Paul McCartney's "My Valentine" featuring Johnny Depp & Natalie Portman

Characters in the Over the Edge series often sign and speak simultaneously. This video shows how lovely that can be.

Science of Over the Edge: Asteroid Mining

In the Over the Edge series asteroid mining is mentioned as an economic activity characters might engage in or have interaction with. Some ambitious folks are beginning to use advanced, emerging technology to make this a reality.

Divided Brains: The Science of Over the Edge

A primary theme of the Over the Edge series is the divided brain. Many of the primary characters are marsupial humanoids. Marsupials lack the corpus callosum which is the part of the brain which unifies the two hemispheres. Of course, we are are not marsupials, our right hemispheres do not have language and thus often end up ignored. This video delves into that quality:

Hazards of Space Travel and Living on Other Planets: The Science of Over the Edge

NASA is working on the problem of safety for astronauts venturing to Mars and beyond.

Since 2009, a research orbiter had been circling the moon. Among other things, it is equipped with a plastic that mimics human skin. NASA studies hazards of radiation on space travelers.

They've created a robot that can explore that hostile planet once it arrives and be a test subject during its journey. Here's a video explaining the project: Curiosity: The Stunt Double
Curiosity has landed:  Curiosity's First Photos ; NASA: Curiosity's Mission

NASA/Fox News photo

Robo Eyes, Snooper Robos: The Science of Over the Edge

TED photo

In Over the Edge characters use robo eyes and snooper robos to remotely observe and to take samples. Here's a video detailing the technology currently in development: VJ Kumar: Robots that Fly and Co-operate

This is about a 12 minute video and worth the time.

Below are several links to sites discussing this technology:

"New York Times" slide show: "Drones Transform How America Fights Its Wars"

YouTube video: "Military Mosquito Robots Collecting DNA & Blood"

Space Travel and Colonization of Planets: The Science of Over the Edge

Tim Cavanaugh's column in the Reason magazine's February 2012 issue discusses some of the problems facing serious space travel--that is leaving our cozy little neck of the solar system to venture to Mars or even set up more permanent camps on the Moon. He likes the idea of genetic engineering, that is, fixing humans to be more compatible with space or with life on Mars. He says, "...genetic engineering is the only way humanity can conquer Mars and the rest of the solar system..."

Well, given how poorly anybody has predicted what the future holds (Where's my flying car and my rocket back pack?), I don't think genetic engineering will end up being the wave space travel future.

However, he does point out the very real hurdles we squishy humans face. Anybody who leaves earth's protective magnetic field runs the risk of deadly solar flares and cosmic radiation. "Any crew dispatched on the 18-to-30-month mission to Mars will face highly elevated risks of cancer, tissue degradation, bone density loss, brain damage, pharmaceutical spoilage, and other health threats," Cavanaugh wrote. If a team made it to Mars without succumbing to some health threat or another, he's landing on a planet which has one-hundredth earth's atmosphere and no shielding from solar radiation whatsoever, which will now include reflected solar rays from this inhospitable planet's surface. And terraforming won't be easy, we have a hard time doing anything significant to our climate, despite what global warming believers say. Bulky spaceship shields are expensive. Mars doesn't look like a place that can pay for the trip: it seems to have no mineral value; no organic chemistry; no temperate regions; no energy sources and no real canals. The ice below the surface is about the only attractive feature Mars has going for it, in terms of a personal human visit.

Cavanaugh quotes Robert Zurbin, founder of Mars Society, "The real profit of the New World didn't come from a spice route to India, nor did it come from looting Aztec gold. It came from a new society and a new branch of humanity that built a democracy and invented the airplane. The value is going to come from people born on Mars. There is a reason that a frontier culture is connected to a culture of invention."

Spaceships in the Over the Edge series use gravitational and magnetic fields and huge interior plant gardens to help protect them from space hazards. Those who labor in the fledgling private space industry have the kind of frontier spirit needed to overcome obstacles. There was a time when longitude was the overwhelming puzzle that held seafarers back. Humans will advance into space through brain power--the ability to creatively invent new technology and create solutions. I'm voting for ordinary, unadulterated humans via private space industry to solve our space travel problems--provided government doesn't excessively intrude.

 Mars ridge; photo credit: National Geographic

Star Wars Electric Cello Parody (Just for Fun)

Earth from Space

Right click on the image for a full screen view or more options. Enjoy!

Risk, Wisdom and Whining in the Space Age

I'm thrilled to live in New Mexico which has been in the forefront of many scientific advances. We're also a western state where the wild, wild west with all it's amazing Indian cultures; mythic gun fights and noble, heroic cowboys and settlers are part of the landscape.

I'm not so thrilled with what has happened to our national attitude toward space exploration, NASA and where our priorities should lie. It's incredibly short-sighted and narrow-minded to say that space exploration is a waste of money. Worse, it's a lie. The list of innovations and advances space exploration has brought to us is long and impressive. 

New Mexico's former Governor Bill Richardson ran a corrupt administration marred by foul pay-to-play politics and spendthrift ways that left the state treasury in the hole. Not everything he did was bad, but not everyone agrees with everything he did "right." Breaks for the movie industry being one of the decisions people have argued about. Another is the space port. Spaceport America. The verdict is still out on that one, but I think in the long run, it's a wise investment. Innovation and risk taking are two of the pillars that lead to prosperity for all people, not just the people who have the cash to fund such things.

Space, or any kind of exploration for that matter, has always been a risky business. In the past, government has been good at taking on risky business. But lately, the zeitgeist of safety and security takes priority over all other concerns murdering the zeitgeist of innovation, risk taking and liberty. Safety and security is boring and stifling, which then generates a rebellious mood amongst youth who have been blinded to other options, so they launch futile protests against things and persons they don't understand. The safety and security mind-set leads to the regulation mentality that leads toward autocratic government and ends liberty. Forget risk taking. Persons who take risks are punished under autocratic systems, if they can obtain the where with all to even imagine taking any risks. Too much regulation which always includes reams of poorly written and poorly thought-out law by people ignorant of the fields they are trying to regulate stops innovation.

