Harlots, Hustlers, and More!

 How many of you know Krista D. Ball? She's an amazing author who writes very fun field guides for other authors (along with assorted fiction of course). These aren't the typical How To Write A Book books, these are well researched, in depth looks at things you never stopped to think about.

Like, what did Aragorn eat while he was chasing the hobbits to Isengard?

Or, how many layers of clothing would a Regency harlot wear?

Off hand, I don't know the answer. I doubt you know the answer. But Krista knows the answer. In fact she's famous for her historically accurate feasts (read her Twitter feed - it gets gruesome).

Krista's steampunk and regency guide HUSTLERS, HARLOTS, AND HEROES is out now. And for this week only, WHAT KINGS ATE AND WIZARDS DRANK, a fantasy lover's guide to food, is on sale for 99cents.

If you are an .epub or PDF reader you can buy the Amazon book and Krista will send you the correct file format when you email her the receipt. kristadball @ gmail

Excerpt from WHAT KINGS ATE AND WIZARDS DRANK

Fast Food

Early Roman streets were lined with food kiosks. Most Plebeian apartments didn’t have kitchens and cooking facilities, so the population relied heavily on street vendors. Sausages or cooked meats covered in garum (a fish entrails sauce) could be purchased from vendors while going about one’s business.[i] Over two thousand years later, Victorian factory workers had access to over three hundred food vendors along their routes to work.

Steampunk heroines would stop at a kiosk for a mug of coffee, tea, or chocolate, drinking it there before handing the cup back (can you imagine how dirty some of those mugs might have been!). The beverage might only cost them a penny, far cheaper than the cost of coal to get their stoves going in the morning, assuming they even possessed a stove in their apartment.

After downing a hot beverage—welcomed on a cold January morning—our heroine could pick up a slice of currant cake for half a penny (if she could afford it, she’d pick up another for later in the day). Or, perhaps she’d want a boiled egg, too, which would cost another penny.[ii]

A miner or a fisherman working away from home all day might bring a meat pocket with him to keep him going. These are like the ones recommended in Chapter 1 where a cooked packet of food would keep a hero going throughout the day. Don’t buy from a stingy stall; the hero needs to eat! Make sure those pockets are filled with lard, bacon, bone marrow, chopped kidneys, and egg yolks.[iii] A kitchen sink is too heavy to include, but everything else is fair game.

This is an excerpt from Krista D. Ball’s What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank. C 2012, published by Tyche Books.

---

[i] Dargie, Richard. (2005). Rich and Poor in Ancient Rome. London, UK: Smart Apple Media, p. 13

[ii] Broomfield, Andrea Food and Cooking in Victorian England. Westpost, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007. p 25, 26

[iii] Hazlitt, W. Carew. (1902). Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine. London, p. 111

Apocalypse – Loss of the Earth’s Magnetic Field (a guest post by Penny Higgins)

Some movies have put forward this idea that if we can disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field we’ll have an apocalypse. Think of that horrible movie “The Core.” This also comes up in the movie “2012.”

As it happens, there has been some discussion about whether or not disruptions of the Earth’s magnetic field could lead to extinction (or rapid evolution), because of the potential loss of shielding from cosmic radiation. There may be some truth to this, but it hasn’t been shown yet, at least not in any organisms with more than one cell.

 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), disruptions to the Earth’s magnetic field tend to be so slow that they don’t really seem qualify as apocalyptic. A reversal (where the magnetic poles of the Earth switch places) is thought to take about 2000 years. Importantly, no-one says that the loss of the magnetic field will cause the Earth to fall apart! There are other planets in the solar system that lack magnetic fields (like Venus and Mars) and they’re doing just fine.

 

Let’s consider what would have to happen to shut down the Earth’s magnetic field (with some introduction to how the magnetic field works in the first place). Then, for giggles, let’s hypothesize what might actually happen should the Earth’s magnetic field suddenly cease to be.

 

 

Origin and Demise of the Earth’s Magnetic Field

I’ve already written a post about how the magnetic field of the Earth is formed. The key is that flow in the Earth’s liquid outer core causes the formation of the magnetic field. Some other planets (like Mars and Venus) lack a magnetic field because they lack either a liquid outer core (Mars) or flow in the liquid outer core (Venus).

 

The magnetic field of the Earth is known to have reversed multiple times during Earth’s history, with no discernible pattern or regularity. That is to say that while your compass needle points North now, at times in the past, it would point South. How this happens is not yet well understood. But what is known is that the Earth’s dipole magnetic field (the part that has north and south poles) decays away before it changes direction. (There is a non-dipole component to the Earth’s magnetic field, which honestly, I do not fully understand, so I won’t talk about it.) Sometimes reversals seem to be about to happen, and the field decays to nothing, then it recovers back to its original polarity. All told, the process seems to take a few thousand years to complete.

 

The Earth’s magnetic field protects the planet from the solar wind, a stream of highly energetic charged particles coming from the sun. It follows that when the magnetic field decays to zero, this cosmic radiation would strike the Earth and cause havoc. This is one of the premises of the movie “The Core.” (Also read more about The Core here.) If the magnetic field is lost, then the radiation should melt the Golden Gate Bridge, cause pacemakers to fail, and result in pigeons flying themselves into buildings.

 

Of course, none of these things could really happen, but it has been suggested that the increase in cosmic radiation during reversals could cause mutations in organisms increasing rates of evolution and potentially causing extinction or pseudoextinction (when organisms appear to have gone extinct because members of the lineage have evolved into a new, distinct morphology).

 

 

Evidence for Disruption

Is there any evidence that extinction or rapid evolution ever co-occurred with a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field? I once asked this question and developed it into what became my senior thesis in the Biology Department at Fort Lewis College (all those years ago). My original plan was to lay out the geomagnetic polarity time scale and then plot alongside it the distributions of as many fossil species as I could find. It took me about a day to realize that the task was impossible. The biggest problem was that the resolution of the first and last appearances of the various species was not nearly precise enough to make a direct correlation. There are seldom numeric dates for the origination and extinction of species at all. The geomagnetic polarity time scale isn’t a whole lot better.

