The Inevitable Compleat Star Trek Do-Over

1. Human civilization is likely to reach a level of technological maturity such that creative individuals will be capable of using generative AI and other software tools to create brand new episodes of Star Trek independently. 
2. Given the number of Star Trek fans obsessed with canon, some number of Star Trek fans will re-create selected episodes of the show(s), changing them only to correct continuity errors. 
3. A subset of these creative, technologically savvy Star Trek fans will be obsessed enough with visual continuity that they will redo visual effects and create virtual sets, costumes, props, and actors such that shows originally produced during different decades of the 20th and 21st centuries will be completely recreated so that shows produced decades apart but set within the same fictional time period (for example, Star Trek and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) will be remade to be completely visually consistent, from exterior starship shots to costume designs to actor appearances.  
4. Given the rate of advances in computing power and generative AI capabilities, we can expect to see a Compleat Star Trek free of continuity errors before the end of the 21st century, extending from prequel Star Trek: Enterprise to the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and all the shows in between (and forthcoming). 
   

The question of whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader. 

Mini Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is one of the great figures of human history, and I hope I did this miniature version justice. I'm getting better at painting tiny, tiny details such as eyes and facial hair. 
 

Billions and Billions of Iterations of Carl Sagan

I think Carl Sagan would be fascinated by the (what appears to be) sudden explosion of AI capability. Despite many prompts I couldn't get Stable Diffusion to get Carl's face really correct, but it came close, and I think the spirit shines through. 

Youth Juice

There are a lot of caveats in this Nature article - as there should be - but apparently a recent experiment seems to suggest some degree of de-aging the human body, or at least the human body's genomes, may--just may--be possible. I want to believe..!

Earl of Green Gables, Day 10: The Tides of Fundy

Fallen Eagle

Tonight I made the mistake of watching one of the live streams replaying the first human exploration of the Moon in real time. The moment itself, of course, remains momentus  even 50 years on; but I'm deeply saddened by the ignorance displayed in the commentary stream, where it seems perhaps 40 or 50 percent of people have signed on simply to decry one of humanity's greatest achievements as a hoax. 

Some days I weep for us all. 

Apollo 11 Trailer

I just heard about this: a new documentary about Apollo 11, created from 70mm footage of the original event. The few shots in the trailer look absolutely spectacular, and I cannot wait to see the entire spectacle. 

Could You Make Really Huge Pancakes in Zero Gravity?

If you were a cook in a space station with no gravity, could you make a pancake as large as, say, a parachute?

This question could also be applied to pizzas. 

A Woman of Science

OMNI Returns

I was a big fan of OMNI back in the 1980s, and today I spotted this on the newsstand at London Drugs. This is the first magazine I've bought in a decade or more. Crazy! If nothing else, new fiction from Nancy Kress will be worth the cover price. 

Farewell to the Last Man on the Moon

Gene Cernan, the last human being to walk on the moon, has died. Naturally I didn't know Cernan, and as always I feel a strange twinge when the death of a celebrity hits me harder than that of any less famous person, but Cernan's work, like those of the other astronauts, moved me profoundly as a child. And to this day, I'm amazed that the men who walked on the moon were and are my contemporaries.

Cold war politics aside, manned exploration of the moon stands as one of humanity's most profound and incredible achievements, and I am shocked that now half of the men that walked on the moon are gone before they could see anyone return. I hope at least a few of them live to see people continue humanity's exploration of the solar system before they, too, pass on. 

Bling from the Depths, Bling from the Skies

Let's say we move ahead after all with carbon capture and storage plans. Instead of just storing all that carbon underground, why not build a giant hydraulic press in each carbon cave and squeeze the captured carbon into giant diamonds? We could then sell those diamonds on the world market for big $$$. "We're putting the squeeze on climate change!" could be the program's slogan.

Alternatively, if we could master force field technology, we could surround the earth in a spherical force field and slowly decrease its size, gradually crushing our own atmosphere until the excess carbon is squeezed out. Imagine, a rainfall of diamonds that covers the whole planet!

Ball of Fire

I set the iPhone to capture light trails and this is what I wound up with. Sort of interesting, especially when you start to notice the bizarre composition. What was I thinking? 

My Favourite Colour Doesn't Exist

Here's a fascinating presentation from the Royal Institution explaining how and why we perceive the colour purple (or more properly, magenta), even though it doesn't show up on the colour spectrum.  

Ice Cube Mystery

We have two ice cube trays, identical in shape and composition. But one tray creates perfect cubes that pop out whole, while the other produces brittle cubes that shatter. Can a scientist explain why this might be so? The water is coming from the same tap, and the trays produce brittle or solid cubes no matter where they are placed in the fridge.

Appalling Apollo Art

45 years ago this week, Apollo 11 made its historic voyage to the moon. A couple of decades after that, I drew and coloured this. I think it speaks for itself, but thankfully in space no one can hear you scream. 

The IXS Enterprise

Yes, the science is still speculative, but I still find it very exciting that real scientists are working on a warp drive and that they feel it's within the realm of possibility (if only barely) that such a thing might one day exist. In the meantime, we can all enjoy these amazing concept images of what a "real life" starship Enterprise might look like...

Introducing the Cocoa-Nut

Many humans enjoy the succulent white meat of the coconut. Others are fond of chocolate. When mixed in desserts and candy bars, chocolate and coconut are a winning combination.

BUT! What if some mad genius - and I'm not naming names here, cough cough - were to use genetic engineering techniques to combine the coconut palm and the cocoa plant into one STUPENDOU-FOOD - the COCOANUT! It would have sweet dark chocolate meat! The chocolate to plain coconut's vanilla!

Where is my Nobel prize? TWO Nobel prizes - one for Peace, one for Science! 

Science Orb

The Space Centres

Here's the last of the posters I photographed at Mom and Dad's before giving them the reluctant go-ahead to start recycling. I wonder how many of the space launch centres indicated on my map still exist? How many others have sprung up, and where?

The Space Centres was drawn on construction paper with felt marker. The rockets were cut out of construction paper and painted with red model paint, then glued onto the map.