The last moon launch was canceled because the zeitgeist had shifted. It didn't matter that the money had already been spent, that if the launch didn't go through it would be wasted. Even though the way the money had been used was ostensibly the point, it really wasn't. The objective was change and power. While the zeitgeist that ruled during our quest for the moon may have had its problems, no zeitgeist of any era is perfect, I prefer it to the soft, whining zeitgeist that reigns now. The present ruling mood, an offspring of the one that shut down the last moon launch, has underlying it, not just ignorance, but an inherent lack of wisdom, which is worse than ignorance. These people don't understand where their food comes from; they don't understand what it takes to be free and they don't understand where prosperity comes from. For some unaccountable reason they seem to think prosperity is evil and that somehow, even though prosperity is evil, they will have pleasant lives without it. Too many have become a bunch of babies whining for their bottles.

"Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law (God's Law)," Proverbs 29:18. 

Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." 

Rather than taking risks in areas where it could do the culture good, the push is toward willful rejection of the familial, political and cultural structures that have been built over the course of 2000 years. Without a comprehensive understanding of why those systems, values, mores and methods were constructed in the first place, this course is not only stupid, but far more dangerous to the culture than the sorts of risks human beings used to take all the time, risks which governments so thoroughly strive to protect us from now. Casting off social restraint, tearing down the old ways and replacing them with disastrous new ones will make a society incapable of innovation and advancement. Few kids from broken homes or raised by almost exclusively by women alone become the sort of adults who generate innovation, scientific advancement and exploration. They have to spend their lives sorting through the basics of living--if they get that far. Reflecting the rebellious, underlying attitude all people gravitate toward, government breaks its own laws on a daily basis and practice arbitrary law enforcement according to some bureaucrat's whim further punishing innovators and risk takers. And, because so many of the people who are making the most noise, or rather, listened to so thoroughly by the press (and this shows the wisdom of the press), lack wisdom, they are inviting destruction upon themselves and the rest of us if we can't stop the slide into dependency, ignorance and poverty.

The spaceport in New Mexico is a step forward even in the midst of this era of whining, diapered babies. Someone had vision--Governor Richardson and Richard Branson and Burt Rutan and all those who've played a role in this adventure into space. This effort sends a huge message of hope which the press in their typically near-sighted way has largely overlooked. Diapered, whining babies have no big dreams, they have no grand vision. Their dreams are small and their vision is petty. The main things they seem to want are student loan forgiveness, expanded welfare, more months of unemployment, free healthcare and the collapse of capitalism, though they actually have no idea what results that collapse would entail for persons like themselves who don't know how to work, don't know how to farm and have no useful skills. Small dreams lead to small accomplishments, they can do nothing more.

Chaos seems to loom on the horizon. But in the midst of chaos is also great opportunity, therefore, anyone who has a great vision and big dreams may have to be more creative, but the chance for huge achievement is available. The spaceport and the sub-orbital ships that will be launched there are steps in that direction.

Spaceport America, photo credit: Virgin Galactic

Robots and Robot Aides: The Science of Over the Edge

Robots, robotic aides and/or bionics figure in Over the Edge, but they're in the background, like toasters or refrigerated air units: they're not missed until they're broken and not seen until they're necessary to the story. That's the way technology should be, actually, it shouldn't really be a character in a story (well, humanoid robots who think and have feelings may be the exception).

Probably the most dramatic bionic use found in Over the Edge is a character's ability to save to an electronic medium images captured by the eye, sounds heard by the ear and thoughts recorded and verbiage stored as text documents. No privacy if someone's got the access codes. Add the ability to access that saved information at any time from anywhere, total, literal recall, and the power to control a spaceship by thought command, a spaceship captain finds his ship an extension of his own being. This happens to a lesser extent when people drive. Experienced drivers naturally extend their concept of personal space and boundaries to include the vehicle they're driving. They become attuned to the normal rattles, clicks and rumbles of their healthy machine and take note when sounds change. Well, some of us do. Others of us don't pay that good attention, not even to our own bodies. But that's another subject.

The article posted below from National Geographic highlights how robots or robotic aides are already integrating into human life and what may lie in the future.

Bionics

Over the Edge Romance series: What Does A Guy's Car Say About Him?

Unlike most previous posts, this one is just for fun. The Over the Edge Sci Fi Romance series tell the stories of ordinary women who meet and (maybe) fall for men from space. While they're on planet earth the guys have got to have something to drive. What will they choose and what does a guy's vehicle choice say about him?

What Does a Guy's Car Say About Him?

What Would Spaceship Launches Really Look Like?: The Science of Over the Edge

This post is just for fun, although it does plug into the Science of Over the Edge features which appear here every so often. What does it look like when a missile is launched? Well, here's a photo:

This image is from a blog on the Discover web page titled: Awesomely Weird Expanding Halo of Light Seen from Hawaii This picture is a still taken from a video by Kanoa Withington. It shows the beginnings of an expanding halo--watch the video on the blog link posted above--probably created by a missile launching into space from California. Check out the blog post.




 This next photo is also from the same blog, but you may have seen it awhile back, the weird spiral over Norway. Here's a still image of that:

This turned out to be an out-of-control rocket booster jetting into space. Video of that incident is posted below.






Google "weird spirals over Norway" for more videos.

Here are some more links from Discover magazine online about werid sightings:

Falcon UFOs

Great Balls of Fire Over Australia

Russian UFOs

So what would it look like if earth had a sure-enough space port where real spaceships going places distant and amazing launched? Maybe very much like these images--well, except for the out-of-control rocket, hopefully a person wouldn't see many of those.