(Read about dating and the geomagnetic polarity time scale here.)

 

What I realized I needed was a situation where abundant fossils and the geomagnetic polarity could be collected and measured from the same rocks. I was disappointed when I realized that this meant abandoning looking at dinosaur extinctions and turning my attention instead to marine fossils, specifically microfossils.

 

The best study subjects were single-celled organisms that make tiny shells made of either calcium carbonate or silica. The shapes of the shells are what’s used to distinguish species. These organisms live in oceans and lakes, some as plankton floating with the currents, and others living on the ocean or lake floor. Because they’re small and common, it’s easy to look at evolutionary patterns or origination and extinction with them.

Radiolarians from Barbados

 

The rocks that the microfossils are found in, especially those of the ocean floor, are also great recorders of the state of the Earth’s magnetic field. Sea going vessels can drill into the ocean floor and pull up cores of the ocean floor sediments. The magnetic polarities can be measured directly from the core as it is passed through a magnetometer on the ships. These polarities can then be marked on the core, and corresponding samples of the cores can be taken. From these sample, microfossils can be isolated and identified, making it possible to directly correlation magnetic reversals with extinction events.

 

So? You ask. What are the results? What has happened?

 

James Hayes, in 1971, published a paper showing what he thought was evidence that extinctions in radiolarians (a type of single-celled organism that lives today but is also abundant in the fossil record) could be tied directly to reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field.  Ian Crain (1971) proposed that the loss of the Earth’s magnetic field could be lethal to some organisms, not because of an influx of cosmic radiation, but because the low field itself is disruptive to organisms.  Roy Plotnick, in 1980, published a paper showing that there is no demonstrable relationship between reversals and extinctions using the then currently available datasets. And since then, this topic hasn’t really been discussed, I suspect because the records are still insufficient to demonstrate a real relationship.

 

 

Magnetic Catastrophe

Let’s just say, for example, that the Earth’s magnetic field does suddenly shut down one day, just like what happens in “The Core.” Would it be an apocalypse? Would we be irradiated? Would microwaves melt our bridges?

 

Erm. No.

 

I imagine a lot of animals will get disoriented. Pigeons might fly in circles, unable to get home. Migrations might be disrupted. Salmon might have a hard time finding their home streams. Monarch butterflies might not make it back to their winter roosting trees in Mexico. So far, doesn’t seem to catastrophic. Some species might struggle and go extinct. The Sierra Club and Greenpeace and other such groups would probably go nuts. But it’s not terribly dangerous to humans, so far as I can tell.

Magnetic compasses would cease to work. That might have mattered more 50 years ago before GPS units and satellites. These days, our GPS’s can replace the old-fashioned compass.

 

Unless, of course, there’s some way that cosmic radiation can damage or disrupt the satellites that we’re dependent on. I wonder how long it would take the solar wind to shut down all the communication satellites we depend upon? That might be a problem.

 

But catastrophic?

 

Well, I guess it would kind of stink if suddenly airplanes didn’t know what way they were going. Oh yeah, but there’s those ground beacons, so I guess they’d be ok.

 

How about communications? Not everything is satellite-based. I’d be pretty cheesed off if I lost my 3G, but that’s dependent upon towers on the ground. I don’t call over seas very often, so the lack of satellite communication wouldn’t be the end of the world. Not for me anyway, and probably not for most people.

 

I guess, maybe, there’d be an increased chance of getting a sunburn what with all those extra cosmic rays? Invasion of the Lobster People, perhaps? I don’t think so.

 

So, really, what would happen if the Earth suddenly lost its magnetic field? Probably not much. Maybe a brighter aurora. Maybe some communications disruptions. Sure, some animals might be in trouble and go extinct. But nothing catastrophic.

 

It would just be inconvenient.

 

*****************************************************
Penny Higgins
Vertebrate Paleontologist -- Isotope Geochemist
Writer

Work:
http://www.ees.rochester.edu/SIREAL/
pennilyn.higgins@rochester.edu

Personal:
http://www.paleopix.com/blog
http://www.flickr.com/paleololigo
paleololigo@yahoo.com
@paleololigo on Twitter

Spaceship Design

 

A little lost post that should have been published back in August... 

Spaceships are very difficult to design, at least if you want a practical design. Authors tend to think in terms of sci-fi shows where  there's gravity and a definite floor and ceiling. Not to mention unlimited food and water! Ah, fiction!

In reality a spaceship will have much more in common with a submarine. Outside there's extreme pressure, inside there are cramped utilitarian spaces. Looking for inspiration for a story I hit the Naval Air Museum last summer and snapped these pictures of a submersible airplane hybrid (whose name I promptly forgot). 

What does your spaceship look like?

How Do You Read?

Are you ready for some graphs?

These are the preliminary data. I haven't done any correlations (like everyone who buys ebooks also buys only novels), but I have some interesting things to share from the reading survey. The sample size was 106 people, which is very small, but not bad considering the limited run.

Who publishes the books you read? 70% of the respondents said they bought mostly Traditionally Published (ie Big 6) books.


What format do you read in? 57% said they read mostly e-books. 34% said the preferred paperback. Do you know what that means? People are buying traditionally published books in e-book format. Look at the overlap!


What length do you prefer? The respondents overwhelmingly prefer novels. 85% said they read mostly or exclusively novels. That's slightly disheartening to those of us with novellas out there waiting for readers, but it isn't surprising when you consider most Big 6 publishers only publish novel-length works (novels or anthologies).


Where do you get your books? It's no surprise that 65% of the respondents said they buy their books online. First, the people taking the survey were internet savvy and comfortable enough to take the survey, second, e-books are almost exclusively online purchases. I think this survey skewed in favor of online shoppers, but probably not by much. A larger sample size would even out the discrepancies.



The take away message from this sample size? E-books are amazing, everyone loves them, novels are still the preferred length, and the Big 6 still have some clout in the market.

