Bees that read the room. Sci-fi that shows its work. And a glass of wine with a 2,000-year résumé. 🍷🐝🚀
This week’s Friday Findings is a little chaotic in the best way
#FridayFindings #ScienceIsCool #HoneyBees #SciFiScience #WineHistory #STEM #LabX #PNAS #ScienceNews
The real science (and the fun fiction) behind Project Hail Mary #Science #Space #Astrobiology #ProjectHailMary #SciFiScience
www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-real...
Neutrino beam is aimed at the nuclear bomb that is placed on the opposite side of the Earth. The beam is emitted downstream from one of the straight sections of the muon storage ring, and reaches the bomb after passing through the inside of the earth.
This is a pretty wild one, and I'm putting it under #SciFiScience: a counter-nuke, ridiculously high-energy (1000 TeV) neutrino beam that will go through the Earth, produce a hadron shower, and induce extreme heat in the core of the bombs. 🧪
Link: arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0...
Ablation profile obtained using laser with a tophat and b Gaussian intensity distribution. The measured beam profiles of both lasers are also shown on the ablation profile with red curves. The scale of the CT scan and beam profile measurements are adjusted to be the same. Variation of beam size, crater size, and energy efficiency are shown in c tophat and d Gaussian intensity distribution.
Bone cutting laser!
No, seriously, this is actually an issue (and advantage) with using lasers in surgery; they don't cut bone well. Making the laser more powerful could damage tissue, but changing its shape seems to do the trick. 🧪 #SciFiScience
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This may be one of those cases where a theoretical exoplanet study has bearing on terrestrial studies, since it's giving me some ideas.
Also, I guess this is #SciFiScience, with some food for thought for the #WorldBuilding crowd.
Projection of the local volume expansion factor θ along (x, 0, z). Propagation direction of the soliton is from left to right along the z-axis. Positive and negative expansion factor are largely associated with negative and positive hyperbolic sources respectively. Non-zero expansion factor also exist in the spaces in-between hyperbolic sources along the hyperbolic wavefronts. Total integrated expansion factor is 0.
One of the neat things about doing a literature review is finding out that something you thought you knew - is wrong. I was sure warp was stumped because of the exotic matter requirement, but someone in 2021 might have figured out a workaround. #SciFiScience 🧪
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Example scenario at the lunar south pole (underlay image LOLA illumination map from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter). Entities (E#s) are stations from varying stakeholders and missions, not necessarily from the same nation or funding source. Dotted line is the example roadway shared by the Entities. The red circle denotes the Intuitive Machines (IM-2) lander and respective zone from potential contamination. The yellow circle indicates the protective zone from contamination of the power/communications station. Scale bar is 20 km.
Assuming we get to Luna, and we get some bases or settlements there, they will be much closer to each other than to anything back here on Earth. That would be where help would come from, and that will call for roads - which has some implications. 🧪 #SciFiScience
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A photo by user gentlesandwich of their rescue siamese, currently one of the top upvoted posts in r/cats/, a community that was analyzed in the linked study.
Not exactly #SciFiScience, but there is something called multispecies social theory, which views humans as part of a community with other species of personhood. Oddly enough, one of its best manifestations is the cat picture-sharing community. 🧪
Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Cover of Man-Made Women - The Sexual Politics of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots
Man-Made Women - The Sexual Politics of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots (edited by Kathleen Richardson and Charlotta Odlind) is a highly critical scholarly collection on the topic. An undercurrent in it is that sex robots reinforce misogyny.
#SciFiScience | 🧪 | 💙📚
Link: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Schematic representation of bacterial cellulose production in (a) static and agitated reactors (b) rotating disc reactors (c) silicon membrane reactors (d) stirred type reactors (e) airlift reactors, their components and shape of BC produced. Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6528/ac6fef?utm_source=researchgate.net&utm_medium=article
Cellulose is a useful material, paper being the obvious example, but also for textiles and construction. We would very much like to have access to it in space, but with space and energy limitations, probably best to manufacture it with microbes. 🧪 #SciFiScience
www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ijms...
