Cool Stuff - incorporate into your stories

[Kristine]

I have been to so many author interviews where some person will ask "where do you get your ideas?" and the authors usual reply is "All around me; the news, discussions with other people..."  I don't know how anyone could NOT have a story idea or two floating around in their head.

So I thought it would be good if you are having issues with a story and need a new plot development, want to practice with a story idea that is not your main one, or just saw something TRUE that you think would be a cool thing to put into a story - to have a thread dedicated to TRUE things that might be 'story worthy'.  Things that could either inspire a story, add an extra true element, stuff that could be added to an RPG game, or just discussed with like minded curious people.

Remember that even if many people have the same inspiration - it's the execution that makes it interesting, so post the site you found the Factoid on and what you think it might be used for...or, if your in a mood, what logical explanation might un-mystic and explain it.  I am reminded of the 'Sherlock Holmes' Quote that goes 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

http://www.ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=75&z=1

I'd like someone somewhere sometime to explore the idea that humanity is in a constant cycle of spiritual, intellectual, and technological growth and destruction.  That humanity might have existed thousands of years ago with technologies that we are only guessing at today and somehow we lost them through war or attrition or just plain stupidity

part of that link:

Out-of-Place Metal Objects
Humans were not even around 65 million years ago, never mind people who could work metal. So then how does science explain semi-ovoid metallic tubes dug out of 65-million-year-old Cretaceous chalk in France? In 1885, a block of coal was broken open to find a metal cube obviously worked by intelligent hands. In 1912, employees at an electric plant broke apart a large chunk of coal out of which fell an iron pot! A nail was found embedded in a sandstone block from the Mesozoic Era. And there are many, many more such anomalies.

What are we to make of these finds? There are several possibilities:

    * Intelligent humans date back much, much further than we realize.
    * Other intelligent beings and civilizations existed on earth far beyond our recorded history.
    * Our dating methods are completely inaccurate, and that stone, coal and fossils form much more rapidly than we now estimate.

In any case, these examples - and there are many more - should prompt any curious and open-minded scientist to reexamine and rethink the true history of life on earth.

[Cooper]

I was thinking the same way when incorporating ancient civilizations with my Terran idea at this post http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,6060.0.html.  I can't spill any details about it.  I'm still in the process of creating characters, which means none, and a somewhat "working" plot line.  All I know is that in my story, the real disappearance of the ancient cultures are related to a war that inevitably "split" the world, leaving a world of no magic and a dark, sinister, and cruel purpose for humans.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

So I thought it would be good if you are having issues with a story and need a new plot development, want to practice with a story idea that is not your main one, or just saw something TRUE that you think would be a cool thing to put into a story - to have a thread dedicated to TRUE things that might be 'story worthy'.

Um, if we are going to do that, I'd kind of like a slightly higher standard of TRUE than this sort of Forteana.

To my mind, if you need a really awe-inspiring true thing or three for your stories, the opening news and views bit of Nature every week suffices more often than not.

I'd like someone somewhere sometime to explore the idea that humanity is in a constant cycle of spiritual, intellectual, and technological growth and destruction.  That humanity might have existed thousands of years ago with technologies that we are only guessing at today and somehow we lost them through war or attrition or just plain stupidity

Mind you, I am temperamentally disinclined to this notion anyway, because it is depressing enough to strike me as an actively negative thing to promulgate; humanity can be, and deserves to be, better.

[Kristine]

Um, if we are going to do that, I'd kind of like a slightly higher standard of TRUE than this sort of Forteana.

To my mind, if you need a really awe-inspiring true thing or three for your stories, the opening news and views bit of Nature{/i] eveyr week suffices more often than not.

How about a web link?

Mind you, I am temperamentally disinclined to this notion anyway, because it is depressing enough to strike me as an actively negative thing to promulgate; humanity can be, and deserves to be, better.

Not if you have your main hero break the cycle - find some kind of referrence to the ancient past that shows what happened and be able to reveal it to the world - It's only negative if you continue it - and of course there is always the oportunity that we will know better next time...

