How has your May been? As I write this, I am sticky and damp because it’s so hot in my bedroom. When I finish writing this, I will take a cold shower and hopefully get to a point where I start to shiver. (I won’t be shivering for long. It’s unusually hot this time of year).
But enough about me. What sorts of interesting stuff crossed my path this month? Well. . . .
I mentioned in Newsy Bits that Syfy’s The Expanse was cancelled. While the show’s season 4 was eventually picked up by Amazon, the fans rallied together for some awesome stunts to show their support in the interim. One such stunt was flying a plane around Amazon offices in California. While my source came courtesy of Reddit, other news sources mention the event in passing. Disappointingly, none of them share my enthusiasm about it.
THIS MONTH IN ROBOTS is more like This Month in Artificial Intelligence. Google Duplex is a new extension of the Google Assistant where your Assistant can make a real phone call in your stead. It understands the nuances of conversations and even has the little “umms” and “hmm-mmms” humans use in real life speech. More info can be found at The Verge.
Speaking of awesome science innovations, BBC reported that scientists successfully transplanted memories between snails! I feel like I walked into a science fiction novel sometimes, don’t you?
Lara B. Sherp is a writer and feminist with a fantastic Facebook profile. She also had a rough childhood as a ward of the U.S. government. On Longreads, she documents the time she attempted to claim her records only to to be met by heartbreak and frustration. I would not be surprised if this is business-as-usual for the foster care system in the U.S., and that thought alone is very depressing.
THIS MONTH IN SPACE features a recent discovery in Earth’s own orbit: magnetic re-connection in the turbulent plasma just outside our magnetosphere. I see I probably lost you at the word “magnetic” so let me take a few paragraphs to explain this in more detail.
Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere. This is what gives us the Northern and Southern Lights, and it protects us from the sun’s violent radiation. Most planetary bodies in our solar system have a magnetosphere, like Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The magnetosphere itself resembles an oddly-shaped donut, with Earth’s north and south poles at the holes. As I said, the magnetosphere protects Earth from radiation from the sun, which swirls in the turbulent plasma just outside it.
This is all invisible to the naked eye, by the way. So if you ask why we can’t see all this, it’s because the human eye lacks the capacity to detect magnetic energy unassisted.
Magnetic energy works in bands. Similar to rubber bands, if a band is too taught, it will snap and release particles into the ether–the snapping is what scientists call magnetic re-connection. We’ve only observed magnetic re-connection on a large scale, but NASA’s MMS spacecraft found magnetic re-connection on a smaller scale in the turbulent plasma just outside our magnetosphere.
Why is this cool? I have a personal theory that the secrets of magnets hold the technological secrets of our dreams. So any advancement in our collective understanding of magnets, the Earth’s magnetosphere brings us one step closer to even more science fiction-type technology. You know, in addition to robotic personal assistants making telephone calls in your stead. Or transplanting memories between two life forms.
If you still didn’t understand my explanation of magnetic re-connection, just click this link and read what’s there. All will be understood.
This month’s closing video is the main theme to the classic anime Sailor Moon as played on traditional Japanese instruments. It’s pretty catchy.
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