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extrapenguinSaturday: 3 panels and a reading, plus autographs!
Biology and hard SF Sat 10:00 Wicklow Hall 2A
Derek Kunsken (M), Mick Schubert, Dr V Anne Smith, Christianne Wakeham
- synthetic biology is being discussed in actual ministries
- mod plastic-eating bacteria to be saltwater-compatible and clean up our oceans! (but this has pitfalls)
- bacteria that generate fuel! (this also has pitfalls)
- biofilters in sewage treatment plants to get pharmaceuticals out a more closer-term thing
- big limitation and warning: one is changing something that will replicate itself and evolve
- stable stuff will last longer (more generations before chucking out desired DNA) but be slower and less efficient
- one way to do a kill switch is adding the gene to an antibiotic-resistance complex then keeping the bacterium in antibiotic so if it tosses the gene, it tosses the resistance and dies, but this is obviously not applicable to the real world
- stuff noted for working/good biology: Vorkosigan saga, Gattaca, Children of Time
- fiction as a warning: demonize preventable disease (so people vaccinate their damn kids), Jurassic Park (but people still want to build dinosaurs), DIY garage biology
- positive things don't have narrative tension but can exist in the background
- making the thingy real and plausible enough means people go "why aren't we doing this?" and you inspire the next step
- we could grow eg organs in eg pigs!
- there was a question on the plausibility of SF evolutionary horror that wasn't really answered
- "zombies" are better done via personality-changing viruses instead of the zombie fungus, unless you want your zombies to just enjoy sunbathing
- the most plausible mistake is accidentally splicing stuff into the middle of the kill switch
- once you start tinkering, outcomes aren't always predictable
- Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy was brought up: we'll have to think about terraforming vs preservation (for science, for the inherent value, etc)
- Mick Schubert: "We seem to think it's okay to introduce invasive species into an environment as long as that invasive species is us."
- we need stories to do the preparation for what we can ethically do next
- V. Anne Smith has a book with Springer's SF imprint, A Code for Carolyn, and there's a textbook at the end!
This was another amazing panel! The biologists at Worldcon were really bringing on their A-game. I learned stuff, and decided to spend more money on Springer Press's fiction selection. :P
Zap: Lightning Science Sat 12:30 Odeon 4
Corry L. Lee
- graupel (soft hail) is very relevant for lightning
- graupel going down collides with snow in presence of supercooled water droplets, ionizing both, so the snow rises and is positively charged, while the graupel is at the bottom of the cloud and negatively charged
- air is an insulator, but when ionized (with enough energy) it acts like a wire
- the thundercloud creates a "leader" of ionized air and then this progresses in steps to ionize the next section of air
- all points on the ground are generating their own positive leaders, and eventually one of them connects with the leader from the thundercloud and there's a huge current through the ionized air
- multi-stroke lightning happens when the lightning strikes, then more charge flows from elsewhere in the cloud to the lightning strike site and reuses the ionized air channel
- during thundersnow, the charges of the top and bottom of the cloud flip
- on Earth, thunder happens over warm land; it's also been spotted on Jupiter, Saturn, and maybe Venus
- fulgurites form when sand is fused into rock by lightning
- Lichtenberg figures are a physical remnant of the surface current of the lightning strike
I went here on a whim because it sounded interesting and I wanted something chill. The presenter was 15 minutes late due to forgetting a USB dongle thing in her hotel room and having to do extra logistics, but it was entertaining enough! Meanwhile, my minion was listening to silkpunk in the next room over, and reported that apparently no-one knows what silkpunk is.
Then we had lunch and my minion went off elsewhere while I queued up for Yoon Ha Lee's reading (Sat 15:30 ECOCEM room) and metnaye and doctorskuld in the queue! Please note that this was a completely educated guess on my part with no foreplanning; I merely connected the dots (...and read Skuld's badge name, yes) and was all "Naye? Hi, I'm Penguin! :D" and miraculously did not make a food out of myself. At least not too badly.
After the reading (which ended on a cliffhanger and whichnaye has already reported on better), Yoon Ha Lee's publicist announced discounted books, so I bought Hexarchate Stories for 5€ out of a suitcase. (A 5€ well-spent!) I'd also completely serendipitously brought Revenant Gun as my airplane reading, and read yhlee's DW post on being willing to sign stuff after appearances, so I obediently queued up to get Revenant Gun signed, then waited a bit, and as he was still there after everyone else had gotten their stuff signed as well, I got Hexarchate Stories signed as well! (I didn't want to impose too much and wanted everyone else to get their turn, plus this is the first time I've ever had anything signed, so I didn't know the standard rules.) I am a happy penguin.