I'd be interested in doing a more in-depth survey and hosting it on multiple sites so we can get a larger sample size. One hundred readers is a drop in the proverbial bucket, and there are some questions that could be phrased better. If you're interested in participating by hosting a second survey and sharing the data, please let me know.

In the meantime, what do you think of this data? Does it reflect your reading habits? Does it surprise you at all?

The Quantum Parallelograph

The Quantum Parallelograph from Patrick Stevenson-Keating on Vimeo.

Guess what just got added to my base research for JANE DOE? Is that too much of a hint?

Subtle-Hints-R-Us!

I love the idea of getting a look at what could-have-been. What if you didn't say yes to that boy? What if you didn't say no to that job? What if you'd gone out that one night? You know the one. We all have a night like that...

Sometimes we get to find out. Sometimes, it's not pretty.

“On our way to the impossible, we might just find something eminently doable.” – NASA

This website has more information on the quantum parallelograph if you want it.

Burning a Hole in Time

I love it when a plan comes together!

In this case, I've been searching for the perfect mechanism to explain part of JANE DOE and JANE'S SHADOW, namely the machine everyone wants to use and that Sam winds up dismantling (temporarily). And thanks to our (semi-)reckless friends in Europe a laser capable of ripping apart the fabric of space/time in search of extra dimensions is being built!

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Laser is a grouping of ten lasers that will produce 200 petawatts of energy. I'm not sure what the Death Star produced to blow up a planet, but any evil genius worth his diabolical laugh is looking at the ELI project with interest.

Will it work? I haven't seen the original plans and don't know enough about lasers to venture a guess.

Will it destroy the Earth and all life as we know it? Call it a gypsy's intuition, but I'm going to say no. The laser is producing a ton of energy, but only in a short burst and a confined pin point area. I don't recommend stepping in front of the laser, but if you stay an arm's length or better away you should escape unscathed.

What if the Gypsy's Intuition is wrong? That, dear reader, is what we have the wonderful realm of fiction for. After all, in what reality am I ever wrong?

Enjoy your scheming!
Liana

P.S. A gold star to anyone who knows where that opening quote comes from!

What Makes Scientific Reports Suspect

There was a link running around Twitter last week that claimed watching FOX News made people less informed than people who didn't watch any news at all. It took me a day to track down the link people were referencing, and just reading it made me want to beat someone over the head with my keyboard, except I like my keyboard more than that.

Ignore the content of the study, that isn't necessarily the bad part. What is bad is what this represents as a whole, from the content of the study, to how the public views the results. If science were a gourmet meal this would be a moldy hamburger with roaches pulled out from under the dumpster. Sure, it's edible, there might even be people who enjoy roaches with their dinner, but it shouldn't have this kind of public approval.

Let's break down why this is Bad Science so that next time you too can tell if something is fact or fiction:

*NOTE* A poorly conducted study that qualifies as Bad Science does not mean the conclusion is untrue, it just means the conclusion is suspect and further research is needed.

1. Source Material
In the case of the FOX News article the source material most people referenced was an article in a rival news source. Huffington Post is usually a good source for news and they cite where they found their story fodder, in a poll done by Fairleigh Dickinson University which didn't just look at FOX News viewers but cited problems with other news sources as well (and praised a few).

For something as trivial as who knows more about the politics in Egypt this isn't a huge deal. I wouldn't ignore this information just because of the news source. But consider more serious things, like the choice to vaccinate your child or not. The doctor who originally published the study was barred from practicing medicine after being discredited, and yet someone will risk their child's life over that study.

When you see something touted as science, be skeptical. Ask for the link and the source material so you can see the research yourself.


2. Buzz Words
Notice the sensational headline "FOX News Viewers Known Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: STUDY" even though the first paragraph correctly acknowledges that this was not a study, it was a poll. There is a difference.

The use of buzz words isn't new, but it is a little scary. Over in the genetics community people use the word "sexy gene" to describe a hot button buzz-word gene that catches both attention and grant money. Everything for "the depression gene" to "the warrior gene" are researched, although probably not as well as they should be. What garners the attention isn't good science, it's buzz words.


3. Sample Size
This is the biggest problem with scientific studies: not enough data.

In fact, Genomes Unzipped has an entire article devoted to why small sample size is Bad Science. In short, the danger of small sample sizes is that they very rarely have accurate results. A study done with 500 people might show a correlation that ceases to exist when you have a sample size of 5000.

The FOX News poll has a sample size of 612. That might be a good sample size if the topic of study was a rare disease that only 1000 people worldwide have. It is not a good sample size for the category People Who Watch Televised News.

This is really the biggest red flag for Bad Science. When you see someone claiming "90% of Men prefer X to Y!" it's time to ask them what the sample size was. Percentages mean nothing. I can go ask three children if they like to eat Brussel sprouts and get all three to agree that they love them. My research would then prove "100% of children love Brussels sprouts!" Would that be accurate? Of course not. My children are weird. That's the danger of a small sample size.

If you want to see something really scary, consider the original Autism/Vaccine study had a sample size of twelve. Feel free to recoil in horror.


4. Controlling for Other Factors
The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll does get points for trying to control for some factors, they asked which political party the victims/test subjects aligned with. It's a start, but not good enough. In a perfect world researchers are able to control for all possible variables. In the case of the FOX News poll the only controlled variable was Political Party. What they didn't cover was: age, income level, education level, primary source of news, other sources of news, work place environment, and social levels.

The poll focused on what people knew based on what televised newscast they watch, which makes the erroneous assumption that the television is the primary source of news for everyone being polled. Because the poll didn't address where the people were getting their news from, and how much of their news they picked up from conversations at work, online news, social networking, or other sources, it's hard to say how much of an impact the news shows really have.

Not a huge deal because all this will do is confirm some people's beliefs of conservative newscasts while it's ignored by everyone else, but this is a huge factor in other studies.