[Kristine]

okay more cute then awesome but considering what the babys are and what the surogate parent is - hey whatever works - this has been explored in a lot of fiction with everything from "Cuckoo's Egg" by C. J. Cherryh (set in her Alliance-Union universe) to the comedy movie "Elf" or the comic book character 'Hellboy' - what is the influence of nature and nurture?

http://www.floristone.com/hippopotamus-tortoise.html
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/tigerpig.asp

This would could lead to a cautionary tale, uplifting story of understanding, a fish out of water story, ugly duckling...

On a darker note:
"If this bonding occurs to the the TV or monitor that so many parents use as a babysitter, then real human to human contact my not occur."
A version of this was explored in "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury from The Illustrated Man  where children bond to a holographic entertainment room over their parents.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

How about a web link?

www.nature.com

Not if you have your main hero break the cycle - find some kind of referrence to the ancient past that shows what happened and be able to reveal it to the world - It's only negative if you continue it - and of course there is always the oportunity that we will know better next time...

I'd still find that depressing tbh, and the more so the more failed cycles there were before we got it right.

[meg_evonne]

http://www.livescience.com/  <there are always interesting things popping up here.  Sometimes though it back fires... 

I had a great idea/barely started short story dealing with human body part harvesting from live clones (for story purposes - clones were faulty through genetic engineering with a few troublesome ones that manage to get through the system because of budget cuts.  i.e. how do you tell the billionaire without ethics that his daughter's heart is going to have to come from a live sentient clone twin and SHE finds out about it.)  It had the best (or worst depending on your point of view) aspects of Lord of the Flies gone corporate on a privately owned island that I was really getting excited about----  It was shortly and completely torn apart by the latest discovery that we would probably be able to grow our own body parts (thus no need for the dumbed down, barely functioning clones) within,well maybe 10 years?  Exciting news, but sad for my story line!  I'm too practical to think that a corporation would go through the costs to set up, knowing that another, more ethical system would shortly be online.   Ahh, I love Corporate Greed stories though....

NPR story this AM...  Some huge cave drilled into a mountain in Norway for storing seed.   Sorry no link, but it should be on the NPR web site.  Immediately I start thinking how are they going to distribute this seed after a major natural disaster, where will it go, who will profit from it, how will a corporation steal access for their own projects... etc.  Who decides who has the right to gain access and where will the foodstock go?  Who is going to send an army to take it away from the Norwegians?  Who will send an army to protect it?

Anyway,  livescience  is one of my favorite places for info on just about anything that is newly discovered or research reported etc....  and it covers all aspects of science including archeology etc...

Also, did you see the story on the Komona Dragon in Kansas that cloned it's own eggs after 10 years alone?  No it wasn't stored seman, either.   

[Kristine]

http://www.livescience.com/ 
I had a great idea/barely started short story dealing with human body part harvesting from live clones (for story purposes - clones were faulty through genetic engineering with a few troublesome ones that manage to get through the system because of budget cuts.  i.e. how do you tell the billionaire without ethics that his daughter's heart is going to have to come from a live sentient clone twin and SHE finds out about it.)  ....

I like that site - another one I need to pop in on from time to time.  See a movie called "The Island" that ran with that concept - hokey in parts but okay entertainment.

NPR story this AM...  Some huge cave drilled into a mountain in Norway for storing seed.   Sorry no link, but it should be on the NPR web site.  Immediately I start thinking how are they going to distribute this seed after a major natural disaster, where will it go, who will profit from it, how will a corporation steal access for their own projects... etc.  Who decides who has the right to gain access and where will the foodstock go?  Who is going to send an army to take it away from the Norwegians?  Who will send an army to protect it?

Sounds like a worthy post-apocalyptic tale - like a grand scale European 'Jerico'.

Also, did you see the story on the Komona Dragon in Kansas that cloned it's own eggs after 10 years alone?  No it wasn't stored seman, either.   

Ah ha! 'Jurassic Park' was right! ...Dragons in Kansas?...This one looks fun too - http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar.htm

Um, if we are going to do that, I'd kind of like a slightly higher standard of TRUE than this sort of Forteana.

www.nature.com

From the original web site and now yours too - what happened with the technology of that thing

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7119/full/nature05357.html

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I like that site - another one I need to pop in on from time to time.  See a movie called "The Island" that ran with that concept - hokey in parts but okay entertainment.