I guess my minion and I had dinner at this point? Perhaps at the Japanese; the portion sizes at that one were less minuscule. Does the entire nation of Ireland not believe in food?!
Science and the politics of water Sat 19:00 Wicklow Hall 1
Sam Fleming (M), Darcie Little Badger, Dr Tad Daley, Paolo Bacigalupi
- at what point will there be a sufficient quantity of failed states to cause a cascade of state failure?
- we're all a lot more vulnerable than we think due to unique local vulnerabilities
- the global level is strategic; decisionmaking should be on the local/watershed level
- water crises are already in progress around mining sites
- community (someone to knock on the door and ask if you need anything) gives resilience against eg heat waves
- lithium is mined by brine extraction in an area of the Andes vulnerable to drought, so if drought happens, the knock-on effects could go beyond our imagination
- sewage systems need a certain amount of clean water to survive
- we have the root causes (too much CO2), and we have the consequential issues
- EXXON wants us to all go "Oh, I guess we're too evil to change stuff, better give up" instead of regulating the fuck out of it
- Elena Ostrom[?] won her Nobel in Economics for water management
- the sea level can rise on one coast and sink on the other (due to land rising after the weight of a glacier is off it [see: Finnish coast])
- one idea for stopping water wastage could be adding a price meter to every tap so one is making the abstract concrete
- as the sea rises, the salt will intrude and affect badly the coastal farmland [salt the earth with organic sea salt!]
- how will the change in ocean circulations affect the weather – are the Gulf Stream's days limited?
- there are nitrogen-fixing bacteria upon which all the other stuff in the oceans depends, and we don't know how they'll respond to the increase in temperature.
This panel had a very qualified moderator from the Scottish water bureau, two qualified panelists, and one whom I'd have liked to remove from the panel. Tad Daley didn't really have much to say on the topic, as he was busy pontificating about global governance in – you know that stereotypical annoying American? That. I didn't enjoy him. Highlights included Paolo Bacigalupi having his mind blown by the EU having an actual water management plan, whereas the US seems to be all Wild West on it, and Darcie Little Badger had a lot of very good and insightful comments all around.
Biology and hard SF Sat 10:00 Wicklow Hall 2A
Derek Kunsken (M), Mick Schubert, Dr V Anne Smith, Christianne Wakeham
Hard SF can be defined by the science of the era in which it was written, leading to a shift from engineering to biology. Cloning and gene-editing, like teleportation and FTL drives, began as speculative tropes but have become a reality. The panel discusses classic examples of SF rooted in the biological sciences and discuss current works that may illustrate where the science is headed.
- synthetic biology is being discussed in actual ministries
- mod plastic-eating bacteria to be saltwater-compatible and clean up our oceans! (but this has pitfalls)
- bacteria that generate fuel! (this also has pitfalls)
- biofilters in sewage treatment plants to get pharmaceuticals out a more closer-term thing
- big limitation and warning: one is changing something that will replicate itself and evolve
- stable stuff will last longer (more generations before chucking out desired DNA) but be slower and less efficient
- one way to do a kill switch is adding the gene to an antibiotic-resistance complex then keeping the bacterium in antibiotic so if it tosses the gene, it tosses the resistance and dies, but this is obviously not applicable to the real world
- stuff noted for working/good biology: Vorkosigan saga, Gattaca, Children of Time
- fiction as a warning: demonize preventable disease (so people vaccinate their damn kids), Jurassic Park (but people still want to build dinosaurs), DIY garage biology
- positive things don't have narrative tension but can exist in the background
- making the thingy real and plausible enough means people go "why aren't we doing this?" and you inspire the next step
- we could grow eg organs in eg pigs!
- there was a question on the plausibility of SF evolutionary horror that wasn't really answered
- "zombies" are better done via personality-changing viruses instead of the zombie fungus, unless you want your zombies to just enjoy sunbathing
- the most plausible mistake is accidentally splicing stuff into the middle of the kill switch
- once you start tinkering, outcomes aren't always predictable
- Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy was brought up: we'll have to think about terraforming vs preservation (for science, for the inherent value, etc)
- Mick Schubert: "We seem to think it's okay to introduce invasive species into an environment as long as that invasive species is us."
