Gregory H. Revera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FullMoon2010.jpg) CC-by-sa-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
It’s a full moon tonight, so it seems like the perfect time to share some science facts about the moon!
You can also read about the lunar effect, or the impact that the moon has on humans and animals (spoiler alert: the impact is imaginary, according to science).
We’ve got lots of great news from our alumni to share with you!
Christine Lucas recently had a story, “Via Dolorosa,” published at Metaphorosis Magazine. She’s also got a short story collection, Fates and Furies, out on December 16th!
Cory Swanson, who has a story upcoming in the final quarterly for MSJ, has a novel about twins and time travel, Geminus, out now!
Han Adcock will be releasing the fifth issue of his e-zine, Once Upon a Crocodile, this month. He’s also got stories in the Rejected and Ink Stains anthologies.
DJ Tyrer has a comic horror novelette, A Trip to the Middle of the World, out from Alban Lake Publishing. He also has two poetry broadsides coming soon from Atlantean Publishing.
Jeannie Warner is running a podcast called Writers Drinking Coffee, and she’s also had stories in three recent anthologies: Accursed, Blaze: The Inner Circle Writer’s Group Flash Fiction Anthology 2019, and Trigger Warning: Body Horror.
Madison Estes has a story scheduled for publication in Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology, due out in February 2020.
Ken Crawford (http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Nebulae/NGC7000/Wall.htm) CC-by-sa-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
If you enjoyed yesterday’s story, you might also like some of our previously published stories!
“The Light of Their Lives” by Boris Glikman (consuming sunlight)
“Retirement Options” by Sam Crane (the next steps for a space cop)
“Your Star” by Daniel Hudon (finding your celestial body) (available in MSJ Autumn 2016)
“Demote the Earth” by E. B. Fischadler (an argument against Earth being considered a planet) (available in MSJ Autumn 2016)
An essay by Beth Cantrell, as provided by Robert Dawson
Art by America Jones
I’ve gone into space with some odd ducks, but let me tell you, Loreena Saunders was one of the oddest.
On those early missions to Mars, you got five fricking kilos for personal effects. A few pieces of jewellery, perhaps a favorite silk scarf, and a thumbdrive or two. And maybe some photographs and a lock of hair, if you weren’t smart enough to leave old memories behind.
Some people brought musical instruments. A couple people had pennywhistles, and there were a few lightweight electric violins and guitars, little more than fingerboard, strings, and pickup. “Mac” Duncan even had an electronic bagpipe, about the size of a big soda straw. Better yet, he had earbuds for practice.
But what sort of nut would take a baseball and a first baseman’s mitt to Mars–a third of an astronomical unit away from the nearest baseball diamond, even at conjunction? Loreena, that’s who. Back when she was a kid in Boston, she’d played Little League with the boys, and she’d been on the varsity women’s team at MIT. Here, she couldn’t even go outside and play catch: the glove wouldn’t fit over her p-suit. But if she minded, it didn’t show: when she had nothing else to do, she’d sit around the dome, slapping the ball into the glove, smiling blissfully, and occasionally picking an imaginary pop fly out of the air. The constant slap of leather on leather could get on your nerves.
So when I got sent up to Phobos to do the preliminary geological survey (I’ll go with “areological” for Mars, but “phobological” just sounds silly), my excitement was damped when I realized that Loreena was going to be my assistant. The orbiter we were going in was about the size of the minivan my folks had when I was a kid. The galley was a cupboard full of freeze-dried food in single-serving pouches and a gadget for injecting warm water into them. It had two tiny berths, with privacy doors so thin you could hear somebody breathe through them. I wondered if I could get somebody else, but Loreena was the only colonist with geological training who could also pilot the orbiter. I was stuck with her.
“You’re not going to bring that baseball of yours, are you?” I asked.
She grinned. “You’re bringing your Rubik’s Cube, aren’t you, Beth?”
I clenched my teeth. When I was twenty, I’d been the CalTech women’s champion, and in fifth place nationally for the “five peeks” event. I wasn’t quite that fast anymore, but old cubists never die, they just lose face. Of course I was bringing my cube. “I’ll try to keep it quiet,” I said.
