• The first non-trivial atom circuit: Progress towards an atom SQUID
  "Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland have created the first nontrivial "atom circuit," a donut-shaped loop of ultracold gas atoms circulating in a current analogous to a ring of electrons in a superconducting wire. The circuit is "nontrivial" because it includes a circuit element—an adjustable barrier that controls the flow of atom current to specific allowed values."
  (tags:sci )
• Roastbusters! Firefighters of the future to zap flames with electric charge? | Blog | Futurismic
  "…they connected a powerful electrical amplifier to a wand-like probe and used the device to shoot beams of electricity at an open flame more than a foot high. Almost instantly, the flame was snuffed out. Much to their fascination, it worked time and again."
  (tags:sci tech )
• Creative Review – The White Review
  "TWR combines an austere design attitude with a very contemporary feel; reflected, too, in the journal's well-honed online presence."
  (tags:magazine design )
• Try failed stars for alien life
  "The search for alien life usually focuses on planets around other stars. But a lesser-known possibility is that life has sprung up on planets that somehow were ejected from their original solar systems and became free-floating in the universe, as well as on small bodies called sub-brown dwarfs, which are stars so small and dim they are not really stars at all, but function more like planets."
  (tags:space )

Remember the brilliant “punk Justice League” image Annie Wu did for one of my messageboard art challenges?  She’s done the image up as a postcard set for a lousy five Yanqui dollars.  Go get.

April 8 is apparently the day my Big Huge News will go live.  Big Huge News for me, you understand.  It’s not like it’s going to affect climate change or kill the Syrian government from space or anything.  But it will change my working life a bit.  And I’ve been sitting on the news for a little while now and it’s been driving me nuts.

Oh, and apparently there will be a small comics-related annoucement with my name on it at Wondercon this weekend.

This is the proof-of-life for the FELL #11 script.  Ben got the FELL #10 script a month ago, as regular readers will recall.  I should have this one done in ten days or so.

Mathieu Struck

• BLDGBLOG: Islands at the Speed of Light
  "A recent paper published in the Physical Review has some astonishing suggestions for the geographic future of financial markets. Its authors, Alexander Wissner-Grossl and Cameron Freer, discuss the spatial implications of speed-of-light trading. Trades now occur so rapidly, they explain, and in such fantastic quantity, that the speed of light itself presents limits to the efficiency of global computerized trading networks. These limits are described as "light propagation delays.""
  (tags:architecture money gm )
• Unlocking the past with the West Runton Elephant
  "Researchers from the University of York and Manchester have successfully extracted protein from the bones of a 600,000 year old mammoth, paving the way for the identification of ancient fossils."
  (tags:history )
• ‘Spincasting’ holds promise for creation of nanoparticle thin films
  "Researchers from North Carolina State University have investigated the viability of a technique called "spincasting" for creating thin films of nanoparticles on an underlying substrate – an important step in the creation of materials with a variety of uses, from optics to electronics."
  (tags:tech nano sci )
• Blood simple circuitry for cyborgs
  "Could electronic components made from human blood be the key to creating cyborg interfaces? Circuitry that links human tissues and nerve cells directly to an electronic device, such as a robotic limb or artificial eye might one day be possible thanks to the development of biological components."
  (tags:tech bio bodymod )
• The 6 Verbs For The Next 20 Years Of The Connected World
  "The six trends he believes are most important for the connected world we live in going forward. Specifically, he broke these down into six verbs."
  (tags:net )

Kauai being where Mike Oeming is right now, on some work/vacation thing with Valve.  But he’s sending me back shots from his sketchbook:

And if you go to his website, you’ll find a blog entry that pretty much gives away what we plan to do with HALF MOON.

Also at Mike’s blog post there, a weird example of… something.  I’d sent Mike a link to a Russell Davies post that had some screenshots from 2010, with particular attention to the set design of the Russian spaceship (and hey, look, Dame Helen Mirren):

A couple of days later, Mike’s out shopping with his wife, and suddenly he bumps up against:

The intermediate combination and adaptation of which, you’re starting to see in some of this sketches. More next week, once Mike’s back from the sun.

Ariana just found this. The internet justifies itself for one more day.

Related articles

• Wil Wheaton Knows The Score (warrenellis.com)
• Echo Lake Shoot A Video With Microsoft Kinect Camera (warrenellis.com)
• Into The Skid (warrenellis.com)
• Stop The Week (warrenellis.com)

Merrick Monroe.

• Virus-eating virus identified in Antarctic lake
  "Deep within the waters of Antarctica's Organic Lake an Australian research team, led by microbiologist Ricardo Cavicchioli from the University of New South Wales, have discovered a new virophage, or virus eater."
  (tags:med )

So I get this email from my agent saying “We have received your signed contract for [Huge New Job] and we are immediately transporting it via messenger to [offices of commissioning entity].”