- we need stories to do the preparation for what we can ethically do next
- V. Anne Smith has a book with Springer's SF imprint, A Code for Carolyn, and there's a textbook at the end!
This was another amazing panel! The biologists at Worldcon were really bringing on their A-game. I learned stuff, and decided to spend more money on Springer Press's fiction selection. :P
Zap: Lightning Science Sat 12:30 Odeon 4
Corry L. Lee
Beautiful and deadly, lightning has long amazed and awed. But how does it work? What would happen if you were struck by lightning? Does lightning occur on other planets? Can you make your own? In this interactive talk with a PhD physicist, discover the science of lightning. No science background necessary!
- graupel (soft hail) is very relevant for lightning
- graupel going down collides with snow in presence of supercooled water droplets, ionizing both, so the snow rises and is positively charged, while the graupel is at the bottom of the cloud and negatively charged
- air is an insulator, but when ionized (with enough energy) it acts like a wire
- the thundercloud creates a "leader" of ionized air and then this progresses in steps to ionize the next section of air
- all points on the ground are generating their own positive leaders, and eventually one of them connects with the leader from the thundercloud and there's a huge current through the ionized air
- multi-stroke lightning happens when the lightning strikes, then more charge flows from elsewhere in the cloud to the lightning strike site and reuses the ionized air channel
- during thundersnow, the charges of the top and bottom of the cloud flip
- on Earth, thunder happens over warm land; it's also been spotted on Jupiter, Saturn, and maybe Venus
- fulgurites form when sand is fused into rock by lightning
- Lichtenberg figures are a physical remnant of the surface current of the lightning strike
I went here on a whim because it sounded interesting and I wanted something chill. The presenter was 15 minutes late due to forgetting a USB dongle thing in her hotel room and having to do extra logistics, but it was entertaining enough! Meanwhile, my minion was listening to silkpunk in the next room over, and reported that apparently no-one knows what silkpunk is.
Then we had lunch and my minion went off elsewhere while I queued up for Yoon Ha Lee's reading (Sat 15:30 ECOCEM room) and met
naye and doctorskuld in the queue! Please note that this was a completely educated guess on my part with no foreplanning; I merely connected the dots (...and read Skuld's badge name, yes) and was all "Naye? Hi, I'm Penguin! :D" and miraculously did not make a food out of myself. At least not too badly.After the reading (which ended on a cliffhanger and which
naye has already reported on better), Yoon Ha Lee's publicist announced discounted books, so I bought Hexarchate Stories for 5€ out of a suitcase. (A 5€ well-spent!) I'd also completely serendipitously brought Revenant Gun as my airplane reading, and read yhlee's DW post on being willing to sign stuff after appearances, so I obediently queued up to get Revenant Gun signed, then waited a bit, and as he was still there after everyone else had gotten their stuff signed as well, I got Hexarchate Stories signed as well! (I didn't want to impose too much and wanted everyone else to get their turn, plus this is the first time I've ever had anything signed, so I didn't know the standard rules.) I am a happy penguin.I guess my minion and I had dinner at this point? Perhaps at the Japanese; the portion sizes at that one were less minuscule. Does the entire nation of Ireland not believe in food?!
Science and the politics of water Sat 19:00 Wicklow Hall 1
Sam Fleming (M), Darcie Little Badger, Dr Tad Daley, Paolo Bacigalupi
Water is life. Twisting a line from Frank Herbert: ‘He who controls the water controls the universe.’ Our planet is covered by 70% water, our bodies comprise 70% water, and most plants contain 90% water. What other roles does water play in our technologically savvy world? How has water shaped our political landscape, in a time of rising tides and warming oceans? What can we do to protect our most precious resource?
- at what point will there be a sufficient quantity of failed states to cause a cascade of state failure?
