Shields up! A better "invisibility cloak" unveiled

More treknology, folks:

I don't know what's more amazing—that science has already made more major strides in this area, or that the lead paragraph uses Harry Potter instead of Romulans:

'Perfect' Invisibility Cloak Uses Metamaterials To Bend Light

The days when invisibility cloaks were confined to the world of "Harry Potter" may soon be over. Physicists at Duke University announced Monday that they had successfully cloaked an object with "perfect" invisibility. ...

...So how did they keep these reflections out of the new design?

"Landy's new microwave cloak is naturally divided into four quadrants, each of which have voids or blind spots at their intersections and corners with each other," explains io9. "Thus, to avoid the reflectivity problem, Landy was able to correct for it by shifting each strip so that is met its mirror image at each interface."

Ah. Well, at least we got a Clue about the quadrants in there: "Secret passage to Gamma Quadrant: one wormhole move."

True-life tractor beams: The latest "Trek lead"

Tractor beam stuff!

The "lead," in journalistic jargon, is the top of a news story— the essence or nugget of the story, simply stated, that is then elaborated upon in succeeding paragraphs. If all you got was the first sentence or so, you'd know the gist of the story—even without more background.

When Civil War technology yielded not only all-new mass killing methods but mass communication as well, early-day journalists using telegraph lines for the first time realized the line might be cut at any time in critical situations, in battle or by spies. Thus, reporters got into the habit of spitting out the most important news first, and then elaborating as working lines allowed. Just in case.

Softer feature stories have their own lead style—and if those stories are about cutting-edge science or technology, it's a good bet they'll begin with leads that mentioned a certain future-soaked sci-fi franchise. We say this over and over again, and STILL it keeps happening. To-wit:

Tractor Beam: NYU Physicists Build Real-Life Working Model Of Sci-Fi Staple

"Star Trek" may have predicted the iPad and the iPhone, but who would have thought scientists could actually build a working tractor beam?
New York University physicists David Ruffner and David Grier have proposed how a working tractor beam might be assembled, according to a written statement. ...

It IS an amazing story. Again.
So how else to best introduce it to the American public?

Once again, reality trumps Star Trek—amazing!

Forget your cell-phone example and your hands-off medical scanner prototypes.



What happened this weekend ...

Baumgartner Completes Record-Setting Jump

ROSWELL, N.M. — Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner landed gracefully on Earth after a 24-mile jump from the stratosphere in a dramatic, record-breaking feat that may also have marked the world's first supersonic skydive.

... was pretty much Trekland science fiction in 1994:


Okay, so technically—to echo Kirk's "orbital" skydive (and B'Elanna's via Holodeck, from Voyager's "Extreme Risk" )—a true "orbit" would occur at a minimum of about 100 miles altitude, and Baumgartner jumped from about 24. Thus, unlike Kirk's dive suit seen here (which likewise was recycled for B'Elanna's scene) there was no need for any high-friction re-entry "personal heatshield" tiles; Baungartner simply wasn't high enough up to encounter that kind of atmospheric friction heat.

 But still... wow. 

Space elevators? Not just for the Nezu anymore

It was hardly the origin of the idea in either sci-fi or sci-fact, but Trekland got its take on the long-time "orbital elevator" concept as the plot device behind Voyager's third-season "Rise!" The script was an ambitious if not overtly satisfying Tuvok/Neelix pairer aboard a sabotaged mag-lev "tether carriage" rising (get it?) into the clouds about a disputed Nezu colony.

That was the fiction. Now, a Japanese company says it wants to do the same, basically .. and can likely do it.

By 2050 ...

Space Elevator Plans Unveiled by Japanese Company

... According to the proposal, 30 passengers at a time would depart from the equator and travel in an enclosure guided by a 60,000 mile (96,000 km) cable that stretches a quarter of the way to the moon. The final destination would be a spaceport that contains laboratories and living quarters 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above the Earth's surface. ...

BREAKING: Roddenberry Foundation gives $5M to stem cell research

This is amazing news—just being released today: $5 million for stem cell research from, basically, Star Trek and its fans via the Roddenberry family. We can go to the cliche that "the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree," except that Roddenberry Sr. didn't have the cash for most of his life to take this kind of direct, positive-future-now kind of action.

But he was able to hand a lot of it off to Junior (at right)—who is finding his own frontiers to explore that are true to the spirit behind Star Trek, that core value beyond mere entertainment that has influenced and inspired millions of fans with what we all know and call the "Roddenberry Vision."
 
Way to go, Rod—as he says, here's one way to bring Gene's distant Star Trek future one step closer to NOW.

And to get this out now, here's the press release in toto (boldfacing mine): a story in today's SF Chronicle cites studies and new researchers already in motion thanks to this gift.

