Prompts: The Living Earth and the Deep Freeze

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It doesn’t take much to go from science fact to science fiction. Especially when some scientific theories and experiments are so far out there to begin with. But when it comes to writing, being able to tweak something that’s scientifically plausible just enough to create an interesting, dramatic story is a valuable skill. Fortunately, that’s not too difficult, either. In my job as a news editor, I constantly come across little scientific gems just waiting to be polished into prime time story ideas. Here are a few just to show you how easy it is:

 Theory Explains the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life

 The earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects—for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA—are animate, that is, alive.

 Erik Andrulis, PhD, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life. The basic idea of Dr. Andrulis’ framework is that all physical reality can be modeled by a single geometric entity with life-like characteristics: the gyre. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of life on earth and in the universe but also the structure and function of existing cells and biospheres.

 By showing that the earth is theoretically synonymous with life, Dr. Andrulis’ paradigm substantiates the Gaian premise that all organisms and their surroundings on earth are closely integrated to form a single self-regulating complex system. He is now applying the “gyro-model” to unify and explain the evolution and development of human beings. (Read more…)

This puts me in mind of a quote from Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall, where he says something along the lines of, “it’s all part of a one-ness with a you-ness and a we-ness.” I get the point that everything’s all one giant living organism, but that doesn’t mean I believe it. And neither does Dr. Andrulis’ former grad student, Betty Thomas. The young researcher used to work very closely with Dr. Andrulis, but after he took a vacation to the jungles of Tanzania six months ago, he vanished.

Then these controversial papers started appearing, sent by Dr. Andrulis from parts unknown. Many hail them as the work of a genius, but Betty has known her mentor for years, and to her it seems like he’s gone off the deep end. Finally, she hunts him down, traveling to his last known location. She finds him in the deep African jungle living in a hut near the base of an extinct volcano. He’s covered in filth and living in squalor, a shell of the man she knew. The only familiar looking thing is his laptop, which he’s been using to pound out even more crazy sounding theories.

All he says to Betty is “they gyre, the gyre,” with a wild look in his eyes as he points into the distance. Desperate to find whatever made Dr. Andrulis crack, Betty sets off in the general direction her mentor indicated, eventually finding a passage that leads down into the belly of the extinct volcano. She follows the tunnel miles under the ground, eventually finding a strange, natural chamber. The rock seems softer, spongy, and without thinking, Betty puts her hand on a smooth, bumpy formation.

She is frozen in place as a vast, powerful presence invades her mind. We are the gyre, it says, and in an instant Betty understands what drove Dr. Andrulis insane. The earth is, indeed, a living organism, and it’s not happy. It gave birth to the human race, and the gyre, as the earth calls itself, is ready to give humans a test to see if they’re worthy of maintaining their place as the planet’s dominant species. Betty gasps as she understands, the earth is going to give rise to a new species, stronger, smarter than man. There is a deep rumble in the passage as Betty is released. She stumbles back up the passage, desperate to escape, as the earth’s new favorite sons begin to emerge…

Study may answer longstanding questions about Little Ice Age

A new international study may answer contentious questions about the onset and persistence of Earth’s Little Ice Age, a period of widespread cooling that lasted for hundreds of years until the late 19th century. The study suggests that an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions triggered the Little Ice Age between 1275 and 1300 A.D. The persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a subsequent expansion of sea ice and a related weakening of Atlantic currents, according to computer simulations conducted for the study.

Scientists have theorized that the Little Ice Age was caused by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting sulfates and other aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of the two. “This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age,” says lead author Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado Boulder.

 Miller and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact, collected from beneath receding margins of ice caps on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. They found a large cluster of “kill dates” between 1275 and 1300 A.D., indicating the plants had been frozen and engulfed by ice during a relatively sudden event. The team saw a second spike in plant kill dates at about 1450 A.D., indicating the quick onset of a second major cooling event. (Read more…)

Strange as it may sound, yes, we did have a mini-Ice Age that affected mostly Europe in the late 13th century. But geologist Burke Garner isn’t buying Dr. Miller’s theory. Plant freezing is all fine and good, but there’s still too much left unexplained, like the miraculous synchronized volcanic eruptions that would have had to happen. However, Dr. Garner can’t seem to reach Dr. Miller to discuss his latest ideas, nor can he contact anyone on Miller’s team. Instead Garner is told they are all still on Baffin Island continuing their work.