Take the vaccine example above. Autism is still being studied, there are still some people who debate whether the whole spectrum is one disorder or multiple similar disorders, and it's possible that there isn't one universal cause. Factors considered before the study was published: age, vaccination history, was the kid crazy... The tenuous link formed of the criminally small sample size was that all the children had their regularly scheduled vaccines, ergo the vaccines were to blame.


5. Cognitive Bias
As my friend said when I questioned the FOX News poll, "But I want it to be true!" And why not? A good percentage of the population already believes the headline, so why would they question the research? It simply proves what they've known all along, and a researcher is in more danger of falling victim to this than someone reading the results. This is called Confirmation Bias. People want to prove their prejudices correct and will seek out information that supports their beliefs.

Gosh! Could that possibly relate in any way to our FOX News example? Why, gentle reader, it certainly can. Viewers are most likely to watch a news station that tells them what they already believe, and the researchers (suffering from Experimenter's Bias perhaps) are most likely to interpret the data to reflect what they already believe. Just typing that makes me shiver in fear.

The human brain is not programed to question preset prejudices. When a scientist sees something they automatically agree with they must train themselves to remain skeptical. This is the most insidious part of Bad Science because we do it to ourselves. We see something that supports our way of thinking and don't read past the headline.



Bad Science kills people. Don't be a victim. Don't victimize yourself by passively agreeing with everything that supports your prejudices. Ask questions. If you see a fact thrown out in a discussion, check the data. Don't be content with the fluff news article, skip the hype and go straight to the scientific data. And don't be afraid to call shenanigans.

Questions? Comments? The box is just below, feel free to share your thoughts. All I ask is that you keep it clean and polite, and don't turn it into a political discussion.

How To Be As Energetic As Your Kids

Have you ever watched a toddler dashing around the house, literally ricocheting off the walls, and wondered, "How can s/he have so much energy?" Do you really want to know?

After nine years of intensive research the scientists here at the Brooks Institute have come up with the secret formula for youthful energy. And, guess what? You can make this magic formula right in the privacy of your own home! No special equipment needed.

Step 1: Start a bedtime routine an hour before lights out. Turn off the TV, computer, and put your phone on night or quiet mode. Turn the lights down and read a short, quiet book. Alternatively, meditate, listen to quiet music, write in a journal, stare at stars, or read vintage comic books.

Step 2: Go to bed 8-12 hours before the alarm goes off. Start with eight hours. If you wake up feeling tired go to bed fifteen minutes earlier. Adjust your bedtime by fifteen minute increments until you wake up well-rested a few minutes before the alarm goes off.

Step 3: Run everywhere. Have you ever seen a toddler walk somewhere? No. Of course not. Running reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, tones muscle, and makes it so you're always early for everything (if you run fast enough)! In places where you can't run remember to walk fast.


Step 4: Eat the rainbow. We all know Mom dumps everything healthy on a toddler's plate while she sneaks a cookie. There's a food for every color of the rainbow: green grapes, brown bread, yellow cheese, red meat, purple eggplant, orange carrots, indigo... um... forget indigo, you get the point. The average toddler diet is well-balanced, full of nutrients, and fresh fruit and veggie heavy. Their plates are stuffed, but that's fine because they eat off small plates. Built in portion control!

Step 5: Never get stressed. You see that person yelling and screaming and tearing their hair out over the vase you broke? Smile, give them a hug, and say "I love you." Problem solved. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Toddlers know that accidents happen. It doesn't matter what happened as long as you give the person a hug and say sorry afterwards.

Step 6: Enjoy life! Laugh as often as you want. Watch a toddler let loose on the world. Are they pensive? Are they worried? Are they even remotely aware that someone is watching them? Of course not! Toddlers are in the blissful stage where they are aware other people exist, and they vaguely understand that you have emotions, but the idea that might be judging them has never crossed their mind. In their world Toddlers are perfect! They like to learn, and they aren't afraid to get messy, but they will laugh when they want to. Stop letting other people judge you and enjoy life.

Step 7: Get dirty. Really dirty. You can judge how much fun a Toddler had by the amount of dirt at the bottom of the bathtub. If there's an inch of mud trying to drain it was a fantastic day! Don't be afraid of getting sweaty or dirty, soap was invented for a reason.

Step 8: Take a nap! Your body is tired for a reason. There are tons of studies to support napping. Go ahead and Google it... I can wait... See? Over a million results telling you to Take A Nap! It you can't nap carve out fifteen to twenty minutes of down time in the middle of your day. Walk to lunch, turn off the computer, leave your phone behind, put your head down, do whatever it takes to reset your brain midday. I highly recommend ear plugs, especially if the Toddler is still at home and he likes to sing at the top of his lungs while he falls asleep.

Step 9: Surround yourself with positive relationships. Hang out with people who make you happy. Love someone. Let someone love you. Spend time with those people having fun and doing things you love. Share your interests, and don't worry if someone screams because you just handed them a squished spider you captured in the backyard, they're just excited.

Step 10: Respect yourself. You know what? A Toddler won't play with the kid that hits them. They won't be friends with the kid that doesn't share. The whole idea of letting someone hurt you because they're a friend doesn't come into play until after age five (unless there are some serious problems at home). Before age five Toddlers label the Mean Person a MEAN PERSON and walk away. Save your energy for the fun stuff and get out of abusive relationships.


Step 11: Have fun with your work! Sing a song while you clean, dance while you put clothes away, party while you scrub the floor. Sure, the boring way gets things done faster, but is getting the work done two minutes sooner worth the soul-sucking misery of doing things the boring way? Of course not! Whatever the job is, have fun!


Eleven little steps to live and have the energy of a Toddler!!! Wearing buckets on your head and jumping on the couch is completely optional.

The Answer is in the Eyes

Let's take a minute to discuss eye color, because whenever it becomes a major feature of a work of fiction the author is doing it wrong.

Let's start with what most people think they know about the genetics of eye color:

1 - Like most physical traits there is a dominant and a recessive gene and a mix gives you a third color (like flowers being red, white, or pink).

2- Brown is the dominant color and that's why so many people have brown eyes.

3- Blue is the recessive color.

4- Green must be a mix of brown and blue.


