THE MOST IMPORTANT FIND OF THE MILLENNIUM

... and I'm just finding out now?

So, apparently life does exist in outer space. It's not carbon-based, but if you have a problem with that, then you're a carbon-chauvinist and we aren't friends. Anyway, inorganic, acytotic life has been discovered in nebulae. Actually, it was discovered some time before August 14th, 2007. I read the academic paper (published in the New Journal of Physics, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal), and it checks out.

This is real. I repeat: This is real.


Physicists Discover Inorganic Dust With Lifelike Qualities

Excerpt:

So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? "These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."

©2007 V. N. Tsytovich, G. E. Morfill, V. E. Fortov, N. G. Gusein-Zade, B. A. Klumov and S. V. Vladimirov

From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter

Excerpt:

Figure 5. (a) The observed grain convection surrounding the cylindrical grain crystal. Different colors correspond to different grain velocities [18], The velocities vary from about 0.4 cm s-1 (blue) up to 1.5 cm s–1 (red). (b) The dust convection obtained in numerical simulations [19]. (c) Sketch of the model for helical structure duplication (reproduction). See details in the text.

The original article is much more technical, less sensational, and really actually real. Here is a .pdf version, full text. Here is the online abstract.


Finally, the disclaimer:
The definition of life is arguable. There are organic acytotic systems (prions of Mad Cow Disease fame, as well as other non-cellular life) which aren't universally considered alive. If these systems do not fit your definition of life, then no extra terrestrial life has been found, and you can consider these articles philosophically relevant to the arbitrary aspects of "definitions" and specifically the definition of life. In either case, this is a huge discovery, equivalent to finding amino acids on Titan or Enceladus or Europa.

Imagine that!

I just wanted to watch some science tv, you know, like NOVA or The Universe or NASA tv or whatever. Nothing's on, so I scan the other channels. Normally, this isn't a channel I pay attention to, what with being Christian TV and all, but lo and behold, Leroy Jenkins!

Obviously, this is not Leeroy Jenkins of internet fame and my cat's namesake. This is Leroy Jenkins: arson threatener, poisoner, and televangelist. Not a role model I'd like to show to my little Leeroy, but I think Loki has bad role-modeling covered.

Gelatinous thought monsters

Quite a month it's been.

I'm getting better at visualizing stuffed animals to make, but getting worse at making time to make them. I'm sure I'll get another up this weekend.

I'm accepted to 3.5 grad programs. I'm waiting to hear back from 2.5 (the .5 in both cases is UCLA, which is really stressing me out.) I have no idea where I'm going to go. Northwestern wined and dined me, and they really seem idyllic, but I can't make an informed decision without visiting other places, so I'm working on that.

Speaking of work, named entities are so much fun. I've gone from telling people "I'm teaching computers to love" to saying "I read communist propaganda all day", both of which are obviously true. I've also realized hulu is a terrific site for all occasions.

I'm almost caught up on Battlestar, and fully caught up on Lost.

It's snowing, which means fake-spring is officially over. Winter 2.0 is beginning. I really hope it takes a hiatus in April so we can squeeze a real spring in before May. May is so cold and rainy. And then? Then, it's August for 4 months. By the end of August (both calendar-wise and season-wise), I'll be moving. As I said before, I don't know where, but moving might actually be fun this time. I will actually get rid of junk I don't need!

I'm also considering a nerdy tattoo to commemorate my struggles and triumphs as an undergrad and linguist. It may or may not happen (hence considering), but it's something fun to think about. There are a lot of nerdy tattoos out there, btw.

Peace flags

What a project! It took two weeks of intermittent sewing, buying a sewing machine, and coaxing coworkers to teach me their native alphabets, but it's done. I am completely willing to make more, but I'm charging what they're worth. No more of this working for the love. ;)

Peace flags ©2009 Sold by Jazzmoth Creatures on Etsy.com

Click on a picture to view it in detail. If you want a string of flags or just one, let me know! I'd be happy to make more. :)

Catch up

Grad School:
Northwestern: Flat out accepted, very warm emails
Berkeley: Not accepted, nice declining email
UPenn: Phone interview, not very warm

Art:
Commission: one more panel, pix soon
General: working on patterns, bought a sewing machine

Fake school:
Field methods: awesome, I am going to measure vowel space
Syntax 2: fun, but not as up-my-alley as phonology. :P

First two installments

So, sew! I've been sitting on some ideas for a while, and I finally got my act together. Both of these are more or less on the fly, although I knew I was going to make a Hershey's Kiss body and I bought those buttons expressly for teeth in that style mouth. In any case, I'm relatively happy with the way they turned out. I know the resolution is crap, but my actual camera is upstairs and my phone is here. Plus, it's late and I'm tired. So here is your first glimpse at what I might actually end up doing: art. I haven't figured out how much I'll sell things for, especially since I don't have a sewing machine. If they were "Fine Art" each would be over $50, but no one would buy these for that much.

The Impotent Similing Duck stands on its own at about 6" tall. It's made of yellow fleece and gray felt, with matching button eyes.

The Deranged Heart Monster is 5" tall, with hand made (by the Amish) glass button teeth and mismatched button eyes. The body is yellow fleece (I have a lot) and red corduroy, with blue cotton at the back of the mouth and green fleece behind one eye.

Both are completely hand sewn - quite literally. Even if they don't quite look they way I hoped, they are certainly a good trial and a lot of fun. I'll take real pictures sooner or later.

Fake space

I am totally loving my Wii. I'm not sure I'm using it to its full potential yet, but since it just arrived, I'll take it a step at a time. Right now, I'd like to rave about Super Mario Galaxy. I know it's been out for quite a while, but I am just so blown away by the beautiful visuals.

My new favorite shape is a pudgy star. I love midnight blue. I love this game. I love the Wii controls and the connectivity of the console in general. Hurray for Nintendo!

Try CHICKEN!

A wonderful sight near Zack & Cristi's place. It's not blurred out in real life, so I might take a phone-camera picture.

View Larger Map

Otherwise, the conference is superfun, San Francisco is gorgeous, people are awesome.

LSA 2009

So I head out to CA tomorrow. I'll back on Monday morning/early afternoon. I'm bringing some sewing stuff, and hoping that I don't run across anyone who is a TSA zealot. Needles and pins and small scissors are allowed as carry-on, but the security employees are given some discretion. PLEASE don't throw out my stuff.

The cuttlefish is wrapping up, and I'm looking for a new project. I might make a generic monster for potential selling. After all, I am arting "part-time". Wouldn't it be awesome if I could actually do this as a source of supplementary income? Yes, yes it would.

Happy New Year

Well, it's not quite been a month, so I think I'm still in the clear for blogging. The good news is that I'm arting up a small storm, my graduate applications are mostly in, and everyone's happy and healthy. However, my recent parking ticket is confusing the heck outta me. It seems it doesn't exist, so I don't want to pay it... but I don't want to get in trouble for not paying it. Anyway, so I was on the city's cite, trying to figure out whether it actually exists, and voilá! A map of Boston with Logan Airport, East Boston, Boston Proper, and South Boston highlighted. Holy cow - Boston is small than its own airport. Don't believe me? Look!

Yep, it covers Downtown, the North End, the West End, the South End, Back Bay, and most of Boston Proper - with a little redistribution, it would be all of it. That's incredible. If you fly into Logan with your destination as the city of Boston, you land on a single entity that is larger than your destination. Logan Airport doubles the size of the city. Think about it.