M Thomas Apple Author Page

Science fiction, actual science, history, and personal ranting about life, the universe, and everything

Forget Mars, Head to Europa?

February 7, 2020
MThomas

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“I think we’ve got a better chance of having slightly higher forms of life on Europa, perhaps similar to the intelligence of an octopus.”

Hmm. Maybe. It seems more like that any life would be of the microscopic or worm-like variety. But we still have to get out there first to find out…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/02/06/alien-life-on-jupiter-moon-europa-a-sure-bet-space-scientist-says/?fbclid=IwAR0E86oW8Gi37WJluYC4O-DwjinzuNyuMZp96YYQY-eGfuapTZhyZYksxGU#250f65893cb3

All My Love, Johnny – a true WWII love triangle in my family’s history

February 4, 2020
MThomas

VMailJuly9?I should be finishing the SF novel I’ve been working on (and off) for the better part of four years now. Instead, I’ve found myself obsessed with letters recently found in my dearly departed mother‘s possessions…letters written from my grandmother’s first husband, John Hart, while he was in the US Army in the 1940s.

He died. This ain’t no story of heroic sacrifice or rah-rah patriotism. This is reality. Continue Reading

Super Bowl 2020: All the space-themed commercials

February 2, 2020
MThomas

“Being able to get humans on Mars and actually collecting one of these samples would be such an incredible moment, I would kind of hope it would almost bring us back to the moon days of everyone being glued to the TV.”

Um. Well. OK. TV is dead so we’ll all be watching it streamed on our smartphones, but the point is taken.

And how much did they pay for this? 💰 👽 📺

— Read on http://www.livescience.com/amp/super-bowl-space-commercials.html

Artificial intelligence-created medicine to be used on humans for first time

January 31, 2020
MThomas

“This year was the first to have an AI-designed drug, but by the end of the decade all new drugs could potentially be designed by AI.”

Philip K Dick would have had a field day with this. Imagine what will happen once we start ingesting nanobots…

I, for one, welcome our AI drug overlords.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51315462

O Captain My Captain Picard—Be Optimistic

January 25, 2020
MThomas

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Why oh why do I bother to read “reviews” of shows I like? It’s not as if they’ll tell me anything useful, interesting, or helpful to understand the content. And it’s much more likely that they’re written by people who don’t understand the show and/or are chomping at the bit to be as snarky as possible to show off how brilliant they are at criticizing others with more talent.

So. Picard. My quick review: I’ve been waiting for real Star Trek to return. It has. Despite the reviewers. And I can’t wait to see more. Continue Reading

Boldly going where we already went fifty years ago

January 24, 2020
MThomas

SpaceForce

🖖

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51245262

Have some Proxima Centauri with ESPRESSO

January 20, 2020
MThomas

“Proxima is our closest neighbor in an immense universe. How could we not be charmed by it?

Well, the planet may or may not exist (the confirmation data won’t be publicly available for another couple years).

And it is most likely not inhabitable — despite being dubbed a “Super-Earth” (which really only refers to size and not whether it’s “Earth-like” or not).

Still, regardless of these facts, the most important part of this article in Scientific American is the science:

“We tried different tools to prove ourselves wrong, but we failed. However, we have to keep the doors open to all possible doubt and skepticism.

Yes, the astronomers tried to prove their own discovery was a mistake. That’s how it works, folks. Challenge your assumptions, not jump to conclusions. Continue Reading

Two men make “Earth sandwich” 20,000 kilometers apart

January 20, 2020
MThomas

File under “strange reasons to study Earth science in school” and “things to do when you have far too much free time.”

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51171834

‘PigeonBot’ Brings Robots Closer To Birdlike Flight

January 18, 2020
MThomas

True story: On the first day of our honeymoon, a pigeon shat on the top of my head as we were walking to the mountain hot spa.

I wonder what would come out of robot pigeons 🤔

— Read on http://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/796786350/pigeonbot-brings-robots-closer-to-bird-like-flight

99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space

January 14, 2020
MThomas

atoms gif.gif

Are you sitting down for this? Well, you’re not really. Your butt isn’t actually touching the chair you’re sitting on. Since the meat of your atoms is nestled away in nuclei, when you ‘touch’ someone (or something), you aren’t actually feeling their atoms.

Nobody has ever really touched anything in their lives.

Sleep tight…

(Not exactly a new article, but still interesting; and, yes, I might be using this to justify an awful lot of my soon-to-be-beta-read new novel 😉

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