Pokemon Go' whilst driving ...
The downside is that this ' alternate reality ' intersects with our own in some potentially dangerous tangents.
Aside from the potential for death by road accident / drowning, it also gives the app massive control of the users online information, so compromised security is a hefty price to pay for your Pikachu...

The teensy Cozmo...          pic Anki

On a similar level, the tiny robot Cozmo is a cute and very capable package, a rover with the power of facial recognition and the ability to take remote control of your room lights and probably other stuff.
So insiduous AI exists, but in packages that may be overlooked as trivial .
Perfect disguise, really...

STOP PRESS !

News just in tells of an encounter between a robot security guard and child in a security mall, resulting in mild bruising for the human child.
Still, the robot uprising has to start somewhere, so why not in a shopping mall in the USA ?
It was good enough for George Romeros zombies...

Meanwhile, somewhere above Mars...

New theories emerge regarding the origins of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos . I include the link here, but to condense the piece, it suggests that the pair of moons were created following a humungous impact on Mars , long long ago. 

Amidst the frenzy of excitement (well, as frenzied as scientists get) surrounding the potential for life in the subsurface oceans of Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede and Ceres, we have another contender.
 Saturns moon Titan, neglected and unloved, steps up to the plate with new revelations that life could exist there.
Yes, it's an inhospitable deep frozen rocky moon, but apparently the right chemicals are in place for freaky non-waterbased lifeforms.
The mind boggles.

The last thing seen by Hitomi, the ll-fated  Japanese black hole explorer came as a disappointment to me.

Hitomi - final view was the Perseus cluster     pic JAXA

It shows the Perseus cluster , some 249 million light years away, so yes, impressive - but from the wording of the report , it sounded a tad more ominous...perhaps just an image of giant eyeballs...

Meanwhile, further out...

340 light years away - so close, then in universal terms - a planet has been found that defies explanation , as it has three suns.
Take that, Tatooine !
Such a world would almost certainly attract lots of holiday agents - all that guaranteed sunshine !
Endless romantic sunsets !
Infact, it would probaby never get dark...