Sci-Fi Fuel #1
Is Beyoncé a Cyborg? Is New York Serious About Having a "Robocop?" + Other Weird and Fascinating News!
In This Newsletter:
Quantum Quote: A cool quote of the week + quick analysis!
Joke Invasion: Weird science/tech news + jokes!
Newstopia: Weird science/tech news minus jokes!
Wormhole Watch: TV/Film/Video Recommendation
Welcome to Sci-Fi Fuel #1! —
— an Alternate Timeline series highlighting news from the realms of science, tech, history, and pop culture that will help fuel your imagination.
It’s nothing fancy. I just happen to read a lot of headlines and articles to spark ideas for my own work, and in doing so, I often wish there was a space for all of the headlines that tickle the sci-fi part of my brain to hang out. This is my attempt at making that happen.
So, let’s jump in with some headlines and quotes that caught my eye this week!
ONE COOL QUOTE:
Of all the articles I’ve read this week, my favorite quote comes from this September 27 New York Times piece by Jenna Wortham titled, A Silvery, Shimmering Summer of Beyoncé (Link):
“Deep time” is a term that refers to the geological history of Earth. It requires the brain to reorient its scale, to think about time in billion-year chronologies, rather than days or months. It can cause some wrestling with the twinned significance and insignificance of our lives. At one point during the show, a quotation from Albert Einstein flashes on the screen: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” What we know is limited. What we can imagine — especially for ourselves — is limitless. The concert is punctuated with visuals that offer a sense of Beyoncé’s cosmology: graphics of her soaring through expansive galaxies, including a winged robotic version of the singer astride a rocket navigating outer space. The imagery is suggestive of other ways of being, outside of Earth, known and unknown…
Reading that reminded me this portion of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s 2014 NPR piece about the Bey and her hive:
Is Beyoncé a feminist? Is she a womanist? I don't know. To me she is a cyborg. "Cyborg writing," Donna Haraway tells us, "is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other." What I appreciate about Beyoncé is that I understand and recognize the tools seized. This is not to say that these aspects in Beyoncé align neatly — they are indeed confusing — but they demand a right that is so often denied black women: the right to be a human, a character with many identities, many aspects, attitudes, vulnerabilities, joys, heartbreaks and realities.
Food For Thought:
The word “robot” derives from the Czech word “robota,” which translates to “slave.” With Black history being so connected to dated concepts of property, worth, and person-hood — perhaps its no accident these images keep popping up in the work of Black entertainers. Especially once you add womanhood into the mix.
Click here to learn about the Czech play that introduced the word “robot.”
Sex Machine… Love Machine… Dancing Machine… Electric Lady… There are seven levels of hotep that we could ride an escalator through with this premise, but I’ll spare you the trip by instead exploring an example how this combination of Blackness and sci-fi robotics captures the “white” imagination.
In Adilifu Nama’s 2008 book, Black Space: Imagining Race In Science Fiction Film — he writes:
American Science Fiction [SF] cinema has had a history of providing striking portrayals of the future, alternative worlds, sleek rocket ships, cyborgs, deadly ray guns, time machines, and wormholes through hyperspace, but until quite recently, no black people. For decades it seemed as if science fiction cinema was the symbolic wish fulfillment of America’s staunchest advocates of white supremacy. (p.10)
He continues, many pages later, with this thought about Darth Vader in Star Wars:
…Darth Vader is a aural cypher for the black actor James Earl Jones, who uses his distinctive baritone voice, vocal delivery, and timbre to infuse emotion into the film’s charismatic villain. The off-screen voice of Jones plays a significant part in inviting the viewing audience to experience blackness aurally, as the intergalactic voice of doom, while disavowing the presence of blackness except as a visual symbol. (p. 31)
Though times have certainly changed since the 1977 release of Star Wars and the 2008 release of Nama’s book — variations of this dilemma remain in the arts of today. But the beauty consuming our fiction with such a critical lens, and debating and challenging its forms, is that it also helps us solve the riddles of our reality.
JOKE INVASION:
A few weird science/tech news items made it into my daily joke series over at Letters from African America this week:
New York Mayor Eric Adams rolled out a “robocop” designed to patrol train stations. You know, it’s amazing that this robot doesn’t care one bit about breaking stereotypes. Given all of the design options in the world — it’s just another white officer with ‘thin blue line’ paraphernalia, one token Black friend, and the general vibe a someone who will do small favors for doughnuts.
