MPJ

Sometimes I think we are just like ants. Too small and with lifespan too short to make a valuable difference. Our civilization I mean. After reading another book or watching another movie or documentary it's difficult not to notice that there are far too many 'apocalyptic scenarios' capable to put 'the end' sign in the thin air. Far too many boots to step on our little fragile anthill. This november thanks to Matthew Mather, one of the definitely greatest stars of the Earth's science fiction realm, I am 'proud' to announce two more ways of how to kill the Earth. Two more latest addition to this blog Post-Apocalyptic thread. Black hole and Sun direct collision with Earth close by I know you are now wondering about this above image and already expressed couple of frowns and disbelief looks, but before diving into rogue black holes, let's first glimpse the first scenario from the title. If nothing else, then just to ease things a little bit and

I do have regrets. Everybody does. One is that I was born before the Internet and possibility to be worldwide and online when I was young. To be able to expand my own neighborhood outside the front yard fence. Well, on second thought, that is not entirely true - sometimes I feel the opposite and there is no real regret. Childhood without networking and computers was not that bad at all. As it seems, the word 'outdoor' for me and my son today has almost completely different meaning. Without the almighty Internet, and it is not too hard to imagine - boredom in my time was easily experienced indoors and to break it fully you would have to go outside. It was as simple as that. But without this habit of mine, blogging to be exact, I think I lost many things from my childhood as well. Tangible things. Like all of my еssay exams from the school. I lost all of them. It's not that they were that good or something. Just, if I had Internet back then I would most likely wrote some

Let me start this story with remarkable opening of the Michael D. Gordin's book named "The Pseudoscience Wars". The full quote is this: "No one in the history of the world has ever self-identified as a pseudoscientist. There is no person who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself - I’ll just head into my pseudolaboratory and perform some pseudoexperiments to try to confirm my pseudotheories with pseudofacts". And this is the ultimate truth - there is no pseudoscience. It's not the real thing. You can, with more or less enthusiasm, add adjective "pseudo" to anything you like and get yourself the bad or opposite meaning of the original word. But in the world we are currently living in and with, for example, TV shows like " Ancient Aliens " being vastly popular than attending lectures or reading published scientific papers by professional archaeologists and historians, pseudo combined with science are now recognized word in almost

Have you ever thought about what you would be or do if you were born in different ages? Well, the future is uncertain but even so I would most likely do some technical and innovative things. For example, if society evolved into living in the void of space I would definitely try to find a place aboard some research ship or orbital station. In plausibility of some, futuristic global society my place would be not so different than today, only my programming skills would probably be diverted from preposterous business projects into something more substantial and useful in science or engineering. But in the spirit of today's post, lets travel to the past and check several old ages. Two centuries ago in the dawn of industrial revolution I would most definitely be involved in machine invention process. Couple of centuries before that, in Leonardo's time, I would probably be hunted by church for my free-thinker ideas that would, most likely, contradict the main belief and dogma. Year

Don't take this title too seriously. It's wrong on multiple levels. Grammatically and scientifically. Nonetheless it fits perfectly for this post. As for grammar amiss - I used Latin root word 'Gravis' which means heavy and it is actually perfect adjective for gravity as we perceive it here on Earth. As for scientific issue, the rest of the title might be all wrong. If we glimpse into features of three main natural forces of the universe, it is obvious that they work in more or less the same fashion - they use carriers or elementary particles to mediate the force through the force field. Photon is one of them and it carries electromagnetism while strong and weak force in nucleus respectively are mediated by gluons and w/z bosons and they are all confirmed in experiments. Gravitons suppose to be the same thing for gravitation force, but they are never found and confirmed either directly or consequently. Ever since Einstein we are having second thoughts about whether or

Do you like stories or movies with dystopian premise in the background? I do. It's simple. They feel extremely real and believable and reflect the very possible future of nowadays societies throughout the world. In some of those worldwide cultures this is reality now. Just check the news feed from the middle east or glimpse couple of images from devastated cities ruled by unknown people with covered faces and guns in their arms and you will understand what I am trying to say. Anyway, generally and even though I maintain post-apocalyptic thread on the blog, I don't really like all those stories with zombies or vampires or pandemic virus strains capable of turning the entire human race into horror. They don't seem plausible to me for many reasons I tried to explain before*. However, believable dystopia is another thing entirely and the story that perfectly represents it on multiple levels is Dan Haight's "Pac Fish" series with first book I recently read, called