The sources of adult dental stem cells used for tooth regeneration from: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59809-9_5
Today in #SciFiScience - regrowing teeth in adults. Turns out there is a transcription factor in mammals that inhibits tooth growth. If it is inhibited, it that make new teeth grow. (and that's now in clinical trials) 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Two-dimensional visualization of an Alcubierre drive, showing the opposing regions of expanding and contracting spacetime that displace the central region. A nicer version from Wikipedia of the figure in the original paper.
Finally got around to reading the original Alcubierre paper on warp drive. It is surprisingly short, given it's pop-colture statues. There are some really cool things about it that people gloss over, such as no time dilation as the ship moves. 🧪 #SciFiScience
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Cover of Wormholes, Warp Drives and Energy Conditions, editor: Francisco S. N. Lobo
Having to state my delight in finding out that this book exists.
(and yes, this is hardcore theoretical physics, but with really cool concepts a Sci Fi #writer might want to make use of. First time I've learned of the Krasnikov Tube, for example)
#SciFiScience
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Mean horizontal error for an uncalibrated aviation-grade INS solution (blue), an online calibrated aviation-grade INS that is misaligned (σ =0.005o) to perfect cold atom sensors (red, solid), and with gyroscope measurement noise σ =0.05 μrad (red, dash), σ =0.2 μrad (red, dotted), and σ =0.2 μrad (red, dot-dash). The means are calculated over 50 realisations of the errors for the full trajectory.
Catching up on the #SciFiScience behind the British Navy's quantum inertial navigation experiment (which is really crazy to say). It would be hard to do it on anything small, but it'll be a powerful upgrade for inertial positioning on ships. 🧪
Link: www.frontiersin.org/journals/phy...
igure 1. Photosynthetic scaffold fabrication and characterization. (A) Microalgae and fibrin were seeded in a commercially available collagen scaffold and allowed to grow during 4 days. Once sterility of the material was confirmed, scaffolds were packaged and delivered to the operating room. (B) Macroscopic image (top) and cross section (bottom) of photosynthetic scaffold. (C) SEM imaging showing microalgae embedded in the fibrin matrix inside the scaffold. (D) Representative evolution of oxygen concentration upon dark/light cycles of 10 min, represented by upper and lower arrows respectively (left), and scaffold metabolic rates (right). Scale bars represent 2 cm (B, top), 2 mm (B, bottom) and 20 μm (C). Data in (D) is representative of at least five independent experiments and is expressed as mean value ± SEM (right).
Implanting skin grafts with microscopic algae for direct (photosynthetic) oxygen delivery... Yes, we now have people whose skin photosynthesizes. Pure #SciFiScience in successful clinicals trials in humans. 🧪
(⚠️ Photos in papers show severe skin damage ⚠️)
Link: www.frontiersin.org/journals/med...
Magnetic cloaking in a multi-lobed noncircular geometry inspired by realistic cable layouts. (A) Real-world examples motivating the modeled cross section: Top: A 23-kV triad-type high-temperature superconducting (HTS) distribution cable. Bottom: A three-core aluminum-armored copper power cable. (B) 3D view of the uncloaked configuration consisting solely of the superconducting (SC) layer, featuring sharp concave and convex edges and vertices. Magnetic field strength and contour lines are shown using a univocal color map (0 to 55 mT, blue to red). (C) 3D view of the optimized SC-SFM bilayer cloak using the spatially varying permeability profile μR_SFM, achieving near-complete restoration of the background field. (D) Cross-sectional comparison of magnetic field lines and intensities before and after cloaking. The cloaking body and Cartesian coordinates are normalized and centered by the largest lobe of radius mm, following the same design principles of the cylindrical cloak. (E) Optimized SFM permeability profiles. The unregularized solution (left) exhibits large peaks (up to 166.4) and sharp spatial gradients across the domain, while the regularized profile (right) yields a smoother, less anisotropic distribution with substantially lower maxima. Notably, despite these differences, the normalized distortion metrics indicate similarly effective cloaking performance in both cases.