Nanotechnology: The Science of Over the Edge

Nanotechnology is the technology of manipulating matter at the scale between the every day world--the big, visible stuff--and the world of the quantum--the teeny, tiny. "A nanometer is about the width of a strand of DNA," says Discover magazine, July/August, 2010, issue. Nanometer, abbreviated nm, is a name derived from the Greek word for midget, nano. Each nanometer is only three to five atoms wide, 40,000 times smaller than the width of the human hair. Nanoparticles contain tens of thousands of atoms and straddle the world of Newton and the world of quantum mechanics.But nanotechnology is not new.

Human beings have used nanotechnology in sunscreen and ink-jet printers. But medieval stained glass nanotechnologists have probably created the most amazingly beautiful nano-tech products to date: stained glass colored with gold. The medieval art of making stained glass reached its peak in the years between 1100 and 1500.

Most of what we know about medieval stained glass was recorded by a monk who called himself, Theophilus, in his book titled On Diverse Arts. He wrote that powdered metals such gold, copper and silver were used to color molten glass. Gold particles were simple spheres about 25 nanometers in diameter. At such a small size, gold no longer glitters. The beautiful red of stained glass was created when gold chloride, a compound of gold and chlorine, which was prepared by passing chlorine gas over gold powder, was mixed with molten glass turning gold into tiny spheres that sloshed in unison and absorbed blue and yellow light while allowing the longer wavelength, red, to shine in a rich ruby hue. To achieve a bright yellow hue, nanoparticles of silver were used. Change the size of the gold nanoparticles and a different color is achieved. With today's more sophisticated tools, nanotechnologists can make particles of many different shapes and sizes. Larger gold spheres create green and orange hues. Small silver ones make blue. Changing the size and shape of a gold or silver nanoparticle can produce every color of the spectrum.

In a New York Times article, titled, "Tiny is Beautiful: Translating 'Nano' Into Practical," Dr. Chad A. Mirkin, a director of Northwestern University's Institute for Nanotechnology, said "everything, regardless of what it is, has new properties" because of the changes made in quantum mechanical and thermodynamic properties at the nanometer scale. He added, this is "where a lot of the scientific interest is." Dr. A. Paul Alivisatos, a professor of chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, stated, "instead of changing composition, you can change size."  Dr. Alivisatos, founding scientist of Quantum Dot Corporation, works with nanoparticles, called "quantum dots" made of semiconductors and gallium arsenide. The size and shape of the quantum dots can be manipulated to fluoresce specific colors. In a medical application, current dyes used to light up proteins fade quickly, but quantum dots could allow tracking of biological reactions in living cells for days.

Kenneth Chang, author of the New York Times article mentioned above, wrote, "Other applications of nanoparticles take advantage of the fact that more surface area is exposed when material is broken down to smaller sizes. For magnetic nanoparticles, the lack of blemishes produces magnetic fields remarkably strong considering the size of the particles. Nanoparticles are also so small that in most of them, the atoms line up in perfect crystals without a single blemish"

Dr. David F. Kelley, a professor at the University of California, Merced, is researching the chemical, optical and electronic properties of semiconductor nanoparticles and electron transfer reactions involving inorganic dyes. He's interested in nanoparticles because of their possible applications in regenerative photocells, photocatalysis and in electroluminescent devices. He seeks to come to understand size-dependent spectroscopy and photophysics on a nanoparticle level. This research may be applied to create solar cells that would allow electrons to hop more easily between particles due to the flawless structure possible on a nanoparticle scale.

Dr. Yi Lu, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois. He uses DNA as a building block for nanoscale components. His primary areas of research include: DNA mediated assembly and growth of nanoparticles, directed nanoscale self-assembly on a DNA scaffold and reversible cell-specific drug delivery with Apatamer-functional lipsomes. He takes advantage of the color changes that occur at the nanoparticle level to create a test for hazardous levels of lead. DNA molecules attached to gold nanoparticles, tangle with other specially designed pieces of DNA to make clumps that appear blue. Lead causes the connecting DNA to fall apart cutting loose the gold nanoparticles and changing the color to red.

Dr. Mirkin uses gold nanoparticles as a connecting point to build disease sensors. He attaches a gold particle to an antibody and adds snippets of DNA that act as bar codes. This approach has produced a test for Alzheimer's disease by measuring minuscule amounts of a protein in spinal fluid associated with the disease. His company, Nanosphere Inc. is working to bring this technology to market.

Dr. Naomi J. Halas, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, has invented a type of particle she's dubbed "nanoshells," which are hollow gold or silver spheres wrapped around a filling of silica.These may be used to treat cancer by applying the ability of nanoparticle-sized hollow shape to increase gold's efficiency in absorbing light energy. When these nanoshells are injected into a tumor and infrared light is shined on them, they heat up and kill the tumor. Researchers in Dr. Halas's lab have demonstrated nanoshells unique ability by inserting nanoshells into uncooked chicken parts and then shining a near infrared laser at the chicken. Since water does not absorb much infrared light, the light passes through most of the meat without having any effect, but the nanoshells heat up, cook the chicken, then start smoking and catch on fire. In actual treatment, lower intensity of light would be used to avoid cooking the patient. See also Dr. Halas's associate's site: Nanospectra and Nanomedicine Targets Cancer.

Shrinking medication to nanoparticle size will improve effectiveness. Altair Nanotechnologies of Reno has developed a possible drug for kidney patients: nanoparticles of lanthanum dioxycarbonate. This chemical binds to phosphate which builds up in failing kidneys and prevents it from entering tissue. A small amount with each meal can have a huge beneficial effect.

Discover magazine article by Nayanah Siva titled Smart Bandages Nurse Your Wounds reported Toby Jenkins and colleagues of the University of Bath in England, are working on self-medicating bandages that promise to keep serious wounds free of infection using nanocapsules that release antimicrobials when bacterial toxins appear in a wound. Harmful bacteria will also cause the dressing to change color alerting care takers that a problem exists. This could be especially helpful for burn victims. Nearly 50% of all burn-related deaths are caused by infection. This new technology will allow fewer bandages to be used which will reduce scarring and speed healing.

