Sci-Fi Fuel #7

Data-based Space Music + Close Encounters + Weird Tech/Science News + Good Burger 2 & More!

— This is a longer post than usual, so if you’re reading this via email, you might want to hop on over the the web version here to read the full thing! —

In This Newsletter:

• Intro:

  • Welcome to Sci-Fi Fuel #7

• Quantum Quote:

  • A cool quote of the week + quick analysis!

• Attack of the Jokes:

  • Weird science/tech news + jokes!

• Incoming Transmissions:

  • TV/film/video/podcast recommendations

• Newstopia:

  • Weird science/tech news minus jokes!

Welcome to Sci-Fi Fuel #7! —

— an Alternate Timeline series highlighting news from the realms of science, tech, history, and pop culture that will help fuel your imagination.

Since I skipped an update for you all last week, this one is JAM PACKED with jokes, insights, and recommendations. So, I’ll stop wasting your time here with this intro. Let’s jump in!

Find past Alternate Timeline stories here.

QUANTUM QUOTE:

A November 15, 2023 headline over at NASA.gov reads: NASA Telescope Data Becomes Music You Can Play (Link)

Well, how can you not click on a story like that?!

The below isn’t our quantum quote just yet, but it is a snippet from the article that sums up the scenario:

Since 2020, the “sonification” project at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This process allows the listener to experience the data through the sense of hearing instead of seeing it as images, a more common way to present astronomical data.

A new phase of the sonification project takes the data into different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the team has developed versions of the data that can be played by musicians.

Now that you’ve digested all of that, I can finally reveal this week’s short, sweet QUANTUM QUOTE. It’s from conductor Sophie Kastner, who says:

“It’s like a writing a fictional story that is largely based on real facts. We are taking the data from space that has been translated into sound and putting a new and human twist on it.”

SCI-FI ANALYSIS:

The quote is exciting because Kastner is describing genuine musical sci-fi! Not music that scores a science fiction movie, but music created the same way all great sci-fi is… by dipping nuggets of scientific truth (or, in this case, a boulder of scientific data) into a vat of imagination.

When it comes to music and the outer space, one science fiction tale immediately comes to mind: Steven Spielberg’s classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I often wonder what would’ve happened if they let Billy Preston play the keyboard in this pivotal scene where humans and space aliens communicate with variations of the same five notes…

But instead of using music to commune with beings from a distant planet, Kastner is transforming stark data into palatable melodies for human listeners — ultimately doing with musical notes what we all do with words each day. We’re constantly turning data into stories. It’s why you can give the same voter registration numbers to a Republican or Democratic presidential candidate and hear two very different conclusions on what to do about it.

Diving a little further into “what if…” land, Kastner’s musical construction makes me wonder if we worry about the wrong things when it comes to music? We have Parental Advisory stickers for lyrics, and endless conspiracy theories about what Prince or The Beatles meant by saying this or that… But what about the notes behind them? What if we’re transforming data we can’t even fully comprehend into melodies? What stories are they telling? And if space aliens do get access to it, who do they glean?

Needless to say, there’s a lot to think about while listening to this soundscape:

Let me know what sci-fi movies, books, or shows come to mind for you based on the quote!

— This is a large post, so if you’re reading this via email, you might want to hop on over the the web version here to read the full thing! —

ATTACK OF THE JOKES:

A few weird science/tech news items made it into my daily joke series over at Letters from African America last week:

• After a decade of talking about deliveries by drone, Amazon is finally making them. So, look forward to regularly asking yourself questions like, “Hey, is that a war machine approaching, or just my erectile dysfunction pills?”

• Elon Musk is touting ‘real-time access to X’ as a ‘massive advantage’ for Grok — his new ChatGPT rival. You know, for a guy who changed Twitter to ‘X’ and names his children after Playstation cheat codes — “Grok” might be the most normal title he’s given anything in his life.

  • But also, who wants A.I. that’s influenced by ‘X’? If you ask it to write your term paper, the best it could do is call your professor a “woke cuck” before doxing them.

• Elon Musk’s brain implant startup is about to start operating. Unfortunate for ‘X’ employees, the startup implants gadgets in people’s brains and not brains into Elon Musk.

• Facebook platforms will require advertisers to disclose when they run political ads that have been digitally altered by artificial intelligence ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. So, look forward to a voice speedily reading “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message. Also… my fingers may have been digitally extended with AI… D.T., phone home.”

• A Texas dinosaur was unearthed 96 Million years after it roamed Dallas-Fort Worth. Paleontologists are still yet to determine whether the dust surrounding the bones is soot from a meteor’s impact, or dry rub.