Roddenberry Foundation Gives $5M to Gladstone for Stem Cell Research

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 19, 2011—The Gladstone Institutes and the Roddenberry Foundation today inaugurated the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at Gladstone, a new unit founded on an unprecedented $5 million gift from the foundation that was established to honor the legacy of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. 

“This gift is our largest to date, and with it, we hope to help accelerate advances in biomedical research,” said Gene Roddenberry's son Rod Roddenberry, who is co-founder and chair of the board of directors of the Roddenberry Foundation. “In addition, if our support can inspire one child to become a scientist, one organization to become more charitable, one person to simply invest himself or herself in improving the future of our world, then our foundation can be a catalyst in making the future envisioned through Star Trek a reality.”

The center will build on Gladstone's existing expertise in stem cell science, helping to speed the process by which discoveries are turned into therapies for a host of devastating illnesses.

“Today's biggest challenge for solving disease is getting the investments required to transform our basic-science discoveries into health solutions that can alleviate human suffering,” said Deepak Srivastava, MD, (left) who directs both stem cell and cardiovascular research at Gladstone. “We are a basic science institute—but with the purpose of solving three major disease groups.”

Indeed, Gladstone focuses on disease areas that afflict millions of people and their families: cardiovascular disease, viruses such as HIV/AIDS and neurological conditions such Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's alone afflicts 5.4 million people in the United States at an annual cost $183 billion, estimated the Alzheimer's Association. Without a therapeutic breakthrough, the number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease is expected to double by 2050.

On top of this, no single disease-modifying therapy exists for Alzheimer's or other devastating neurodegenerative diseases, said Steven Finkbeiner, MD, PhD, a senior investigator at Gladstone, adding that it takes an average of 12 years and as much as $1 billion to develop a drug for a neurodegenerative disease. “The tsunami is coming and we have nothing in the drug pipeline to treat Alzheimer's,” he added.

Research at the new center can help to change that, in part by building on pioneering work done by Gladstone senior investigator Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD. In 2006, Dr. Yamanaka and his Kyoto University team discovered how to reprogram skin cells into cells that, like embryonic stem cells, can develop into other cells in the body. This discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, has since altered the fields of cell biology and stem cell research, opening promising new prospects for both personalized and regenerative medicine. Dr. Yamanaka currently divides his time between Kyoto and San Francisco, as the director of Kyoto University's Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA)—which focuses on drug discovery and regenerative medicine—and as a senior investigator at Gladstone.

To further develop Dr. Yamanaka's iPS technology in order to create patient solutions, the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine at Gladstone today is also announcing a collaboration agreement with CiRA. This accord will clear a path for these two leading stem cell centers to freely exchange materials and knowledge—all in order to accelerate the advancement of their stem cell research results into therapeutics to improve human health.

Ideally suited to do that, iPS cell technology and subsequent cell-reprogramming discoveries opened the door for scientists to create human stem cells from the skin cells of patients with a specific disease for research and drug discovery, rather than using conventional models made in yeast, flies or mice. As a result, the cells contain a complete set of the genes that resulted in that disease—representing the potential of a far-superior human model for studying disease development, new drugs and treatments—while also avoiding the controversial use of embryonic stem cells.

“The Roddenberry gift will help us create the human, iPS-based disease models that we need to accelerate the development of drug therapies for a host of devastating diseases, honoring Gene Roddenberry's call to ‘live long and prosper,’” said Dr. Srivastava.

About the Gladstone Institutes
Gladstone is an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research organization dedicated to accelerating the pace of scientific discovery and innovation to prevent illness and cure patients suffering from cardiovascular disease, neurological disease or viral infections. Gladstone is affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.

About the Roddenberry Foundation
The Roddenberry Foundation supports and inspires efforts that create and expand new frontiers for the benefit of humanity. It funds innovative solutions to critical global issues in the areas of science and technology, the environment, education and humanitarian advances.

About CiRA
Following the generation of human iPS cells by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka and his team in November 2007, Kyoto University established the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application within the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (ICeMS) in January 2008 to further promote scientific advances in the fields of induced pluripotency and reprogramming. CiRA is the world's first institute to focus specifically on these areas, and its researchers strive to realize the potential medical benefits of these cells as rapidly as can safely and responsibly be done. CiRA became an independent institute in April 2010, under the leadership of Dr. Yamanaka.

Photos: Roddenberry Dive Team (top); SFGate.com (bottom)

Yep, another one: the Star Trek/"Email" creation link

Didn't exactly realize it til today, on the 29th birthday of the copyright of the term "email"—another brand lost to generic language use!—but the guy behind the name and early system credits Star Trek for that, too.


Says developer V.A. Shiva on his website, getting attention today in news stories for the anniversary of his Aug. 30, 1982 copyright filing—first developed at age 14!—for his EMAIL messaging system.