Siva writes, "Cell biologist Paul Durham and his team from Missouri State University are working on a multitasking bandage layered with antifungal, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory agents for use on a variety of wounds, including deep cuts and punctures. In the initial prototype, a battery-powered time-release mechanism will dispense the medications, but ultimately the researchers hope to incorporate chemical sensors that will trigger drug release in response to changes in the wound."

In a January, 2000, issue, Wendy Marston reported in Discover online Future Tech article sub titled: Can we interest you in a suit that banishes dirt, sweat, and germs, sir? nano-tech mills could completely change how clothing is made. David Forrest, president of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, says that nano-mills will create custom fabrics assembled atom by atom using contraptions the size of photocopy machines. "Raw materials such as nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen will be put into a desk-size unit which will rearrange the elements and control the trajectories of all the molecules" in order to fabricate the material. He also plans to incorporate sensors to detect rips and tears which will alert parmecium-size robotic crews to fix the holes by means of atomic manipulation. Gain a few pounds? Electro-mechanically controlled molecules in the fibers could change the shape of a garment with the touch of a button. Nano-manufactured clothing might even launder itself using nano-sized, micro-maids to remove dirt to a collection area where it will be picked up. "Robotic devices similar to mites could periodically scour the fabric surfaces," says Forrest. Mico-maids would also handle the rinse cycle. "It may be extraordinarily difficult to do this," he says, "but there's no scientific barrier."

Nanobots that clean spaceships, nano-drug-delivery systems and nano-manufactured textiles, clothing and facsimile copies of documents identical to the originals from the molecular level up are features of the Over the Edge science fiction series. In one scene a character uses a nano-heart attack to assassinate a criminal. Nanobots clean spaceships and check them for hazardous particles or micro-organisms and out-of-place insects, threads or buttons and report their findings to ship's captains.

Thought Controlled Vehicles: The Science of Over the Edge

Captain Reeser Peland controls his space ship using his mind. He can do this while either in the ship or while on a planet's surface. German innovators have developed a mind controlled car. Of course, the assumption is such a car is not safe for normal driving, and maybe it isn't, but typically we humans always vastly underestimate each other and ourselves. The answer is to expect more from one another, not less.

Watch: German engineers test drive mind control car

Flying Cars: The Science of Over the Edge

The "Transition" flying car by Terrafugia isn't a hover model, but it both flies to the airport and trundles down the interstate back home to your private garage. For only $194,000 you can own one of these beauties. The vehicle is only a two seater, so you won't be taking the kids along any time soon, but it could be a great date car! Just think... leave your home in the boonies and head off to Chicago for a show, drive to the show, enjoy yourself and head back home afterwards...sounds pretty cool. And maybe a lot cheaper than other alternatives.

In Over the Edge characters gad about in hover cars which have mechanisms within them that repel or attract to gravity depending on whether the driver wants to go up into the sky or come back down to the ground. Since we don't really understand gravity at all, this type of car is a long way off. But, it's great to know that a flying car is finally within reach for us earth bound mortals.

Terrafugia Makers of Transition the Flying Car
 Photo credit: Terrafugia

Kim Peek: Extraordinary Memory; No Corpus Callosum

Kim Peek, who died December 19, 2009, was the extraordinary fellow upon whom the savant character in the movie Rain Man was based. He was a man born without a corpus callosum--the same brain structure all marsupials lack.

Kim Peek was born on November 11, 1951, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Doctors discovered a funny, baseball-sized blister on the back of his enlarged head. He was a sluggish infant and he cried a lot. By the age of 9 months doctors expected he would be mentally and physically impaired for life and recommended the parents institutionalize him. They declined. From the beginning, his head was about 30% larger than normal. His head was so heavy he couldn't even hold it up until his body grew big enough to support it at about the age of four.

By the age of 16 months, Kim had taught himself to read. When he consulted a dictionary to define the word "confidential," his parents realized he could read newspapers," Telegraph.co.uk obituaries. Kim memorized the entire Bible by the age of seven.

His parents tried to give him a normal upbringing, but Kim was expelled from school for disruptive behavior. Schools of the day had no special education teachers to help him. His father hired retired teachers to educate him at home. He finished the high school curriculum by the age of 14. His mother looked after him until his parents' divorce, then the task fell to his father.

Kim was unable to brush his teeth, dress himself, cook food or shave without help. Yet, Kim memorized the complete works of Shakespeare and every volume of the Reader's Digest condensed books available to him. "He used telephone directories for exercises in mental arithmetic, adding each column of seven-digit numbers together in his head until he reached figures in the trillions," Telegraph.co.uk obituary (link posted above).

Barry Morrow, author of the script that went on to become the movie, Rain Man, met Kim at a retarded persons convention in Arlington, Texas, in 1984. He spent four hours with Kim. He asked Fran, Kim's father, if he realized that Kim had memorized every postal code, area code and road number in the United States. He urged Fran to introduce Kim to the public. Fran ignored the request fearing Kim would become a freak show.

Dustin Hoffman spent six hours with Kim and copied Kim's rapid monotone, rocking motions and child-like emotions to create the Raymond Babbitt character in the movie. Morrow wanted Kim to visit a casino to see how he would count the cards, but Kim refused on grounds that it was unethical.

Morrow received an academy award for his script and gave Kim the Oscar. The statue became his most prized possession. He took it everywhere.

Because of the film, Kim finally received the high school diploma he had previously been denied. The film opened other doors too. Because of the respect he received for his abilities from these persons outside his family, he ended his reclusive lifestyle, made many friends and ventured out into the world. Fran took Kim on a series of speaking engagements where he amazed and dazzled audiences. Father and son emphasized the principle that each person has some kind of ability which others lack. Their motto: "Recognizing and respecting differences in others, and treating everyone like you want them to treat you, will help make our world a better place for everyone. Care... be your best. You don't have to be handicapped to be different. Everyone is different!" Fran certainly did his best to embody that motto, striving to equip Kim to achieve all he could.