Options one through four are all lies, in case you hadn't guessed the surprise twist of this post.

There are not two alleles that code for eye color, there is a combination of at least three (on different chromosomes) and some studies cite as many as 17 different alleles that factor into eye color selection. Those genetic factors code for more than eye color, they code for pattern and pigment depth, because your eyes are really layers of color not a single solid sheet of color.

Brown eyes are dominant, but not because of the standard reasons certain features are dominant (like the genetics behind hair color - which is another post for later). Brown eyes are considered the base color for humans. Congrats! If you don't have brown eyes you are a mutant!

But eye color is not a set base like the red/white/pink flower analogy so often used to illustrate Mendelian genetics.
In basic biology classes students learn that traits look like this. Big A is dominant, little a is recessive, and a cross will be a blend or the dominant Big A will, well, dominate. Not so with eye color. First, you need a much bigger punnett square. Second, eye color is on a spectrum. The basic spectrum is roughly:

black - brown - light brown -gray - blue - green

Falling outside the spectrum are violet and red. True purple eyes are associated with albinism, as are red eyes. Elizabeth Taylor, the famous violet-eyed actress - actually had deep blue eyes and excellent makeup (poor color quality in some of her films didn't hurt either).

That debunks all the books where someone realizes the child is theirs because they have blue eyes and the kid has blue eyes but the "parents" both have brown eyes. Brown-eyed parents who are heterozygous (Aa type of thing) can have children with a variety of eye colors.

The other common problem I see in books is that Green Eyes = Irish Lass. Or some heroine from the highlands. Green Eyes and Red Hair seem to be two things people can't seperate in their minds. Which is sad, because the statistics say the Irish Lass only has a 16% chance of being Green Eyed. Now a woman from Iceland, she has an 87% chance of having blue or green eyes. File that under useful information.

Brown eyes are the dominant color world wide, but in Asia and Africa pigment is deeper than the "honey-eyed" European variants. Gray eyes are most common in the Middle East, blue and green eyes are common in Siberia and Scandinavia (also the Scots and Irish have some but that's genetic history and cross-breeding and invasions... long story).

The good news is that as we build international relations we're cross-pollinating our little hearts out. Sci-fi writers can decide if there are still phenotypes (physical appearances) that can flag genetic history, or if the characters have blended into a broader worldwide appearance.

Personally, I like giving my futuristic characters profiles we would consider mixed-racial in modern terms. I think it's unrealistic to say that vast majorities of people will have strong regional/ethnic features 900 years from now. There will be trends, and there will be mutations. But the more borders and mixed-racial taboos fall the more alike humans are likely to look.

Of course, if you're writing a historical novel you best pay attention to what your character is going to look like. The isolation that arose from limited travel and generations without waves of invasions (yes- it happened) gave rise to mutations like the blue eyes and to breeding for features in humans. That's why you can look at someone and guess their genetic nationality today. And why you probably won't be able to in a few hundred years.

Things You Don't Expect To See While Driving Home

Take this as further proof that I live to far from civilization: DH almost hit one of these driving home from work Monday night. That's a Florida Black Bear, because fire ants weren't enough of a hazard to hanging the laundry out.

The chances I will have to fight one of these guys for the blackberries in my yard? Pretty good. My plan is to put netting over the berries and hope that's enough to dissuade the bear from sticking around. I'm tough, but I'm not wrestling a bear.

Picture of bear courtesy of the LMIstudentwiki where you can read up on my new neighbor if you want.

Global Warming

Global warming is always in the news, but it's not something everyone understands well. So let's break this down. Next time someone from Greenpeace attacks you for global warming you can hand them some hard evidence that is not our species' fault (not entirely at least).

Anyone familiar with weather patterns knows there are cycles: El Nino and La Nina, flood cycles, seasons... Not only are these patterns natural, they are predictable to a certain extent, and they are healthy. Believe it or not, change is good for the environment!

One of the hardest lessons we've learned as a species is that not every natural event can or should be controlled. Fire fires are horrific, they burn land, they kill animals and people, they destroy property. For centuries people worked to find ways to control the fires, only to find we were mucking about with the natural order of things and the lack of fire was actually detrimental to some habits and species.

There's a whole field of FIRE ECOLOGY that I highly recommend you look into if you aren't familiar with it yet.

So, this is step one. Understand that the weather changes from year to year and that there is a natural cycle of heating and cooling. One of the most common fallacies is that the weather is constant.

Remember the portraits from the 1500s when everyone is buried in layers of fur? Can you imagine going out today dressed like Hans here? Not only would PETA be speechless with rage but you would swelter to death. Go back in time 500 years though, and you'll find all those layers made sense. There was no central heating, and they were in the middle of a mini ice age.

How do we know this? Ice cores.

Ice cores are amazing things. They're a little like tree rings for the air quality of the planet. By counting a tree's rings you can tell how old it is, and by looking at the spacing you can tell how much the tree grew in any given year.


An ice core is a frozen timeline of the Earth's climate. When it's all laid out we get this:
Take a look at the blue line. On the far left we have the present day. On the far right we have 400 thousand years ago. Notice the peaks? The tops of those peaks are what we as humans call "liveable temperature" that is, above freezing. All those long troughs? Those are ice ages.

At a glance, what have we had more of?

Mmm, hmm. Ice ages. Long periods of freezing cold where the ice covers most the planet followed by rapid heating, short periods of above freezing temperatures, and rapid cooling periods. Those are called Glacial Periods.

The peaks are Interglacial Maximums (IGM).

This is step two, recognize that global warming and cooling is a pattern. Another great fallacy of the global warming debate is that all of this has never happened before and that it is all the fault of your greedy, gas-guzzling car.

I promise, there were no cars during the last IGM. What's more, the last IGM was still averaging nine degrees hotter than it is today, and water levels were 21ft (6.5m) higher than they are today.

This is the place where most people get a little confused. We've established that global warming is natural, that is has happened before, and that it probably isn't your fault. Now people want to throw their trash in the ocean and go party guilt-free.

