Could you read this book?

It's not as easy as it seems. The book will only open if you approach it with a neutral face. It won't open if you're looking sceptical - or even if you're excited! That's me done for then.

I'm not entirely sure that I can see a use for it except as an idea for a science fiction story. Now that would be something I'd really like to read!

I'm sorry, Avatar!

I loved the film Avatar but I thought that it was rather spoilt by the choice of the name "unobtainium" for the mineral that was so precious to Earth but perhaps I was being rather hard on the film makers because did you know that element #118 in the periodic table has been given the (temporary) name "ununoctium"? That's not a million miles away from unobtainium, is it, so maybe I should let the film directors off the hook.

As to how I found out about ununoctium, well I came across these wonderful chopping boards on BoingBoing and you can customise the final element which just happens to be ununoctium. If P&P from the US was less exorbitant I'd be very tempted.

Fun With Science

Just a couple of pictures that I thought were worth sharing.

And finally, I love this avatar used by one of the talented people on Ravelry. It took me a few moments to get it the first time I saw it*.

*If you don't get it, try googling for the scientific symbol for Potassium. Hint: it isn't P.

Chicks in Science

I'm all for getting more women into science and for busting gender-boundaries in general, but I'm not sure that Chicks in Science is the best way to do it. It's a hugely popular scheme that gets girls interested in science by offering them pink hard hats to wear, cookery books with recipes "that Einstein might have cooked", and nail varnish*. Yup. No quarks or protons here, but get your pinny on, dear, if you want to be a scientist.

Or is it good because it's popular? What do you think?

*The nail varnish changes colour in the sun. But still.

Stop thinking!

Too much thinking can lead to worse judgements, according to this article in Wired.

When students were simply asked to rate jams for flavour their scores closely matched those of jam experts. However, when a second group of students were asked to do the same task but to give detailed reasons for their decisions, they went haywire and rated one of the worst jams as the best.

Reason doesn't seem to be very good at helping us make decisions and might even get in the way. What it's very good at is helping us persuade others that our judgements are correct.

I don't know about you but I don't find this a very comfortable thought.

The future is happening now.

Did you know you can move objects with your mind? I didn't until I saw this video on Sentient Developments



If you write science fiction you really will enjoy Sentient Developments, including the new feature Yesterday's Tomorrow which features retro visions of the future.

Other Earths

Earthlike planets may not be as uncommon as we always thought, according to Sentient Developments. I didn't know that one had already been found only 20 light years away. It's still too far to go for a visit but as interstellar distances go I suppose that counts as next door.

I'm not sure if this is good news for science fiction writers or not. Given that we're writing fiction maybe the state of the real universe isn't too important. I like to think that it's based on science though. Now all we need is to perfect that faster than light travel and we'll be sorted.