8 sci-fi inspired advances that became "real" in 2010

From the Dvice.com blog comes a list of eight scientific advancements or even theme/ideas that became real in 2010. Now, real may be stretching it a bit, because we can plainly see that many have made great strides, but are far from being "real". Lets see what you think.

1. Cloaking - There has been a lot of research in a couple of areas. One I feel has potential, the ability of certain meta - materials to bend light (right now just certain frequencies) around whatever they cover. We have see some of this work for years with the stealth planes. Now certain structures are able to short and bend microwaves around what ever is in the middle on a shockingly small basis. Next comes the specially designed cloth that copies whatever it sees on one side to the opposite. There are some radical theories about pulling an item from space/time and returning it. I would be extremely surprised if this ever gets off the page.

2. Teleportation - Again, here is a technology that seems possible on paper and initial research indicates promise. Initial work has broken down simple structures and transmitted the info a distance and reconstructing an identical stricture. This is a LONG way from true teleportation, resembling more a fax than anything. But it does hold promise.

3. Laser Weapons - Now here is some tech that grew some serious teeth in 2010. The U.S. Navy's Laser Weapon System has realized what modern day high powered land based systems can do. LWS showed that it was able to shoot down drones and disrupt enemy electronics. There is of course, the Boeing 747 laser-equipped platform. It did see some successes in 2010, though it was not introduced in that year. However this system may have already seen better days and my not last through 2011.

4. Household Robots - Many new models hit the market in 2010, none so iniquitous as the Roombot. Though true versatility and autonomy still an issue, robots most likely will not gain universal appeal.

and several other techs of 2010 like transparent aluminum and a weird sort of micro tractor beam have fired the imagination of Sci-fi fans.

Read more here on Dvice

ISS in front of the Moon

Here is a very interesting shot from French photographer Thierry Legault. That tiny speck you see in front of the moon is the International Space Station. What makes this shot truly amazing is that the station is traveling nearly five miles a second relative to Earth. At that speed Legault had only 1/2 a second to get the shot. As you can see, he did so wonderfully!

If you haven't found it yet, the ISS is just just to the right and slightly below the centerline.

check out the Dvice article for a pass in front of the sun as well.

Review: Inception on blu-ray

Inception
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
Running time 148 minutes


Christopher Nolan director of such films as The Dark Knight, Batman Begins and so on, brings us his second highest grossing film, Inception (Dark Knight did about a quarter million more) which gives us lucid dreaming on 'roids. The movie also borrows heavily from concepts like dream incubation, plus psychological phenomena like false memories and the introspection illusion. Inception's core idea is that through cued lucid dreaming a person could literally steal a dream or more specifically the information garnered from the dream/dreamer. The kicker is that highly trained operatives or theives, depending on your point of view, can dream themselves into another person's dream thus stearing the dream to have the dreamer disclose information that the "team" has been paid to obtain. This action in the movie is called "extraction" The leader of the team is Dominic Cobb (DiCaprio) who it seems was adept at dream control and as a researcher had studied the process with his x wife. It was this research and the loss of his wife that seems to be Cobb's deamons and pivotal to the final outcome of the film.

If I am being a bit vague, its because many of the movie high points rely heavily on some of these bits of information and they are metered out to us as the movie proceeds. Needless to say there are some major reversals and even more core reveals that are not fully explained until the last few moments in the film so you get the aha! moment at the same time some of the characters do, so I don't want to be too much of a spoiler. I can almost bet that at the end of the movie you will be doing the same thing I was...saying fall damn you FALL!


For as high an action movie as it is, the beginning is dangerously slow. Almost introspective after the first reversal. They could have been planing a bank heist. Right up until the first WTF moment I was thinking...well this is a bit slow...but after that it is non stop on several levels, like combining a Bond film with any end of the world movie with a sprinkling of any war movie, it really is like three movies all at the same time - so the rather long run time picks up speed and gives a wild ride.

I would have to say that as entertaining the movie was, it suffered from some of the same things that turned a lot of people away from Trek. The constant stream of techno babel that sounds wonderfully plausible but you find yourself bogged down at times trying to figure out if what they just said was bs, real or a combo of both....

The movie itself isn't too bad. You know with a Nolan film he is going to entertain so the disk is worth a watching or renting maybe, but I was seriously disappointed in the lack of extras. NOTHING just play and languages so in my mind your getting the blu-ray for the improved picture and not for all the neat stuff - making of, out takes, director voice overs....zippo so I am going to say the disk blows, stream it, the rental is a waste if you like the extras as much as anything else. Movie is a good 8 though.

Antipodean # 151 now online!

Once again it is the first of the month and editor Nuke of the online flash fiction magazine Antipodean writes to let us know that issue 151 is online for your reading enjoyment.

10 fast and entertaining submission!

A Surprise Booze-Up By Peter Cooper

Internet Writer By David Scholes

Found In A Pub By David Shanahan

The Little French Girl By Jacinta Butterworth

Twenty-One Sixty-Nine By Kieran Salsone

Rejection By Shaun A. Saunders

Sins Of The Mother By Kate Roediger

Captain Invincible By Stewart Baker

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing By Jane L. Phillips

ZYKLON B By Kevin J. Phyland

Oh and Nuke also want to remind the readers:

Don't forget that AntiSF also has a Facebook page for you to like, and also where you may like to discuss the stories, the future of AntiSF, or pretty much anything up-side down SF.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/AntipodeanSF/10150136450645422

How Did Dinosaurs Evolve Flight?

Tim Sayell sends in an article from Yahoo news that I think everyone will find interesting. The article lays out discoveries that may lead to how dinosaurs evolved flight behavior.

The research centers around reconstructing the brains of extinct birds. Researchers are attempting to discern when birds started down the road from land animals to ones of the air.

Most evidence to date suggests that this process took place around 150 million years ago but the critical part missing is at what point did the "bird" finally make the break towards true flight.

From the Yahoo article:

Scientists in Scotland are focusing on changes in the size of a part of the rear of the brain. This part of the cerebellum, known as the flocculus, is responsible for integrating visual and balance signals during flight, allowing birds to judge the position of other objects in midflight.....

Being able to understand when this structure changed will give researchers a clearer idea when flight first took place.

Researchers feel that an understanding of how the flocculus has evolved to deal with different flying abilities will give them new understanding about when birds first evolved the power of flight. To this end, they will study both birds that fly and those that have lost the ability, both extinct and present day.

Again, from the article:

The researchers are looking for a link between a larger flocculus and a greater ability to process the visual and balance signals during flight. If the relationship is proven, it could mark a major step forward in understanding bird evolution, and even might help resolve the controversy over whether some ancient bird-like fossils were truly those of dinosaurs or simply of birds that lost the power of flight.