Yesterday (March 11, 2026) I published a post about a new project being funded by the European Research Council (ERC) titled, SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity.
Today (March 12, 2026) I have a story about Chinese science fiction from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) radio programme, Ideas by Nicola Luksic, which was published online on September 2, 2025, Note: the radio interview is embedded in the article,
Chinese science fiction is booming, and this makes total sense to globally renowned sci-fi writer Cixin Liu.
“Science fiction is different from traditional literature in that it can only prosper in the fastest developing, modernizing countries,” said Liu, speaking through a translator from his home in Tianjin — a city about 140km south west of Beijing.
Liu is the author of The Three-Body Problem — a trilogy adapted into a quarter-billion dollar eight-part Netflix series.
The first installment of Three Body Problem was published in China in 2006, and translated into English in 2014. In 2015 it was the first Chinese book to win the Hugo Award — essentially the Nobel Prize for science fiction.
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Luksic\s September 2, 2025 article features some interesting comments from Liu,
Sci-fi tends to thrive in burgeoning empires [emphasis mine], observes Liu, pointing to the birth of popular sci-fi in 9th-century Britain and the flourishing of American sci-fi in the 1950s and ’60s.
“Now the prosperity of science fiction is happening in China [emphasis mine], which is closely related to China’s rapid modernization,” said Liu.
“It is impossible for science fiction to prosper in a backward and slow-developing country. The prosperity of science fiction in China should be inseparable from the background of China’s rapid development, and it is this big era that is driving it.”
Liu grew up in the 1960s and witnessed massive social, technological and economic change through the Cultural Revolution to today.
“The social changes we witnessed from childhood to adulthood were probably the greatest in human history,” he said.
“This is not an exaggeration; the world around us during our childhood and adolescence is totally two worlds, and now Chinese society is still in rapid development, which makes Chinese society full of a very strong futuristic feeling, and this feeling provides a fertile soil for the development of science fiction literature.
“I think this is the most fundamental reason for the popularity of science fiction literature in China.”
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I wonder if Liu is hinting at or predicting a ‘Chinese century’ or a ‘Chinese millenium’. Liu’s claims seem a little facey to me but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
The September 2, 2025 article delves into the publishing environment in China,
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All publications in China are subject to review by the General Administration of Press and Publication before they can be sold on the mass market. It has the authority to censor and ban books deemed to be critical of the government, or books that promote what it sees as western values.
But that does not significantly limit the complexity of social issues and layers of story that can be told through sci-fi, according to PhD student Zichuan Gan. Originally from China’s Fujian province he is pursuing his PhD thesis in comparative literature at the University of Toronto.
“There is a very hot discussion about how Chinese science fiction is inherently non-binary,” said Gan.
“Non-binary not only in the sense of gender, not just two genders, but also in the way we think about things. Instead of putting things into black and white categories like male or female, human or machines, west or east, Chinese science-fiction often shows that reality and life are more mixed and complicated.”
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… he also points to the moral complexity of the main characters in The Three-Body Problem.
“When Western readers read Chinese science fiction, they very often assume like, ‘oh, this work has some political meaning’, but in many cases it’s not black and white, it is not propaganda, and this non-binary feature is worth discussing.”
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Gan is particularly interested in how ethical questions about the promise of technology are introduced, developed and explored in Chinese sci-fi. Having grown up in a part of China that took on a lot of the world’s e-waste over the past two decades, he is wary of what’s called ‘techno-fetishism.’ Something he defines as “a tendency to view technology as something detached from society, something immaterial, something magical.”
“Technology is not neutral,” said Gan. “We often hear that technology is just a tool and the only thing that matters is how we use technology. But in reality, who designs technology and what purpose it serves all shape the final product.”
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Here’s one last bit from the September 2, 2025 article and it’s about the history of science fiction in China,
While Chinese sci-fi is flourishing in the 21st century, the genre’s roots in the country go back to the late 1880s and into the early 20th century as the imperial period ended.
“Everything was in turmoil. The dynasties that had been in place for thousands of years were suddenly crumbling. People didn’t know what to do,” said Ari Heinrich, professor of Chinese literature and media at the Australian National University.
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“Science fiction was on the table as a way of introducing technology to build better tools for society,” said Heinrich. “So people were deeply invested in a kind of nationalist way in what kind of technologies were out there and science fiction was a way to imagine what those technologies could be.”
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[see article for image] First published in the 1880s, the fantastical illustrated journal Dianshizhai Pictorial, published three times a month out of Shanghai. (Wikimedia/Free Domain)
“It was an illustrated, widely circulated journal, and you can see these pictures in it of bizarre flying machines, like a ship in the sky with wings, but also, you know, a hot air balloon that is clearly based on an actual one,” said Heinrich.
“So from a very early period people were writing stories that had all kinds of actual technology in it, even if it was tweaked and made weird, but it was still somehow grounded in a desire to improve Chinese capacity. And you could say that’s still going on now.”
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If you have time, do check out the September 2, 2025 article and/or the embedded Ideas podcast/radio programme.
I have a few previous posts about Chinese science fiction and Chinese fantasy literature, Note: For those who are unfamiliar with the genres, they are often linked together as a category or in a story,
Chen Qiufan, garbage, and Chinese science fiction stories (May 31, 2019 posting)
Telling stories about artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese science fiction; a Nov. 17, 2020 virtual event (November 16, 2020 posting)
The science in science fiction television (scroll down to “3 Body Problem (television series)” (June 27, 2024 posting)
SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity (March 11, 2026 posting)
Given how important Korean pop culture has been internationally, it seems surprising that I haven’t stumbled across Korean science fiction/fantasy.
A European Research Council (ERC) grant to study SINOFANTASY has been awarded to a University of Freiberg (Germany) researcher. (I’ve seen Chinese science fiction discussed but not Chinese fantasy. Glad to see this as there’s often crossover between the genres.) Here’s more from a September 9, 2025 University of Freiberg press release (also on EurekAlert but published September 10, 2025), Note: Links have been removed,
Sinologist and junior professor Dr. Jessica Imbach from the University of Freiburg has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). With her funded project SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity, Imbach is investigating the development and significance of Chinese fantasy and science fiction literature since the 1990s. The grant covers five years and amounts to approximately 1.4 million euros.
Fantasy literature as a mirror of social transformation
The project aims to develop a well-founded theory of Chinese fantasy as a mirror and medium of social transformation. “I am investigating, for example, how cultural identity, historical images and visions of the future are negotiated in Chinese fantasy literature. This genre has become one of the most popular forms of entertainment in China,” says Imbach. “Some texts are formally innovative and experimental, creating alternative views of history or speculative forms of society, while others follow conservative narrative patterns. My project therefore asks: What themes, conflicts and worldviews are negotiated in these texts? And what social negotiation processes are reflected in this literary form?”
Digital encyclopaedia on fantasy literature planned
In addition to literary texts, the project explores how speculative storytelling affects concepts such as authorship and digital participation in an authoritarian media system. “The ERC Starting Grant now gives me the opportunity to systematically explore the diverse media, social and political dimensions of Chinese fantasy with a larger team and a long-term perspective,” Imbach emphasises. In addition, a digital encyclopaedia of contemporary Chinese fantasy is to be developed. The project thus not only contributes to literary and Chinese studies, but also makes complex cultural processes accessible to a broad public.
The ERC Starting Grant The European Research Council (ERC) supports outstanding scientists in carrying out groundbreaking research projects by providing highly competitive funding.ERC Starting Grants are aimed at innovative scientists in the early stages of their scientific careers who have already gained two to seven years of experience after completing their doctorates and would like to establish their own research group. Applications can be submitted from all research areas. Scientists can receive funding of up to 1.5 million euros over a period of five years for their projects.
Dr. Jessica Imbach received the Margarete von Wrangell funding https://uni-freiburg.de/en/margarete-von-wrangell-fellowship-for-research-on-new-media-in-china/
Ne Zha 2 (Chinese: 哪吒之魔童闹海; pinyin: Nézhā zhī Mótóng nào hǎi; also known as 哪吒2; Nézhā èr)[5] is a 2025 Chinese adult animated adventure fantasy action film written and directed by Jiaozi. The direct sequel to Ne Zha (2019),[6] it is based on the Chinese mythological character and Xu Zhonglin’s 16th-century novel Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi).[6] The film takes up the story of Chinese mythological character Ne Zha and his friend Ao Bing. After a sacrifice, only Ne Zha’s body can be recreated, although he carries Ao Bing’s spirit within. Ne Zha calls on this spirit in his fight against Master Shen.
Ne Zha 2 was released in theaters across China on 29 January 2025, coinciding with the first day of the Chinese New Year.[7] Like its predecessor, the film received highly positive reviews from critics, and achieved even greater commercial success at a gross of $2.2 billion[8] worldwide against a production budget of US$80 million. Ne Zha 2 broke numerous box office records inside and outside China, including becoming the highest-grossing film in a single box office territory, the highest-grossing animated film, being the first adult animated film in this position, the highest-grossing non-English language film and the first animated film in history to cross the $2 billion mark, as well as being the highest-selling animated film based on ticket sales. It also ranks as the highest-grossing film of 2025 and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time.[9] [emphasis mine] A sequel is in development.
I’d love to know who realized that Taylor Swift concerts generate seismic activity and how they came to that realization (this question gets answered in the CalTech excerpt further down in posting). In any event, seismologists have been tracking the activity since 2023 according to a July 28, 2023 article on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) news online website, Note: A link has been removed,
When Taylor Swift took the stage at Seattle’s Lumen Field this past weekend, the Earth moved. Literally.
Jackie Caplan-Auberbach, a professor in the geology department at the University of Western Washington [Western Washington Univesity; WWU[, pulled the data, which showed the pop star’s Eras Tour concert caused twice as much shaking as the infamous “Beast Quake” of 2011 — when Marshawn Lynch scored a touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks, and secured the NFL team a victory in a wild card playoff game.
The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) calculated Seattle fans cheering for the touchdown made the Earth shake with the equivalent of a 2.0 magnitude earthquake.
“If that was a two, this would’ve been a 2.3.,” Caplan-Auberbach told CBC News.
She noted that it’s not clear whether it was the fans dancing, or the booming sound system that caused all the shaking. In fact, by geology standards, it’s a pretty insignificant blip on the seismometer.
The machine used to measure the vibrations from the Earthhappens to be located next to the stadium where Swift was performing back-to-back sold-out shows. [emphasis mine]
The seismometer set list
The data the seismologists collected can be used in some pretty interesting ways.
Mouse Reusch of PNSN told CBC News her colleagues took readings of the ground shaking, sped it up and turned them into an audio file.
When they played that back, they were able to reverse-engineer the concert’s set list by comparing the beats per minute of the readings and Swift’s songs.
“It was kind of this weird, backwards way of coming up with the set list from … the seismometer sitting next door to the Lumen Field,” she said.
Getting Swifties into science
Although Caplan-Auberbach said the data is just “a little bit of noise” from a seismology perspective, she notes the exercise is as a great opportunity to get teenagers and Swifties excited about science.
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Like so many discoveries in science, this seems to have been accidental.
