Richard H
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Commented on Defining space opera
Um. It may not technically be "implants", but it's still a teeny bit invasive: the team injected magnetic iron oxide particles just 22 nanometers in diameter into the brain [...] viral gene delivery to induce the sensitivity to heat in...
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Commented on Defining space opera
AIUI (& assuming we are talking about the same "drive") Oh look, it's Roger Shawyer's Emdrive. It does not appear to be actually "reactionless" & it does not violate conservation laws. Actually it is, and it does: Microwaves are squirted...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
I don't quite know where HB picked up the conflation of quantum dots and the solar interior from. Oh, that's easy. Take a couple of scientific terms you don't understand - one of them a <whoosh> joke referring to...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
You do realize that I do know all of that? No, I don't believe you did. Now, using that knowledge, what was happening? A hypothesis was confirmed....
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
Probably. Not. (as in "not even wrong") We have found highly anisotropic optical emission from individual indium phosphide quantum dots on a glass substrate. First Google result for "quantum dot anisotropy". Unfortunately: (a) not much InP in stellar cores. (b)...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
At this point, a lay person's explanation of why these scientists are all lying about new laser generation techniques and so on would help. A lay person's explanation of how quantum dots arise in a stellar core would be even...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
The stellar core "quantum lasers" were my personal favourite. Well, to be fair, non-quantum lasers would have been even more remarkable ;-)...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
(oops, unreliable connection, hit 'submit' too soon. Where did my nice formatting go?)...
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Commented on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera
That's not how gravity works. (Headdesk.) Heavy boots?...