Amoebae Are Zombies
I was reading this interesting article and thought I’d talk about it here. People are apparently dying rather suddenly from a small organism. It’s called Naegleria fowleri, an apparently little known amoeba that has deadly consequences. The good side of this is that it is not an epidemic and hopefully will not be flouted as one. According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. You can become infected rather easily, which is scary. Since Naegleria lives in just about any warm, watery environment one can simply get it and not even know it until it’s too late. The stuff can even get into your swimming pool, if you don’t take care of the water and chlorine levels. Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. Once it gets up there it feeds on your tissue until it works its way into your and begins eating your brain cells. That’s about the end for you. While some lab based experiments have shown some promise in curing the issue, generally it’s fatal, even if you were to find out you were infected. Survival is rare.Read the full article. This definitely makes things interesting when it comes to future Earth. Two hundred years from now the planet could be a lot warmer. What happens to Naegleria then?Okay, so maybe that title is a bit misleading, since the amoebae aren’t exactly searching for brains, but it’s a catchy title, so sue me. As an added bonus I have a resource link for all you fantasy writers out there!Welcome to the world of historical maps. If you’re writing historical fantasy, alternate history, or even if you just want to see what the world looked like long ago, this is a great site for you. They are mostly maps of territory–who owned what and when, how countries were once split up, etc. But, if you know any history, then it will all be rather useful to you. And if you don’t, well, Google is always there to educate you. Besides, sometimes history can be fun. Such as knowing that in some cases, people who were beheaded didn’t die instantly, but would actually be ‘alive’ for a short period of time before the brain realized it was dead. Morbid? Sure. Interesting? I think so. Enjoy!
The Insignificance of Earth
I’ve always found it profoundly interesting how people on this little planet think of themselves as so utterly important. So I thought I would write a post about just how insignificant we are in comparison to the universe, an idea spawned by this link.Earth is but one planet in a our solar system. Our solar system has 8 planets–Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune–since Pluto is no longer a planet. Thanks stupid scientists and your anal criteria. There are loads of asteroids, comets, etc. too. Of our 8 planets, 6 of them have moons–one for Earth, two for Mars, 63 for Jupiter, 60 for Saturn, 27 for Uranus, and 13 for Neptune. Our Solar System has one sun.Our sun is a star in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are billions upon billions of other starts in our galaxy, and millions of them are similar to our sun. There are hundreds of confirmed exo-planets–planets around other stars. Our galaxy is one of billions of other galaxies in our universe. In those galaxies there are billions upon billions of other stars, and since the Universe is so vast, this means there are so many stars and so many chances for life out there, that the thought that we would have been only intelligent life to emerge is absurd. (Note that we probably will never see those other lifeforms).Now, here is where things get even more ridiculous in regards to our insignificance. Scientists are theorizing that our universe is not the only one out there. Now this could mean that maybe there are just many universes that act as big bubbles in the vastness of space, sort of like galaxies are in our universe, or it could mean that alternate dimensions are at work. This all sounds very crazy, but there is some real strength to the theories, most particularly the whole deal with the ten dimensions.So how’s that for putting things into perspective?
The Everchanging Space Economy
First things first, I want everyone to know that I did a review of Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret over at SQT’s blog. Check it out please. Now for something interesting! I’m sorry that it seems like all my little news things are all related to SF. Unfortunately there isn’t really a whole lot of stuff that would pertain to fantasy that I’m finding. And what exactly would be good news stuff for fantasy? Anyone know? Other than literary stuff (such as Robert Jordan dying). So if anyone perhaps has some insight as to what you would like to see, let me know. Now to another interesting article I found, located here. I’m rather optimistic when it comes to space travel, of any kind. I think one of the biggest issues we have today not only in regards to space, but even other technologies, is that we don’t take risks. There are no more Thomas Eddisons in this country, or in a lot of the world for that matter.So it came as a surprise to me that scientists think that it would cost us close to a trillion dollars or more just to get us to the Moon again. First, I see no value in going to the moon. Nobody has really come out and said why we should go there other than to just said “yeah, we can build a colony there”. We can’t exactly harvest the moon. That’s too dangerous for the planet as a whole, and a risk not worth taking. I do however think we need to go to Mars. Why? Because we haven’t put a person there yet. It’s important.So when I read that article and saw that with current funding it will likely never happen I was a little miffed. We have to go to Mars. Period. This article says that it could cost of ten times as much as NASA officials are saying. That’s trillions upon trillions of dollars. NASA doesn’t have that kind of funding and I don’t think we need to give them that kind of funding.What exactly would make such a project cost so much? And here’s a thought, if it really will cost that much, why aren’t we asked for an international cooperative effort to get this project hte funding it needs? Think, if we could send a couple Americans, a Brit, and a Chinese man or woman, etc. we could get massive amounts of funding! And it would look wonderful on a resume!I think my problem is that I’m too optimistic about space travel. I think we can do almost anything if we just sit back and do it. I think space travel and understanding our own planet are paramount to the success of our species.But maybe I’m just delusional.And what does this do to all of us who are sitting around postulating advanced human societies that rule the galaxy? Yeah, doesn’t bode well. Such societies would go bankrupt with space travel.