Kim could read a page of a book, front and back simultaneously, one page with each eye, regardless of whether the book was upside down or sideways, in 8 to 10 seconds. He remembered 98% of everything he read. He was interested in fifteen different areas, a few of those were: world and American history, sports, movies, geography, actors and actresses, the Bible, church history, literature, Shakespeare and classical music. Besides postal codes, area codes, etc., Kim also memorized the maps included in phone books and could provide travel directions within any major city in the U.S. He could identify hundreds of classical compositions, tell when and where each composition was composed and first performed, give the composer's name and biographical details; he could even discuss formal and tonal components of the music. Kim never became set in his ways. He began learning to play piano in 2002. With this new skill, he could play many of the multitudes of pieces he'd memorized earlier and discuss the different properties of each piece.

Unlike most savants, Kim understood what he memorized, though he often had trouble with abstract or conceptual thinking. Scientific American Mind describes an incident when Fran asked Kim to lower his voice in a restaurant. Kim scooted lower in his chair so that his voice box would be lower. Other times he proved ingenious. In one talk he was asked about Lincoln's Gettysbug Address. He answered, "Will's house, 227 North West Front Street, but he stayed there only one night--he gave the speech the next day." He didn't intend the answer as a joke, but when the questioner laughed, he saw the humor and recycled the joke at future events. Once Kim attended a Shakespeare festival sponsored by a philanthropist whose laryngitis threatened to silence him. The man's initials were O.C. Kim quipped, "O.C., can you say?" Another time, exhibiting his lightning ability to access the vast information stored in his head, "...an interviewer offered that he had been born on March 31, 1956, Peek noted, in less than a second, that it was a Saturday on Easter weekend," Scientific American Mind, June/July 2006, page 52.

The technical name for the blister Kim suffered as an infant is encephalocele. An encephalocele is when the neural tube fails to close. A baby can have one of these anywhere on his head. It is usually filled with fluid, but can contain brain matter. Fortunately for Kim Peek, his encephalocele was on the back of his head and it resolved itself. But there were other abnormalities. Kim had a malformed cerebellum and lacked a corpus callosum.

Some people born without a corpus callosum, called "agenesis of the corpus callosum," are able to function normally. Others suffer problems with co-ordination; inability to name colors without first associating the color with an object; inability to read facial expressions; problems with abstract reasoning and humor...some are savants.

"It would seem that those born without a corpus callosum somehow develop back channels of communication between the hemispheres. Perhaps the resulting structures allow the two hemispheres to function, in certain respects, as one giant hemisphere, putting normally separate functions under the same roof," Scientific American Mind, June/July 2006, page 52. The brain hemispheres of persons whose corpus callosum is cut during adulthood begin to work almost independently of each other--commonly called "split brain" syndrome.

Sometimes savant abilities appear after damage to the left hemisphere. A theory on why this happens is the idea that the right hemisphere develops new skills and sometimes recruits from the left brain's tissue for tasks it previously didn't undertake. Another theory is that the left hemisphere exerts a kind of tyranny over the right hemisphere. Once the right hemisphere is released from this domination, it can achieve great things. (See January 24th, 2007, post titled, "Darn Domineering Left Brains and Subversive Right Brains..." on this blog)

For more check out: Savant Syndrome: Island of Genius

Over the Edge dabbles in various aspects of what it might be like to lack a corpus callosum. The characters are not savants as Kim Peek was, just as not all persons who lack a corpus callosum are savants, but they share characteristics with him and with persons who develop split brain syndrome as adults. As marsupial humanoids, they have the ability to read material as Kim Peek did, each eye reading independently of the other. However, in Over the Edge, each brain hemisphere is given its own language, the left hemisphere an abstract symbol alphabet and the right hemisphere a hieroglyphic based language. In the story, characters' brain hemispheres operate in harmony until some conflict occurs--then battle begins. Characters of Over the Edge also lead double lives, in effect, giving part of their time to allow one hemisphere to shine more brilliantly than the other and vice versa. In the story, these times are called "half times."

Understanding how the brain works, how the mind works, how the spirit functions within the brain it is given, are themes of Over the Edge.

If the image below does not fully load on your computer screen, click on it and a new window will open where you can see it in its entirety.

Invisibility: The Science of Over the Edge

According to Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for the UK Telegraph, scientists are very close to hiding stuff behind a screen of manipulated electromagnetic radiation. The technique is called "transformation optics" and uses a "superscatterer" to create an optical illusion. The superscatterer forces light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation into complicated directions to hide things--like Platform 9 3/4. In the Harry Potter series Platform 9 1/2 is hidden through the use of magic, but as Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Profiles of the Future:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

What these scientists are after is a "gateway that can block electromagnetic waves but that allows the passage of other entities." The present breakthrough has achieved a broader bandwidth and "has the added advantage of being able to be switched on and off remotely." Dr. Huanyang Chen said, "people standing outside the gateway would see something like a mirror."

In Over the Edge small surveillance cameras equipped with hover mechanisms use projected images to hide the device. Looks like we're close to having the ability to hide things in plain sight--now we just need efficient hover technology.

Invisible Doorways or Portals A Step Closer to Reality

Mercedes-Benz turned one of their vehicles invisible for a promotional stunt. In Over the Edge miniaturized cameras and screens accomplish the same thing making an object completely invisible on all sides. Read more about the Mercedes-Benz promotion and watch a video here:
Invisible Mercedes Brings James Bond Technology to Life

Marsupials are Weird: The Science of Over the Edge

Marsupials are weird.

The "aliens" in Over the Edge are marsupial humanoids. Of course, the term "alien" is a relative term.

Marsupials are classified as mammals because they have four chambered hearts, warm blood and give milk. But unlike us placental-types, the two hemispheres of their brains are not unified--there is no corpus callosum which connects the two halves in placental brains. Double minded by design.

Marsupial eggs are more eggy than placental eggs because they retain a tiny egg yolk and a sort of soft egg shell through which the industrious sperm must penetrate.

