Science In My Fiction

If you know me, then you know that I am always on the lookout. For what? Science, of course, and art. Interesting and beautiful things. The internet is a better resource for novelty than anything else, but watchful and patient people sometimes get lucky. This was not an especially lucky week, but I did come across something that fulfilled my search criteria on technicalities. It’s pretty and it got me thinking – if my thoughts about it aren’t particularly favorable, they are at least energetic.

Don’t get me wrong, the video embedded below is essentially a modeling reel. It serves its purpose, which is to show-off some animation students’ acquired skills, and it’s quite good in that context. I have no desire to criticize their proficiency in the medium, but the obvious inspiration for the piece is a hot topic on this blog, so of course I took a closer look at it than I might have otherwise, and of course I brought it here to share.

Watch ‘Gliese 851′ then read on to see if it got you thinking along the same lines as me:

The first thing I noticed was the title. Now, there are a lot of stars named Gliese-something-something, but one has been in the news quite a bit more often than the rest; Gliese 581. Specifically because of that star’s unconfirmed ‘goldilocks’ planet. I assume the filmmaker was more interested in capitalizing on the name than on exploring any of the science associated with locating exoplanets or seriously speculating about extraterrestrial life. A couple of clues in plain sight verify my suspicion: For one thing, there is no star named Gliese 851, but that name is a common typo in articles about Gliese 581. For another, there appeared to be only two lifeforms on the wasteland planet depicted in the animation; one large human and one large tentacle-monster. Probably, the writer struck a compromise between savviness and laziness. The concept perfectly satisfies mainstream (i.e. low) expectations of science fiction, and it is about as deep as the average attention span for scientific content in the media.

But even assuming that the filmmakers invented a new star system on purpose, I have some questions about the setting. It looks like an industrial wasteland or a vast crash site. Or I suppose it could be an abandoned colony. Even still, why is the only human survivor wandering around in the open? With skin exposed? The atmosphere and daylight must be very earthlike, indeed. And if so, then what killed or repelled the other humans? Tentacle-monsters? But if so, then what did they eat/kill before humans arrived? I ask because I saw no evidence of other life on the planet, and it seems impossible that a species as complex as that alien could have evolved in the absence of biodiversity. Maybe it was the last of its kind. I mean, that’s possible given humanity’s propensity for environmental disaster.

What are your observations and speculations?

ZaZa can't wake from dreams of being splashed.

Do androids dream of electric sheep? Apparently not, according to researchers at the Interdisciplinary Technology Institute in Boston. “Most of ZaZa’s dreams are about getting splashed.” Whether that’s the result of oversight or foresight, ZaZa’s vulnerability to liquids has been a boon to the scientists at ITI from the beginning of this uncanny project.

As part of their research into the relationship between dreaming and memory formation, ZaZa was created to be a learning robot. Scientists expose her to new stimuli and information every day and then assess her recollection over time. According to one researcher, ZaZa came in contact with an uncovered cup of coffee during the first week of the study, and immediately afterward, her dreams became less like randomized input logs and more recognizably dream-like. “After the incident, we instructed her to avoid all moisture in the future. We expected to see the event reflected in her dreams but we’re still surprised by the extent of its impact.”

Because organic brains are still far more complex than even the most advanced computers, scientists at ITI had to overcome major hurdles while designing the project. In order to construct a useful model of a human mind, they had to give ZaZa several ‘brains.’ In addition to the central unit in her chest, she has a computer to regulate and monitor each of her six sensor-types, another to coordinate the senses and simulate short term memory and recall, and a ninth computer dedicated to communication and dreaming. One would expect a robot brain composed of so many computers to be cumbersome and awkward, but ZaZa is surprisingly small; about the size of a kindergartner. Because ITI’s dream research requires that ZaZa be able to move around and interact with scientists, they took advantage of existing, inexpensive broadband mobile technology rather than reinventing the wheel for the project. As a result, little ZaZa is completely wireless and has a remote brain.

Wifi is only one of the technological advances that researchers at ITI have incorporated into the design of their dream-bot.  To give ZaZa the ability to learn like a human, they applied developments in self-organizing computer networks, simulated cognition and artificial intelligence, and even language acquisition and physical creativity. “The ZaZa Project is really a collaborative effort between ITI and dozens of other institutions. The individual advances made in their labs are brought together in ours.”