You probably heard that matter is pretty much an empty space. It's true. Everything is made of tiny particles with nucleus in their centers and cloud of electrons orbiting around. If we take Hydrogen (H) for example - the smallest atom with just one proton in nucleus orbiting by just one electron and if we scale the proton to be the basketball size, the orbit of the electron in diameter would be something about 15km. Both, nucleus and electrons are electromagnetically charged, keeping everything in stable equilibrium and also inside nucleus two more fundamental forces - strong and week nuclear interactions are keeping all the matter and energy in line. However, the smallest atom in the Universe is not the smallest, standalone system we know of. According to standard model, all atoms and complex molecules found in nature or artificially produced are made of fundamental particles. Something we cannot cut into smaller pieces. Electron is one of them. But there are more. So far, as far

There are numerous ways of how our civilization might end. I said plenty in the past about real threats, either from heavens or from within the Earth or ourselves. It was the main theme in the second half of 2012, around the Mayan's doomsday date and I contributed with several posts related to this, including Doomsday , Biodiversity and The Apocalypse Aftermath and in all those stories I was mainly focusing on the mother nature and catastrophes we can do little or nothing about. It was either some wrath from the distant universe in form of deadly gamma rays and supernovae implosions or some judgment day originated from our own Sun or asteroid impacts or even the ultimate rage from our planet by some super volcanic or tectonic disaster. But I only timidly mentioned all those man made events I referred as 'other human stupidities', including nuclear holocaust and biological hazards. So perhaps now is the time to continue the thread and glimpse into two great stories behind

"Gloria had a grip about the robot’s neck that would have asphyxiated any creature but one of metal, and was prattling nonsense in half-hysterical frenzy. Robbie’s chrome-steel arms (capable of bending a bar of steel two inches in diameter into a pretzel) wound about the little girl gently and lovingly, and his eyes glowed a deep, deep red." - If you didn't recognized the narrative, it is from Gloria & Robbie's reunion from the touching ending of the Isaac's "I, Robot" first story. If you read "Robbie" before, you are probably, by now, recollecting what actually preceded to this very moment of two persons getting together in this happy ending of the most famous Asimov's short story. But if you never did, I am encouraging you to do so, if nothing else, then for the simple reason that even though it was written some eighty years ago, the premise is still fresh and valid just like it was published yesterday. The word 'robot'

Is Internet dangerous? Well, yes we know all the hazards of spending all the work hours behind monitor screens, browsing the web at home, doing social networking, playing online games, watching YouTube, staring at smartphone little displays or for whatever reasons we sit above our keyboards most of the time every day. That's indeed what we first think of all the negative aspects of mighty global network, but today I am not referring to all the potential medical issues inherited from too long sitting on the chair or everyday looking into LCD screen. I also don't mean the obvious social and/or physiological outcomes from letting the virtual world to take over the real one for more and more people every day. No, I mean the real danger. Did Internet overcome the pure network system and became a tool for mass destruction or a background tool for criminal activities? Can someone use the internet to hurt somebody or to perform a murder? Either directly or indirectly? Can some organisa

There is a mountain just couple of kilometers south of our weekend house that is actively blocking our view toward unknown and beyond. It is not too big, just about one kilometer high, rounded in shape, overgrown in surrounding forests with large plains on the top. In the past, from the years of my early childhood till today I had different feelings about that mountain. First, it was the real edge of the world when I thought there was nothing behind. Then I grew into my teen ages when I unsuccessfully wanted to conquer it and plant a flag on the biggest rock of the highest peek possible. When that was over I dreamed about living there in a forest shack in sort of utopian kind of equilibrium with nature itself. There was a time when I just hated it for blocking my nightly sky from the southern constellations and galactic center lying somewhere in the direction of Sagittarius and Scorpius. Now, I only want to pay her a visit someday and see how mountain was looking at me all those years

Did you know that there are certain species on the face of the Earth that are truly and literally immortal? Yep. They never die. Of old age that is. I am not talking about some microscopic bacterial life or stubborn viruses in existence. No. Real animals. Take these two: turtles and lobsters. They literally don't age. When it comes to first one, I can't resist not to quote article in below refs* I read online - to the logical suspicion of endless turtle lifespan and why in aftermath they don't crawl everywhere we look today, they answer: "Of course they die, otherwise we'd be swimming in turtles, but the weird thing is, they never seem to die of old age. It's always a disease, or a falling boulder, or Master Shredder". And this is a real truth actually, including 'Master Shredder' who might be just a metaphor for us killing turtles for food or purses and belts or whatever we do with dead turtles. Joking aside, the very research of big turtles shows