And I somehow found this so amusing that I told Fraction.

This is what immediately happened inside Fraction’s brain:

And now it’s in mine.  And yours.

SVK story in the London Evening Standard, full of mangled quotes from Jones:

Related articles

• GUEST INFORMANT: Matt Jones (warrenellis.com)

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Fast forward
in the COVER section of The Times Literary Supplement
by TERRY EAGLETON

See this item on Amazon.com

History is now skidding by so fast that the only image of the present is the future.

Note: Terry Eagleton quote: not #atemporality as such:

Shared on March 28th, 2011 from Kindle

See more posts from Warren Ellis

• Hickman, Pitarra Introduce "The Red Wing" – Comic Book Resources
  "Set in a future where the best fighter pilots in the world not only have to master their craft and perfect their skills, the heroes of THE RED WING also have to learn how to navigate through time. Described by Hickman as "the greatest battle in the history of the history of three worlds"…"
  (tags:comics )
• The Kill Team | Rolling Stone Politics
  "There, in a nearby poppy field, they began looking for someone to kill. "The general consensus was, if we are going to do something that fucking crazy, no one wanted anybody around to witness it," one of the men later told Army investigators."
  (tags:war )
• Scientists trace violent death of Iron Age man
  "Scientists say that fractures and marks on the bones suggest the man, who was aged between 26 and 45, died most probably from hanging, after which he was carefully decapitated and his head was then buried on its own."
  (tags:history )
• The comeback of the comic book | Life & Style
  A bit on SVK.
  (tags:press )
• Japan brings artificial intelligence to rockets
  "In order to look at trimming costs when it comes to rockets, researchers in Japan are looking to create a ‘smart’ rocket. With the use of artificial intelligence, they hope to create a rocket that can diagnose, and in some cases even repair, its own system malfunctions."
  (tags:space comp )
• Lionsgate UK Remaking ‘The Professionals’ – Deadline.com
  "The UK arm of Lionsgate will start pre-production on its big budget remake of cult 1970s British TV series The Professionals this fall." Can't be any worse than the tv revival of some years back. Just remember, Liongate: Cowley had all the best lines.
  (tags:film tv )
• Memory device holds key to green gadgets
  "Conventional methods use electronic devices to convert data into signals that are stored as binary code. This latest device uses a tiny mechanical arm to translate the data into electrical signals."
  (tags:tech nano comp )
• THE ANARCHISTS – KID SHIRT

  (tags:covers history )

• Biosensors: Hormonal attractions
  "Estrogen receptor (ER) proteins play a major role in controlling the transcription of genetic information from DNA to messenger RNA in cells. Understanding how ER proteins interact with specific DNA regulatory sequences may shed new light on important physiological processes in the body, such as cell growth and differentiation, as well as the development and progression of breast cancer. Guo-Jun Zhang at the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and co-workers have now developed a detector that uses silicon nanowires (SiNWs) to evaluate these interactions."
  (tags:sci tech med )
• Ish #11 (FLURB #11 GO-LIVE / BIG STORE BAODING)
  new sf. my favourite sf mag
  (tags:sf web magazine )

Most print copies of the magnificent COILHOUSE magazine sold out long ago.

Therefore, the Coilhouse Crew* have released, for a limited time, the back issues of COILHOUSE as PDFs, for a tiny USD $5 a pop.

I recommend these unreservedly.

* Mer shouts at me when I call her, Nadya and Zo the Coilhouse Coven. And then they curse me. Whatchagonnado.

I’m mostly a science fiction writer. Steven Shaviro, in his book CONNECTED, talks a bit about the Russian sf novel ROADSIDE PICNIC, saying that it, like all science fiction, actually exists to cast a shadow over the present.

He says of science fiction, "It shows us how profoundly haunted we are by what has not yet happened.”

In the specific case of Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky’s film adaptation STALKER, what had not happened yet was the Chernobyl disaster. The alien impact region called The Zone in STALKER has crossed over into reality to become Chernobyl’s actual Zone Of Alienation, and the guides who take the curious into it call themselves Stalkers. In 2007, a videogame called S.T.A.L.K.E.R explicitly associates Roadside Picnic and STALKER with Chernobyl and The Zone Of Alienation, to the point where photography and footage of The Zone Of Alienation became the basis for the visual depiction of The Zone.

According to a 2003 report, there are two "cafes" inside the Zone that serve vodka described as "good from strontium." The report, preserved on a yabloko.ru message board, also notes:

Bread and vodka remained as “currency" for Chernobyl till now, where long ago is built its own, radiation communism

Which I mention purely because I love the term "radiation communism."