Category: Frontier Channel

The Frontier Channel website edited by Richard Leis provided news and commentary about the “Great Frontiers of cyberspace, outer space, the ocean, and destinations in between.” Frontier Channel frequently covered digital media, planetary science, transhumanism, and emerging technologies like artificial general intelligence (AGI), the Metaverse, nanotechnology, radical life extension, cybernetics, the Technological Singularity, and mind uploading. It is now defunct, though occasional posts are still added.

Second Dose of Vaccine & I’m Thankful

A lot of my friends and family were concerned when I reported side effects from my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I appreciate your love and concern and I'm so sorry that I scared you! You make me feel cared for and loved!

I want to be clearer about this than I was last time: a sore arm, mild fever, headaches, body aches, and/or other side effects over a period of 24-48 hours are all healthy signs that your immune system is doing its job, without killing you in the process! Your immune system is reacting to something that is, fortunately, practically harmless, and this will prime your immune system to recognize and respond safely to something far more dangerous than a vaccine: the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

“Meet Ultima Thule”


And Ultima and Thule, according to New Horizons' principal investigator Alan Stern at today's NASA press briefing, the informal names the team have given the two lobes of the red object out in the Kuiper Belt New Horizons spent New Year's encountering. The contact binary connected by a neck of material indicates two objects that came together and stuck sometime in the distant past when these kinds of interactions were leading elsewhere in the solar system to accretions that would eventually form the planets and their moons.

New Year, New Day, New Image of Ultima Thule

01 January 2019 image of Ultima Thule by New Horizons spacecraft and sketch of object and rotation courtesy James Tuttle Keane
During a morning press briefing aired on NASA TV on New Year's Day 2019, New Horizons mission team leaders revealed the latest best image of Ultima Thule. Still a blur, the Kuiper Belt body's shape is more apparent in this latest image. Still unclear: are the two lobes connected or are they in fact two separate objects orbiting each other? The pole of the object was pointed toward the spacecraft, meaning Ultima Thule rotates from that perspective like a propellor. Artist and planetary scientist James Tuttle Keane has helped visualize this geometry in his illustration included next to the image.

Now Humanity Feels the Tug of Proxima b, Too

It's good to be skeptical, but it's also nice to see rumors confirmed by real and exciting  announcements: the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced today the detection of an exoplanet orbiting the nearby star Proxima Centauri. At a minimum mass 1.3 times that of the Earth's, Proxima b might be a rocky world. With an orbit of 11.2 … Continue reading Now Humanity Feels the Tug of Proxima b, Too →

Frontier Channel 16 Years Later

I started posting online news and commentary about science and technology on January 18, 2000, and I eventually named that effort Frontier Channel. After a few weeks of short posts, I didn't get back to posting again until January 2002. Two years after that, I finally started posting in earnest, and Frontier Channel enjoyed a nice run with frequent articles through … Continue reading Frontier Channel 16 Years Later →

Regarding Rumors of Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Proxima Centauri

We've been here before: the media gets wind of a possible discovery made by a long-running science project and before there is a peer-reviewed scientific paper published and a press conference, speculation runs wild. In the age of social media, gossip spreads at the speed of the share, and in this digital game of telephone, the … Continue reading Regarding Rumors of Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Proxima Centauri →

Recent Article about Kim Suozzi, Cryonics, and Alcor in The New York Times

Three years ago this October, Kim Suozzi spoke at the Alcor 2012 Conference about her impending death due to brain cancer and her hopes in cryonics and technology for a second future. I remember it was a remarkable, difficult, and emotional talk and I also remember the applause when she finished speaking. She passed away a … Continue reading Recent Article about Kim Suozzi, Cryonics, and Alcor in The New York Times →

Pluto and Charon in Color and in Tantalizing Detail

 [Post edited on Monday, June 22, 2015 to correct my misunderstanding about the provenance of the remarkable color image below.] Tonight I was browsing the latest raw images of Pluto and Charon taken by New Horizons today from only 27.7 million kilometers away and I realized that when you zoom in, Charon is just beginning … Continue reading Pluto and Charon in Color and in Tantalizing Detail →