"The two words, 'Electronic' and 'EMAIL' juxtaposed together for me originally brought images of vaporizing paper and somehow transporting it across electrical wires, like the transporter in Star Trek," says Shiva. "That is how NEW those two terms next to each other were in 1978." 

Once again, it's NASA and/or Star Trek that inspired the dreamers—plus, in this case, a a college computer lab professor's personal challenge to create such a system. We never know where, or how—but it comes back, time and again. And it's waaaay beyond just cell phones.

That's why we need them BOTH back—at full funding, and more frequently than just the occasional splash! (I'm lookin' at you, Congress and CBS...)

There's a lot more about it all on Shiva's website (Shiva, at left), including a great timeline infographic about his work and others' in the development of email—a great snapshot for those of you whom this all sneaked up on, or for those of you who never knew anything else!

The brick heard round the world: who's really to thank?

We say it tongue in cheek on this anniversary date...

You can watch the clip below, but don't thank William Shatner—thank Gene, and Matt Jefferies, and Wah Chang—as you thank Dr. Martin Cooper (right) for making (and building) that first cell phone call happen 38 years ago today.

(And note, per the best in fictional "continuity checking," that Cooper made his call to a land line—of course. What other cell phone was there?)

Yup—they ALWAYS fall for "Spock's Brain"

Yeah, so this blog uses a clip from the Shat's How William Shatner Saved the World 2005 doc to make its point...

...that NASA's "Dawn" mission to explore inner planets and the asteroids one at a time by orbiting them is using ion power—which is very cool and exciting, yes—

...but even Bill's own show, and JPL's Dr. Marc D. Rayman, shows once again how I love that everyone falls for the clinker in "Spock's Brain": that the "What is brain?" Eymorg gogo-boots females having ion power in their ship is a big deal, even to the Starfleeters. Mostly because Spock not only reports the fact, but Scotty UNDERLINES it big time with a "They could teach us a thing or two!"

So rather than blame the best crew in Starfleet with amnesia, let's just chalk it up to bad third-season continuity—again. Not only is ion power indeed a fact already in our lifetime, per the NASA missions, but it already was in THEIR lifetimes. And routine.

Check out the computer's audio readout on that peskly Starbase 10 shuttlecraft—shuttlecraft—from "The Menagerie," Part 1...

"... Class F shuttlecraft: Duranium metal shell. Ion propulsion power. ..."

Nope... no one ever remembers that. Too bad Scotty wasn't around to say "Wowzers! Aye!" or that line might have been remembered as well.

None of this nonsense, of course, takes away from the awesomness of this NASA exploration of asteroids and more, complete with "parking orbits" of each one studied ...

'Impulsive' flights to Mars? 'We' told you so

To Mars in 40 days rather than 180? It's a great leap for rocketkind!

And check out that engine name:

...Ad Astra's Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) ionizes gases such as xenon or hydrogen to create superheated plasma stream for thrust. ...

New Rocket Engine Could Reach Mars in 40 Days
By Jeremy Hsu—SPACE.com Contributor

Future Mars outposts or colonies may seem more distant than ever with NASA's exploration plans in flux, but the rocket technology that could someday propel a human mission to the red planet in as little as 40 days may already exist.

A company founded by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz has been developing a new rocket engine that draws upon electric power and magnetic fields to channel superheated plasma out the back. That stream of plasma generates steady, efficient thrust that uses low amounts of propellant and builds up speed over time.

....VASIMR and the necessary power sources could get a boost in the coming years. NASA's new five-year budget includes more than $3 billion for developing heavy-lift and propulsion technologies, as well as a Game Changing Innovation program that similarly targets next-gen propulsion and power sources. ...

Image: VASIMIR installed on ISS (NASA concept art)

The EMH gets closer: Tactile holograms!

Holograms are one thing, but can they hold tricorders and hypos? Looks like now we're a baby step closer to "magnetic cohesion fields" ...

Another icon coming true?

Is the PADD next in line for "realification?"

About those Apple rumors, this Wired columnist says it all—and even gives a rightful nod to Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach:

What I do know is that for a geek like me, another little piece of sci-fi futurism from my youth is about to hit the market, and I couldn’t be more excited. ... due to having been a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan.

No deflector dish on the space station?

Whether it can also be reconfigured to emit an antiproton beam ... or become an interplexing beacon to reach the Delta Quadrant ... this is why we need a main deflector dish "out in front" of the International Space Station!

WASHINGTON — The crew of the international space station had a close call with space junk Thursday. The three astronauts briefly took refuge inside a Russian escape capsule before returning inside the space station. Officials were worried that the orbiting outpost might get hit with a small piece of passing space debris. Tiny pieces of debris could cause a fatal loss of air pressure in the station. ...

By the way—how did we miss the 10th anniversary of the ISS last Nov. 20th? Here's a belated happy birthday wish to this oft-overlooked but ongoing next platform in the final frontier.