The Island gave me a great urge to write a setting where there is a dystopia, and some sort of setup by which lucky people get selected to leave it and go to somewhere wonderful, where the shocking twist is that they actually do get to go somewhere wonderful, because having it be that something horrible happens to them has just been done to death.

It's not actually a story, becauses I do not have people or a plot, but it is floating around waiting to accrete bits enough to be a story.

[Kristine]

The Island gave me a great urge to write a setting where there is a dystopia, and some sort of setup by which lucky people get selected to leave it and go to somewhere wonderful, where the shocking twist is that they actually do get to go somewhere wonderful, because having it be that something horrible happens to them has just been done to death.

lol, how would you set that up - Some secret government agency sends jack booted thugs to the characters house and transport them in the middle of the night - the whole story is the characters trying to escape this horrible fate only to finally be captured and taken to a place where decent people get rewarded for being decent.  I don't know if the jaded, cynical world could handle that.

[Kristine]

Maybe I just get more excited about this medical stuff than I should but I thought the implications of this were tremendous for science fiction stories or if you combine it with micro-magic (don't know if that's a word but it is now)

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20406/


"A new nanovalve that opens in response to pH changes could serve as the basis of a targeted drug delivery system. By filling a tiny, porous silica sphere with a drug and then plugging the pores with the valves, researchers can use pH changes to control the drug's release.

The pH of healthy and diseased tissues often differs, meaning the spheres could be designed to release the drug in diseased tissue only, says J. Fraser Stoddart, professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. Stoddart, along with UCLA chemistry professor Jeffrey Zink, led the development of the new nanovalve; their findings were announced in last week's issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Previous versions of the valve functioned only in organic solvents and were activated by elaborate oxidation reactions....

[Kristine]

Okay I can see both good and bad uses in sci fi for 'Mood Clothes' - if put on inmates, asylum patients, soldiers, or maybe 'important' scientist, a system could tell if they had taken drugs, or whatever their mood was - and if it needed to be altered.   On the up side, maybe in a near distant future organ replacement patients could be better monitored without interrupting their life, or a way to have an automatic insulin system (with the article about the nanodevice in the post above) that would release insulin when a diabetic needed it  - though the example they talk about in the article (your clothes sensors alerting you doctor and sending you text messages) seems more like a type of medical 'big brother' - another down side if your health insurance could get a hold of the data your clothes are producing. 

http://www.physorg.com/news125588562.html

Smart clothes: textiles that track your health

 Garments that can measure a wearer's body temperature or trace their heart activity are just entering the market, but the European project BIOTEX weaves new functions into smart textiles. Miniaturised biosensors in a textile patch can now analyse body fluids, even a tiny drop of sweat, and provide a much better assessment of someone's health...

These biosensors are not just scaled-down versions of existing technology, Luprano is keen to point out. “Many of the chemical or biochemical reactions used in sample assays are non-reversible and some part of the biosensor has to be replaced. When you monitor continuously you can't do that – you need a sensor that binds your substrate reversibly. Also, the BIOTEX sensors work on tiny volumes of liquid, so we had to come up with innovative designs and materials that would make it possible to miniaturise the sensors and make them compatible with fabrics.”

Several of the BIOTEX probes, including the pH sensor, use colour changes or other optical measurements. For example, as sweat passes through the pH sensor it causes an indicator to change colour which is detected by a portable spectrometer device. The immunosensor technology works in a similar fashion. Plastic optical fibres (POFs) are woven into the fabric so that light can be supplied to the optical sensors and the reflected light directed to the spectrometer.

Having an array of biosensors in a textile patch is one thing, but how do you get fluids to them in the first place?

The solution uses a combination of hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic (water-repellent) yarns. It is possible to weave these two threads to direct the sweat through fabric channels to the sensor array. It is a passive system using no power, thereby reducing the power demands of the BIOTEX system (and the weight of a battery pack that the wearer would have to carry).

In the first BIOTEX trials, the smart patches will be worn in clothes by people with obesity and diabetes, as well as athletes.

[Kristine]

okay - this is just funny to me.

http://www.flyaboveall.com/dogs.htm

There has to be a story in that somewhere.