Flying On The Fringe

This image by S. Herman &amp on Pixabay.com caught my eye the other day and brought back one of my fondest memories from childhood.

I fancied myself a Tomboy, but wasn’t very good at it. My rebellious effort to go barefoot in the yard resulted in running a stick up through my foot.

I did manage to climb the willow tree in our back yard, however. For those who aren’t familiar with willows, they have nice alternately spaced branches that make them fairly easy to climb. I used to get the amazing distance of about five feet off the ground with a book tucked under my arm. My companion was not a Teddy bear, but my ever faithful cat, who thought reading in a tree was the cat’s meow. She would follow me up and perch on a nearby branch or drape herself around my shoulders.

Like my magical swingset which could transport me to other star systems on command, I could pass an hour or more lost in a book, transported to who knows where.

Tell me about a special moment or memory from your childhood.

Do you believe it takes courage to be a writer?

I do. To be a good writer, you can’t just write and hold it close to your chest. You have to put it out there and accept criticism from readers and other writers. And you have to believe enough in yourself to put those first words on paper. My mother did a great job of instilling a degree of courage in me. She was notorious for informing me that she had signed me up for this or that activity.

The first was the Youth Crime and Civic Commission. (I wanted to be a spy, and it was the closest thing she could find.) I was irritated, but I soon learned to enjoy the meetings and events. It led to her second brilliant idea. One day she told me I should start writing newspaper articles about the Commission’s activities. She wanted me to call the Kansas City Star and offer to write for them. I was in high school. I thought she’d really gone too far ‘round the bend that time, so I decided to call her bluff. I called them. The receptionist didn’t bat an eye. She put me straight through to the Youth Page editor, who told me to submit an article and he’d look at it. Guess who had to eat crow? I wrote the article, he accepted it, and I wrote regularly for the Youth Page for the next two years until I left for college.

Actually, my experience in journalism started much earlier, in about the sixth grade, when my mother volunteered me to be the reporter for my 4-H club. No one else was willing to run for the position, so naturally I got elected. I had a monthly column in the Johnson County Kansas newspaper. I guess I should mention at this point that my mother grew up around newspaper people. Her mother worked for the Kansas City Kansan, and my mother had her first job for the paper. My dad was a photographer for the paper, and he taught me photography and photo developing, which became my 4-H projects.

The last time my mother enrolled me in something, I came home from school, and just inside the door I was informed I had joined the International Relations Council, a not-for-profit organization in Kansas City. When I attended the first dinner lecture, I was probably the only person there under the age of 50. However, having learned from previous experiences, I kept going. My first professional job was as Assistant to the Director of the International Relations Council.

Unlike my mother’s lessons in imagination, these lessons stuck in my mind when raising my kids, and they both got pushed into any activity I thought would fit with their interests. Matt wrote for a local newspaper during summers off from college, and Ben took piano lessons for almost ten years. In the process, he found out he was one of the gifted few who has “perfect pitch.” Coming from a family with zero musical ability, who would have guessed?

The moral of this story? You never know what your gifts might be until you try something new. Like writing.

You guys know I love to post about meteor showers, and watch when I can. Tonight, Earth has a chance at a rare event as we pass through the remains of the Comet 73P/Schwassen-Wachmann which broke up in 1996. We might see a real meteor storm around midnight tonight if we’re really lucky. I will be watching. For more information on this event, go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/tau-herculid-meteors-may-intense-shower/

When my sons were young, I would haul them out of bed in the middle of the night for summer meteor showers. We got to see a few, though usually only about one every few minutes, and it was rare for us all to see the same one. I guess you have to be crazy like me to find that exciting, though my older son Ben seemed to enjoy it. Of course, he’s the one who would simply enjoy being outside in the middle of the night anyway.

How about you guys? Any star gazers out there?

Did your parents encourage your imagination, or discourage it?

My mother did a lot to encourage my imagination, though I didn’t appreciate it when I was a child. Barbie dolls were all the rage when I was in elementary school. I didn’t care much for dolls, but I liked all the accessories in the stores. I had a “fashion” doll, but not a Barbie. When I wanted to buy new clothes for it, Mom handed me leftover scraps of cloth. I’m sure she hoped I’d decide to try my hand at sewing, but I made do with string for belts and safety pins.

I really wanted one of the fancy Barbie convertible cars. I got a shoe box and was told to use my imagination.

Admittedly, we probably couldn’t afford the store-bought car, but I doubt I would have gotten it anyway. I have to admit, a shoe box can be a car, a stage coach, or a spaceship.

My imagination allowed me to use a lawn swing tied to a tree as a stagecoach, and a swing on the swing set as a spaceship. I remember one summer afternoon when my cousin and I spent the afternoon exploring other planets. I also remember the sense of shock when my mother called us in to lunch and I realized I was “back” in my own yard. I hadn’t been there for hours, you see.

Looking back, I missed the importance of those lessons when raising my kids. I could afford to buy lots of “stuff,” and I am mortified at the boxes and boxes of toys I now have stored in the basement and barn. Fortunately, they seem to have survived my poor parenting. The older one complains I yelled too much (I did lecture A LOT), but he enjoys reading and is eager to try new things, go new places, and eat foods he hasn’t tried before. The younger one is an exceptional author and game designer.

At least I can say with confidence I never tried to discourage their imagination. What’s your story?

The Depths of Love anthology from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Guild, which includes my short story Hope Takes Flight, is now available on Amazon. This is a great read from a collection of talented writers. Please check it out!

Reprinted from: https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-news/2-meteor-showers-to-peak-at-same-time-on-tuesday-night/782062

Updated Jul. 26, 2020 11:13 PM

As Comet NEOWISE fades away, stargazers will have a new astronomical event to look for in the final days of July—a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in nearly three months.