Considerable effort went into ZaZa’s outward design, as well. In order to inspire more ‘life-like’ dreams, they’ve equipped her with the social skills necessary to recognize human emotions and respond appropriately. For day-to-day interactions between ZaZa and researchers to be as normal as possible, they’ve even given her human mannerisms and appearance. One scientist said, “When all her systems are functioning optimally, you could almost forget she isn’t someone’s little girl.”

Of course, any system as complex as ZaZa’s is bound to malfunction at times. Because most of her brains are located outside her body, she slips into standby mode whenever the local wifi signal drops and must be woken manually. If even one of her computers crashes, scientists must shut her down completely and repeat the day’s research from the beginning. Simple physical problems, like replacing worn sensors, can be dealt with more easily because ZaZa doesn’t technically feel pain. However, every time she gets wet – a month after the coffee incident, poor ventilation in another lab at ITI triggered the fire sprinklers – ZaZa’s body suffers catastrophic failure and must be rebuilt.

When everything goes according to plan, ZaZa is still only awake for eight hours a day, five days a week. “ZaZa can’t be left unattended while she’s awake, so she has to dream while we’re all home on nights and weekends,” explained the project’s lead scientist. That’s perfect for their research because it means that during periods without major malfunctions, they still acquire enough dream logs to make up for the time they spend rebuilding and repairing her systems.

Scientists are naturally reluctant to offer much speculation about the results of this study so early in the project, but many researchers are already planning future studies involving ZaZa and conceiving new robots based upon her design. One such project has already been green-lighted by ITI, but the only details scientists would divulge about it were that the next generation of ‘dream-bot’ will be adult-sized to accommodate internal, self-contained computer brains. Also, unlike ZaZa, who spends most hours lying under a tarp unable to wake from dreams about getting splashed, their next prototype will be able to swim if necessary, and may rest, but never sleep.

“We’re spending Christmas in LA next year,” Jeff said.

His younger brother, Brandon, continued to stare out at the snowscape. “You say that every year.”

“It gives me something to say.”

Brandon gave no sign that he had heard. Jeff blew on his hands and stamped his feet against the cold.

“Must be cold for you, too.”

Brandon slipped him a quick grin. “New Mexico nights are chilly,” he said. “But not like here in New York, it’s true,” and he turned back to contemplating a world gone white.

Jeff peered through the door. Inside all was movement and noise, a blur of preparation and excitement as Mom and Mark, Janine and the kids prepared in their various ways for Christmas.

“It’s going mad in there,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Brandon, not needing to look around. “It’s better out here.”

Jeff stepped out of the light streaming from within and joined his brother looking up at the sky. They each had their reasons for staring at the stars.

“Still chasing ET?” Jeff asked, turning from the night sky to his brother.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to make the world a smarter place, it’s not always enough to create an image, post to a blog, or even write a book. Sometimes, if you really want to get inside people’s minds, you have to set your message to music. That’s right; it’s time to send in the earworms!

Disclaimer: The following playlist may or may not make the world a smarter place, but at this point, we’ll take all the help we can get…

Last week, another video went viral. Actually, there were probably several newly viral videos last week, but I only watched the one with the title slightly more interesting than, “ZOMG, MOST EPIC WINFAIL EVAR!!” By now, millions of humans have seen Ambam, the gorilla who ‘walks like a man.’

Except that he doesn’t walk like a man! The world is full of bipeds, and there are plenty of animals that take advantage of more than one form of locomotion. Birds are the easy example because they all walk on two legs (heh, ‘like a man’), and most also fly and/or swim. Frilled lizards walk and climb on four legs, sprint on two, and swim, for goodness sake! For that matter, some snakes can slither, swim, climb, and glide, and they don’t even have legs or wings to work with. Don’t get me started on octopuses. When Ambam walks bipedally, he still walks like a gorilla, just on two feet.

Sure, he does it better and more often than most gorillas. Certainly, gorillas are close enough relatives of humans that witnessing Ambam’s swagger is exciting to us in ways that seeing pigeons strut never will be. The viral video of Ambam ambulating is definitely cool. But what it doesn’t show us is a gorilla doing anything like a man. Even if living around humans has reinforced the behavior in him and his relatives, it’s still gorilla behavior. Similarly, humans may originally have taught dolphins to tailwalk, but when they do it on their own in captivity or in the wild, it’s dolphin behavior.