In as little as 13 days after conception, marsupials give birth to barely there, practically transparent infants (blood red with black eye dot) who have only developed a couple of arms with which to climb. And climb they must from the opening of the birth canal (which incidentally is not the same canal through which the sperm was introduced) to the pouch, or marsupium, where they latch onto a nipple and remain for months.

Marsupium is Latin for "pouch." Funny how that works. Meanwhile, legend has it that the name "kangaroo" means (my paraphrase) "What the heck are you talking about?" The story went that early explorers asked the natives about the strange creatures hopping like frogs with deer heads standing upright like humans and the natives answered something they took to be "kangaroo" which was thought to mean..."What the heck are you talking about?" The story may not be true, but it should be.

Imagine the folks back home who heard about these creatures standing upright, as tall as a man, hopping around like frogs, many of which had two deer heads (a mother with a joey peering out of his marsupium)! People back home probably wondered what was in the drink.

The name, "gangurru," is from the Guugu Yimidhirr language. Captain James Cook and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks first recorded the name "kangooroo" or "kanguru" in 1770 when stopped at what is now, shock of all shocks, Cooktown, for repairs. Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers, jacks or old men. Females are called does, flyers or jills. Babies are called joeys. A group of kangaroos is called a mob, troop or court. Click here for more about Kangaroos


Placentals have a things called a "placenta" which is the organ that protects the baby from his mother's immune system and links him to his mother through which he receives nourishment and oxygen and transmits his waste so the mother can get rid of it. Marsupials have placentas, the typically non-invasive chorio-vitelline variety. The placenta doesn't develop right away and are in use only two or three days. "Maternal recognition of pregnancy appears unnecessary in marsupials." Huh, yeah, I think that means marsupials don't ever realize they're pregnant, which might be a good thing since they are permanently pregnant.

Female marsupials have two wombs and three vaginas. The one in the middle is the one the joey uses to enter this cold, hard world and the two on either side are the ones the sperm uses to travel to the womb. (You may (or on the other hand, maybe not, be able to imagine how complicated the plumbing for the elimination of urine is given all this tubing.) Female marsupials can do this thing called diapause. The females can hold one baby in suspended animation while his sibling finishes developing in the marsupium. Or they can carry two babies at the same time one in each womb. And the males have forked penises, but when conditions are bad, males don't even bother to produce sperm. Kangaroos eat grass, but don't produce methane like cows do. Instead they transform the gaseous by-product into acetate which they use for energy.

Marsupials have the ability to see red, blue and ultraviolet. Yes, you read correctly, ultraviolet, one color which is invisible to us. But presumably they don't see green since they don't have what we recognize as the physical equipment for that. Exactly what they see, well, at present, nobody knows.

Many marsupials often don't even drink water. However, the yapok, the water opossum, living in Mexico, Central and South America, is the only aquatic marsupial in existence today. It's pouch faces to the rear and has a sphincter muscle which helps keep the water out. A yapok male also has a pouch where he keeps his genitals safe while swimming.

Marsupials can go into a state of torpor, kind of a mini-hibernation, that allows them to survive really chilly nights. Some marsupials go into torpor daily. The mountain pygmy possum can hibernate almost a year.

The above photograph was taken in the 1930's. The animal commonly called the "Tasmainian Tiger" is now believed to be extinct, though there have been rumors of strange "tiger" or cat-like animals lurking around livestock. Photo credit: Tasmainian Tiger

Why marsupials haven't developed more aquatic talents is probably explained by the marsupium which probably isn't as air tight as a developing baby would prefer. But cetaceans, that's whales, dolphins and porpises, are mammals that have many aquatic talents not the least of which is the ability to sleep with only half a brain at a time. See: specifically: "Cetacean sleep: An unusual form of mammalian sleep." Or Google: "unihemispheric sleep."

If marsupials could overcome the leaky pouch problem, then they could probably do the same trick since they are born double-minded anyway.

The marsupial humanoids of Over the Edge don't have ultra-violet eye sight, but they definitely are double-minded and have the strange genital features...er, let's move on to the next topic, shall we?

Time Dilation and the Theory of Everything: The Science of Over the Edge

The clock face is a familiar sight, but it actually doesn't tell us much about time--it only measures the passage of time on planet earth--well, sort of, since time measurement on planet earth is inextricably linked to the earth's rotation around its axis and around the sun...

You'd think that defining exactly what is a day would be pretty easy, but there are several ways to describe a "day:"

The sidereal day is about 4 minutes shorter than the solar day (sidereal measurement is the time it takes the earth to make one complete rotation on its axis). Solar days are measured midnight to midnight. The problem with the solar day is that the earth speeds up in its path around the sun through January and slows down through July so daylight hours get shorter and then longer. To compensate for this fact, "mean solar time" was invented. The idea of mean solar time relies on the position of a fictitious sun at midnight in order to measure a day. The difference between the position of the real sun in relation to the earth and the fictitious sun in relation to the earth is called the equation of time.

Astronomer, Joesph Scalinger, created the "Julian" day (named after his father) which measures a day from noon to noon. He decided to measure days this way because astronomers work at night. If they were to use the civil definition of "day" which is measured midnight to midnight, right in the middle of their work "day" they'd have to start a new "day." Kind of awkward.

Scalinger also suggested just counting days and ignoring the whole leap year problem. Imagine time passing with no years...

If clocks were all set by local mean solar time, clocks every few miles would be on different times. "A clock on Long Island,correctly showing mean solar time for its location (this would be local civil time), would be slightly ahead of a clock in Newark, N.J. The Newark clock would be slightly ahead of a clock in Trenton, N.J., which, in turn, would be ahead of a clock in Philadelphia," see: Time Zones, Time Measurement & International Date Line . Most people didn't spend a lot of time worrying about being "on time," close enough was good enough. But railroads with passenger service issues and not liking trains to collide with one another developed time zones and went anal about being "on time" and defining exactly what that meant. If a person used the train for anything, pretty soon, he went anal about it too.

