Category Archives: SFF Thought Starters

Dec 18

So, picture it: A civilisation past its peak, that’s invented AI but can no longer build it, relying on ancient…

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So, picture it: A civilisation past its peak, that’s invented AI but can no longer build it, relying on ancient black boxes to tell it what to do. Nobody understands how the box knows, but experience suggests that it’s better to follow its advice.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Life-or-Death Algorithms: The Black Box of AI in Medicine, and How to Avoid It

https://suhub.co/2QCNrOk

Dec 18

So all those space operas with oxygen-atmosphere planets that have no apparent biome are not necessarily complete…

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So all those space operas with oxygen-atmosphere planets that have no apparent biome are not necessarily complete bollocks. Huh.

(Via Winchell Chung.)

Originally shared by Thorfinn Hrolfsson

Alien imposters: Planets with oxygen don’t necessarily have life

Source: Johns Hopkins University

In their search for life in solar systems near and far, researchers have often accepted the presence of oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere as the surest sign that life may be present there. A new Johns Hopkins study, however, recommends a reconsideration of that rule of thumb.

Simulating in the lab the atmospheres of planets beyond the solar system, researchers successfully created both organic compounds and oxygen, absent of life.

The findings, published on Dec. 11, 2018, in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, serve as a cautionary tale for researchers who suggest the presence of oxygen and organics on distant worlds is evidence of life there.

Oxygen makes up 20 percent of Earth’s atmosphere and is considered one of the most robust biosignature gases in Earth’s atmosphere. In the search for life beyond Earth’s solar system, however, little is known about how different energy sources initiate chemical reactions and how those reactions can create biosignatures like oxygen. While other researchers have run photochemical models on computers to predict what exoplanet atmospheres might be able to create, no such simulations to He’s knowledge have before now been conducted in the lab.

The research team performed the simulation experiments in a specially designed Planetary HAZE (PHAZER) chamber in the lab of Sarah Hörst, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences and the paper’s co-author. The researchers tested nine different gas mixtures, consistent with predictions for super-Earth and mini-Neptune type exoplanet atmospheres; such exoplanets are the most abundant type of planet in our Milky Way galaxy. Each mixture had a specific composition of gases such as carbon dioxide, water, ammonia, and methane, and each was heated at temperatures ranging from about 80 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

He and the team allowed each gas mixture to flow into the PHAZER setup and then exposed the mixture to one of two types of energy, meant to mimic energy that triggers chemical reactions in planetary atmospheres: plasma from an alternating current glow discharge or light from an ultraviolet lamp. Plasma, an energy source stronger than UV light, can simulate electrical activities like lightning and/or energetic particles, and UV light is the main driver of chemical reactions in planetary atmospheres such as those on Earth, Saturn and Pluto.

After running the experiments continuously for three days, corresponding to the amount of time gas would be exposed to energy sources in space, the researchers measured and identified resulting gasses with a mass spectrometer, an instrument that sorts chemical substances by their mass to charge ratio.

The research team found multiple scenarios that produced both oxygen and organic molecules that could build sugars and amino acids—raw materials for which life could begin—such as formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.

“People used to suggest that oxygen and organics being present together indicates life, but we produced them abiotically in multiple simulations,” He says. “This suggests that even the co-presence of commonly accepted biosignatures could be a false positive for life.”

Journal Reference:

Chao He, Sarah M. Hörst, Nikole K. Lewis, Julianne I. Moses, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Mark S. Marley, Caroline V. Morley, Jeff A. Valenti, Véronique Vuitton. Gas Phase Chemistry of Cool Exoplanet Atmospheres: Insight from Laboratory Simulations. ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 2018

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.8b00133

https://releases.jhu.edu/2018/12/17/alien-imposters-planets-with-oxygen-dont-necessarily-have-life/

Dec 12

Peter Diamandis, so apply a 90% hype discount as usual, but some interesting ideas that would make for good fiction…

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Peter Diamandis, so apply a 90% hype discount as usual, but some interesting ideas that would make for good fiction in the next wave of cyberpunk.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

How the Spatial Web Will Transform Every Element of Our Careers https://suhub.co/2ErIvWa

https://suhub.co/2ErIvWa

Dec 08

Plentiful hackables for a cyberpunk present.

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Plentiful hackables for a cyberpunk present.

Originally shared by HACKADAY

Liberating the Birds: electric scooter hacking has taken an interesting twist.

A few months ago, several companies started deploying electric scooters on the sidewalks of cities around the United States. These scooters were standard, off-the-shelf electric scooters made in China, loaded up with battery packs, motors, and a ‘brain…

http://hackaday.com/2018/12/07/liberating-birds-for-a-cheap-electric-scooter/

Dec 03

Abandoned coal mines across the UK could be brought back to life as huge underground farms, according to academics.

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Originally shared by Judah Richardson

Abandoned coal mines across the UK could be brought back to life as huge underground farms, according to academics.

Mine shafts and tunnels are seen as “the perfect environment” for growing food such as vegetables and herbs.

The initiative is seen as a way of providing large-scale crop production for a growing global population.

Advocates say subterranean farms could yield up to ten times as much as farms above ground.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-46221656