Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Sunday Starlinks
April 15th, 2012
Some followup to my post about the vile anti-science tactics of global warming denialists. NASA gives a very reasonable and polite reply, making points I agree with. Phil Plait is less polite, making more points I agree with. Shawn Lawrence Otto is a bit more polite, but very thorough in his smackdown, saying a lot of similar things to what I said, and then some.
In more stupid, anti-science news, police in India are looking to arrest Sanal Edamaruka for debunking a Jesus statue that started spewing holy water. Guess what? There was a leak! Apparently he made some gullible religious people feel bad, and there’s a blasphemy law in place to stop people from making gullible religious people feel bad by pointing out that they’re gullible. I’m floored. I wasn’t planning to visit India any time soon, but this simultaneously makes me want to stay as far away as possible and also to fly there in solidarity to debunk as many ridiculous miracles I can find. [Thanks for the head's up, Jon.]
Life on Mars? Very probably, says new analysis of old Viking Lander experiments. People tend not to recall that there were three life-detecting experiments and that they were not unanimous about the “no life” conclusion that NASA/media/public settled on.
On how asteroids hitting the Earth likely spread life to other bodies in the solar system. I wonder if we’ll find that we’ve already contaminated local space, and that even as the dinosaurs were dying, life was spreading. “Life finds a way.”
Love this link. How big is the Death Star? Lots of nerd analysis, frame by frame, to get the scale.
The BBC reports on Kentucky bigfoot hunters. Why? I don’t know…seems weird.
I would so go to Mesa’s Monsterland Bar and Grill!
Zombie survival maps! Actually a really good resource for writers and survivalists more generally, too.
Car accident gives woman psychic powers.
Wyoming town of Buford, population 1, sells for $900,000 to Vietnamese buyer. I drive through Buford all the time, so I got a kick out of this story.
One UFO story. A second UFO story. UFO.
OK, something really interesting. Joss Whedon on Buffy vs. the Black Widow!
Ever notice how some rich people seem less compassionate? Apprently it’s true.
Before Watchmen, there were Minutemen. I am so going to buy that graphic novel.
Five things that affect memory. It seems I should start talking like Sean Connery to help my female students remember their lessons.
Using astronomy to create more interesting fantasy worlds.
MUST HAVE ASTRONOMY GADGET!!! NUIverse…
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Epic fail in India. Still, isn’t an American threatening to boycott India on the grounds of religious freedom as useless as an Alabaman boycotting Mississippi for being too redneck?
Well, I don’t think I’m actually threatening to India in any way!
And Americans do have religious freedom in our constitution, even if we need groups like the ACLU to fight for it constantly.
Is it just me or does the wealth/compassion article keep talking about causation when the tests all seem to be showing correlation? The tests demonstrate a link, but none of them struck me as showing that having wealth makes people less compassionate.
I also think the methodology of the cars experiment is seriously flawed. What about the rich people who choose not to bother with fancy cars? What about the people who don’t have much money trying to hide it by having a car they can’t really afford? I interpret that experiment as, “People who buy fancy cars are more likely to cut people up.” You might have a second connection that, “People with more money are more likely to buy fancy cars,” but you’re diluting the connection being cutting people up and wealth.
Jessica, those are great points! They’d need to do some better designed experiments for all the conclusions in the article to be true, and I should be more careful about how I pass on such links, even when I use the qualifier “some.”
A lot of these little experiments are flawed in the ways you describe, or at least the reporting on them is flawed. I can imagine much better experiments myself to address the problems with the original. They should, too.