If you’re even passingly familiar with apocalyptic conspiracy theories, you’ve probably heard of “pole shift”, the idea that the Earth’s rotational axis will soon flip or suddenly change and cause some sort of catastrophe. This, of course, is not happening in real life…but there is … Continue readingWorldbuilding Pole Shift…only with Real Science
We hear so much about a “labor shortage” — signs of “help wanted” are everywhere — yet it seems employers don’t actually want any help. Oh, they’ll happily take someone who’s already done the same job for 20 years already who’s willing to work for … Continue readingEmbrace the Road?
Take an Earth twin; move it away from its sun so it cools, and cools…and cools some more. Ice sheets grow and then once a tipping point is reached, you end up with the classic “Snowball Earth”: runaway global glaciation, where the entire world is … Continue readingIce Forgives: Some Thoughts on the Extended Habitable Zone
I’ve been giving some thought, once again, to Thalassa, my oceanic planet with a thick oxygen atmosphere orbiting Proxima Centauri, which I’ve featured in some stories…but it’s some stories I might want to revise, because the more I brainstorm the biosphere, the more alien and … Continue readingLeviathans of the Airy Deep?
I haven’t written much about it on here, but lately I’ve been brainstorming about Earth climatology…and in true “me” fashion, this eventually has me wandering back to thinking about how one of my alien planets would behave. In particular, my Earth-like (but very much not … Continue readingOf Georeactors, Katabatics, Twin Suns, and Climatology
I’ve touched on before about greater Los Angeles in my science-fictional alternate timeline, and more I brainstorm it, the more fantastical it gets. Mine is a world where buildings rise a mile high, where automobile and aircraft alike zip at terrific speeds across the landscape…but … Continue readingContour Futurism: Los Angeles as a Canal City?
Young people are just not buying homes nowadays like they used to. junior citizens are well aware of how impossible the mathematics are, but their senior counterparts are not having any of it. We see wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, often with platitudes … Continue readingHousing on Hard Mode: to be a Zoomer…
I’ve been giving some thought as to how an alien intelligence could be really alien from what we’re used to with humans on Earth; hardly an original idea, to the point I almost subvert it by making my “Thalassans”, an avian intelligence native to Proxima … Continue readingMaking my Aliens more Three-Dimensional…
Ah, the idea of gazing at a sunset or basking in the glow of twilight on the Moon; so romantic, yet totally unrealistic on a dead world with no atmosphere…or is it? Surprisingly, there’s “lunar horizon glow”, which pictures from space probes’ cameras make look … Continue readingTwilight on the Moon
“CHON?”, you might ask; “What’s that?”. It’s an affectionate acronym for the four most common vital chemical elements in the biochemistry of life as we know it. To wit, carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N). The human body is 95..6% CHON by … Continue readingThe Tyranny of CHON