Generation X Goes Back to the Future 1: Boomer Posthumanity and Xer Steampunk

You may be familiar with the idea of the Technological Singularity - the prediction made by notable futurists that technological change will grow exponentially and transform us into unrecognizable, Transhuman, then Posthuman entities.  I09 is reporting that there is a backlash against the idea that the information explosion will strip us of our humanity in the future.  More and more, Gen X commentators are contradicting Boomer's iconoclastic, ironic, Postmodern and revolutionary attitudes toward history.

Continuity for DC's Character Terra Continued ...

Terra by Craig Rousseau. Convention Sketch.

Today's blog post continues the history I'm writing of DC's character Terra. I've backdated it so that all the pieces on that topic are together. The link to the entry, which covers the character up to the end of the 1990s, is here.

Black Holes and the Birth of Our Universe? Making the Infinite Finite

There's a remarkable new theory out about the origins of our universe, space and time.  Nikodem Poplawski of Indiana University has just presented a paper in which he concludes: "Accordingly, our own Universe may be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe." For the original MIT blog piece go here.  For the July 4 abstract go here, which states:

"The Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama theory of gravity provides a simple scenario in early cosmology which is alternative to standard cosmic inflation and does not require scalar fields. The torsion of spacetime prevents the appearance of the cosmological singularity in the early Universe filled with Dirac particles averaged as a spin fluid. Instead, its expansion starts from a state at which the Universe has a minimum but finite radius. We show that the dynamics of the closed Universe immediately after this state naturally solves the flatness and horizon problems in cosmology because of an extremely small and negative torsion density parameter, $\Omega_S\approx -10^{-69}$. This scenario also suggests that the contraction of our Universe preceding the state of minimum radius could correspond to the dynamics of matter inside the event horizon of a newly formed black hole existing in another universe."

Times Outside History 4: Prehistory in the Post-Postmodern Era

Hi there.  Previously Uncontacted Amazonian Tribe, May 2008.  All photos: REUTERS/Gleison Miranda-FUNAI.

How much of Prehistory survives in the present day?  Some anthropologists are devoted to finding niches of it in our Post-Postmodern times, be it through finding isolated indigenous tribes that still retain Prehistoric modes of existence - or by finding some Prehistoric patterns in current styles and popular behaviour.  Geneticists are commissioned to trace bits of Prehistoric life still extant via DNA studies; National Geographic recently participated in one such endeavour, The Genographic Project. 

Lately, Prehistory has been enjoying something of a renaissance with movies like Apocalypto (2006), the Land Before Time series (1988-2007), 10,000 BC (2008), and the Ice Age series of animated films (2002-2009).  There is a list of Prehistoric films here.

Neanderthals are back in vogue as well, enjoying a much more sympathetic treatment by Paleo-Artists and Palaeontologists.  In pop culture, they are the subjects of the novel trilogy The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer.  Recently, Neanderthal testing kits have appeared on the market, so you can theoretically test the Neanderthal traces in your genetic profile.

Solar Eclipse Today over Easter Island

Easter Island.

There's a total solar eclipse today.  One of the few places it will be visible is Easter Island.  The Senior Editor of Astronomy.com, Michael Bakich, is blogging from Easter Island to describe the blackout as the moon blocks out the sun's light.  The blog is here; Bakich's entries can be accessed from here.  Easter Island is hosting some 4,000 tourists, who have been arriving over the past few days by plane and boat.  Thousands of people are travelling to French Polynesia to see the eclipse.  Reports here, here and here. The eclipse coincides with July's New Moon, that starts today at 19:40 Universal Time.

What are astrologers saying?  My favourite comment so far came from Zodiac Arts, which summarized this eclipse as: "'Venetian Gondoliers Giving a Serenade' - The symbolic degree of this particular eclipse denotes happiness as an overtone of social integration."