This may seem like a silly thing to get bothered about, but consider the fallout from all this malarkey. People are already invoking The Planet of the Apes, the ‘missing link,’ and bigfoot, and it hasn’t been a week. Slightly more serious bloggers still have their biology basics terribly wrong – gorillas are not, will not, cannot evolve into humans. Evar. Yet science fiction publishers and producers are probably going to be flooded with dreadful stories about anthropomorphic gorillas for months. If they’re given enough of that dreck, some of it is bound to get published or made into TV movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good anthropomorphism. But in sci-fi, gorillas are as overdone and usually as poorly done as werewolves. My hope at this point is that authors determined to immortalize Ambam will do the world a favor and get their facts right:

He’s a gorilla. He looks, thinks and acts like a gorilla. And dammit, he walks like a gorilla, even on two feet.

Once upon a time, a young human with mud on her feet revolutionized the world…

That’s hyperbolic; like fire, the first clothing was probably not discovered by any single person, or only one time, or even in just one place. But I strongly suspect that the first clothing, also like fire, was discovered rather than invented. And although there’s no way to prove it, I believe the first clothes were made of mud.

Mud clothes make sense if you consider our origins. We evolved in Africa, near the equator. It was hot, water was often scarce, and unlike other primates’, our bodies were going bald. We certainly had sense enough to shelter ourselves from the worst of the elements, but few animals can afford to sit in the shade all day and wait for food and water to come to them. No, since the beginning, people have had to go places to get what they need.

Which brings us back to the oasis, or the riverbank, or the lakeshore. At some point, a hot human got mud on her feet and discovered evaporative cooling. And the rest is prehistory.

Recently, some rather better-dressed humans took a close look at the DNA of clothing lice and determined (based on an assumed rate of mutation) that humans first started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago. Of course, they’re not referring to mud boots or the body paint that likely followed. They’re talking about fur, feather, and fiber – clothing as we know it.

Sometime after the discovery of evaporative cooling, other prehistoric geniuses bent their minds to the necessity of insulation. I figure two things happened: First, our nomadic progenitors started building better overnight shelters, and then they figured out how to carry them on their backs. Whether the first were itchy grass mats or stinky, stiff animal skins is unimportant. What matters is that the first clothes were probably only worn in transit. Somewhere along the way, a brilliant nomad just stopped taking off her shelter at the end of the day. Look ma, no hands and no goosebumps.

Now we wear polyester, which is a petroleum product, and in a way that takes us full circle to our mud boot-wearing days. Too, we adorn ourselves for all the same reasons we always did – shelter, status, sex, etc. In other words, not much has changed since we got the hang of regulating our body temperatures externally. Sure, we have wetsuits and spacesuits (and self-popping pup tents and penthouse suites), but where do we go from here?

When was the last time we saw any truly novel garments in fiction or in life? Is it even possible to revolutionize clothing again, or has human adornment peaked at spacesuits?

A few parting links:

Self-cleaning fabric inspired by dove feathers.

Helmet membrane designed after human skin.

Shoes that imitate mountain goat feet.

Fabric with pigment-less color based on the structure of butterfly scales.

Other biomimetic clothing options.

Vanitas by Adam Jacob de Gheyn (Public Domain)

You know it’s almost Halloween when every blog and news outlet on the web starts nattering on about near-death experiences and classic movie monsters. I’m not even going to bother linking to any because, if you’re like me, you were already sick of them when they arrived last October. However, in case you’ve forgotten the previous repetition, I’ll give you the quick and dirty science behind the tropes: NDEs are hallucinations caused by a build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain, and zombies, werewolves and vampires as we know them don’t exist; those myths were probably inspired by medical phenomena actually more interesting than most of the stories people make up about them.

Instead of rehashing the monster mash, I’ve decided to put together a brief resource guide for writers who like a little death science in their fiction. There is some highly readable non-fiction about death out there. Favorites in my library include:

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Read them. You will certainly laugh, definitely learn, and seriously consider donating your body to science.