It's not that easy.

You see, global warming is a misnomer. Scientists aren't worried about the warming trends, they are worried that the warming trend won't stop.


The current theories for what causes global warming are varied, but one of the more solid theories that is supported by the evidence is the Milankovitch theory. The theory states "that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth through orbital forcing."

In other words, the Earth wobbles and the climate changes. Our orbit around the sun isn't a perfect circle. Every few thousand years we wobble in the wrong direction and the northern hemisphere fries. Then we wobble backwards and we freeze. Really, 21 degrees of wobble and spring break means wearing five layers of rabbit fur over six layers of muslin.


And this involves your cute car, fast food habits, and lifestyle how? Good question.

What scientists have no way of proving is that the temperature will drop again. Theoretically, it should. If everything follows the established pattern we will probably get a littler warmer (each IGM has been warmer than the previous) and then drop into a rapid cooling phase (several thousand years of cooling) down into an ice age.

The concern is that we have damaged the environment to the point that the temperatures will never drop.

There are even some debates over whether we have proof that this isn't going to happen. There is the hockey-stick debate (has the temperature shot through the roof or no?) and several scientists have submitted research saying they have no evidence that the temperatures have increased in the past five years, some say as far back as 1998.

Which is always nice to point out when someone says you shouldn't have that child, eat that food, drive that car, or wear those clothes because you have destroyed the balance of the planet in doing so.

But, personally, I think that concern is short-sighted. The temperatures are pretty much out of our control, what we need to do is worry about having the resources to survive temperature fluctuations. Higher temperatures mean an increase in storms, hurricane activity, flooding, rising sea levels... Dropping temperatures mean croplands covered in ice.

Step three is being prepared. There is more to green living, or sustainable living, than giving up a gas-guzzler or riding a bike to work. That's a short-term plan that will have a limited impact on the environment. You'll be healthier and save money, but it isn't going to save the polar bears. They need to evolve like the rest of the universe or they will die out. That's evolution in action. Blame Darwin if you're angry.

We do have enough resources to feed everyone on the planet. We have the money. We have the food. We have the water. All the shortages you hear about are artificial or localized. No, Somalia doesn't have enough rain. But if we got our collective rear-ends I know several places who would love to share their flood waters. It's just a matter of collecting the rain and shipping it - bottled water anyone?

Global warming exists, but it is not the great dramatic tragedy that it's made out to be in the media. Any questions? If you need something clarified or explained hit the comment box, or my in box, I'll be happy to give you an answer. And if I don't know it, I know how to find out.


Image of Han Holbein found HERE. Image of climate chart found HERE. All works copyright and courtesy of the original owners. Used with thanks under Fair Use laws.

DUTY AND DEVOTION with a side order of Genetic Alteration by A.R. Norris

Mad Science: Altering Humans

Face it; humans have been altering genetics since the dawn of man. It's called natural selection and breeding. But, what if, in the near future a parent could go into the OB and peruse a genetic menu and design their baby? Even further, what if an adult decided to drastically change some element of their physical form?

Genetic engineering is basically altering someone's hereditary information to change their physical properties (internally or visually). There are two main types of approaches and two different objectives.

Let's chat approaches first. Approach one: Somatic. This is adding genes to cells that are not eggs or sperms. This approach is a one hit wonder and can not be passed on to the next generation. The second: Germline. This is modifying the genes in eggs and sperm…and even sometimes early embryos. This will carry on from that generation forward.

There are two main objectives: Negative and Positive. Negative genetic engineering focuses on curing and treating disorders. Positive genetic engineering focuses on enhancing hereditary properties. Most people are fine with negative engineering; it's when the talk turns to positive engineering that things get sticky.

Where's the end or limit to positive engineering? Initial research is starting out with well enough intentions with life extension, brain health, and even limb and organ regrowth. But then you hit the gray area; making people smarter and athletes stronger. And of course, further still is the mad scientist realm; extra limbs, night vision, lung capacity…

Night vision and lung capacity? That's not too bad, right? Imagine this capability in the wrong hands. In countries that still have slaves…need higher productivity? Corporations would be in their full rights to give "workers" extra limbs and night vision to work longer hours.

And don't forget about the taboo worshippers. Right now people spend a lot of money to alter their physical form. It's expensive and painful, but people do it, from devil tongues to horns to tattooed eyes. What if the technology existed to do it through gene manipulation instead? And how many more would be interested in things like extra arms, just like the Hindu gods?

What about the next generation? Where would be their freedom of choice in this? Of course, if they didn't like that grandpa changed his hereditary make up so all his offspring's eyes would be blackened and have forked tongues…well, they could change it all over again, right?

In my SFR, Duty and Devotion, I explore this concept through one of the secondary characters (and a few other background characters). Kaitlin Watlow is a Jovian and the first ever Jovian pilot. Her people had been altered by corporations centuries ago to work the Jupiter energy collection facilities. Below is an excerpt outlining one of the potential social ramifications of this idea.


EXCERPT

A Jovian. Frightened nerves shuddered through her. Nettie tried to hide her own reaction, but unlike Jenny, she knew she failed miserably.

Having been slaves to the Union for generations, the opposing government historically bred Jovian as slaves, bodyguards, soldiers, and assassins. Jovian people had exacted their freedom and partnered with the Alliance to keep it several generations ago but many in the solar system still held fear and prejudice. Others from the inner solar system, like Nettie, had never met one.

Because Jovian citizens had only been freed from Union servitude and joined the Alliance in recent history, they were a distrustful and close-knit people. Most never veered far from their planet and satellites, and hardly ever in large numbers. Not that many other Alliance territories would be very accepting had they made a huge effort to migrate out. It would be uncomfortable to say the least. Out of all the human races, the Jovian had been altered the most, almost to the point of being nonhuman. It reminded many of the stretches human science made in its code of ethics. This pending war seemed to have pushed the Jovian people into the masses, unease on either side be damned.

The new crewmember seemed to catch her apprehension and slowed to watch them carefully with an undercurrent of challenge. "Kaitlin Watlow. Space Aviation Pilot."