When Loreena made the computer display the orbit, it looked like a messy ball of string. And I mean messy–with that crazy shape, Phobos is all gravitational anomalies.
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Autumn 2019 collection.
Beth Cantrell is best known for her award-winning paper “Simplified Passive Satellite Gravimetry” with L. Saunders. She holds the Mars, Phobos, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas records for solving a Rubik’s Cube in a p-suit. She sometimes goes to baseball games, but only if somebody promises to supply her with sufficient peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Robert Dawson teaches mathematics at a Nova Scotian university. He has had more than seventy SF stories published in periodicals ranging from Nature to Mad Scientist Journal. He’d like to congratulate MSJ on a great run, and thinks the plan to commemorate the last issue by blowing up the Sun is a very appropriate tribute to the close of an era.
America is an illustrator and comic artist with a passion for neon colors and queer culture. Catch them being antisocial on social media @thehauntedboy.
“A League of Her Own” is © 2019 Robert Dawson
Art accompanying story is © 2019 America Jones
Japanese researchers have conducted an experiment on protecting cows from biting flies. They’ve found that by painting cows with zebra-like stripes, the biting flies are dissuaded from biting the cows.
Animal scientists believe that zebras may have evolved to have their stripe pattern as a deterrent to insects. The stripes seem to confuse the bugs’ motion detection systems that control approach and landing, thus making the zebras not as appealing of a target.
While the scientists agree that more work needs to be done with this experiment, it does seem to be a promising start, with the zebra-painted cows having fewer biting flies bothering them. You can read more about this experiment here!
Kevin Savetz (https://www.flickr.com/photos/47947110@N00/16726365324/) CC-by-2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Next week, December 9-15, 2019, is Computer Science Education Week. The website provides example one-hour coding lessons for pre-readers through high school levels of kids. Many of the projects involve popular characters from TV and movies, which makes the lessons even more appealing to the right age groups! In addition, the website provides more resources for educators here. So whether you’re teaching in a classroom setting or just want to help a kid you know learn to code, there are plenty of resources to work with here, for the coming week or any time in the future!
Jameson Currier’s short story collection, Why Didn’t Someone Warn You About Prince Charming? (Chelsea Station Editions, 2019), is a themed collection featuring stories with gay male protagonists and told in first and second person. While the speculative elements in this collection are slight, leaning more to slipstream than supernatural, even speculative fiction fans will enjoy this carefully crafted collection.
The stories frequently involve theatre, big city living, and protagonists who feel inadequate in the face of attractive gay men. The plots are poignant, with frequently bittersweet endings. My favorite story in the collection was “The Devil’s Cake,” which spans decades and deals with family secrets and the drama surrounding them, but ultimately has a happy ending.
If you enjoy queer fiction with limited speculative elements, Why Didn’t Someone Warn You About Prince Charming? will be right up your alley. Even if that’s not your usual reading preference, this collection is still worth reading to explore how the author approaches variations on a theme throughout his work.
The author provided us with a free copy of this book in exchange for review consideration.
Photographer: Armin Kübelbeck, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nile_blue_05.jpg) CC-BY-SA-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
If you’re shopping for a budding mad scientist, check out MEL Chemistry, which is a subscription kit service that provides science experiments for kids. The kit and experiments are geared toward kids in the 9 to 14 age range, and an initial subscription comes with a starter kit and a VR headset. In addition to the shipped experiments, there’s also a mobile app for more science education and fun!
An essay by Mary Magdalene Farconi, as provided by K. Kitts
Art by Leigh Legler
Strapped in his bouncy seat, my son Tyler went off at the exact same moment as the kitchen timer and the doorbell. I verified that nothing was actually gnawing on him and rushed to the brownies. Paul would have to get the door.
From the living room, Cissie yelled, “It’s the bird people.” Being a good girl, she knew not to open the door to strangers, especially those from another planet.