Seismology study
Seismologists seemed to have jumped on the ‘Taylor Swift Ears tour earthshaking bandwagon’. A March 22, 2024 Caltech (California Institute of Technology) news release by Kimm Fesenmaier updates this story with news of the first of two studies on this phenomenon, Note: Links have been removed,
Fans at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts in Los Angeles made SoFi Stadium and the ground around it “ring like a bell” last August [2023], creating measurable seismic activity during each song. So say scientists from Caltech and UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles], who collected seismic data during one of the shows.
In a new paper, the researchers report that it was the dancing and jumping movements of the 70,000-plus fans, not the music or sound system, at the August 4 [2023] concert that created the seismic waves that have come to be called “Swift quakes.”
Following reports of seismic tremors generated by fans at sporting events and a Taylor Swift concert in Washington state, the California Office of Emergency Services reached out to seismic network operators in California to see if any interesting data could be collected during Swift’s concerts at SoFi Stadium, August 3–9 [2023].
Monica Kohler (PhD ’95), research professor of mechanical and civil engineering at Caltech, and her colleagues responded. To study Swift’s show on August 4 [2023], they tapped into an existing regional network of seismic stations, gathering data from permanent sensors reaching as far as about 6 miles from the stadium. They also temporarily installed 10 seismic sensors within SoFi itself and one more across the street. The sensors installed inside the stadium were inexpensive accelerometers that the researchers regularly build and deploy using off-the-shelf parts for the Community Seismic Network, a distributed network of more than 1,200 strong-motion detectors in California.
The researchers were not disappointed. The stadium and its surroundings certainly shook during the show. As expected, the manner of shaking was less like an earthquake, with a clear spike in ground movement, and more like harmonic tremor that involves bursts of energy at specific frequency intervals over longer periods of time. This type of seismicity is often associated with volcanic activity, such as the underground movement of magma.
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Until now, seismologists have disagreed about what exactly was causing the seismicity related to concert tremors. Some claimed it was the vibrating loudspeakers or the instruments coupled to the stage that caused the shaking while others said it was more likely to be the movements of all the concertgoers.
The data showed that the movement, not the music, best fit the waveforms. To confirm that answer, Tepp [Gabrielle Tepp, staff seismologist at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory], herself a bass guitarist, conducted a simple experiment. She set up a portable PA system close to one of the team’s accelerometers and blasted Swift’s song “Love Story.” Near the end, she jumped up and down to the beat. It was only when she started jumping that the seismic sensor recorded harmonic signals. Tepp also tried playing her bass guitar to a steady beat with the same speaker and, again, did not find the nice harmonic signal even though, as she says, “the bass beats were probably more exactly on the beat than my jumping was.”
The study was not only about investigating the source of concert tremor. Kohler points out that during emergencies, stadiums and other large structures, such as conference centers, are used as emergency shelters. “In those cases, it would be really important to be able to monitor the motions of these structures before, during, and after a large-scale event like an earthquake to be able to determine whether the structure is still safe, reliable, and sound,” Kohler says.
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Tepp points out that the study also serves as a useful reminder that earthquakes are not the only kind of seismic activity that seismologists should be analyzing. “We’ve designed all of our magnitude scales based on earthquakes, but what do you do when the signal doesn’t look like an earthquake? How do you characterize its strength?” Tepp says. “Looking at these non-earthquake signals can be really helpful for evaluating the different tools that we have as seismologists and reevaluating our assumptions that go into those.”
The seismic activity generated by Taylor Swift’s concerts in Dublin in 2024 provided a unique opportunity for scientific engagement and education, according to the authors of a groundbreaking new study.
Geophysicist Eleanor Dunn from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies hit the headlines in July 2024 with her #SwiftQuakeDublin project studying the seismic activity generated by Taylor Swift’s concerts in Dublin.
Now the PhD student and one of her supervisors, Professor Joseph Roche from the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, have published an academic paper in the International Journal of Science Education about the power of pop culture events to boost scientific understanding and engagement.
The paper, “Are you ready for it? Harnessing celebrity influence for science communication and seismology – The Taylor Swift effect”, describes the powerful potential for celebrity influence in science communication and public understanding of science.
In June 2024, as Taylor Swift played three record-breaking nights at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, researchers installed 42 temporary seismometers across 21 locations surrounding the venue. This extensive network allowed them to meticulously record and compare the seismic impact of the concerts with the readings from the Irish National Seismic Network (INSN).
Measuring this “SwiftQuake” garnered public and media attention through strategic social and traditional media campaigns, captivating fans and the wider public alike. Following the concerts, the team analysed the collected seismic data, sharing their findings with audiences and inviting fans to contribute their concert videos to aid in the seismic analysis.
Seismic signals measured at the stadium for songs such as Shake It Off were matched with patterns detected by the national network in the Dublin mountains and in Wexford, showing the SwiftQuake being detected more than 100km away.
By examining the extensive social and traditional media output, the study highlights how cultural events with massive public appeal can be leveraged to engage citizens and enhance their understanding of complex scientific concepts.
Lead author Eleanor Dunn, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, explains: “This project was an incredible opportunity to bridge the gap between celebrity pop culture and scientific inquiry. Witnessing the public’s enthusiasm, especially from Swifties, for understanding how their collective energy translated into measurable seismic waves was truly inspiring. It showed us that science is all around us, even in our favourite music events!
“This study demonstrates that integrating popular cultural events into scientific research can create accessible and exciting avenues for public engagement, transforming audiences into active participants in scientific discovery.”
Professor Joseph Roche, co-author of the study, from the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, praised Dunn’s innovative approach. “Eleanor’s research showcases the power of interdisciplinary thinking, combining seismology, science communication, and celebrity studies. It’s a brilliant example of what happens when a researcher combines their unique research skills with their personal passions. Eleanor is a dedicated Swiftie and, once this study is published, Taylor is going to be just as big a fan of Eleanor’s research!”
Key Findings:
Innovative Engagement: The deployment of 42 seismometers around a major concert venue successfully captured the seismic impact of a large-scale cultural event.
Public Interest: Strategic social and traditional media campaigns generated significant public interest in seismology and science communication.
Citizen Science Potential: The project successfully invited and utilised fan-contributed content for scientific analysis, showcasing a unique form of citizen science.
Pop Culture as a Catalyst: The research confirms the potential of pop culture events to act as powerful catalysts for scientific understanding and engagement.
This paper is open access and you may want to read it just for the style. Note: Links have been removed,
Dear reader: introduction
In July 2023, news broke of the first recorded SwiftQuake, a phenomenon that captured the imagination and scientific curiosity of Swifties and journalists worldwide (Sainato, Citation2023; Kelly, Citation2023). However, had Swifties really created an earthquake during Swift’s iconic Eras Tour at Lumen Field Stadium, Seattle? As usual, the story is more complicated than headlines might suggest. Still, thousands of excited fans had generated seismic activity strong enough to be detected by seismometers located near the stadium.
This one-off event soon turned into a branch of geophysics in its own right – Swift Seismology – with research groups all around the world popping up following Swift’s record-breaking world tour as she travelled from the USA to South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe and ending in Canada (BGS Press, Citation2024; Caplan-Auerbach et al., Citation2024; Tepp et al., Citation2024). The tour comprised 149 shows and was the highest grossing tour of all time (Lind, Citation2024).
…seismic events, known as SwiftQuakes, inspired an entire branch of geophysics interested in analyzing the seismic activity caused by fans …
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While the SwiftQuake data is impressive in itself, the public interest surrounding the seismic monitoring in Dublin surprised scientists. They found that their social and traditional media discussions around seismic activity sparked an interest in science with the younger generation.
Additionally, fans who attended the concert were encouraged to submit their concert videos to help aid the study, which allowed concertgoers to directly participate in the research and piqued their interest in the results even further.
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SwiftQuakes and a new branch of geophysics? Science is everywhere.
Jordan Iacobucci is quite excited about Ironheart’s move away from using nanotechnology in its recent Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) television adaptation. From Iacobucci’s July 7, 2025 article for CBR (self-proclaimed World’s Top Destination for Comic, Movie & TV News), Note: Links have been removed,
After years of delays, Ironheart is finally streaming on Disney+. The six-episode series follows up on Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams a few days after her adventures with Shuri and the Wakandans during the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as she returns home to Chicago in hopes of building something “iconic.” Though she must navigate several trials and tribulations, Riri finally succeeds in her goal, completing a brand-new version of her Ironheart suit.
As Ironheart wraps up its run on Disney+, fans have plenty to break down, from its groundbreaking finale to its surprisingly great visuals. Many fans may find that the series is much better than they may have anticipated, especially after review-bombing tried to dismiss Ironheart before it even premiered. The series fixes several long-standing issues with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including one particularly annoying trend that has plagued the franchise since Avengers: Infinity War
The MCU Uses Way Too Much Nanotechnology
Fans Aren’t Fond of the Nanotechnology Trend in the MCU
It all started in Avengers: Infinity War. During a confrontation with Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian, Tony Stark debuted his new nanotechnology, which spread out across his body from a small compartment on his chest to form a new suit of armor.
Iron Man’s “Bleeding Edge” armor was only the beginning of the MCU’s love affair with nanotechnology, particularly when it comes to superhero suits. Infinity War also gives Spider-Man his own nanotech suit, the Iron Spider armor, which he wears for the remainder of the film and in his next several MCU appearances. Since then, almost every masked MCU hero has upgraded to similar costumes, from Black Panther to Ant-Man. As impressive as the technology may be, fans aren’t fond of the nanotech suits.
Nanotech suits make sense from a practical standpoint. If a hero can cause their suit to form around them with the press of a button, then they don’t have to worry about being caught off-guard by an emerging threat. Though these upgrades make sense, viewers lose something special as a result. The “Bleeding Edge” Iron Man armor and other nanotech suits lose the tangibility of previous MCU superhero costumes.
With nanotech, viewers are never made to feel as if the hero is really wearing a suit. This is largely because the actor isn’t wearing the suit on set. Often, nanotech is implemented as an excuse to use CGI to cover or uncover an actor’s face with their superhero mask at any given point in a scene. As a result, however, the suits themselves feel less real, looking more like images composited in a computer than something that someone would wear while fighting crime.
This issue gets worse when a particular film or series doesn’t allow its graphics team enough time to complete their animation processes. Films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are horrible examples of this trend, featuring suits that sometimes look as though they were cobbled together on a laptop an hour before the movie hit theaters. Fans have been vocal about their distaste for nanotech suits for years, but Marvel has only doubled down on this trend since Infinity War–until now.
The Ironheart armor feels real–much more real than any of the new nanotech suits introduced in recent MCU projects. In place of nanotechnology, Ironheart uses real technology to build her suit, and her series is so much better for it. It is much more visually appealing for viewers to see a tangible suit of armor on set with the actors.
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Iacobucci has a point in that, while nanotechnology is a real technology; the nanotechnology in Iron Man is not (at this time).
So, what about the science in science fiction?