Been a while since we had any #SciFiScience, how about a (sort of) clocking device? This is theoretic, but by combining superconductors and soft ferromagnets, this setup may allow for magnetic cloaking (and also shielding from magnetic fields, which is also nice). 🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
So less then a week after Spacedock put out this video I ran into this story about a start-up developing an electomagnetic accelerator for hypersonic testing with the aim of sclaing up to an orbial lunch system.
Reality is trying to catch up.
#SciFiScience
www.jpost.com/defense-and-...
The experimental apparatus and the axial magnetic field profile. a Cross section of the central part of the ALPHA-2 experimental apparatus. In yellow and orange are shown the electrodes used to generate the electric fields for the Penning-Malmberg trap. The superconducting magnets that generate the magnetic-minimum trap (octupole and mirror coils) and boost the axial magnetic field to 3 T in the two side regions (left and right solenoids) are shown in blue and pink. The external, 1 T solenoid is not shown. Lasers for Be+ Doppler cooling can be injected along an off-axis path at 2.3 degrees through vacuum windows at either end of the apparatus (purple path), or along an on-axis path through a vacuum window onto movable 45-degree mirrors that can be positioned at either end of the central apparatus (cyan path). The orange electrodes in the left and right regions are azimuthally segmented to allow for the rotating wall (RW) technique (see text). The Be+ source (not shown) is placed on the same linear translator as the left side mirror20. Microchannel plate/phosphor assemblies used for imaging extracted particles (not shown) are placed on the same translators as the mirrors on both sides. The central portion of the drawing is to scale except for the annihilation detector, whose axial length is marked by purple bars. Position-sensitive detectors are used for stabilizing the cooling laser beams. b The corresponding longitudinal magnetic field (on-axis) that is maintained during Be+ assisted H̅ accumulation.
In chemistry, we usually think in mols (~6E23), so 15,000 atoms sounds like nothing. But this is a breakthrough for antihydrogen generation; it's a huge jump in production scale and opens a lot of future research on antimatter.
🧪 #SciFiScience
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Hands reaching out and replacing parts of a DNA strand. Originally from https://www.the-scientist.com/
I write about #SciFiScience from time to time, but where we are now with gene therapy for adults is moving towards a mundane reality. By 2023, there were ~3,900 (!) gene therapy clinical trials, which is incredible to me. 🧪
Link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
a, Schematic comparison of traditional (left) and growth-coupled (right) microbial production designs. In the growth-coupled approach, a synthetic auxotrophy is engineered such that the metabolic deficiency can be restored by a metabolic byproduct (red circle) that directly connects product biosynthesis with biomass generation. Dashed arrows in the traditional design represent low flux through the heterologous pathway, whereas thick arrows in the growth-coupled design indicate high(er) flux through the same steps. b, The Xa biosynthetic pathway in Drosophila melanogaster, where formate is released as a byproduct. 3HK is incorporated into pigment granules (called ommochromasomes) by a heterodimer composed of ABC transporters, Scarlet and White. c. Examples of arthropods and cephalopods that produce ommochrome visual pigments such as Xa.
Active cemo - here we come!
Xanthommatin is the pigment that allows octopus to blend with their environment and vanish. We now figured out how to make it in the lab (with genetical engineering and biosynthesis) and manipulate its color.
#SciFiScience 🧪
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
And if we want a glimpse into the high-end #SciFiScience of things, you can check out The Plasma Channel's ionic thrust-based high-voltage take on the theme.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa2...