• Surgeons have performed the world’s first eye transplant. They knew it was successful when the recipient turned away, made a funny face while staring into the distance, and returned to normal shouting, “This is so Raven.”

• According to The Wall Street Journal — pet psychics are making their way from the fringe to socially acceptable. One psychic even touts her ability to find love connections with her slogan “Call me now for your free breeding.”

• During an antitrust trial in DC, it was revealed that Google pays Apple 36% of its sales from Safari searches. It was also revealed that Google picked a very bad time to try and get a better deal out of Apple CEO, Tim Cook:

  

  📷: P O L L I T O (creative commons)

• Instagram and Facebook are growing faster than TikTok. And its all because of remarkable new data which suggests that young people tend to become old people.

• Google’s DeepMind developed an accurate weather-predicting AI. If you’re wondering about that loud sound you just heard — it’s Al Roker flipping over a conference table.

• Apple plans to make it easier to text between iPhones and Androids. In other news, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney have a new hit song on their hands…

  

So… did ya laugh? Mash that comment button if you’d like to tell me which was your favorite.

INCOMING TRANSMISSIONS:

• LISTEN: Screaming Into The Hollywood Abyss “Writer, actor, showrunner, director Deborah Pratt, Airworlf, Quantum Leap

  I’ve been listening to this podcast since it launched because learning from people’s failures is a great way to avoid them on my own path. Until listening to this particular episode with Deborah Pratt, I had no ideas that the popular sci-fi television series Quantum Leap was created by a Black woman! It’s a great discussion about how difficult it was for her to rise up the ranks and how writing the series has evolved and devolved with the times.

• READ: The Protein Problem — via AP (Link)

  

  The Associated Press has an interactive piece on their site right now called The Protein Problem. Which separates the issue into eight core segments: 1) Raising Better Beef, 2) Beyond The Seas, 3) To Save The Rain forest, Help Its People, 4) No Room To Grow, 5) Meat From Plants, 6) Meat Without The Animals, 7) A Traditional Future?, and 8) Feeding The Future. #8 is caught my attention because of its focuses on Singapore, which has has limited space, a population of six million, and has long relied on importing the majority of its food. But now Singapore aims to produce 30% of its own by 2030 via assistance from robots, rooftop farms, and something called The Eco-Ark (a tank that can produce hundreds of tons of fish a year).

• LISTEN: The Town - “Potential Backfires in the Actors AI Deal”

  If you’re wondering why many actors seem unsatisfied by the AI aspect of their deal with the studios, Justine Bateman expertly lays out the details here as well as a few frighteningly realistic hypotheticals for the future of an industry that’s relying less and less on humans each day.

• WATCH: Good Burger 2 (November 22 on Paramount+)

  Make no mistake — Good Burger 2 IS a sci-fi movie. I know, because thanks to James III (who helped write the film), I got to go to the premiere. As a fan of the franchise since my youth, I’ve always loved the “John Henry vs The Steam Drill” element of the first film.

  

  And that “fight the man” pulse continues in the sequel as our favorite duo fight a mega corporation that’s trying to replace the human component of the restaurant with robots.

• READ:

  5AM StoryTalk
  - “The Tale of Two (Unlikely) Heroes: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and ALIEN

  A Tale of Two (Unlikely) Heroes: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and ALIEN

  

NEWSTOPIA:

Some headlines that might get your brain moving.

• November 6, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • New Species of Butterfly 'Stained With Fire' Found in Cloud-Covered Forests (Link)

• November 7, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • New Island Created by Explosive Underwater Volcano Eruption (Link)

• November 7, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics

  • The Army’s New Drone Killer Can Fry Whole Swarms in Midair (Link)

• November 7, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Saturn's Rings Will Disappear in 2025—Here's Why (Link)

• November 7, 2023 — via The Los Angeles Times

  • Oldest black hole discovered, dating back to just 470 million years after the Big Bang (Link)

• November 7, 2023 — via The New York Times

  • In verse and in color, a Nobel physicist and a visual artist collaborate to portray black holes, gravitational waves and other preposterous features of Einstein’s universe. (Link)

    

    Lia Halloran

• November 7, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Brain Scans Reveal Exactly Why Certain Things Go Viral Online (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via NPR

  • Inside the weird and delightful origins of the jungle gym, which just turned 100 (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • MIT Physicists Make First 'Zombie' Electron Crystal for Superconductor (Link)

    The electrons can be trapped within the crystals due to the structure of the crystals' atoms, which are akin to Japanese "kagome" woven baskets, keeping the electrons penned inside. Electrons have been trapped within two-dimensional structures before, but this marks the first time that they have been imprisoned inside a three-dimensional crystal.