Officially launched in 2008 by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the Science and Entertainment Exchange (see its Wikipedia entry), is one of the programs that filmmakers and others can consult when producing a science fiction piece. This March 16, 2022 article by Marian Caballo for The Science Survey delves into the topic of the science in science fiction, Note: Links have been removed,
Science is the backbone of our world, which means that it inevitably underlies the plots of many popular films and television shows. As an avid cinephile and biology research student myself, I often catch myself trying to break down characters’ scientific name-drops, or pausing to examine the scribbles of equations on background blackboards.
For example: in Don’t Look Up, an original Netflix movie that depicts the danger of a comet hurtling towards Earth, scientists lay out a plan to warn the world of its impending doom. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker accidentally helps to create villainous mutant lizards with his solution to the “The Decay Rate Algorithm,” a fictional derivation of the Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality. Avengers: Endgame features an elaborate time travel plan involving Deutsch propositions, eigenvalues and inverted Möbius strips. None were technically real scientific developments, of course, but how do they sound so real?
The answer: scientific consulting. This hidden field is dedicated to scientific advising in the entertainment industry, and it’s an exciting way for STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] professionals to become engaged in the world of fiction. These interactions connect Hollywood (writers, producers, directors), “with top STEM experts to create synergy between accurate science and engaging storytelling,” said Emilie Lorditch, founder of Real2Reel Science, a science consulting service for writers.
Media greatly impacts the public’s perception of science. According to The Pew Research Center, 81% of U.S. adults say they watch media involving criminal investigations, hospital/medical settings, or science fiction. The average American watches 84 movies a year. By placing STEM professionals on movie sets, scientists can not only assist in executing a narrative vision but also aid in sharing more engaging portrayals of STEM.
“The Hollywood, Health & Society program at USC [University of Southern California] has worked with multiple TV shows to develop storylines about organ donation, and has studied the impact of the plot on viewers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior,” said Lorditch, who believes science advising fosters mutual exchange. The USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s longitudinal impact studies focus on providing — then studying the impact of — information about health, safety and security in Hollywood projects.
While many science consultants work independently or through institutions like USC, the science advising wing of Hollywood primarily stems from The National Academy of Sciences’ Science & Entertainment Exchange. Founded in 2008, the Exchange aims to improve the science that appears in narrative mainstream media through a “soft-sell” approach. The Exchange has completed more than 2,300 consultations on projects such as A Wrinkle in Time, Watchmen, and various Marvel Studios films. The organization essentially serves as a direct hotline for filmmakers to reach researchers, medical professionals, and more — as befits the Exchange’s actual phone number, 1-844-NEED-SCI.
However, it isn’t a scientific consultant’s job to make sure films are 100% accurate. Science fiction is called science fiction for a reason, and scientists aren’t keen on incorporating factual science when it comes at the expense of compelling storytelling. “The story always comes first. Period,” said Jennifer Ouellette, founding director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange. She now covers science and culture as a senior writer at Ars Technica, and has published several science-related books.
Ouellette always made sure to advise scientists working on their first Hollywood films to not just shake their heads when presented with a script. “They should think about what needs to happen in that scene, and come up with an even better scientific explanation. That makes it a win-win,” said Ouellette, who cites The Expanse as some of the best science representation in film and TV.
Insisting that science/scientists should only be portrayed in a positive light is not a solution, either. “Scientists are flawed human beings just like everyone else, and those flaws are what make us interesting and complex characters,” she continued.
Ouellette’s husband — theoretical physicist Sean M. Caroll at the California Institute of Technology — has served as a science consultant himself, helping to devise Tony Stark’s famous time-warping plan in Avengers: Endgame. He also advised one of Ouellette’s favorite science TV moments: an episode of BONES, when a physicist represses his grief over his gymnast daughter’s death. Caroll spent days on set writing a series of physics equations on blackboards. But he wasn’t developing hard science for the sake of science.
By the end of the episode, the characters learn that “each equation represents a moment in his daughter’s life: learning to walk, then run; doing her first backflip; a vault; and so on, until the final equation, showing her finally at rest. The writers turned it into a poem written in equations, and it remains one of the most amazing moments I’ve seen on television in a long time,” said Ouellette.
On top of the fundamental fact that science must be in service of the story, the science doesn’t always have to be precise. “In the world of STEM, precision is crucial but for the majority of the public, not so much,” said Lorditch. Most viewers would agree. Spring Lin ’22 ignores “slightly questionable” scientific explanations, claiming they don’t interfere with the cinematic experience. “When there are no obvious wrongs in a movie, I usually don’t question it,” said Rita Chen ’22.
Science advisors also lurk on a surprisingly wide range of sets — whether it is on reality TV such as MTV’s Teen Mom, or behind the scenes of The Simpsons. …
Today (May 19, 2025) I have two stories, one about a new nano comic from the Czech republic and one with an overview of some nano comic books from the past.
Czech Academy of Sciences and Secrets of the Nano-World
How many nanometres does your hand measure? Why does nothing stand still in the nano- world? And what does atomic force microscopy allow us to do? This and more is revealed in the new comic book Secrets of the Nano-World, published by the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The comic book introduces the frequently mentioned, but rarely taught topic of nanotechnology to (not only) students and teachers.
It was the end of 1959 when physicist Richard Feynman, in his lecture “There is plenty of room at the bottom”, presented visions of the then-unimaginable miniaturisation and its consequences. Today, we encounter nanotechnology at every turn, often without realising it. How did we get here, how can we even imagine a nanoscale world, and where is nanotechnology heading? That’s what Sofia and Alex, high school students on a science internship, find out in the comic, as they are mysteriously transported back in time to the very moments of Feynman’s lecture and try to get back to their own present.
“Taking Sofia and Alex back in time allowed us to introduce the inventions that made the development of nanotechnology possible,” explains Julie Nekola Nováková, the story’s creator and a member of the outreach team at the Institute of Physics (FZU). “We would never have gotten to where we are without, say, the atomic force microscope. And how difficult is it to manipulate individual atoms? Readers can try that out on a larger scale with a little experiment!”
Prokop Hapala, who is involved in computational design of molecular machines at the FZU, consulted on the scientific and technical side of the comic. “I think it’s important for students to think of molecules not as abstract formulas on paper, but real objects that can be touched, broken and built again,” Prokop Hapala explains.
The comic was drawn by the artist Vojtěch Šeda, known mainly for his illustrations of historical books and comics. “What I enjoy about drawing comics is when I learn something new in the process,” says Vojtěch Šeda. “In the case of the comic about nanotechnology, which was a big step into the unknown for me at the beginning, this was 100% true.”
The authors have further plans for the comic book. “If you’ve had a chance to read it, you’ll know there’s room for a possible sequel… There are also plans for using elements of the comic in worksheets, infographics and physics-themed colouring pages,” explains Julie Nekola Nováková.
The comic book is freely available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0, making it possible to translate it to other languages and otherwise use in science outreach and education across the globe.
Provided by Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences
The educational comic book Secrets of the Nano- World is intended primarily for pupils of secondary schools and high schools. Its protagonists are two high school students Sofie and Alex, who mysteriously find themselves in the past during their internship – at the very end of 1959 at the time of Richard Feynman’s lecture that essentially launched the field of nanotechnology. And it is the famous scientist who is drawn into trying to help Alex and Sofie get back to their own time. To do so, however, they’ll need considerable knowledge of the world in the nano- dimensions…
h/t May 7, 2025 Google Alert
(Nano)technology in Comics (mostly from the NanoKOMIK Project)
Comic books are popular science communication vehicles that have their up and down cycles. Right now (2025) they seem to be experiencing the up part of the cycle. In doing a little research I stumbled across this article from last year, which critically analyzed the 2016 – 2017 NanoKOMIK Project,
Representations of science and technology, embodied as imaginaries, visions, and expectations, have become a growing focus of analysis. These representations are of interest to normative approaches to science and technology, such as Hermeneutic Technology Assessment and Responsible Innovation, because of their ability to modulate understandings of science and technology and to influence scientific and technological development. This article analyses the culture of participation underlying the NanoKOMIK project and the representations and meanings of (nano)science and (nano)technology communicated in the two nano-fiction comic books created as part of the project: Dayanne and Murillo. The power of nanoscience (2016) and NanoKOMIK #2 (2017). The article argues that despite NanoKOMIK’s efforts to engage the public with (nano)science and (nano)technology, it reproduces non-binding modes of public participation and transmits socio-technical meanings that are instrumental in the social legitimisation of (nano)technology. More specifically, the analysis shows that NanoKOMIK’s comic books, in addition to not problematising the risks and conveying an eminently positive view of nanotechnology, also communicate certain ‘myth-conceptions’ of scientific activity and its products. For example, they convey an individualistic and linear vision of research and innovation and an instrumentalist and neutral (or ‘value-free’) view of technology. These findings highlight the importance of critically analysing the ‘cultures of participation’ that characterise and reproduce ‘participatory’ or ‘collaborative’ projects and the representations of (nano)science and (nano)technology that they perpetuate.
I was particularly interested in this section from the paper’s Introduction, Note: Links have been removed,
A growing body of literature has highlighted the various benefits of comics in stimulating imagination and learning, especially among young people inside and outside the classroom. Comics are expected to help broaden thematic knowledge and promote greater engagement with science (e.g. [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]). Although it is recognised that implementing comics as an educational and engagement tool requires appropriate mediation, this creative and communicative medium is seen as a fruitful resource for improving the meaning-making processes in science and technology (e.g. [22]). Despite the limited exploration of comics as a communication tool in the specific field of nanotechnology, there is support for the idea that comics can benefit specific target groups in several respects (e.g. [23, 24]).
Inspired by the creative potential of comics, several projects have been launched to develop and disseminate comic strips focusing on nanotechnology ‘superpowers’, particularly targeting middle- and high-school students. Examples include (i) Nano BlasterMan (2005), produced by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education; (ii) Dayanne and Murillo. The power of nanoscience (2016) and NanoKOMIK #2 (2017), produced as part of the ‘NanoKOMIK’ project (2016–2017) and co-funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (see https://www.nanokomik.com); and (iii) the comic competition ‘Generation Nano! Superheroes Inspired by Science!’ (2017), funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Nanotechnology Initiative of the United States (see http://nsf.gov/GenNano). [all emphases mine]
I always appreciate learning about comics and science communication efforts even if it happens 20 years after the fact (e.g., Nano BlasterMan from 2005). As for the ‘Generation Nano! …’ US competition, that seems to have run from 2016 to 2018. I have announcements for winners of the 2016 competition in my April 21, 2016 posting and winners of the 2017 competition in my July 10, 2017 posting. There was, apparently, a 2018 competition but all I have is a notice that there be an announcement of the 2018 winners at the 2018 USA Science & Engineering Festival (in my October 9, 2017 posting; scroll down about 40% of the way ) but never followed up with the winners’ announcement—until now! See this April 6, 2018 US National Science Foundation news release on EurekAlert. I can’t find any mention of a 2019 competition.
Getting back on track, this paper is quite accessible (assuming you can stomach some amount of jargon) and timely given what seems to be a resurgence of interest in using comic books for science communication.
One last thing, you can find the NanoKOMIC Project here, although it does not seem to be an active project at this time.