Death’s Acre by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson
A surprisingly warm read for non-fiction, especially given the subject matter. You will learn as much about respect for the dead as you will about human decomposition.

Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner by Michael M. Baden with Judith Adler Hennessee
Grittier than the books above, but still insightful. Reading made me want to be a Medical Examiner when I grow up.

If you’re willing to dig past the annual Halloween horde, you can actually find a lot of good death science on the web. Take this recent piece about a new guideline for determining brain death, for example. Just the idea of brain death as a diagnosis is enough to fire up my story engine. Plus, the need for such a guideline should remind us all that death is more of a process than an event.

As I direct your eye toward the following death science videos, please remember that art and science aren’t mutually exclusive. Our anatomy is beautiful.

There’s one video I can’t embed that I think will make everyone laugh and look at their kitchen utensils from a new perspective:

Dr. G, Medical Examiner and the tools of the trade. I love this show.

Death science musical interlude:

Writers remember: You get points for accuracy, and it only takes a little death science to make your Halloween fiction stand out in the horde. Trick it out and treat your readers!

By Mariana Ruiz Villarreal (LadyofHats) (Own work) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons

Once upon a time, doctors couldn’t fix broken hearts. People who managed to survive injury and infection long enough to develop heart disease were shit out of luck if they suffered cardiac arrest. CPR as we know it is only 56 years old! Cardiac surgery itself has been around since the 1890′s, but for decades operations were performed ‘blind’ on beating hearts in thousands of patients before the first heart bypass occurred. Heart transplants didn’t come on the scene until the late 1960′s. Back in the day, if you were born with a congenital heart defect, suffered rheumatic fever, or your heart was otherwise injured, then you died.

The odds of surviving a broken heart are much better now because the science (and art) of heart medicine were allowed to progress. Yet in spite of the obvious benefits in terms of improved survivability, many areas of science at large and medical science in particular are still held back by social defects. Stem cell research and climate science may currently be the most popular targets of anti-progress, but even space exploration still takes hits from mal-intents in spite of all the amazing ways reaching for the stars has improved life on Earth.

Fortunately, the antidote for fundamentalism and other social defects is the same as the antidote for broken hearts: Progress and ever more progress. Scientists can’t be expected to do everything for us, though. We writers (and artists) can save many future lives by committing our craft to the forward motion of our cultures today.

Putting science in fiction is good for our hearts in more ways than one.

A few months ago, my sci-fi short, Pieces of You, was published in M-Brane SF magazine. It’s a fairly straightforward coming of age story about a boy and his adoptive android guardian. I knew when I wrote it that I didn’t have everything right about robots, and of course I doubt humans will ever replace existing foster care systems with highly sophisticated machinery. But given recent developments in human simulation, I won’t be shocked to find myself sharing an apartment with a social robot of some kind in the next few years. Even if it is just a cantankerous Roomba.

While doing research for another android guardian story I came across some useful information. As in human colleges, a lot of funding goes toward figuring out how to make better robot athletes, although in this case it’s a good thing because it gives us another reason and perspective from which to consider human and animal locomotion.

But do people really want their appliances to be smarter and more independent than a cat-friendly auto-vac? Yes, especially older people. And if future robots can augment our ability to take care of ourselves, might they also help us take better care of each other? As with engineering robotic football all-stars, developing robots that can simulate emotion is useful because it gives us a new angle for examining how we function.

Maybe house-bots will never amount to more than personal or medical assistants and glorified mechanical pets. And really, if we want much more than that from the machines in our homes, we should probably take the opportunity to re-evaluate the human social structures that make automating our most intimate affairs seem necessary.

Fair warning, the video below is Not Safe For Work!

Remember Gliese 581g? That recently discovered planet that had some scientists, and other hopeful stargazers, claiming certain knowledge that we are not alone in the universe? Well, Athena Andreadis gave us a gentle reality check last week, and this week we’ve been given a swift kick with the reality boot. The ‘Goldilocks Planet’ isn’t just unlikely to sustain life as we know it, the planet itself may not even exist except as ‘noise’ in its discoverers’ data.

So we should remain skeptical about claims that we’ve detected a signal from somewhere in the vicinity of Gliese 581g. But even if ET isn’t phoning our home, it’s still fun and wise to question our own significance in the universe.