The Invisible Library

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

On this day, 199 years ago, one of the most important humans ever to crawl from the primordial slime was born: Charles Darwin.

149 years ago, the culture wars began, with the publication of one of the greatest books ever written, On the Origin of Species. It was published on his 50th birthday. Ever since, a small cult of dingbats have been fighting a loosing battle agaisnt the forces of progress, knowledge and truth. It may take another 200 years but we’ll win, eventually. Time and Evolution our on our side.

And I had this great post half written in my head, all about how Sputnik changed the world and all the technology we use today, from cell phones, to GPS to the Internet wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a beeping little basketball that the commies launched into orbit fifty years ago today. Then I saw that Phil Plait went and wrote all that and then some. So go there and read.

Warren Ellis asks an intriguing question:

Is it possible that steampunk is making a comeback as acquiescence to the notion that our more recent apparently plausible models of the future will never come to reality?

To a large degree, I would say, yes, it is. (more…)

Charlie Stross has a great essay up about the futility of Space Colonization:

This is not to say that interstellar travel is impossible; quite the contrary. But to do so effectively you need either (a) outrageous amounts of cheap energy, or (b) highly efficient robot probes, or (c) a magic wand. And in the absence of (c) you’re not going to get any news back from the other end in less than decades. Even if (a) is achievable, or by means of (b) we can send self-replicating factories and have them turn distant solar systems into hives of industry, and more speculatively find some way to transmit human beings there, they are going to have zero net economic impact on our circumstances (except insofar as sending them out costs us money).

He does, however make a strong and pertinent distinction between Space Exploration and Space Colonization, the former being relatively easy, cheep and doable (since we are doing it and have been for the last fifty years)as opposed to the latter, which is nearly impossible, (whatever Gene Roddenberry had to say on the matter to the contrary). He also makes the point that the practical walking, working and moving about in space should be done by robot probes and satellites, a notion to which I heartily agree.

The news about the spot of bother on the International Space Station this week got sidelined, what with Paris Hilton having a courtroom meltdown and A dozen Republican Would-be-Kings shootting themselves in the foot over immigration. But if it hadn’t been for a couple of computers, we would have had a lot of dead Astronauts and an inoperable Space Station hovering above our heads. Putting people’s lives in the hands of computers is silly, criminal and wrong. Charlie Stross also points this out, that a manned mission to An extra-solar planet, given the current state of technology, might be considered a crime against humanity, given the horrible conditions they would be subjected to for decades.

There will always be a romantic idea about going to the Moon or Mars and maybe, just to go there and come back would be a worthwhile endeavor but living in Outer Space, is foolish and deadly. Besides, we can learn more from one robot probe on the moon than a hundred moon walking monkeys.

Please, won’t you think about the monkeys?

Link via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

We all know that the media’s priorities are screwed up but the fact that the discovery of the most Earth-like planet yet found isn’t front page news is just fucking criminal:

Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface.

The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.

[…] We have estimated that the mean temperature of this ’super-Earth’ lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory,lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.

“Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or covered with oceans.”

This is HUGE news. Big as the discovery of Dinosaurs. Big as the theory of gravity. Bigger than the discovery of Kryptonite. Up until now, we’ve only been able to theorize the existence of a planet like this and here it is. I’ll be able to point to a place in the sky and tell my children that there, right there is another planet like ours.

I hope we can send a probe there soon and maybe in fifty years or so, we’ll be bale to have pictures of the surface, maybe even what life crawls around on it.
More and more every day, I come to discover that as cool as science fiction is, real science is even cooler.

For those interested in historical curiosities, cabinets of wonder, eccentric collectors, phantom limbs, ambergris, trap-jaw ants, and the history of natural science, check out the Athanasius Kircher Society Blog.

James Cameron thinks he’s found the bones of Jesus:

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn’t resurrected –the cornerstone of Christian faith– and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.No, it’s not a re-make of “The Da Vinci Codes’. It’s supposed to be true.

Let’s go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel’s prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn’t associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn’t afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ’s resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter’s wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

I’m not sure how they did DNA tests. But I’m interested to see how this all plays out, if it will be as big as Cameron thinks or if it will just piffle out into nothing.

Update: I don’t know how I could forget to mention that Tom Robbins’ first book, Another Roadside Attraction has the discovery of the mummified corpse of Jesus by a drug dealer turned Vatican Kung Fu instructor as a central plot point.

Also, be sure to check out the Reverend in comments.

Today is the 198th birthday of arguably the most important human to have ever lived, Charles Darwin, who’s work changed the world for the better by providing us with the language and theoretical models to understand the origin of life in the universe. Think about that for a moment. Before Darwin, there were evolutionary theories but none of them were grounded in science and all were hindered by their subservience to religious dogma and superstition. Darwin was the first person to describe how we evolved and continue to do so. The Theory of evolution by natural selection has resulted in numerous fields of scientific advancement, from genetics to history and even geology. No longer do we have to sift through the bones of our ancestors, looking for giants and dragons and shoehorning them into the fairy tale models described by our primitive ancestors. We have access to the truth. And it’s all because of the work of one man.

 Saint Petersburg Times:

Archaeologist Albert Goodyear is working on the find of his life.

Based on radiocarbon tests and artifacts he’s found along the Savannah River in South Carolina, Goodyear believes that humans existed in North America as many as 50,000 years ago, shattering the long-held notion that the earliest settlers arrived here about 13,000 years ago in Alaska via a lost land bridge.

Not everyone is convinced, but Goodyear believes further excavation and testing at the South Carolina location, known as the Topper site, will confirm his findings.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this as, if it’s true, could be revolutionary news for human history. And all from my part of the world! And you thought the only thing to come out of Georgia was peaches and rednecks.