- we're all a lot more vulnerable than we think due to unique local vulnerabilities
- the global level is strategic; decisionmaking should be on the local/watershed level
- water crises are already in progress around mining sites
- community (someone to knock on the door and ask if you need anything) gives resilience against eg heat waves
- lithium is mined by brine extraction in an area of the Andes vulnerable to drought, so if drought happens, the knock-on effects could go beyond our imagination
- sewage systems need a certain amount of clean water to survive
- we have the root causes (too much CO2), and we have the consequential issues
- EXXON wants us to all go "Oh, I guess we're too evil to change stuff, better give up" instead of regulating the fuck out of it
- Elena Ostrom[?] won her Nobel in Economics for water management
- the sea level can rise on one coast and sink on the other (due to land rising after the weight of a glacier is off it [see: Finnish coast])
- one idea for stopping water wastage could be adding a price meter to every tap so one is making the abstract concrete
- as the sea rises, the salt will intrude and affect badly the coastal farmland [salt the earth with organic sea salt!]
- how will the change in ocean circulations affect the weather – are the Gulf Stream's days limited?
- there are nitrogen-fixing bacteria upon which all the other stuff in the oceans depends, and we don't know how they'll respond to the increase in temperature.
This panel had a very qualified moderator from the Scottish water bureau, two qualified panelists, and one whom I'd have liked to remove from the panel. Tad Daley didn't really have much to say on the topic, as he was busy pontificating about global governance in – you know that stereotypical annoying American? That. I didn't enjoy him. Highlights included Paolo Bacigalupi having his mind blown by the EU having an actual water management plan, whereas the US seems to be all Wild West on it, and Darcie Little Badger had a lot of very good and insightful comments all around.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-22 20:09 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 14:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 00:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 15:01 (UTC)Maybe Space Dixing or the Yashou Nebula could have them? :3
I agree! It's fertile ground to play in. Emmi Itäranta's Memory of Water did sort of deal with this a bit, but there's still room there.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 16:12 (UTC)Oh, sure, there's plenty of ways for it to go terribly wrong. Entertaining in fiction, horrifying in real life, as per usual. (Cough, nuclear power, cough.) But I do like the idea of hospitals eventually being able to formulate their own medicine on demand instead of large pharmaceutical companies having evergreen monopolies.
Maybe Space Dixing or the Yashou Nebula could have them? :3
I have no idea what's going on with the Yashou Nebula and will not be looking until September 13th (or possibly Writing Rainbow if Red is the color, for Redshift), but Dixing's sunlight is too weak. But! It would be a fun story to write, even if it ends up being a different AU. Maybe a flower Yashou gets fed up with the Haixing/Dixing drama and decides to solve it with fungi?...
I agree! It's fertile ground to play in. Emmi Itäranta's Memory of Water did sort of deal with this a bit, but there's still room there.
Thank you for the rec!
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 17:28 (UTC)And ever-lengthening fragile supply chains, which mean that a fire at one factory could mean that a huge chunk of drugs are just flat-out not available for months! The growing amount of drug shortages (for contraceptive pills and most recently breast cancer meds) has been on the news intermittently.
Whatever makes the most sense for the Space Adventures and other series! It would be hilarious, though.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 17:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 17:52 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 17:55 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 17:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 01:46 (UTC)I am surprised at the food shortage and portion sizes you are reporting. I wouldn't have expected that! (But my one visit to Dublin was 15 years ago and I didn't do a lot of restaurants then.)
Jurassic Park (but people still want to build dinosaurs)
This cracked me up, because we just had a conversation about "Jo, you've seen Jurassic Park, right? You know wanting a pet dinosaur is a BAD IDEA?" last night at dinner. *g* (Thankfully I am not a scientist!)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 14:33 (UTC)I mean, I do eat like a starving teenage boy at the best of times, and I was under constant intellectual stimulus, so: ravenous.
Give your OTP a pet dinosaur instead! But really, who wouldn't want a pet dinosaur?
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 14:48 (UTC)I don't know!!!! Who are these strange people??? I have never been more jealous in my life than that time I saw some kid riding a tiny triceratops in Jurassic World.
(I would love to read Shen Wei having a pet dinosaur but I'm afraid I can't do SW/YZ/ZYL, I'm sorry. :-( My incest squick is alive and kicking despite lots of support for other deviances. >_>)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-23 16:19 (UTC)I have never seen Jurassic World, but now I'm jealous, too!
Ah, sorry – I never can seem to keep it straight who's squicked by the twincest threesome and who ships it!
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Date: 2019-08-24 02:59 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-24 10:06 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 05:19 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 08:09 (UTC)