Caption: The cover of Understanding Forensic DNA analysis booklet. Credit: Comic credit: artist Mark Brown Funding credit: Leverhulme Trust and Arts Council England Courtesy: SISSA MediaLab
Imagine being summoned as a juror in a murder trial. The expert responsible for analyzing DNA traces at the crime scene has just explained that they match the defendant’s profile. “Then the culprit must be them,” you think.
At this point, however, the expert adds, “The sample, however, is partially degraded.” What does this mean? How does this information affect your judgment? The scientist further explains that there is a one-in-a-billion probability that other people could match the identified genetic profile. How significant is this new information? Is this probability high or negligible? What is your verdict now?
“The decisions being taken by members of juries are just so vitally important and often they’re shaped by their understanding of the forensic evidence that’s being presented,” explains Dr. Andy Ridgway, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University of the West of England, UWE Bristol, and one of the study’s authors of a study appearing in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM).
“They often have little to no science background and frequently lack prior knowledge of the forensic techniques they are expected to assess in making their decision.” This is a widespread issue, and scientific literature on the subject suggests that understanding of science in courtrooms is often quite limited.
The Evidence Chamber, the project within which the research described in JCOM was developed, was created precisely to explore how non-experts understand scientific evidence in judicial proceedings, combining forensic science, digital technology, and public engagement. The Evidence Chamber was developed by the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee (Scotland) in collaboration with Fast Familiar, a collective of digital artists specializing in interactive experiences. A team from UWE Bristol, including Izzy Baxter, a student studying for an MSc Science Communication at the time, was involved in analyzing the data collected during the research phase aimed at testing the use of comics as a tool for communicating forensic science.
The study involved about a hundred volunteers who participated as ‘jurors’ in mock trials. The participants participated in an interactive experience that involved different types of evidence; they listened to the expert witness testimony, which focused on DNA analysis and gait analysis (the study of a suspect’s walking pattern for identification). The jury discussion took place in two phases: “First, they received the expert witness testimony. They then discussed it and indicated whether they believed the defendant was guilty or not guilty at that point. After that, they were given access to the comics,” explains Heather Doran, researcher at the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, University of Dundee, who was involved in the study. “This allowed us to see how the comics might influence their previous discussion and whether they provided any useful additional information.”
“We conducted an analysis of the discussions among jurors, one immediately after the expert testimony in court and another after they had read the comics,” explains Ridgway. To assess whether comics provided an advantage in comprehension, during the experimental phases, one group received only the traditional expert testimony, while the other had access to both the expert’s explanation and the comics.
The analysis confirmed the effectiveness of comics: participants who read the comics discussed the evidence in greater detail, showing increased confidence in their reasoning and conclusions. In the group that read the comics, jurors made more explicit references to scientific concepts and demonstrated a better ability to connect forensic science to their final decision. In contrast, in the groups that received only the oral explanation, more misinterpretations of the evidence emerged, with misunderstandings related to the meaning of probability and margins of error, whereas the comics helped clarify these concepts. Additionally, discussions in the groups with comics were more balanced and participatory, with greater interaction among jurors.
This experience demonstrates that comics can be a valuable tool for explaining forensic science in court, supporting jurors. It is important to emphasize that this type of material must be carefully designed. The scientific comics used in The Evidence Chamber were developed by specialists at the University of Dundee. “The University of Dundee has an historical link with comics, we worked with our Professor of Comics Studies and artists to create them” explains Doran. “Dundee, the city where the centre is located, has a history in comics. It’s the home of Beano the comic and Dennis the Menace. And the University of Dundee also offers comic courses, with which we have been collaborating for a long time.”
I’m not sure how SISSA MediaLab is involved (other than having issued the press release) but I do have a little more by SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies; [Italian: Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati]), which owns the MediaLab. See the International School for Advanced Studies Wikipedia entry for more about the school.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper mentioned in the press release,
Can science comics aid lay audiences’ comprehension of forensic science? by Isabelle Baxter, Andy Ridgway, Heather Doran, Niamh Nic Daeid, Rachel Briscoe, Joe McAlister, Daniel Barnard. JCOM: Journal of Science Communication Volume 24 Issue number 1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/2.24010201 Published – 4 Feb 2025
Thank goodness for Julian Dossett’s March 3, 2025 posting on space.com for helping me find the science (more or less) oriented events at the upcoming 2025 South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festivals in Austin, Texas, US.
Space
Dossett’s March 3, 2025 posting describes the best (always a subjective category) space-themed panels,
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Meet the astronauts flying on NASA’s Artemis 2 moon mission
March 7 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom EF
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Learn about Europe’s Euclid ‘dark universe’ space telescope
March 10 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 1-2
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The era of the private moon lander
March 10 at 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 1-2
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Telescopes of the future
March 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 3
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The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)has a complete list of their events on its NASA Events at South by Southwest 2025 webpage, Note: The first event listed here is pre-SXSW 2025’s March 7 – 15, 2025 conference/festival,
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Perspectives on Working at Scale in K-12 STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics] Education
March 6 at 10 a.m. CST
A growing focus of workforce development efforts are linkages to K-12 in and out-of-school time programs that spark curiosity in STEAM. A cross-section of organizations from the non-profit, commercial and government sector who have used high interest content to build and scale programs in the US and beyond will share lessons learned and perspectives. Topics include building community and youth voice in design, engaging the entire STEM ecosystem, supporting educators and stakeholders in implementation, along with lessons on evaluation and metrics. More Details about Perspectives on Working at Scale in K-12 STEAM Education
Featured Session: Meet the Astronauts Going to the Moon with NASA’s Artemis II
March 7 at 11:30 a.m. CST
Fly me to the Moon! Learn firsthand from the Moon-bound astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to deep space in over half a century. Following the successful Artemis I flight test in 2022, Artemis II will test the deep exploration systems needed to establish long-term infrastructure for human lunar exploration. Take a walk in their spacesuits as they share their stories before their much-anticipated flight. More Details
NASA’s Science and Art of Imaging Extra-Terrestrial Samples
March 7 at 2:30 p.m. CST
Meet NASA’s artists and scientists who use specialized imaging techniques to bring extra-terrestrial samples to the public and important data to scientists. From ultra high-resolution photographs to X-ray computed tomography (XCT) that allows you to virtually slice through Moon rocks, meteorites, and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid Bennu samples, their work opens access to other-worldly geologic treasures and could help answer questions about the early days of our solar system. More Details
NASA House: CreateSpace
March 8 at 10 a.m. CST
NASA’s CreateSpace transforms Austin’s Central Library into an immersive experience where visitors don’t just learn about space – they help shape it. Spanning multiple floors of this state-of-the-art library in the heart of downtown Austin, CreateSpace blends hands-on creation, interactive exhibits, and sensory experiences that showcase NASA’s full spectrum of exploration and discovery. Local families will discover through self-guided adventures, while innovation leaders can engage with NASA data and expertise. CreateSpace invites everyone to explore space science through their own lens – whether that’s art, music, technology, or pure imagination. More Details
Performing Space: Weaving Art and Science on the Stage
March 8 at 4 p.m. CST
The intersection of art and science is a consistent hot topic in communication theory, the art realm, academic research, and related industries. Join professionals from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) to discuss projects, research, and communication strategies focused on the relationship between science and the arts that can be brought to the stage to inspire audiences from various backgrounds. A special performance viewing will follow this panel. More Details
NASA’s Love Letter: Stunning Webb Images and More
March 9 at 10 a.m. CDT
Join us for an extraordinary journey through the cosmos, guided by stunning images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other cutting-edge observatories. This session offers a rare opportunity to explore the most distant galaxy ever observed, delve into the atmosphere of an extraterrestrial planet, and marvel at stunningly beautiful star nurseries. Featuring insights from NASA’s Astrophysicists Amber Straughn, Stefanie Milam, and Knicole Colón, our panel will discuss how these groundbreaking observatories are transforming our understanding of the universe. Moderated by Laura Betz. More Details
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NASA Uses Space Tech to Tackle Earth’s Food and Water Issues
March 9 at 2:30 p.m. CDT
In this era of satellite technology, Earth-observing data plays a crucial role in managing food production, farming, and water resources. NASA uses satellite data and advanced technology to gain profound insights into Earth’s systems and the vital environments that sustain us with food and water. By utilizing space-based observations, cutting-edge computer modeling, and AI/ML, NASA collaborates with partner agencies, organizations, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and global decision-makers to address the challenges related to food and water on Earth. More Details
Through Astronaut Eyes: VR Propels Deep Space Exploration
March 10 at 10 a.m. CDT
Discover how cutting-edge virtual reality technology is revolutionizing deep space exploration. This panel will delve into the ways VR is being used at NASA to simulate and plan next-gen Artemis missions, design spacecraft, help ensure astronaut’s safety, and more. Explore how VR is not just a tool but a transformative technology that is unlocking new frontiers, making the impossible achievable, and preparing humanity for its next giant leap. More Details
Using ESA’s Euclid Telescope To Probe The Dark Universe
March 10 at 2:30 p.m. CDT
95% of the universe is dark: dark matter and dark energy. While we cannot observe them directly, an incredible amount of information about the dark universe is encoded in the shapes, positions, and motions of galaxies. The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope (with contributions from NASA), launched in July 2023, is the first telescope purpose built to understand the dark universe. Euclid will survey 2 billion galaxies, generating a huge data set that will transform astrophysics using innovative AI/machine learning tools. Euclid’s first release of survey data will be in March 2025. More Details about Using ESA’s Euclid Telescope To Probe The Dark Universe
NASA’s Quesst To Change The Supersonic Speed Limit
March 11 at 10 a.m. CDT
NASA’s Quesst mission may open the future to a new market of commercial supersonic air travel by cutting flight times in half. Learn more about the 50+ year old ban on commercial supersonic travel over land and what NASA is doing to change the speed limit in the sky to a sound limit. The Quesst mission’s goals are to design and build NASA’s X-59 research aircraft with technology that reduces the loudness of a sonic boom and fly the X-59 over several U.S. communities to gather data on public responses to the sound generated during supersonic flight and deliver that data set to regulators. More Details
NASA and the Next Frontier in the Battle Against Cancer
March 11 at 11:30 a.m. CDT
Research on the International Space Station has already led to drug and therapy breakthroughs for cancer patients on Earth, with more advancements ahead. NASA is working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and researchers across the federal government to help cut the nation’s cancer death rate by at least 50% in the next 25 years, a goal of the administration’s Cancer Moonshot. Join NASA and industry leaders to discuss the transformative potential of space for cancer research and its promising future, and learn how you can get involved.. More Details
Live, From Space! Visualizing the Future With NASA
March 11 at 11:30 a.m. CDT
For over six decades, NASA has led the way in exploring the cosmos, from historic Moon landings and planetary missions to deploying space telescopes, deflecting asteroids, and returning samples to Earth. By sending both humans and robots equipped with advanced instruments and cameras, NASA offers an immersive journey into the universe, unraveling mysteries about our cosmic existence. Join a panel of communications and imagery experts as they provide a look into NASA’s visual triumphs and preview the innovations that will bring viewers along for the ride as we head back to the Moon and beyond. More Details
Messaging the Moon: Collaborative Storytelling in Space Exploration
March 11 at 2:30 p.m. CDT
NASA is working with the commercial space industry in support of establishing a lunar economy. These Moon missions require advanced coordination and planning to support communication campaign goals across multiple stakeholders and audiences. With so many stakeholders involved, synchronization is the key for success. Join NASA and the first American commercial companies co-piloting this mission to discuss how they’ve refined their approach to collaborative messaging while working toward an actual moonshot. More Details
The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festivals — a renowned convergence of pioneers, storytellers, and global visionaries — will take place this year from March 7-15 in Austin, Texas, bringing together a vibrant mix of ideas and innovations. Once again, UC San Diego will take center stage, showcasing cutting-edge research, transformative discussions on critical global challenges and a film premiere.