Artificial placenta setup. Blood is drained from the right jugular vein by a collapsible-tubing roller pump (M-pump, MC3: Ann Arbor, MI) and propelled to an oxygenator/heat exchanger (Medos HiLite, Xenios: Heilbronn, Germany), then returned via an umbilical vein. The second umbilical vein is accessed for IV fluid and medication administration, and an umbilical arterial line is placed for hemodynamic monitoring and blood gas sampling. The lamb is intubated and the lungs remain filled with amniotic fluid by clamping the endotracheal tube. Ao, aorta; DV, ductus venosus; IJV, internal jugular vein; IVC, inferior vena cava; RA, right atrium; SVC, superior vena cava (reproduced with permission from Church et al.) Source: https://journals.lww.com/asaiojournal/abstract/2019/09000/an_artificial_placenta_protects_against_lung.12.aspx
One of the big hurdles getting to artificial wombs is the placenta (and obtaining Umbilical access to the circulatory system, and just keeping things clean). Been some progress in recent years, but we aren't there just yet.
#SciFiScience 🧪
Link: obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Sci-fi or skyscience? Physicists love Interstellar as much as Spider-Man. Science is culture—embrace the nerdcore. #SciFiScience #PopCultureGenius #ScienceNerdsUnite
An illustration of climate geoengineering techniques, including stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), cirrus cloud thinning (CCT), and marine cloud brightening (MCB), and their proposed delivery systems and potential impacts. Natural stratospheric aerosol release from a volcanic eruption is also shown for context. Surface albedo geoengineering (SAG), which is based on increasing the albedo of various surfaces, is also represented with two examples: installing white roofs on urban buildings and modifying plants and shrubs surface.
I would have love to put solar geoengineering strictly in the #SciFiScience posts. But it's something that a lot of people are working seriously on.
Yet once someone looking at the details, they found that the space for “low-risk” action may be very small. 🧪
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
LNP is delivered to both germ cells and Sertoli cells.
Does this qualify as #SciFiScience? Probably... organic nanoparticles delivered mRNA therapy to restore gamete production (specifically sperm) in organisms with genetic defects, allowing to birth of viable offspring. 🧪
Link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Curves of zero velocity in the dimensionless synodic frame of a circular binary system. In this frame the stars (red and blue dots) are fixed in space. The grey regions show inaccessible regions for test particles with the labelled value of the Jacobian integral. The continuous lines show example orbits at these energies, each originating in the space around the more massive star. At even lower values of the Jacobian constant, the forbidden regions contract around the L4 and L5 Lagrange points before vanishing.
Not exactly #SciFiScience, but definitely a cool #worldbuilding concept: Imagine a binary star system, with the stars a bit far apart, and planets switching over between the stars over time. 🧪
Link: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
Space Policy Available online 19 September 2025, 101722 Who speaks for extraterrestrial ecosystems?: Why ET should have standing Emma Johanna Puranen, John Donovan & Marjan Ajevski
Bit of real-world question and also #SciFiScience, are non-terrestrial ecosystems owed guardianship, how should that be implemented, and most importantly - who should speak for them? 🧪
(great title, but I think that missed opportunity with the reference)
Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
CNTR core design with tubes through which fuel flows into the reactor.
Back to some #SciFiScience with centrifugal nuclear thermal rockets, a conceptual upgrade to nuclear thermal propulsion, with liquid fuel injected into the reactor through rotating cylinders for maximum heat transfer. 🧪
Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
![(a) pH-responsive BPI guest and supramolecular complex formation with a CB[7] host. (b) pH-dependent locking of the host–guest complex. Counterions omitted for clarity.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ywwbhwuq4sszjve7kdshnahd/bafkreib2xuye4fvms4vza4mmnxca6g7zz3ih7pptzkfhlifkuxou6kb3ue)
(a) pH-responsive BPI guest and supramolecular complex formation with a CB[7] host. (b) pH-dependent locking of the host–guest complex. Counterions omitted for clarity.
Another bit of #SciFiScience: a pH-sensitive autonomous drug delivery polymer that can respond to physiological state (and maybe be integrated into things like artificial cartilage). 🧪
Link: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Electrode placements in exercise positions. A Swan-dive, B Breaststroke, C Swimming
Some #SciFiScience for today: electrostimulation exercise. The idea is to activate the muscles using electric pulses rather than all that annoying physical activity (or for those who can't)... unfortunately, seems you still need to move to get any benefit. 🧪
Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