Finally, in 1884 the International Meridian Conference developed time zones. Time zones begin at Greenwich, England, and stretch around the globe to the International Date Line. At the Date Line a person going east enters the previous calendar day from the day he left on the western side. Does that mean a person can lose a day? The map below shows exactly how arbitrary time zones are. Look at China--the whole country is in the same "time zone!" Alaska covers what should be three time zones...

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/daylight2.html

Leap years are necessary because our calendar is 1/4 of a day off from the solar year which is how long it takes the earth to make a complete rotation of the sun. After a hundred years of no adjustments, our calendar would be off 25 days. Leap years are great, but don't solve the whole problem. The solar year is still 11 minutes and 14 seconds shorter than the calendar year. The solution, proposed in 1582, was to not have a leap year every 400 years.

Different definitions for a "day;" different times for every location; a line where a person can jump back and forth between yesterday and today...this whole measuring time--which, is by the way, a thing that we can't define--is purely dependent on the earth's movement around the sun and that doesn't even come off "like clockwork," that is to say, exactly the same all the time.

On Venus the sun rises in the west and a day, that is midnight to midnight, lasts the same amount of "time" as 243 "days" on earth while the "year" only lasts 225 days, we'd have a vastly different perception of time and reality. On Jupiter a "day" only lasts about 10 earth "hours," but a "year" lasts 12 earth "years."

We don't know what time is, but it's clear, we think we've got measuring time figured out.

Atomic clocks are the closest we can get to measuring time accurately, though they don't tell us what time is either.

St. Augustine of Hippo once wrote:

"What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not."

Sometimes we think that because we can describe something or measure it that we know what it is, but the fact is neither of those abilities can tell us what something is. Scientists (and we ordinary mortals), being human, often forget this.

What is time anyway? We don't know. All we know is coffee doesn't unspill and people don't undie. There is no "undo" button in real life, no "save" point where we can return to a reality where the car wreck hasn't happened.

Speaking of describing something, Einstein described a thing called "time dilation." Time dilation is what happens when a person goes really fast, the faster a person goes, the more time slows down for the traveler. This happens to astronauts orbiting planet earth. To start with, when GPS was new, it took a little tweaking to figure out how to adjust for the difference in time between the satellite and the person on the ground trying to locate his position because GPS uses an element of time to figure location.

The concept of time dilation is mind-boggling. Paul Davies in his book, About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, tries to explain this phenomenon. I read his explanation, I accept it, but some of the finer points I don't understand. Sometimes we have to accept things as truth even if we don't fully understand them, this is what is called "faith." It's impossible to get through this life without faith.

In Over the Edge characters travel at what is described as "near" light speed. That's a vague description because I don't want to do the math and because vague is better when you don't want to be nailed down. Philip K. Dick admits in his essay, "How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," science fiction writers don't know all that much about science. I don't know all that much about science either. I try to read Scientific American every month, but sometimes I admit, I just get bogged down and quit.

But a good fiction author, whether writing science fiction or any other type of fiction, isn't really writing about science or history or whale hunting or whatever the text ostensibly seems to be about--he's really writing about people. But if the story is science fiction, the author needs a few scientific facts to give the science part of the fiction some meat, same with an historical fiction piece or a whale hunting piece.

So, here's a meaty fact to give Over the Edge some traction:

Paul Davies includes the formula for figuring how much time slows for travelers going really fast on page 58:

"You take the speed, divide by the speed of light, square the result, subtract it from one and finally take the square root. For example, suppose the speed is 240,000 kilometers per second. Dividing this by the speed of light gives 0.8, squaring gives 0.64, subtracting from 1 gives 0.36 and taking the square root produces the answer of 0.6. So at a speed of 240,000 kilometers per second, or 80% of the speed of light, clocks are slowed by a factor of 0.6, which means they go at 60% of their normal rate, or 36 minutes to the hour..."

Of course, what Davies is referring to as "normal" is time as we measure it here on planet earth. If you lived on a different planet, time for you would be "normal," but different from here. Time on Venus or Jupiter is different from here. If you lived your life in a space ship traveling 240,000 kilometers per second, "normal" would be different from here. Time is relative. The idea that things are relative is a whole 'nother headache.

Still, regardless of how fast or slow time is passing for you, wherever you are, you will feel it passing normally. There are exceptions to this of course, those rare moments like in the middle of a bad car wreck when time seems to slow down; when you're standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and the sun is setting and you're transported into some kind of spiritual ecstasy; when you finally manage to touch the hem of Jesus' garment during prayer or worship; or you first realize the person holding your hand is the love of your life--times like those are when time seems different, moments feel like hours, hours feel like moments, we've all been there and felt that.

Scientific American image

However we experience time, it's our brains' doing. It regulates how we feel time passing. Scientists say that when time seems to slow down, what's actually happening is our brains are laying down extra memories so we feel as if time has slowed down, see: The Slow Down of Time in Crisis.

Still, the idea of time and experiencing time is boggling. (Yes, I'm using that word a lot.) I don't understand time. I don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is. Some have suggested that time doesn't actually exist. Others have said that all nows are still going on, even those that seem to be the past; they're still running their now wherever in the universe they are now.

Time travel has the great problem of where. If you were to travel back in time, where would you go? The earth is not in the same place it was in yesterday, it definitely isn't in the same place it was in a hundred years ago. I ask again, if you were to go back in time, where would you go? There's no fixed point anywhere that would allow you to figure where the earth has been.

Nobody knows what gravity is either for that matter, yet according to Einstein, gravity and time are inextricably linked. We can describe gravity, we can measure gravity, we can write formulas for how much gravity is affecting whatever wherever... we can describe time, we "measure" time, we can write formulas describing how fast or slow time is somewhere else compared to time on planet earth, but we don't know what time is.