“UC San Diego’s participation in the 2025 South by Southwest Conference and Festivals reinforces our institution’s passion for interdisciplinary innovation and our commitment to leveraging the intersection of technology, art and science to drive positive change,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “At SXSW, our researchers, innovators and creatives will come together with global visionaries to showcase cutting-edge solutions, spark meaningful conversations, and ignite new ideas that can help address the world’s most pressing challenges.”
From tackling climate change to exploring human longevity and studying cancer in space, UC San Diego’s brightest minds will be featured prominently in a series of thought-provoking presentations, panels and the world premiere of a documentary feature.
Details for each UC San Diego-affiliated event are below, and events are accessible to SXSW attendees unless noted otherwise.
At the panel, “The Quest to Capture Carbon and Bend the Curve”, Ralph Keeling, Ph.D., a climate scientist and director of the Scripps CO2 Program at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will delve into how rising greenhouse gas emissions are impacting our planet and the new technologies emerging to capture carbon. The panel will discuss what it will take to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and the collaborative efforts required to achieve a more sustainable future.
The “Guardians of Youth: Stem Cells & Human Longevity” presenter Rob Signer, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine and deputy director of the Stem Cell Discovery Center at the UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute (SSCI), is presenting a pioneering shift in biomedical science by tackling aging as the fundamental driver of diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. By positioning stem cells as the blueprint for longevity, this transformative approach is paving the way for a new era in treating age-related diseases at its very core.
“Reconstructing the Human Brain in the Lab” presenter Alysson Muotri, Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the UC San Diego SSCI Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbital Research Center, will showcase how brain organoids — tiny, lab-grown brain-like structures — are unlocking the secrets of brain evolution, consciousness, and aging. Muotri will also discuss how studying these organoids aboard the International Space Station advances interplanetary exploration and medical research.
The “NASA and the Next Frontier in the Battle Against Cancer” panel will feature Catriona Jamieson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute, alongside NASA scientists. This groundbreaking discussion will explore how research conducted in microgravity is driving new breakthroughs in cancer treatments, delivering hope to patients on Earth.
The panel, “Want to Achieve Health Equity? Democratize Health Data”, will bring together Jamieson and Muotri to advocate for democratizing access to health data. By empowering patients to take charge of their health care, the panel will propose actionable steps to bridge health equity gaps.
Finally, the documentary feature “Forever We Are Young” will make its world premiere at SXSW 2025. The documentary – co-directed by Patty Ahn, Ph.D., UC San Diego associate teaching professor of communication, with esteemed documentary filmmaker Grace Lee – dives into the passionate fandom that catapulted the K-pop band BTS into a global household name and captures the powerful spirit of activism and collectivity that make BTS fans a symbol of hope and unity in our ever-fractured world.
SXSW 2025 and its 2050 track (the sciencish sessions)
I found an October 22, 2024 SXSW news release by Jordan Roberts with a preliminary announcement of the various programme tracks for the 2025 SXSW conference, which includes some information about the 2050 track,
Each year, we call upon our incredible creative community to help select the bold ideas for the next SXSW conference through PanelPicker®, our official session proposal and voting platform. From those community votes, insights from our dedicated staff, and guidance from our PanelPicker Evaluators, we’re thrilled to announce over 450 sessions for the2025 SXSW Conference.
“The SXSW Conference always delivers fresh, forward-thinking and fun content. The sessions announced today once again embody this spirit of innovation and discovery. Come to Austin in March to be informed and inspired by so many thought-leaders from so many different industries who lend their creativity to the life-changing experience that is SXSW.” – Hugh Forrest, Co-President and Chief Programming Officer
Human belonging and connection is a powerful theme across the 2025 Conference programming. Whether it’s examining the line between how tech and AI can bring us closer together or push us apart, or diving into new markets and opportunities, these sessions will inspire new perspectives and help us shape a future we’re excited to step into.
Below is a snapshot of the hundreds of speakers, across 23 curated tracks, who will spark conversations, creativity, and ideas for positive change that will last well beyond March. These industry experts hail from a range of cutting-edge and innovative institutions, including Adidas, Atlantic Records, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Epic Games, Forbes, Frontline, Google, IBM, IDEO, Major League Soccer, McKinsey, Microsoft, NASA, National Basketball Association, Netflix, Scale AI, The Atlantic, VMWare, and Zillow.
And this is just the first announcement! We’re still adding programming, including music demo listening sessions, opportunities for continuing legal education and much more to the March conference lineup. Stay tuned for more information by subscribing to event updates or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and X for more announcements all season long.
March 7-10 | The 2050 track focuses on long-term, big-picture thinking with an emphasis on scientific discovery. The programming features topics ranging from quantum computing and space exploration to robotics and foresight best practices — and beyond.
Here are a couple of events that caught my eye, from the 2050 track of the 2025 SXSW conference (sorry, forgot to link to the 2050 page and can’t find it again), Note: For the following, I have kept only the link to the session.
Mar 10, 2025 11:30am – 12:30pm CT Museum of the Future
Presented by: Dubai Future Foundation
Type: Session
Format: Panel
Track: 2050
Tag: MENA Voices
Tag: Futurism
Tag: Community
Final note: for anyone unfamiliar with Octavia E. Butler, from her Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.[2][3]
Good luck with finding your way around the website and around SXSW 2025 in Austin, Texas.
It must have been a lighthearted moment that led to this new gene being called “degrees of Kevin Bacon” (dokb). Here’s more about the gene and the research from a May 24, 2024 University of Toronto (UofT) news release by Chris Sasaki, Note: Links have been removed,
A team of researchers from the University of Toronto has identified a gene in fruit flies that regulates the types of connections between flies within their “social network.”
The researchers studied groups of two distinct strains of Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies and found that one strain showed different types or patterns of connections within their networks than the other strain.
The connectivity-associated gene in the first strain was then isolated. When it was swapped with the other strain, the flies exhibited the connectivity of the first strain.
The researchers named the gene “degrees of Kevin Bacon” (dokb), for the prolific Hollywood star of such films as Footloose and Apollo 13. Bacon’s wide-ranging connections to other actors is the subject of the parlour game called “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” which plays on the popular idea that any two people on Earth can be linked through six or fewer mutual acquaintances.
“There’s been a lot of research around whether social network structure is inherited, but that question has been poorly understood,” says Rebecca Rooke, a post-doctoral fellow in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and lead author of the paper, published in Nature Communications. “But what we’ve now done is find the gene and proven there is a genetic component.”
The work was carried out as part of Rooke’s PhD thesis in Professor Joel Levine’s laboratory at U of T Mississauga before he moved to the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, where he is currently chair.
“This gives us a genetic perspective on the structure of a social group,” says Levine. “This is amazing because it says something important about the structure of social interactions in general and about the species-specific structure of social networks.
“It’s exciting to be thinking about the relationship between genetics and the group in this way. It may be the first time we’ve been able to do this.”
The researchers measured the type of connection by observing and recording on video groups of a dozen male flies placed in a container. Using software previously developed by Levine and post-doctoral researcher Jon Schneider, the team tracked the distance between flies, their relative orientation and the time they spent in close proximity. Using these criteria as measures of interaction, the researchers calculated the type of connection or “betweenness centrality” of each group.
Rooke, Levine and their colleagues point out that individual organisms with high betweenness centrality within a social network can act as “gatekeepers” who play an important role in facilitating interactions within their group.
Gatekeepers can influence factors like the distribution of food or the spread of disease. They also play a role in maintaining cohesion, enhancing communication and ensuring better overall health of their group.
In humans, betweenness centrality can even affect the spread of behaviours such as smoking, drug use and divorce.
At the same time, the researchers point out that social networks are unbiased and favour neither “good” nor “bad” outcomes. For example, high betweenness centrality in a network of scientists can increase potential collaborators; on the other hand, high betweenness centrality in another group can lead to the spread of a disease like COVID-19.
“You don’t get a good or a bad outcome from the structure of a network,” explains Levine. “The structure of a network could carry happiness or a disease.”
Rooke says an important next step will be to identify the overall molecular pathway that the gene and its protein are involved in “to try to understand what the protein is doing and what pathways it’s involved in – the answers to those questions will really give us a lot of insight into how these networks work.”
And while the dokb gene has only been found in flies so far, Rooke, Levine and their colleagues anticipate that similar molecular pathways between genes and social networks will be found in other species.
“For example, there’s a subset of cells in the human brain whose function relates to social experience – what in the popular press might be called the ‘social brain,’” says Levine.
“Getting from the fly to the human brain – that’s another line of research. But it almost has to be true that the things that we’re observing in insects will be found in a more nuanced, more dispersed way in the mammalian brain.”
Katie Hunt wrote a May 2, 2024 article, for CNN, about the research, shortly after the paper was published, which included some intriguing personal details and a good explanation of why fruit flies are used in genetic research, Note: Links have been removed,
Many species of animals form social groups and behave collectively: An elephant herd follows its matriarch, flocking birds fly in unison, humans gather at concert events. Even humble fruit fliesorganize themselves into regularly spaced clusters, researchers have found.
..
And now, scientists believe there is evidence that how central you are to your social network, a concept they call “high betweenness centrality,” could have a genetic basis. New research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications has identified a gene responsible for regulating the structure of social networks in fruit flies.
The study’s authors named the gene in question “degrees of Kevin Bacon,” or dokb, after a game that requires players to link celebrities to actor Bacon in as few steps as possible via the movies they have in common.
Inspired by “six degrees of separation,” the theory that nobody is more than six relationships away from any other person in the world, the game became a viral phenomenon three decades ago.
Senior author Joel Levine, a professor of biology at the University of Toronto who went to high school with Bacon in Philadelphia [emphases mine], said the actor was a good human example of “high betweenness centrality.”
Aware of Levine’s link with Bacon, study lead author Rebecca Rooke, a postdoctoral fellow of biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, suggested the gene’s name.
…
Levine said that the “degrees of Kevin Bacon” gene was specific to fruit flies’ central nervous systems, but he thought similar genetic pathways would exist in other animals, including humans. The study opened up new opportunities for exploring the molecular evolution of social networks and collective behavior in other animals.
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Drosophila melanogaster, best known for hovering around fruit bowls, has been a model organism to explore genetics for more than 100 years. The insects breed quickly and are easy to keep.
While flies are very different from humans, the creatures have long been central to biological and genetic discovery.
“Fruit flies are useful because of the power of manipulation. We can investigate things experimentally in Drosophila that we can only examine indirectly in most organisms,” Moore said.