• November 8, 2023 — via The New York Times

  • Lice Genes Offer Clues to Ancient Human History (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Scientists Just Created Chromosomes From Scratch—'Huge' (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Lost Childhood Memories Can Be Restored Using Light, Scientists Discover (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Scientists Finally Solve How Animals Get Their Stripes and Spots (Link)

• November 8, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Mount St. Helens Volcano Hasn't Been This Active Since It Last Erupted (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • NASA Scientists Make 'Exciting' Discovery About Alien Worlds (Link)

    A closer look at the data revealed why this was. The compact disks had extra cool water inside the snowline.

• November 9, 2023 — via The Wall Street Journal

  • Grok’: From 1960s Sci-Fi to Elon Musk’s New AI (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics

  • A Scientist Says the Singularity Will Happen by 2031 (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • New Four-Eyed Creatures Discovered in Hole at the Beach (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Wired

  • Robotic Putting Greens. Mixed Reality. Loud Spectators. This Is Golf?! (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Chinese Scientists Grow Fluorescent Green Monkey Using Stem Cells (Link)

• November 9, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics

  • A Secret Pentagon Report Is Hiding the Results of an A-10 vs. F-35 Fly-Off (Link)

• November 10, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Scientists Observe Never-Before-Seen Green Glow in Mars Night Sky (Link)

• November 11, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Neuroscientists Discover New Link in Sleep Disruption and Memory (Link)

• November 12, 2023 — via The New York Times

  • U.S. Bets on Small Nuclear Reactors to Help Fix a Huge Climate Problem (Link)

• November 12, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Scientists Fear Cataclysmic 'Factor X' Will Emerge From Earth's Permafrost (Link)

• November 12, 2023 — via The Guardian

  • How digital twins may enable personalised health treatment (Link)

• November 13, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Psychologists Reveal What Type of Secret Will Make You Feel 'Energized' (Link)

• November 14, 2023 — via Wired

  • Google DeepMind’s AI Weather Forecaster Handily Beats a Global Standard (Link)

• November 14, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Enormous Cosmic Energy Burst Struck Earth So Hard It Scrambled Radios (Link)

    The gamma-ray burst, named GRB 221009A, is thought to have caused huge variations in the electrical field of the Earth's ionosphere at a height of around 310 miles above the ground, according to a new study in the journal Nature Communications.

• November 14, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Astronomers Create Planet-by-Planet Guide to Our Galaxy (Link)

• November 14, 2023 — via Wired

  • Netflix, Spotify, Twitter, PayPal, Slack. All down for millions of people. How a group of teen friends plunged into an underworld of cybercrime and broke the internet—then went to work for the FBI. (Link)

• November 14, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Dark Matter's Secrets Crash to Earth in Chicken Roast Bag (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via USA TODAY

  • Clouds are filled with microplastics, perplexing and concerning scientists (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via Bloomberg

  • Google’s DeepMind Builds AI for More Accurate Weather Forecasts (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Geologists Reveal That Surface Water Is Transforming Earth's Outer Core (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via NPR

  • Clouds made of sand make for a strange kind of rain on this hot planet (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via The Guardian

  • Magicians less prone to mental disorders than other artists, finds research (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Hope for Alzheimer's as Neuroscientists Engineer Memory-Boosting Protein (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via Wired

  • Underage Workers Are Training AI (Link)

• November 15, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • 'Vampire' Virus Discovered in Maryland Soil Is a Breakthrough in Viral Research (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via The Guardian

  • Microplastics found in clouds could affect weather and global temperatures (Link)

    Air, water, soil, food and even blood – microplastics have found their way virtually everywhere on Earth, and now that list includes clouds.

• November 16, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Artificial Intelligence Reveals First-Ever Image of Unseen Parts of the Sun (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via The Walls Street Journal

  • You Probably Know 611 People. Here’s How We Know. (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Nearly 50 Volcanos Are Erupting at the Same Time (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via BBC

  • How did time begin, and how will it end? (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via Wired

  • What Crash? Black People Are Still Crypto’s Biggest Believers (Link)

• November 16, 2023 — via Newsweek

  • Eat 'America's Most Unwanted Fish' to Save Native Species, Scientists Say (Link)

• November 17, 2023 — via The Wall Street Journal

  • These People Are Responsible for Thanksgiving’s Most Polarizing Food: How did a berry synonymous with one day of the year become the crown jewel of a billion-dollar business cooperative? (Link)

• November 18, 2023 — via The New York Times

  • SpaceX Makes Progress in 2nd Launch of Giant Moon and Mars Rocket (Link)

• November 18, 2023 — via The Associated Press

  • ‘Please regulate AI:' Artists push for U.S. copyright reforms but tech industry says not so fast (Link)

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!

I’ll see you the week after that with more…