Time, time dilation, how we feel time passing and exactly, "what is time anyway?" are themes of Over the Edge. One of the characters, Candan Rubeek, speaks of God, the Great I AM, as being in NOW, all nows everywhere and in such a vast now that the past and future are almost one with the present. He names the Great I AM as the one thing in the universe which is the underlying fixed Thing, the only unchanging Being from which other others things must measure and be related. Candan argues that if we are to retain our sanity in a universe in flux, God must be our center, then all will be well with us and we will make the most of now, which is really the only time we have.

Philip K. Dick quotes the Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher, Xenophanes of Colophon:

"One god there is, in no way like mortal creatures either in bodily form or in the thoughts of his mind. The whole of him sees, the whole of him thinks, the whole of him hears. He stays always motionless in the same place, it is not fitting that he should move about now this way, now that."

Dick continues this line of thought discussing Edward Hussey's book, The Pre-Socratics, and their pre-Christian ideas about God. Hussey writes:

"The arguments of Parmenides seemed to show that all reality must indeed be a mind, or an object of thought in a mind."

"In Heraclitus it is difficult to tell how far the designs in God's mind are distinguished from the execution in the world, or indeed how far God's mind is distinguished from the world."

"Anaxagoras had been driven to a theory of the microstructure of matter which made it, to some extent, mysterious to human reason."

Dick elaborates that Anaxagoras, this is the Pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae who lived from 500 - 428 B.C. , "believed that everything was determined by Mind"--or as Moses put it in Genesis 1 and John put it in John 1, God the Father--He's the Master Mind who speaks everything into existence.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life..."
John 1:1, 3, 4.

"And God said, "Light BE," and light was," (my paraphrase) Genesis 1:3

The kosmos, Greek for "order or world," or as English understands it, cosmos, the entire orderly universe, is not as it appears. There is an underlying something, a Being in Now, that orders, maintains and sustains all things at an invisible level by His Word.

God spoke material light into existence. The simplicity of Genesis 1:3 should not be interpreted as lacking in scientific precision, it should not be assumed to actually be a simple thing, a kind of blathering of nonsensical words like abracadabra, no, these words are right on, describing in terms even a child can understand something a physicist can spend his entire life studying: everything comes from light.

According to I John 1:5, "God is Light." The poetic beauty of Spiritual Light creating material light from which all material things come is the kind of beauty that Einstein believed in: elegance which masquerades as simplicity. Or perhaps what should be said is that simplicity is often erroneously defined as "simple." The truth is, the most elegant things are simple and in their simplicity is infinite complexity.

Seven times the phrase, "And God said," appears in Genesis 1. Besides the fact that seven is the number of spiritual perfection, anything the Bible repeats is probably important--the author is emphasizing the role of Logos, the Word, in creation.

"The Son (the Logos, the Word) is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His Being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word," Hebrews 1:3, NIV.

"He is the Sole Expression of the Glory of God--the Light Being, the Out-Raying of the Divine--and He is the Perfect Imprint and very Image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty Word of Power," Hebrews 1:3, Amplified Bible.

This underlying something that quantum physics says is in all places at the atomic level, sustaining things, running things like photosynthesis, the sense of smell and green tea's awesome health benefits are all quantum physics in action, the Logos, the Word in NOW, upholding, maintaining, guiding, propelling everything.

The character, Candan Rubeek, of Over the Edge says (in Over the Edge marsupial characters simultaneously sign and speak, so I use parenthesis to indicate sign language):

"The Eternal is the Great I AM. Only in the now can I Am be. He lives in a vast Now encompassing nows, everywhere, every time. Only He can be in your now and in mine, more aware of your now and my now than we are ourselves. (The Omniscient Omnipresent is fully attentive to every now in every atom of the universe in a way we cannot comprehend. Even in our most intimate moments we are not so attentive.)"

Candan sees the Logos, the I AM, interfacing with the material, macro world at the quantum level in NOW. The quantum physicist sees quantum processes happening everywhere in every now and calls this "entanglement." Entanglement is the concept that an atom here can affect an atom on the opposite side of the universe. This is the concept Candan is speaking of, the Logos in NOW.

When God spoke the universe into existence the words Moses recorded, those deceptively simple words, enumerate the DNA, the quantum physics, the mechanisms that are the Laws, the codes, the operations that run the entire universe--and all by His Word, the Logos, the One through Whom All Things Were Made.

Paul tells us in Romans 1:20:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--His eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Wherever a human being cares to look, if he digs deep enough to understand, when he scratches through the layers of what seem to be, the preconceptions, the unrealities of our fantasies about reality which Dick speaks of in his essay, when we scratch through those to the bottom of what is real, we find God looking back at us...unless we don't care to see. There is no cure for willful blindness.

See Discover, February 2009, "Entangled Life," page 59 - 63.

For more discussion on time check out: In Search of Time

Robo Eyes and Snooper Robos: The Science of Over the Edge

In Over the Edge, characters use robo eyes to obtain visual and audio information. Snooper robos add tissue sampling, soil, water and air sampling to their audio/visual collecting repertoire.

The June 2008 issue of Discover magazine article titled "Shrinking Spies" reports on efforts to miniaturize un-manned spy planes such as the Predator, pictured above, now in operation over Iraq. "Shrinking such planes so that they weigh less than two ounces would result in the perfect vehicle to get a bird's-eye view of the terrain" without the annoying tendency to be spotted and shot down quite so readily. However, developers have discovered that a plane only 4 1/2 inches wide has its own set of drawbacks.

Peter Ifju, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, has created a flexible wing plane that can keep a steady course in the face of gusty winds. The bat wing inspired design consists of a "carbon fiber skeleton...covered with a latex membrane that pacifies gusts by acting as a shock absorber," Discover, June 2008, page 12. The downside: the little plane has a flight time of only 15 minutes--can't get a lot of spying done in fifteen minutes, but it still might have its applications even so; that's long enough to determine if a hostile is lurking in the immediate vicinity.

Clearly, the power issue must be resolved before these little planes can be put to serious use, but Professor Ifju is on his way.

photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Watch this video for an update:

Vijay Kumar: Robots That Fly and Co-operate