The tiny creatures share nearly 60% of our genes, including those responsible for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and heart disease. Research involving fruit flies has previously shed light on the mechanisms of inheritance, circadian rhythms and mutation-causing X-rays.
Onto breakdancing (or breaking), which for the first time will be an official event at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Amy Pope, principal lecturer, physics and astronomy, Clemson University (South Carolina, US), has written a June 12, 2024 essay for The Conversation that describes breakdancing as physics in action, (h/t June 13, 2024 news item in phys.org), Note: Links have been removed,
Two athletes square off for an intense dance battle. The DJ starts spinning tunes, and the athletes begin twisting, spinning and seemingly defying gravity, respectfully watching each other and taking turns showing off their skill.
The athletes converse through their movements, speaking through a dance that celebrates both athleticism and creativity. While the athletes probably aren’t consciously thinking about the physics behind their movements, these complex and mesmerizing dances demonstrate a variety of different scientific principles.
Breaking, also known as breakdancing, originated in the late 1970s in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Debuting as an Olympic sport in the 2024 Summer Olympics, breaking will showcase its dynamic moves on a global stage. This urban dance style combines hip-hop culture, acrobatic moves and expressive footwork.
Since its inception, breaking has evolved into a competitive art form. An MC narrates the movements, while a DJ mixes songs to create a dynamic atmosphere. The Olympics will feature two events: one for men, called B-boys, and one for women, called B-girls. In these events, athletes will face off in dance battles.
… Success in this sport requires combining dance moves from three basic categories: top rock, down rock and freeze.
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And now for the physics of it all, from Pope’s June 12, 2024 essay, Note: Links have been removed,
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Top rock moves [emphasis mine] are performed while standing up, focusing on fancy footwork and hand movements. These movements are reminiscent of hip-hop dancing.
Top rock moves rely on having lots of friction between an athlete’s shoes and the floor. Friction is the force [emphasis miine] that resists when you slide something across a surface.
This friction allows the athlete to take very quick steps and to stop abruptly. The dancers must intuitively understand inertia, or the fact that their bodies will continue in the direction they’re moving unless they are acted upon by an external force. To stop abruptly, athletes need to engage their muscles, getting their shoes to grip the ground to stop themselves from continuing forward.
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Down rock moves [emphasis mine] are performed while on the floor. Athletes may spin in circles with their head, back, elbows or shoulders touching the ground and their feet in the air. B-boys and B-girls rely heavily on an internal knowledge of physics to complete these moves.
Consider the physics of a backspin. A backspin occurs when the athlete is on their back with their feet lifted in the air, rotating around a specific area of their back.
Sitting on the floor, the athlete’s left foot stays in contact with the floor while they spread their right leg wide, gathering linear momentum [emphasis mine] as they sweep their right leg toward their left foot in a wide arc. Then, they release their left leg from contact with the ground and roll onto their back.
Now that only their back is in contact with the ground, the linear momentum from their leg turns into angular momentum [emphasis mine], which rotates the athlete around an axis that extends upward from their back’s contact point with the ground. This move turns magical when they bring their legs and arms inward, toward the axis of rotation. This principal is called conservation of angular momentum.
When an athlete brings their mass in more closely to the axis of rotation, the athlete’s rotations speed up. Extending their legs and arms once again and moving their mass away from the axis of rotation will cause the competitor to slow their rotation speed down. Once they slow down, they can transition to another move.
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Freeze [emphasis mine] occurs when athletes come to a stop in a funky pose, often occurring in time to the music and in an upside-down position. To freeze effectively, the athlete must have full control over their center of mass, placing it right above the point of their body that is in contact with the floor. The center of mass is the average position of all the parts of an athlete, weighted according to their masses. The “balance point” where the entire mass of the athlete seems to be concentrated is the center of mass.
Athletes are most stable when their center of mass is as close to the ground as possible. You will see many competitors freeze with arms bent in an effort to lower their center of mass. This lowered center of mass reduces their distance from the floor and minimizes the tendency of their body to rock to one side or the other due to torque.
Torque is a twisting force [emphasis mine], like the force used to turn a wrench. The torque depends on two things: the amount of force you apply, and how far from the pivot point you apply the force. With an athlete’s center of mass closer to the ground, the athlete decreases the distance between the pivot point – the ground – and where the force of gravity is applied – the athlete’s center of mass.
Athletes need great strength to halt their motion mid-movement because they have to apply a force to resist the change in inertia.
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It’s not just about the moves, clothing is a factor, Pope’s June 12, 2024 essay,
Many sports require a specific uniform. Breaking doesn’t – an athlete can wear whatever they want – but the right outfit will maximize their chance of success.
The athlete wants a shirt that minimizes the friction between their body and the ground during a spin. Lettering or images on the back of the shirt will add friction, which hinders an athlete’s ability to perform some down rock moves. An athlete may choose to wear long sleeves if they plan to slide on their elbows, as bare skin in contact with the floor provides more friction.
Athletes also have to think about the headgear they wear. …
There’s a bit more information about the breakdancing competition on the 2024 Olympics website.I cannot find a full list of athletes for the August 9, 2024 (B-Girls) and August 10, 2024 (B-Boys) competitions. There is this June 2, 2024 article (from the Associated Press) on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) online news website,
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Victor Montalvo (B-boy Victor), United States: A breaker who describes himself as a student of old school b-boys from the founding era of hip-hop, the 30-year-old Montalvo, who is from Kissimmee, Florida, qualified for Paris by besting all other b-boys at the 2023 WDSF World Breaking Championship in Belgium.
Sunny Choi (B-girl Sunny), United States: The 35-year-old Choi, a cheerful Queens, New York-bred breaker, has long been an ambassador for b-girls globally. She qualified for the Paris Games with her win at the 2023 Pan American Games in Chile.
Philip Kim (B-boy Phil Wizard), Vancouver, Canada: Consistently ranked in the top three b-boys in the international breaking competitive community, Kim secured a spot for Paris when he came out on top at last year’s Pan American Games.
Dominika Banevič (B-girl Nicka), Lithuania: Banevič was the youngest in her category at last year’s WDSF World Breaking Championship, when she punched her ticket to Paris. Banevič turns 17 this month.
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I thought the competition would be dominated by Americans and certainly wasn’t expecting to see a Lithuanian (Dominika Banevič or ‘Nicka’) listed as a competitor to watch. The Canadian (Philip Kim or ‘Phil Wizard’) is also a surprise. Who knew Vancouver was home to a leading B-boy?
Two comments: heat and mosquitoes (dengue and other fevers)
The organizers of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are to be complimented for their work towards making the games ‘green’ but that is a complex process.
Heat
For example, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran a news item on The National news telecast on June 17, 2024 (see telecast for embedded video clip) regarding concerns about and preparations for heat,
Preparing for extreme heat at the Paris Olympics
Paris Olympic organizers plan to make this summer’s games the greenest ever, but that includes offering less air conditioning to cut down on energy use. [emphases mine] As temperatures rise globally, some suggest the organizers should take extreme heat into account when awarding cities with the next big Olympic games.
Leading athletes are warning that intense heat at the Paris Olympics in July-August 2024 could lead to competitors collapsing and in worst case scenarios dying during the Games. [emphasis mine]
Eleven Olympians, including winners of five World Championships and six Olympic medals, have come together with climate scientists and leading heat physiologists Professor Mike Tipton and Dr Jo Corbett from the University of Portsmouth to unpack the serious threat extreme heat poses for athletes in a new Rings of Fire report.
Dr Corbett, Associate Professor of Environmental Physiology in the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science at the University of Portsmouth, said: “A warming planet will present an additional challenge to athletes, which can adversely impact on their performance and diminish the sporting spectacle of the Olympic Games,. Hotter conditions also increase the potential for heat illness amongst all individuals exposed to high thermal stress, including officials and spectators, as well as athletes.”
“For athletes, from smaller performance-impacting issues like sleep disruption and last-minute changes to event timings, to exacerbated health impacts and heat related stress and injury, the consequences can be varied and wide-ranging. With global temperatures continuing to rise, climate change should increasingly be viewed as an existential threat to sport,” said Lord Sebastian Coe, President of World Athletics and four-time Olympic medallist.
The Tokyo Games became known as the “hottest in history,” with temperatures exceeding 34°C and humidity reaching nearly 70 per cent, leading to severe health risks for competitors. The Paris Games have the potential to surpass that, with climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels contributing to record heat streaks during the past months.
2023 was the hottest year on record according to the EU’s [European Union] Copernicus Climate Change Service and 2024 has continued this streak. April 2024 was warmer globally than any previous April in the record books, said experts at Copernicus.
The Rings of Fire report discusses the deadly heatwave in France in 2003 – which killed over 14,000 people – and subsequent years of record-breaking temperatures, exceeding 42°C. It underscores the heightened risk of extreme heat during the Paris Olympics, especially considering the significant rise in the region’s temperatures since the city last hosted the Games a century ago.
Olympics: how many days does it take for mosquitoes in Greater Paris to transmit arboviruses, and what preventive measures are needed?
The number of imported cases of dengue in the Greater Paris region increased significantly in the first few months of 2024. In the run-up to the Olympic Games, with huge numbers of international visitors set to come to Paris – especially from endemic dengue countries –, we need to be vigilant. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with the Regional Mosquito Control Agency (ARD) and the National Reference Center for Arboviruses (Inserm-Irba), have demonstrated that the tiger mosquito, now present in Greater Paris, is capable of transmitting five viruses (West Nile, chikungunya, Usutu, Zika and dengue) within different time frames ranging from 3 to 21 days, at an external temperature of 28°C. These results highlight the importance of stepping up surveillance of imported cases of arboviruses this summer. The study was published on May 16 [2024] in Eurosurveillance.
Between January 1 and April 19, 2024, 1,679 imported dengue cases were reported in mainland France, 13 times more than the number reported over the same period the previous year (source SPF). It is likely that this number will increase during the Olympic Games, as more people come to Paris from countries that are endemic regions for other arboviruses. The vector for dengue transmission is Aedes albopictus, more commonly known as the tiger mosquito. Arboviruses are transmitted when a female mosquito bites a virus carrier and ingests viral particles. One particular feature of arboviruses is that they can replicate in mosquitoes (unlike other viruses such as influenza, which are destroyed when ingested by mosquitoes). The viral particles multiply and spread within the mosquito, reaching the salivary glands in a few days. When the female mosquito bites another human, she injects the virus while taking her blood meal.
The tiger mosquito is now present in 78 départements in mainland France, and this together with other climate change-related factors is facilitating vector-borne transmission. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur’s Arboviruses and Insect Vectors Unit, in collaboration with the Regional Vector Control Agency (ARD) and the National Reference Center for Arboviruses (Inserm-Irba), therefore decided to analyze the ability of Aedes albopictus in Greater Paris to transmit five arboviruses at a temperature of 28°C, which is likely in the region at this time of year, and counted the number of days between initial infection and the possibility of the virus being transmitted through a further mosquito bite. As well as the dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses, which we already know can be transmitted by the tiger mosquito, the scientists studied the Usutu and West Nile viruses, which are naturally transmitted by another mosquito species, Culex pipiens (known as the “common mosquito”). Culex pipiens mosquitoes transmit viruses to humans after feeding on birds, which act as viral reservoirs.