I yelled, “Paul, get the door,” while I yanked the brownies from the oven.
The Home Owners Association bake sale started at 10 AM, and it was already 10:10. In my head, Mrs. Topher, the HOA president, admonished, “In my day, people respected each other and were on time.”
As I dashed toward Tyler, I mumbled, “Yeah, back when Moses parted the Red Sea, most mothers of young children didn’t have to analyze a 270-page watershed impact statement by Monday.”
Before I unbuckled Tyler from his seat, I smelled his problem. The doorbell rang again. “Paul! Get the door!”
From the living room, Cissie yelled, “The bird people are still here.”
I hustled down the hall with Tyler at arm’s length. His room also served as Paul’s home office. Sure enough. Paul had his earbuds in and was playing some computer game. I hip-butted the back of his chair.
Startled, he yelled, “What the–” but stopped in time. We try not to cuss like muleskinners in front of the kids. I handed Tyler over.
“I’m working, Maggie. You do it.” He tried to pass Tyler back.
The doorbell rang a third time. Cissie called, “The bird people are still still here.”
I said, “One, since when is slaying boss monsters a part of your job? And two, it’s Saturday. We agreed on Saturdays you have to help. No questions asked.” As I stomped to the front door, I muttered, “That is if you ever want to have sex again.”
Hand on the knob, I breathed in deeply and exhaled. Bird people are sensitive. I didn’t want to frighten them because they’d take off in a flurry of feathers and shrieks and dump whatever they had in their cloacas. I didn’t have time to hose off the front porch.
I’d worked with several bird people when I’d served as an analyst for the newly established Alien Affairs Bureau. That was until the AAB’s work rules changed and became intolerable for nursing moms. Two months after Tyler was born, I moved to a clean water non-profit with a short commute. The work wasn’t as important, but my hair had stopped falling out. However, when I opened the door, I wondered whether I’d been out of the loop a little too long.
Instead of a group of sleek greenish-blue peacock-cranes, there stood two bedraggled and dull office drones dressed in modified white button-downs and khakis. Their tails were clipped and their wings pressed tightly against their backs. Even the frills on the tops of their heads drooped. They were both so dull in color, I couldn’t tell whether they were male or female, but given the office casual, I guessed males.
Clutched in one of the T-Rex arms that protruded from beneath his breast, the left bird person held a black book. His colleague grasped a plastic sheet upon which text flickered.
I asked, “May I help you?”
Book bird bobbed his head and pressed the first icon on the squawk box on a chain around his neck. In a mellifluous voice, the box intoned, “Good morning! We are in your neighborhood seeking to expand our flock.”
Book bird bobbed his head and pressed the first icon on the squawk box on a chain around his neck. In a mellifluous voice, the box intoned, “Good morning! We are in your neighborhood seeking to expand our flock.”
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Autumn 2019 collection.
Ms. Mary Magdalene Farconi, a working mother, is a G-11 in the Labor Protections Department of the Alien Affairs Bureau. She supervises a governmental hotline for reporting labor abuse of Avian Nationals and is currently working with cities all over the US to design and develop aviaries within human communities.
Dr. Kathy Kitts, a former geology professor, served as a science team member on the NASA Genesis Discovery Mission. Before that, she directed a planetarium for nine years. Her latest speculative short fiction has appeared in Amazing, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, and Mad Scientist Journal. Her latest short story collection, Getting What You Need, is now available on Amazon. Born and raised in the southwest, she is currently living in the high desert of New Mexico.
Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.
“Jehovah’s Feathers” is © 2019 K. Kitts
Art accompanying story is © 2019 Leigh Legler
Some of the most fascinating things in the scientific world are the accidental discoveries. Things we take for granted, like microwaves and Play-Doh are included among the many things that experimenters did not set out to create, but realized the useful applications of after the fact.
This article talks about eighteen such discoveries, including the two above and several other applications of radiation. Numerous medications and non-medicinal drugs also came from unrelated work. And even things like Velcro would not exist without an accidental realization of how burrs attached themselves to clothing so they could be transported to other locations.