NASA has collected a sample from an asteroid for the first time. Depending on the results, the asteroid should either eat more fiber or cut down.
Spotify is piloting A.I. voice translations for podcasts. So, if you already think Marc Maron’s podcast intros are long and confusing, wait ‘til you hear him ramble through the depths of his soul in Afrikaans. “Pow! Ek kak net my broek!”
Scientists in Japan are leaders in the development of new technology that could make sperm and eggs from practically any cell in the body. The scientists also urge that we keep this information away from Nick Canon at all costs.
Meta is launching AI chatbots for Snoop Dogg, MrBeast, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner, Charli D’Amelio and more. Finally giving people who have no one to talk to at a party something weirder to do on their phones.
NEWSTOPIA:
Headlines and brief quotes that might get your brain moving.
September 24, 2023 — via AP:
Science paints a new picture of the ancient past, when we mixed and mated with other kinds of humans — (Link)
Along with more fossils and artifacts, the DNA findings are pointing us to a challenging idea: We’re not so special. For most of human history we shared the planet with other kinds of early humans, and those now-extinct groups were a lot like us.
Additionally: We carry DNA from extinct cousins like Neanderthals. Science is now revealing their genetic legacy
Sept. 25, 2023 — via Newsweek:
Hundreds Of Mysterious 'Fairy Circles' Seen From Space For First Time (Link)
Sept. 25, 2023 — via Motherboard:
Scientists Think This Emerging Tech Could Be Key to Finding Alien Life (Link)
Sept. 25, 2023 — via Newsweek:
Scientists Estimate When Humans Could Become Extinct (Link)
Supercomputer climate models have found that in the next 250 million years, nearly all mammals may become extinct as the planet heats to unsurvivable levels, exacerbated by a new supercontinent forecast to form near the equator, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Sept. 25, 2023 — via Motherboard
AI-Generated 'Subliminal Messages' Are Going Viral (Link)
Sept. 26, 2023 — via Newsweek:
Scientists Use Bacteria to Turn Plastic Into Useful Substances (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Forbes
SpaceX Inks First U.S. Space Force Defense Contract (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Motherboard:
Archaeologists Discover Lost Ancient Language on Mysterious Ritual Tablet (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via The Washington Post:
Chat GPT Can Now Search The Web (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via AP:
Three astronauts return to Earth after a year in space. NASA’s Frank Rubio sets US space record ( Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Newsweek:
Scientists Find That Certain Backgrounds Makes Colleagues Think You're Incompetent (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics:
Immortality Is Impossible. Blame the Physics of Aging, Scientists Say (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Motherboard
Scientists Report Breakthrough Investigating Antimatter and Antigravity (Link)
Sept. 27, 2023 — via Newsweek:
Bizarre 465-Million-Year-Old Creature Found With Gut Contents Preserved (Link)
Sept. 28, 2023 — via NPR:
Scientists in Japan are leaders in the development of new technology that could make sperm and eggs from practically any cell in the body. The results could transform human reproduction. (Link)
Sept. 28, 2023 — via Motherboard:
People Experience ‘New Dimensions of Reality' When Dying, Groundbreaking Study Reports (Link)
Sept. 29, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics:
America Will Have a Working Fusion Reactor Within 12 Years, Come Hell or High Water (Link)
Sept. 29, 2023 —via Popular Mechanics:
The Möbius Mystery Has Stumped Mathematicians for 46 Years. Finally, It's Solved. (Link)
WORMHOLE WATCH:
DOCUMENTARY: Donyale Luna: Super Model | Official Trailer | HBO
This documentary tracks the story Donyale Luna: a Black supermodel who is often forgotten as being the first Black supermodel. She grew up in Detroit, but as a form of escape, developed a sci-fi inspired persona that aided her on the journey to success. Its interesting that her fame skyrocketed in 60s London — around the same time as Jimi Hendrix — who had his own variation of escape into imagination.
That’s all for now. These updates will get better and more comprehensive as the weeks go by. But I also want to make them interactive. If there are any recent, weird science/tech news that you wish I listed here, drop it in the comments!
See you next week with more…