Tiger mosquito susceptible to five arboviruses
Working in a BSL3 laboratory, the scientists studied the ability of tiger mosquitoes to transmit these five viruses and determined the extrinsic incubation period required for the virus to reach the mosquito’s salivary glands in sufficient quantities to infect a human. At 28°C, West Nile virus needs three days before it can be transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. The incubation period is 3 to 7 days for chikungunya and Usutu, and 14 to 21 days for dengue and Zika.(1)
This information is crucial to gage the additional risk represented by the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, which will see significant intermingling of populations combined with the return of travelers from endemic regions and a season conducive to mosquito proliferation. The findings can also be used to develop suitable control strategies.
“If a case of dengue is detected in the Greater Paris region, we now know that disinsection is required within 21 days. We can use these results to adjust our time frame for action and optimize our approach,” explains Anna-Bella Failloux, Head of the Institut Pasteur’s Arboviruses and Insect Vectors Unit, who led the study. “Depending on the temperatures we experience in and around Paris this summer, our findings will be essential for adjusting control measures as needed.”
What precautions should be taken in the run-up to the Olympics?
Health care professionals are trained to detect the symptoms of arboviruses if people indicate that they have recently been to an endemic country. The difficulty of surveillance is that many cases are asymptomatic: although dengue is a notifiable disease, up to 80% of cases lead to few or no symptoms. If a diagnosis of one of these diseases is confirmed, an inquiry is carried out by France’s Regional Health Agencies to determine where the individuals live or spent time in the days before the diagnosis, so that they can identify the areas where disinsection is needed. Anyone coming back from a foreign trip who experiences fever or aches is advised to see their family physician immediately and indicate the region they recently returned from.
“The alert system in France is effective. The applicable procedure and measures are already well established because France’s overseas territories in endemic regions have provided us with expertise in these diseases and know-how on epidemiological monitoring. My team is affiliated with the Arbo-France network, and we are contacted as soon as an arbovirus is detected,” continues Anna-Bella Failloux.
Since 2006, vector control measures in France have led to increased surveillance of tiger mosquitoes between May 1 and November 30 each year. This involves monitoring mosquito populations in areas where they are likely to be present; disease surveillance coordinated by Santé publique France based on reporting of viruses such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika by health care professionals; and raising awareness among people living in areas where mosquitoes have been reported. France’s Regional Health Agencies (ARS) and their operators are responsible for managing reporting, monitoring the presence of mosquitoes and taking rapid action in response to human cases of infection (vector control).
This research, which focused on mosquitoes in the Greater Paris region for this first study, will soon be extended to the rest of mainland France. Extrinsic incubation periods vary from one tiger mosquito population to the next because of differences in their genetic makeup and in local temperatures.
It is important to point out that for Usutu and West Nile, the ability of tiger mosquitoes to transmit these viruses to humans in real-life conditions, outside the experimental setting, is yet to be demonstrated, as they are naturally transmitted by Culex pipiens, another mosquito species.
I covered the movement of dengue fever and malaria into the Northern Hemisphere in an August 10, 2023 posting,
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The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that dengue fever cases have increased exponentially since 2000 (from the March 17, 2023 version of the WHO’s “Dengue and severe dengue” fact sheet),
Global burden
The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades, with cases reported to WHO increased from 505 430 cases in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019. A vast majority of cases are asymptomatic or mild and self-managed, and hence the actual numbers of dengue cases are under-reported. Many cases are also misdiagnosed as other febrile illnesses (1).
One modelling estimate indicates 390 million dengue virus infections per year of which 96 million manifest clinically (2). Another study on the prevalence of dengue estimates that 3.9 billion people are at risk of infection with dengue viruses.
The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries in the WHO Regions of Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. The Americas, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions are the most seriously affected, with Asia representing around 70% of the global disease burden.
Dengue is spreading to new areas including Europe, [emphasis mine] and explosive outbreaks are occurring. Local transmission was reported for the first time in France and Croatia in 2010 [emphasis mine] and imported cases were detected in 3 other European countries.
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The researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) couldn’t have known when they began their project to study mosquito bites and disease that Florida would register its first malaria cases in 20 years this summer, …
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It seems pretty clear that there’s increasing concern about mosquito-borne diseases no matter where you live.
It looks like mega-sports events attract more visitors than you might expect.
It seems that physicists are having a moment in the pop culture scene and they are excited about two television series (Fallout and 3 Body Problem) televised earlier this year in US/Canada.
The world ends on Oct. 23, 2077, in a series of radioactive explosions—at least in the world of “Fallout,” a post-apocalyptic video game series that has now been adapted into a blockbuster TV show on Amazon’s Prime Video.
The literal fallout that ensues creates a post-apocalyptic United States that is full of mutated monstrosities, irradiated humans called ghouls and hard scrabble survivors who are caught in the middle of it all. It’s the material of classic Atomic Age sci-fi, the kind of pulp stories “Fallout” draws inspiration from for its retro-futuristic version of America.
But there is more science in this science fiction story than you might think, according to Pran Nath, Matthews distinguished university professor of physics at Northeastern University.
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“Fallout” depicts a post-apocalyptic world centuries after nuclear war ravaged the United States. Amazon MGM Studios Photo
In the opening moments of “Fallout,” which debuted on April 10 [2024], Los Angeles is hit with a series of nuclear bombs. Although it takes place in a clearly fictional version of La La Land –– the robots and glistening, futuristic skyscrapers in the distance are dead giveaways –– the nuclear explosions themselves are shockingly realistic.
Nath says that when a nuclear device is dropped there are three stages.
“When the nuclear blast occurs, because of the chain reaction, in a very short period of time, a lot of energy and radiation is emitted,” Nath says. “In the first instance, a huge flash occurs, which is the nuclear reaction producing gamma rays. If you are exposed to it, people, for example, in Hiroshima were essentially evaporated, leaving shadows.”
Depending on how far someone is from the blast, even those who are partially protected will have their body rapidly heat up to 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, causing severe burns. The scalded skin of the ghouls in “Fallout” are not entirely unheard of (although their centuries-long lifespan stretches things a bit).
The second phase is a shockwave and heat blast –– what Nath calls a “fireball.” The shockwave in the first scene of “Fallout” quickly spreads from the blast, but Nath says it would probably happen even faster and less cinematically. It would travel around the speed of sound, around 760 miles per hour.
The shockwave also has a huge amount of pressure, “so huge … that it can collapse concrete buildings.” It’s followed by a “fireball” that would burn every building in the blast area with an intense heatwave.
“The blast area is defined as the area where the shockwaves and the fireball are the most intense,” Nath says. “For Hiroshima, that was between 1 and 2 miles. Basically, everything is destroyed in that blast area.”
The third phase of the nuclear blast is the fallout, which lasts for much longer and has even wider ranging impacts than the blast and shockwave. The nuclear blast creates a mushroom cloud, which can reach as high as 10 miles into the atmosphere. Carried by the wind, the cloud spreads radioactivity far outside the blast area.
“In a nuclear blast, up to 100 different radioactive elements are produced,” Nath says. “These radioactive elements have lifetimes which could be a few seconds, and they could be up to millions of years. … It causes pollution and damage to the body and injuries over a longer period, causing cancer and leukemia, things like this.”
A key part of the world of “Fallout” is the Vaults, massive underground bunkers the size of small towns that the luckiest of people get to retreat into when the world ends. The Vaults are several steps above most real-world fallout shelters, but Nath says that kind of protection would be necessary if you wanted to stay safe from the kind of radiation released by nuclear weapons, particularly gamma rays that can penetrate several feet of concrete.
“If you are further away and you keep inside and behind concrete, then you can avoid both the initial flash of the nuclear blast and also could probably withstand the shockwaves and the heatwave that follows, so the survivability becomes larger,” Nath says.
But what about all the radioactive mutants wandering around the post-apocalyptic wasteland?
It might seem like the colossal, monstrous mutant salamanders and giant cockroaches of “Fallout” are a science fiction fabrication. But there is a real-world basis for this, Nath says.
“There are various kinds of abnormalities that occur [with radiation,]” Nath says. “They can also be genetic. Radiation can create mutations, which are similar to spontaneous mutation, in animals and humans. In Chernobyl, for example, they are discovering animals which are mutated.”
In the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the genetics of wild dogs have been radically altered. Scientists hypothesize that thewolves near Chernobyl may have developed to be more resistant to radiation, which could make them “cancer resistant,” or at least less impacted by cancer. And frogs have adapted to have more melanin in their bodies, a form of protection against radiation, turning them black.
“Fallout” takes the horrifying reality of nuclear war and spins a darkly comic sci-fi yarn, but Nath says it’s important to remember how devastating these real-world forces are.
It’s estimated that as many as 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki were killed by the effects of the bombs dropped by the U.S. Today’s nuclear weapons are so much more powerful that there is very little understanding of the impact these weapons could have. Nath says the fallout could even exacerbate global warming.
“Thermonuclear war would be a global problem,” Nath says.
Although “Fallout” is a piece of science fiction, the reality of its world-ending scenario is terrifyingly real, says Pran Nath, Matthews distinguished university professor of physics at Northeastern University. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University
Kudos to the photographer!
3 Body Problem (television series)
This one seems to have a lit a fire in the breasts of physicists everywhere. I have a number of written pieces and a video about this this show, which is based on a book by Liu Cixn. (You can find out more about Cixin and his work in his Wikipedia entry.)
“3 Body Problem,” Netflix’s new big-budget adaptation of Liu Cixin’s book series helmed by the creators behind “Game of Thrones,” puts the science in science fiction.
The series focuses on scientists as they attempt to solve a mystery that spans decades, continents and even galaxies. That means “3 Body Problem” throws some pretty complicated quantum mechanics and astrophysics concepts at the audience as it, sometimes literally, tries to bring these ideas down to earth.
However, at the core of the series is the three-body problem, a question that has stumped scientists for centuries.
What exactly is the three-body problem, and why is it still unsolvable? Jonathan Blazek, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University, explains that systems with two objects exerting gravitational force on one another, whether they’re particles or stars and planets, are predictable. Scientists have been able to solve this two-body problem and predict the orbits of objects since the days of Isaac Newton. But as soon as a third body enters the mix, the whole system gets thrown into chaos.
“The three-body problem is the statement that if you have three bodies gravitating toward each other under Newton’s law of gravitation, there is no general closed-form solution for that situation,” Blazek says. “Little differences get amplified and can lead to wildly unpredictable behavior in the future.”
In “3 Body Problem,” like in Cixin’s book, this is a reality for aliens that live in a solar system with three suns. Since all three stars are exerting gravitational forces on each other, they end up throwing the solar system into chaos as they fling each other back and forth. For the Trisolarans, the name for these aliens, it means that when a sun is jettisoned far away, their planet freezes, and when a sun is thrown extremely close to their planet, it gets torched. Worse, because of the three-body problem, these movements are completely unpredictable.
For centuries, scientists have pondered the question of how to determine a stable starting point for three gravitational bodies that would result in predictable orbits. There is still no generalizable solution that can be taken out of theory and modeled in reality, although recently scientists have started to find some potentially creative solutions, including with models based on the movements of drunk people.
