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...
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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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Starlinks for a Thursday

November 13th, 2008

Let’s start off for a nice story from space.com that is right up my alley: merging galaxies and the growth of supermassive black holes in the very early universe. My specialty is quasars, the most luminous form of active galaxy out there, and these cosmic powerhouses are visible very close to, literally, the dawn of time. It’s still something of mystery exactly how we got such supermassive black holes to assemble so quickly, and investigations like this one are critical to develop this understanding.

OK, now for some biological science that seems to be getting some net attention concerning some proteins that play an evolutionary role. The sf take from io9, and the press release from Princeton. Despite words that clearly indicate there is no problem with evolution, I fear the spin on these results will not be well understood. The io9 article is already guilty of propagating the misconception that “evolution is random” which is NOT TRUE. Mutations are random. What has apparently been found here is a regulation mechanism at the cellular level for how to deal with some of the mutations that aren’t so good. I don’t think it’s correct to say, as in the io9 headline, that they “control” evolution. That sounds guided, like an intelligent agent is controlling the process. Evolution still works just fine, it’s still mutation, environment, and selection, but we’re learning about some new details.

An article by Chris Mooney about “Science under Obama.” This is of great interest to me, and hopefully everyone.

There’s a blog I just learned about called The Big Storm Picture. It’s about pictures of big storms, duh. All I can say is awesome!

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