The Future is Now: Indoor Lighting

     One of the downsides to living underground, or on the floor of a light-less alien ocean, is the lack of natural lighting. Most anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in a windowless office, worked in a basement - even a well lit one, or stayed in one of those new windowless bargain hotel rooms knows the close feeling of no windows and the fishbowl depression induced by faux lighting. Most of this effect can be alleviated by the addition of an artificial window. However, the major flaw in merely placing a television screen on a wall - even a high definition model - is that it is still lacking a significant element; sunlight.
     The clear solution to this problem would be an artificial window that could simulate natural light. Fortunately, a new company calling themselves CoeLux has developed an artificial skylight that can simulate natural sunlight. The innovation is quite a leap in technology and has dozens of applications. I, for one, want one in in my future home; assuming they can drop the price a bit below the current $68,000 in the next twenty years...


CoeLux Artificial Skylight Video

Ceres - The Dwarf Planet

As NASA's Dawn spacecraft approaches the dwarf planet Ceres - the largest body in the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter - it continues to send an impressive array of photos back to Earth. Dawn will pass nearest Ceres sometime in February (probably around the 25th) and we will finally get to see detailed photos of this fascinating dwarf planet. After Dawn passes Ceres, NASA will compile the data and map the planet.

Below is the latest composition of photographs:
Ceres spinning!

Regenerative polymer self heals...

     A 2013 article in Chemistry World (Terminator Polymer) described a polymer that could heal a broken bond with itself after about a two hour recovery period. Not too bad but a little slow. More recently, a research team at the University of Illinois has designed an experimental polymer system that can heal itself much like human body uses blood to clog and fill a minor wound. Using two gel filled "capillaries" this polymer is able to fill a wound up to 9mm in circumference with a two stage gel, probably something like an epoxy mixture, and harden to about 62% strength retention. No mention about how long the process takes but this seems like a better method of repair since damage to soft substances often comes in the form of tears or punctures.
     The existence of regenerative polymer materials was posited in Europa, giving Jonas Black's submarine, Manta, the the ability to heal her hull when damaged. Seeing science fiction becoming science fact is always an exciting prospect...with the exception of Skynet becoming self aware, of course.

For the full article see link below:

Regenerative polymer self heals after injury

Dropping Cats and Blowing Bubbles With an AK-47

Learning new things is occasionally dull, but not when those things involve stunt cats and machine guns.
There have been other videos done on the physics of how cats land on their feet; this one is a bit more fun and the explanation is well put.
Cat Flipping - YouTube Video
The second video is a bit more in depth than the first and involves shooting a rifle, specifically an AK-47, under water. As you watch, note the strange behavior of the bubbles as the gas expands and contracts after exiting the barrel. Bubble bounce is a phenomenon one can observe while scuba diving when bubbles the diver exhales briefly undulate before "stabilizing" on their shaky rise to the surface. The gas of the gunpowder explosion illustrates this phenomenon to the extreme. The host also explains cavitation; something that happens to the hull of a submarine
Underwater Gunfire - YouTube

Mantabot

The University of Virginia has been working with robotic manta, aptly named "Mantabot", in an effort to further their research in the realm of bio-mechanics. I do not know how I missed this article last year but I like the fact the little guy looks a bit like my book cover...

Mantabot Article
Mantabot Video

Latest Rail Gun Update...

Not a lot of new information in this article but I like reading about any technological progress, especially weapons technology, and was encouraged to see this project moving to the next phase.

Navy Awards Rail Gun Contract to BAE

Voyager 1

Here's the latest update on the furthest man made object from Earth:
www.space.com

Dust Devil on Mars

This link to Space.com is to a great photo (taken by the the great a marvelous Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) of a 'dust devil' on Mars. I saw one of similar size in west Texas about ten years ago and it was very impressive.

I spent a lot of time looking at maps of the surface of Mars last year trying to find suitable locations for a few scenes in my second book. I become so fascinated with the red planet I considered shelving book two, saving the idea for book three, and trying to write a story that features one of my new favorite locations. However, I will probably refrain from writing anything but short stories - that fit into the Black Chronicles universe - since there have been so many science fiction stories set there already.

Europa Too Acidic For Life?

According to Astrobiology Magazine Europa's ocean may be too acidic to support life. Assuming the presumed acidity to Europa’s possible ocean precludes the development of life seems a bit close minded. Perhaps I have an overactive imagination or perhaps they should merely say, “Europa may be too acidic to support life as we know it.”  Nonetheless it is an interesting article. I particularly like the notion of vivianite bones or shells…

http://www.space.com/14757-europa-moon-ocean-acidic.html

Rocket Video

Hey everyone! Here's a great video of a recent rocket launch from Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It reached an altitude of 121,000 feet (22.9 miles)!
If you are prone to motion sickness I would advise against watching the descent.
Rocket Video
Below is the link to the Derek Deville's website, the rocket's designer, which has some great pictures and schematics.
http://ddeville.com/derek/Qu8k.html

Lasers and Orora...Aroruh...The Northern Lights

NASA is gearing up to test their new laser communications system. The test will last for several years and will, hopefully, lead to the implementation of a system that will enable the transmission of a much larger data stream between mission control and mission locations. It will be a complicated process with a lot of links in the technical chain that will have an opportunity to fail. The test platform will contain "telescopes, lasers, mirrors, detectors, a pointing and tracking system, control electronics, and two different types of modems." What does all this mean? It will give them much faster data downloads from probes and rovers: "It currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, but NASA would like to dramatically reduce that time to just minutes." It  Read the complete article at the NASA website: laser-comm


Also, here are a couple of nifty videos featuring the Aurora Borealis:
As seen from the ISS: Northern Lights from the ISS
Aurora explained: Earth's Aurora

Random Bears

I thought this 'mini-Jawa track looking vehicle' camera with Preditor'esque mirror camouflage was pretty awesome. It is similar in concept to the passive black-mirrored camouflage on the Venutian Witch in Europa ...The bears are just a bonus.

http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/magi-cam-mirror-bears-2074/

Trojan

Earth has a Trojan...asteroid that is. Trojans are asteroids that reside in the Lagrangian points of a planet's gravitational field. A Lagrange point is a point around a planet where the gravitational pull of the planet and the Sun allow an object to stay in a fixed position; a bit like geosynchronous orbit. There are six Lagrange points around a planet, L1-L6, and Earth's Trojan is located at the Lagrange point forward of her orbit known as the L4. I was very excited when I found this because I studied Trojans over a year ago and have been wondering ever since whether Earth had any. If you notice the illustration (on the link below) of the object's orbit it is obvious why it was difficult to spot the 1,000' wide object 50 million miles away...

www.space.com/earth asteroid discovered

White Holes and other interesting tidbits

Up to this point, white holes have only existed in a sort of yin-yang, physics law, theory world and, of course, in the hearts of many a fellow nerd out there in cyber-space.  Well, look-out universe, sometimes nerds can be right!  [A lot of the times we're right but only sometimes are we given any credit.]

Jupiter is responsible for protecting Earth, and Mars, and tiny little Mercury (etc) from numerous objects that we really don't want hitting our atmosphere, oceans, land ... but it turns out that Jupiter may have also prevented Mars from getting bigger.  Well, I say, you take the good with the bad.

And because I just couldn't resist, here's a pretty picture or two (just follow the link for more pictures) of Europa and a couple of other of Jupiter's moons.  The post reports that ESA and NASA are currently planning a trip to Jupiter.  And while I would argue that anything has been decided (thank you, economy and short-sighted budget planners), I applaud the optimism.

Thank you and have a good night,