“If you want to [predict] what the solar system’s going to do, we can put all the planets and as many asteroids as we know into a computer code and basically say we’re going to calculate the force between everything and move everything forward a little bit,” Blazek says. “This works, but to the extent that you’re making some approximations … all of these things will eventually break down and your prediction is going to become inaccurate.”
Blazek says the three-body problem has captivated scientific minds because it’s a seemingly simple problem. Most high school physics students learn Newton’s law of gravity and can reasonably calculate and predict the movement of two bodies.
Three-body systems, and more than three-body systems, also show up throughout the universe, so the question is incredibly relevant. Look no further than our solar system.
The relationship between the sun, Earth and our moon is a three-body system. But Blazek says since the sun exerts a stronger gravitational force on Earth and Earth does the same on the moon, it creates a pair of two-body systems with stable, predictable orbits –– for now.
Blazek says that although our solar system appears stable, there’s no guarantee that it will stay that way in the far future because there are still multi-body systems at play. Small changes like an asteroid hitting one of Jupiter’s moons and altering its orbit ever so slightly could eventually spiral into larger changes.
That doesn’t mean humanity will face a crisis like the one the Trisolarans face in “3 Body Problem.” These changes happen extremely slowly, but Blazek says it’s another reminder of why these concepts are interesting and important to think about in both science and science fiction.
“I don’t think anything is going to happen on the time scale of our week or even probably our species –– we have bigger problems than the instability of orbits in our solar system,” Blazek says. “But, that said, if you think about billions of years, during that period we don’t know that the orbits will stay as they currently are. There’s a good chance there will be some instability that changes how things look in the solar system.”
An April 12, 2024 news item on phys.org covers some of the same ground, Note: A link has been removed.
The science fiction television series 3 Body Problem, the latest from the creators of HBO’s Game of Thrones, has become the most watched show on Netflix since its debut last month. Based on the bestselling book trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past by Chinese computer engineer and author Cixin Liu, 3 Body Problem introduces viewers to advanced concepts in physics in service to a suspenseful story involving investigative police work, international intrigue, and the looming threat of an extraterrestrial invasion.
Yet how closely does the story of 3 Body Problem adhere to the science that it’s based on? The very name of the show comes from the three-body problem, a mathematical problem in physics long considered to be unsolvable.
Virginia Tech physicist Djordje Minic says, “The three-body problem is a very famous problem in classical and celestial mechanics, which goes back to Isaac Newton. It involves three celestial bodies interacting via the gravitational force—that is, Newton’s law of gravity. Unlike mathematical predictions of the motions of two-body systems, such as Earth-moon or Earth-sun, the three-body problem does not have an analytic solution.”
“At the end of the 19th century, the great French mathematician Henri Poincaré’s work on the three-body problem gave birth to what is known as chaos theory and the concept of the ‘butterfly effect.'”
Both the novels and the Netflix show contain a visualization of the three-body problem in action: a solar system made up of three suns in erratic orbit around one another. Virginia Tech aerospace engineer and mathematics expert Shane Ross discussed liberties the story takes with the science that informs it.
“There are no known configurations of three massive stars that could maintain an erratic orbit,” Ross said. “There was a big breakthrough about 20 years ago when a figure eight solution of the three-body problem was discovered, in which three equal-sized stars chase each other around on a figure eight-shaped course. In fact, Cixin Liu makes reference to this in his books. Building on that development, other mathematicians found other solutions, but in each case the movement is not chaotic.”
Ross elaborated, “It’s even more unlikely that a fourth body, a planet, would be in orbit around this system of three stars, however erratically — it would either collide with one or be ejected from the system. The situation in the book would therefore be a solution of the ‘four-body problem,’ which I guess didn’t have quite the right ring to use as a title.
“Furthermore, a stable climate is unlikely even on an Earth-like planet. At last count, there are at least a hundred independent factors that are required to create an Earth-like planet that supports life as we know it,” Ross said. “We have been fortunate to have had about 10,000 years of the most stable climate in Earth’s history, which makes us think climate stability is the norm, when in fact, it’s the exception. It’s likely no coincidence that this has corresponded with the rise of advanced human civilization.”
About Ross A professor of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech, Shane Ross directs the Ross Dynamics Lab, which specializes in mathematical modeling, simulation, visualization, and experiments involving oceanic and atmospheric patterns, aerodynamic gliding, orbital mechanics, and many other disciplines. He has made fundamental contributions toward finding chaotic solutions to the three-body problem. Read his bio …
About Minic Djordje Minic teaches physics at Virginia Tech. A specialist in string theory and quantum gravity, he has collaborated on award-winning research related to dark matter and dark energy. His most recent investigation involves the possibility that in the context of quantum gravity the geometry of quantum theory might be dynamical in analogy with the dynamical nature of spacetime geometry in Einstein’s theory of gravity. View his full bio …
For the last ‘3 Body Problem’ essay, there’s this April 5, 2023 article by Tara Bitran and Phillipe Thao for Netflix.com featuring comments from a physicist concerning a number of science questions,, Note: Links have been removed,
If you’ve raced through 3 Body Problem, the new series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and True Blood writer Alexander Woo, chances are you want to know more about everything from Sophons and nanofibers to what actually constitutes a three-body problem. After all, even the show’s scientists are stumped when they witness their well-known theories unravel at the seams.
But for physicists like 3 Body Problem’s Jin (Jess Hong) and real-life astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst (who researches how supermassive black holes grow at the University of Oxford and explains how scientific phenomena work in viral videos), answering the universe’s questions is a problem they’re delighted to solve. In fact, it’s part of the fun. “I feel like scientists look at the term ‘problem’ more excitedly than anybody else does,” Smethurst tells Tudum. “Every scientist’s dream is to be told that they got it wrong before and here’s some new data that you can now work on that shows you something different where you can learn something new.”
The eight-episode series, based on writer Cixin Liu’s internationally celebrated Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, repeatedly defies human science standards and forces the characters to head back to the drawing board to figure out how to face humanity’s greatest threat. Taking us on a mind-boggling journey that spans continents and timelines, the story begins in ’60s China, when a young woman makes a fateful decision that reverberates across space and time into the present day. With humanity’s future in danger, a group of tight-knit scientists, dubbed the Oxford Five, must work against time to save the world from catastrophic consequences.
Dr. Matt Kenzie, associate professor of physics at University of Cambridge and 3 Body Problem’s science advisor, sits down with Tudum to dive into the science behind the series. So if you can’t stop thinking about stars blinking and chaotic eras, keep reading for all the answers to your burning scientific questions. Education time!
What is a Cherenkov tank?
In Episode 1, the Oxford Five’s former college professor, Dr. Vera Ye (Vedette Lim), walks out onto a platform at the top of a large tank and plunges to her death in a shallow pool of water below. If you were wondering what that huge tank was, it’s called a particle detector (sometimes also known as a Cherenkov tank). It’s used to observe, measure, and identify particles, including, in this case, neutrinos, a common particle that comes largely from the sun. “Part of the reason that they’re kind of interesting is that we don’t really understand much about them, and we suspect that they could be giving us clues to other types of physics in the universe that we don’t yet understand,” Dr. Kenzie told Netflix.
When a neutrino interacts with the water molecules stored inside the tank, it sets off a series of photomultiplier tubes — the little circles that line the tank Vera jumps into. Because Vera’s experiment is shut down and the water is reduced to a shallow level, the fall ends up killing her.
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What are nanofibers?
In the show, Auggie’s a trailblazer in nanofiber technology. She runs a company that designs self-assembling synthetic polymer nanofibers and hopes to use her latest innovation to solve world problems, like poverty and disease. But what are nanofibers and how do they work? Dr. Kenzie describes nanofiber technology as “any material with a width of nanometers” — in other words, one millionth of a millimeter in thickness. Nanofibers can be constructed out of graphene (a one-atom thick layer of carbon) and are often very strong. “They can be very flexible,” he adds. “They tend to be very good conductors of both heat and electricity.”
Is nanofiber technology real, and can it actually cut through human flesh?
Nanofiber technology does exist, although Dr. Kenzie says it’s curated and grown in labs under very specific conditions. “One of the difficulties is how you hold them in place — the scaffolding it’s called,” he adds. “You have to design molecules which hold these things whilst you’re trying to build them.”
After being tested on a synthetic diamond cube in Episode 2, we see the real horrors of nanofiber technology when it’s used to slice through human bodies in Episode 5. Although the nanofiber technology that exists today is not as mass produced as Auggie’s — due to the cost of producing and containing it — Dr. Kenzie says it’s still strong enough to slice through almost anything.
What can nanofiber technology be used for?
According to Dr. Kenzie, the nanofiber technology being developed today can be used in several ways within the manufacturing and construction industries. “If you wanted a machine that could do some precision cutting, then maybe [nanofiber] would be good,” he says. “I know they’re also tested in the safety of the munitions world. If you need to bulletproof a room or bulletproof a vest, they’re incredibly light and they’re incredibly strong.” He also adds that nanofiber technology is viewed as a material of the future, which can be used for water filtration — just as we see Auggie use it in the season finale.
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The Bitran and Thao piece includes another description of the 3 Body Problem but it’s the first I’ve seen that describes some of the other science.
Also mentioned in one of the excerpts in this posting is The Science and Entertainment Exchange (also known as The Science & Entertainment Exchange or Science & Entertainment Exchange) according to its Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,
The Science & Entertainment Exchange[1] is a program run and developed by the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to increase public awareness, knowledge, and understanding of science and advanced science technology through its representation in television, film, and other media. It serves as a pro-science movement with the main goal of re-cultivating how science and scientists truly are in order to rid the public of false perceptions on these topics. The Exchange provides entertainment industry professionals with access to credible and knowledgeable scientists and engineers who help to encourage and create effective representations of science and scientists in the media, whether it be on television, in films, plays, etc. The Exchange also helps the science community understand the needs and requirements of the entertainment industry, while making sure science is conveyed in a correct and positive manner to the target audience.
Officially launched in November 2008, the Exchange can be thought of as a partnership between NAS and Hollywood, as it arranges direct consultations between scientists and entertainment professionals who develop science-themed content. This collaboration allows for industry professionals to accurately portray the science that they wish to capture and include in their media production. It also provides scientists and science organizations with the opportunity to communicate effectively with a large audience that may otherwise be hard to reach such as through innovative physics outreach. It also provides a variety of other services, including scheduling briefings, brainstorming sessions, screenings, and salons. The Exchange is based in Los Angeles, California.
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I hadn’t realized the exchange was physics specific. Given the success with physics, I’d expect the biology and chemistry communities would be eager to participate or start their own exchanges.
Back in 2019 Canada was having a problem with Malaysia and the Phillipines over the garbage (this is meant literally) that we were shipping over to those counties, which is why an article about Chinese science fiction writer, Chen Qiufan and his 2013 novel, The Waste Tide, caught my attention and I pubisihed this May 31, 2019 posting, “Chen Qiufan, garbage, and Chinese science fiction stories.” There’s a very brief mention of Liu Cxin in one of the excerpts.