Kaitlin had four limbs and a head, but that was the end of any comparison to non-altered humans. Typical of the species, Kaitlin's skin was a hardened cartilage of milky white, smooth and unmarked. Her body bulged with hyper-developed musculature due to life in the extreme ranges of gravity and barometric pressure. Her arms alone were over twice the thickness of Nettie's own. Translucent neon pink hair dangled to her ankles, braided and adorned with crystals.

Nettie fought the urge to retreat. At the same time, she stared into the woman's eyes, unable to look away. They were huge with no eyelashes. Without identifiable pupils, the irises swirled in multiples of vaporous purples and pinks. She found herself almost hypnotized by them.

"Do you have a problem, Ice Princess?" Kaitlin challenged in a confrontational tone, meaning the slander in the most demeaning manner.

*****
Thank you, Liana, for having me on your blog today. It was a lot of fun geekin' out about genetics.

I hope you all liked the excerpt and the article. Make sure to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Duty and Devotion.

******

And thank you, A.R., for stopping by! I can't wait to read this book!

You vs. The Apocalypse

My last house was a pretty little ranch-style home located on the block were Hurricane Central and Tornado Alley share a summer home. We spent more than one night sleeping in the closet because a tornado rolled into town. While I was there dodging strong winds and the occasional flying cow I was part of the emergency preparedness group for the area and often gave classes and lectures on how to prepare for disasters.

I like to pretend that everyone knows how to handle an emergency, but I woke up to the news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan (you're in my prayers and thoughts), and @Kat_tastic tweeting:

kat_tastic kat o'keeffe

I am so unprepared for the apocalypse.

No worries, we have a post for that.

Let's start with the basics. You don't need to be a hard-core survival buff to get through an emergency. Usually, a 72-hour kit will get you through the worst of it.

Grab a bag, a big one, think camping back-pack or hockey duffel bag. Then hit the 72 Hours.org website for a list of what you need. The most important things are something to start a fire with (waterproof matches or flint for preference), water, or something to purify water with, food (including sugar), photos of family and pets, copies of birth certificates and important paperwork, s first aid kit you know how to use, and a change of clothes.

Why a 72 Hour Kit?
In most cases it takes three days for help to arrive, get set up, and start doing good. For the first three days of a major emergency you should plan on being on your own. Hopefully it will only take hours, but if you planned for three days and it only takes hours than you can turn around and help other people.

For food I recommend the lunch packs of tuna or chicken salad, MREs (meal-ready-to-eat available from military supply stores and some camping stores), camp food, and granola bars. Rotate the food out of your kit every six months (Halloween and Easter) along with changes of clothes (because the seasons change and kids grow). Don't forget over-the-counter medicines like antacids, Tylenol, and antihistamines.

Take the checklist, pack your 72-hour kit, and if you can keep it near by. The front hall closet works if you have one, under the bed with a pair of running shoes is recommended for anyone old enough to carry their bag and everyone who lives in earthquake or tornado regions.

The idea here is that if the tornado siren went off RIGHT NOW! you could grab your bag, head to the designated safe place, and be fine even if your roof went missing. Pack mini kits for your kids, and keep some extra kibble for your cat or dog in your bag.


Back Up Your Data
You know that beautiful computer you're reading this on? Without electricity you aren't pulling up pictures and printing. You are definitely not working on your novel. Forgive the writerly aside, but I recommend double or triple back up.

1- Cloud or off-site storage in the form of Dropbox, OfficeLive, or something similar. Even e-mailing it to yourself is good.

2- Hard storage. Save a copy of all relevant data from your computer on CD, thumbdrive, or external hard drive and put it with your 72-hour kit. A 6-month back-up disc won't save your writing, but it will save the family photos.

3- Send it to a friend. In case natural disaster means the end of life as we know it in whatever country you're in, consider e-mailing your work to an overseas friend. This is more for people in very unstable countries, but my crit buddy in Australia e-mail our work to each other. It's just a nice safety net to have.


Sugar and First-Aid
Not everyone has the benefit of knowing more than rudimentary first-aid. Even if you don't have training (see the EMTs cringe) there are some things you can do.

- Have a first aid kit. Most kits have a little booklet with instructions for how to handle splints and CPR. Hum "Another One Bites the Dust" and you have the right tempo for CPR.

- If you don't have to, don't move anyone with a neck or back injury. Obviously if a wall of water/fire/rock is about to crush the person, pick them up and run. Otherwise, leave them still until professional help comes.

- Clean out cuts. This is very, VERY important. See all the beer getting looted? Alcohol kills germs. Dump alcohol on open wounds, or hydrogen peroxide, and live longer. Don't drink the alcohol, however, you don't want to get dehydrated or stupid until you are safe.

- Sugar makes everything better. Most first aid kits don't have emergency blankets or sugar, and most survivors of a major disaster need warmth, and glucose because they are in shock. Drop some Starbursts or other easy-to-keep candy in your 72-hour kit and first aid kit. If you have kids, or know kids, or have seen a kid, add some bright fun kiddy bandages to your kit. Remember, they just watched their home crumble and may have lost a parent, if a Dora the Explorer bandage makes that okay, that's a good thing.

- Light and heat are necessary for survival. Go down the hunting/camping aisle at your local store and grab some foil emergency blankets, flashlights, and the chemical hand warmers. Even if your disaster strikes in summer it gets cold at night when you're wet and it's raining. Store batteries for the flashlight in a plastic bag taped to the flashlight, not inside. Your batteries last longer that way.


Water
Anyone who followed the disaster in Haiti knows that the majority of the death toll wasn't because of the initial quake, but because of illness. Clean water is essential to you living a long and happy life.

If you can, store gallon jugs of water. Don't use milk jugs, but the plastic juice bottles are perfect for water storage. Clean the jug out, fill with water, and exchange water every 6 months.

I wash every juice bottle we empty, fill it with water, and use it six months later to water my plants before refilling.