Never one to sit around fretting, Dr. Garner sets off for the Canadian Arctic, but once he arrives, he finds the entire research site cordoned off and locked down by the US government, with military personnel crawling all over the place. He’s immediately taken into custody and brought to Dr. Miller, who is in virtual captivity with his team. Dr. Miller tells Burke that the study was just a cover for what they really found. Under military escort, he takes Burke across a mile of frozen wasteland to a huge network of tunnels dug into an enormous glacier.

They walk through the frozen corridors until at last they reach a dead end, with something large covered by a tarp. Dr. Miller removes the canvas, revealing to Burke’s astonishment a contraption of immense and alien design. But this is just the edge of it, poking out of the glacier wall. There are strange markings all over it, and screens that are dead. Except for one, which slowly flashes at long, regular intervals with different, unintelligible symbols. This strange machine, it turns out, was the source of the mini-Ice Age, and it has recently become active again. Unless the team can stop it from coming back online, another cold spell, maybe even worse than the last one, is coming. It not be for a year, or a hundred years, but it’s coming. Without another word, Burke joins in and the team gets to work…

Making Memories Last

 Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called synapses. But how do synapses stay strong and keep memories alive for decades? Neuroscientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies: Hardy, self-copying clusters or oligomers of a synapse protein are an essential ingredient for the formation of long-term memory.

 “Self-sustaining populations of oligomers located at synapses may be the key to the long-term synaptic changes that underlie memory; in fact, our finding hints that oligomers play a wider role in the brain than has been thought,” says Kausik Si, Ph.D., senior author of the new study, which is published in the journal Cell.

 In the new study, researchers examined a Drosophila fruit fly synapse maintenance protein known as Orb2, which forms oligomers within neurons. “We found that these Orb2 oligomers become more numerous in neurons whose synapses are stimulated, and that this increase in oligomers happens near synapses,” says lead author Amitabha Majumdar, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher. Fruit flies carrying a mutant form of Orb2 lost their ability to form long-term memories. “For the first 24 hours after a memory-forming stimulus, the memory was there, but by 48 hours it was gone, whereas in flies with normal Orb2 the memory persisted,” Majumdar says. (Read more…)

A long-term memory assisting substance could be a real boon for researchers seeking cures to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders that attack memory. As tests move into clinical trials of Orb2, Dr. Si is encouraged by the results, as patients with memory deficits begin to recover their mental faculties to an incredible extent, remembering things with pinpoint accuracy that happened decades ago. But there is a drawback, as many subjects relapse and are left in a dreamlike, trance state.

Dr. Si shelves the project until a new researcher comes on board who convinces him to start over, showing him how to alter Orb2 to avoid such side effects. The new researcher seems to know exactly how each experiment will turn out, guiding Dr. Si’s work, promising him the new drug will enable people to enjoy the “immortality of memory.” Orb2 becomes such a success that the new researcher pushes to test it in normal people to see if memory can be improved, not just repaired.

But Dr. Si resists, citing the risks as being too great. The new researcher agrees and doesn’t mention it again, instead inviting Dr. Si out for dinner. They have a few drinks and blow off some steam, but Dr. Si starts to feel strange, as if his mind is drifting. He starts seeing events from his past, intermixed with the present, and even things that must be the far distant future. It all feels like a dream. The researcher explains to him, somewhat apologetically, that he’s slipped Dr. Si some Orb2 in his drink, that in the future, this is how people live, inhabiting their memories.

Dr. Si barely hears him, he’s lost in his past, reliving former loves, joys, it’s like he gets to experience them all over again, and the people, his friends, family, they all live again. And he sees the future, how everyone inhabits multiple time points all at once, ever dreaming. He sees that to the other researcher, this is just a memory from his own past that he’s re-visiting, already knowing what’s going to happen. It’s like immortality.

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 Science with a twist, and a way of looking at something and saying, “Hmmm…” That’s all it takes. Feel free to take these ideas and run with them, or come up with new ones all your own. Happy writing!

-Jason Kahn

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Author Bio

A medical editor by day, Jason Kahn lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. His stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe, Damnation Books, Something Wicked, and numerous anthologies. His hobbies include rooting for his University of Michigan Wolverines and chasing after two mischievous gnomes who claim to be his children.

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