Microbes Rule!
How many of you know what happens to the human body when it’s subjected to the weightlessness of high Earth orbit? Well, to put it simply, the body actually starts to whither. It’s not a quick process, and certainly not one that would prevent us from shipping people long distances in the solar system, but there is a noticeable effect on the immune system when astronauts return to Earth after a considerable stint in space. It’s similar to AIDS. Your body has cells called T-cells, which have these little receptors whose job it is to basically tell other cells there is an infection in that particular cell. When someone is infected with AIDS, those receptors stop working. This is permanent in AIDS, obviously. So, when the body gets a cold, the cells don’t know how to fight it because it seems to be replicating itself at such an alarming rate, which is true. Your body is no longer fighting the infection, basically.Now, being in space is much the same, except that the effects don’t remain when someone returns to normal gravity–as far as we know at least, considering we haven’t exactly stuck someone up there for fifteen years to see what happens. So, your immune system weakens, those little T-cells and their receptors shut off, and your body becomes a happy breeding ground for all the little bacterium and microbes that float around in our air and make homes in our bodies.This is where a new report from Universe Today comes in. Apparently bacteria–such as salmonella, which was used in this experiment–actually become more dangerous after spending considerable time in space. Astronauts took with them a group of salmonella filled containers with nutrients for the bacteria. What they discovered upon return to the ground was that the bacteria had changed expression in 167 of its genes and become three times more likely to infect. That’s surprising when you think about it. Imagine having that floating freely in a space ship with a group of people who are immuno-depressed!Scientists think it isn’t directly related to the zero-gravity, not like it is in us humans, but it is indirectly related to it. They believe it has more to do with the movement of fluids, which on Earth is very low, but in space is probably considerably more active. Now that’s some interesting news, eh? Edit: I changed the phrase “altered 167 of its genes” because it was brought to my attention that that phrase may be confused with mutation, when that was not the meaning I was intending.
The Power of Data
I was using StumbleUpon’s lovely ‘stumble’ feature again, and came across something that got me really thinking not only about our preconceived notions of the world as it sits today, but also about what the world might become in the future. The link is here. Don’t watch it yet. Read on first. I want to do a little test at the end of the post.The ending was especially interesting, showing all the countries as they popped up on the chart as the use of the Internet spread from place to place. So, according to statistical data we are all somewhat misguided in what we think about the third world. It’s apparently not as bad as it’s made out to be. Obviously that doesn’t refer to places like Africa where AIDS is wreaking havoc, and this shows in the data, but a lot of countries that I thought were exceedingly poor and unhealthy are actually somewhat the opposite. What does this say about the way our media or even our educational system teaches us about the rest of the world? Are we really all that better off than a lot of places? The data suggests that we’re not. Yes, of course we have a lot more things that most countries, but on average we’re not that far off from a lot of countries that I and apparently a lot of Swedish undergrad students once thought were near the bottom of the barrel.What does this say for the state of the world in the future? There seems to be a trend in countries moving up the ladder. Families get smaller, people live longer, income increases, and the gap between the rich and the poor adjusts significantly. In the future a lot of countries that we see as somewhat below us on an economic and health scale, may in fact match us in their productivity and survival rates. Many countries already have, according to the data. Obviously the U.S. brings in a lot more income than most nations, but it’s not looking at how much the nation brings in as a whole, but at how that income branches out to the people.So, let’s do a little test here.Which countries do you think have the highest infant mortality rate? Don’t look it up. Just guess three and post it in a comment, along with the other answers.Which countries do you think today have a shorter lifespan and large families?Which countries are the opposite?Which countries do you think currently match, or are at least near enough to us, economically (by percentage, not gross income) and medically? Post your answers or write them down and then watch the video. Maybe you’ll be surprised! Tell me what you thought on there. I’d like to know what choices you made!