If you can't store water for whatever reason, buy some bleach. The water will taste horrendous, but you won't die. Ask yourself which is more important. You can suffer through some bad tasting water for a few days if it means being hale and healthy in the long run.

Coffee filters and boiling can also be used to purify water, but won't get everything.

Treating Water with a 5-6 Percent Liquid Chlorine Bleach Solution
Volume of Water to be Treated	Treating Clear/Cloudy Water: Bleach Solution to Add	Treating Cloudy, Very Cold, or Surface Water: Bleach Solution to Add
1 quart/1 liter	3 drops	5 drops
1/2 gallon/2 quarts/2 liters	5 drops	10 drops
1 gallon	1/8 teaspoon	1/4 teaspoon
5 gallons	1/2 teaspoon	1 teaspoon
10 gallons	1 teaspoon	2 teaspoons

Disasters hit everywhere eventually. Plan ahead. Be a survivor.

What Are You Reading?

I've hit a major snarl in my weekend plans. I'm out of books, and nothing at the bookstore caught my eye. The authors that I regularly read either don't have a new book coming out until spring, or have finished the series I was following.

Now I'm hunting for some new books. I want something tightly written, fast-paced, with smart characters, some witty one-liners, and a good Voice. I love character-driven plots combined with smart military tactics (think Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell).

I'm open to the idea of reading any genre, but I'd love to find a new sci-fi novel or series (something written in the last ten years). Urban fantasy is my second favorite, but I'm bored with vampires, so if it has vamps, it must be awesome.

Wounded female psyches, brooding males, and characters who drop their pants at the smoldering glance of an angst-ridden person/demon/alien across the crowded bar need not apply.

Hit me with titles! Yours, something you love, something you've heard about, I don't care. Just help me refill my TBR pile!

Ecosystems and Plot Points.... More Sustainable Living

So let's wrap up yesterday's post on sustainable living, definitions and why they pertain to writing.

Biomass Majority
Why you need these: This is my own term for all the creatures that fall in the center of the food web in an ecosystem. They aren't at the bottom, but they aren't at the top. They are the links that keep the ecosystem working. These are the things big enough to eat, but small enough that they won't eat you. The prey animals, really. You need them on a sustainable planet unless your characters are living off of rations or algae byproducts.

Possible Plot Points: Creatures falling into the Biomass Majority will probably figure into your culture's trade as an import/export. Trade is always a good source of conflict. Dig a little deeper, pull an HG Wells, and make your character a member of the Biomass Majority, suddenly they are an import/export AND a food! That should keep the pace up!


Apex Predators
Why you need these: In most cases, the characters you deal with are the Apex Predators on the planet. One way or another, they are at the top of the food chain. Even if your characters aren't the top carnivore, someone needs to be. Without apex predators to keep populations in check you wind up with over-population, disease, famine, and wide-spread death. Trust the biologists, we know of what we speak, it's better for a few members of the Biomass Majority to die than for all of them to die slowly because there are no apex predators.

Possible Plot Points: You have seen Jurassic Park, haven't you? Apex Predator 1 meet Apex Predator 2, there are some very successful movies based on this concept. Any imbalance in the predator-prey relationship is risky. Good for conflict, bad for characters. :o) The ascension of a new Apex species would make for a good book, as would the view from the falling species.


Rare Species
Why you need them: Anything limited is valuable. We haven't started discussing imports, exports, and incomes but rare species figure into the wealth of the planet. From an ecologists stand point, rare species are indicator species. The fewer there are of a given species, the more small changes affect their population.

Possible Plot Points: You will only get away with this in science fiction, but introduce the concept of Indicator Species but having characters mention that there are fewer frogs this year, or pygmy hippos, or hyper-intelligent shades of the color blue. You can use these creatures to foreshadow. You can also make them the object of a quest or obsession. Or the main characters could be the rare species. You're only limited by your imagination.

Sustainable Extra-Solar Living

A few weeks back we set the definitions for an ecosystem. Now it's time to look at some of the elements that you need to make a self-sustained society, city, or planet.

Keep in mind that this is for writing purposes. As the author, you're creating these elements. You can base them off of Earth equivalents (or use Earth as your stand-by planet), or you can invent your own. At no point in the story do you need to bring these elements into the story line or conversation, but they can make good plot points.


The Big Four: Earth, Air, Water, and Sun
Why you need these: To sustain human life off of planet Earth you need air to breath, water to drink, a source of energy and heat, and a solid mass for growing things on.

Possible Plot Points: Because the lack of any of these elements presents an immediate, life threatening, situation for your characters. Situations where you can use these to build a plot include terraforming gone wrong, natural disasters, attacks on a space station, or crash landing on an inhospitable planet.


Plants
Why you need these: In a word - Oxygen. Plants are the fabulous filters that turn the air you excrete (CO2) to the air you need (O2). They are also the basic form of food for most ecosystems (well, plants and algae and fungi- let's not get too technical here). Whether you want food, filters, or building material, plants have you covered.

Possible Plot Points: Crop failure and lack of oxygen is always a good source of conflict for a book. Carnivorous plants, bio-by-products, wild fires, and fungal plagues are also fun. Go wild, start an interplanetary incident because the ambassador had the wrong color flowers in his room and was terribly insulted. ;o) Plants are always good for a laugh.


Small Animals
Why you need these: Insects and other small creatures don't get a whole lot of press time. The average person can't tell you what the importance of a copepod is. Yet there would be massive complaints if the little things in life weren't around. Small animals act as pollinators, transporters, and basic food for everything else in the ecosystem. If you want your characters to grow food, they need to figure out the pollination. It's either the birds and the bees, or a camel-hair paint brush.

Possible Plot Points: Unlike the other factors on this list problems usually arise when you have an over abundance of small animals. Think a plague of locusts. Raspberry Crazy Ants chew on electronics, which could present a small problem if they got loose on a space ship. Hamsters loose in deep space could cause a problem. And larger predators might choose to hunt humans if their main food source dwindled.


TOMORROW: Biomass Majority, Apex Predators, Rare Species