On the night of Tuesday, July 28, into the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 29, shooting stars will glisten in the night sky from not one, but two meteor showers: The southern Delta Aquarids and the Alpha Capricornids. The last time that a moderate meteor shower put on a show in the night sky was the Eta Aquarid shower in early May, but clouds were an issue for many stargazers across North America.

Neither of the two showers this week are considered major, but together they will bring around 15 to 20 meteors per hour in dark areas away from light pollution. The Alpha Capricornids is the weaker of the two meteor showers, but it could prove to be the one that is most intriguing.

“What is notable about this shower is the number of bright fireballs produced during its activity period,” the American Meteor Society (AMS) explained.

(Visit the link above for a spectacular fireball video)

Fireballs are incredibly bright meteors that can light up the entire night sky for a few seconds. They also are visible for much longer than the typical shooting star, glowing for several seconds as they streak through the sky.
“Vivid colors are more often reported by fireball observers because the brightness is great enough to fall well within the range of human color vision,” the AMS said.
“The dominant composition of a meteoroid can play an important part in the observed colors of a fireball, with certain elements displaying signature colors when vaporized.”

Skywatchers planning to head out for the celestial double feature on Tuesday night might want to put on a pot of coffee as they are best seen after about 1 a.m. local time.
This is the time when the moon is setting, meaning that there will be less light pollution in the sky during the second half of the night. It is also the time when the radiant point of the two showers starts to climb high in the sky.
The radiant point is simply the area in the sky where the meteors originate. As the radiant point moves higher in the sky, onlookers will be able to count a greater number of meteors. Both the southern Delta Aquarids and the Alpha Capricornids have a radiant point in the southern sky, close to Saturn and Jupiter, but meteors will be able to be seen streaking across all areas of the sky, not just to the south.

The only things that people will need to be able to see the two meteor showers are a clear view of the night sky and cloud-free weather conditions.
The best viewing conditions on Tuesday night are expected across the Great Lakes, the interior West and the northern Canadian Prairies.
Clouds are likely to be an issue for much of the Plains and the East Coast, but some pockets could have enough breaks in the clouds to catch part of the show.

I’m always searching for new ideas for my alien cultures. I hadn’t thought of glow-in-the-dark aliens until I stumbled across a piece by Marina Koren in the Science section of The Atlantic, published August 27l, 2019.

Two researchers, Lisa Kaltenegger and Jack O’Malley-James, astronomers at the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, believe hunting for glowing aliens might provide new clues to life on planets subjected to high levels of ultra violet radiation. Ultra violet is deadly to many, but not all, organisms on earth. (photo from medium.com).

According to scientists who study them, corals in shallow waters have found a way to guard against the worst of the sun’s rays. Fluorescent pigments in the invertebrates absorb damaging ultraviolet light, transform it, and then emit it as harmless, visible light. The instantaneous change in the wavelength of the light, from long to short, produces a brilliant show of colors, from pinks and purples to greens and reds. (The process can protect single-celled organisms that live inside the coral and supply food in exchange for shelter.)

“If such a strategy were beneficial for life on another world, it should be very likely for other life-forms to also evolve such a biofluorescent strategy,” says Kaltenegger, the director of the Sagan Institute. “If you and I would have evolved on such a world, we would probably glow, too.”

Proxima Centauri is one of our closest neighbors. It’s smaller, dimmer, and cooler than our sun, and has one planet, Proxima Centauri b, that orbits in the habitable zone, is about the same size as Earth, and might be rocky like it, too.

If Kaltenegger’s assumptions prove accurate, it could lend hope for life on other planets NASA has already identified in the habitable zone. A large fraction of exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—reside in the habitable zone of M-type stars. This type of star, the most commonly found in the universe — frequently flare, and when those ultraviolet flares strike their planets, biofluorescence could paint these worlds in beautiful colors. (medium.com) On February 22, 2017, NASA announced that its Spitzer Space Telescope had observed a system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star, TRAPPIST-1. Three of the planets are located in what’s called the habitable, or “Goldilocks” zone, but all seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun.

Unlike other extreme environments (see my blog of 3-30-20), biofluorescence is found in a number of higher life forms, including lizards, frogs. Recently, scientist discovered a biofluorescent Hawksbill Sea Turtle. (photo by National Geographic).

Jack O’Malley-James, a researcher at Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute and the study’s lead author, says: “This is a completely novel way to search for life in the universe. Just imagine an alien world glowing softly in a powerful telescope.” (medium.com)

The idea of a planet, softly glowing in the inky black of space, certainly fires my imagination. How about you?

The idea of a planet, softly glowing in the inky black of space, certainly fires my imagination. How about yo

The first few weeks of “shelter in place” didn’t bother me much. I’m married, so I’m not totally devoid of personal contact. I often talk with my close friends by phone and over Facebook, and I’ve been catching up on overdue housework and getting a fair amount of writing done. But as of this last week, the lack of face-to-face contact with my friends and my sons is wearing me down. I can’t focus to write, my exercise routine went in the toilet, and I’m suffering from an overall feeling of frustration.

I know I’m not alone in these feelings. Some people battled depression at the beginning, some weathered it well for a while, but like me, are finding their coping skills wearing thin. Until the last five years, most of my “friendships” were workplace acquaintances. My co-workers and I got to know each other pretty well, but rarely socialized outside of the workplace. I had a close-knit family—my husband and two sons, my mother and my sister, with whom I was very close. That was pretty much all I needed.

My mother passed away almost twenty years ago, and my sister a little over a year ago. My sons have moved to another city about sixty miles away, though under normal circumstances, I see them almost every weekend. But my day-to-day support circle has dwindled to just my husband. Therefore, new friends with whom I share the joys and tribulations of the writing profession have become much more important to me.

So, I found the following article by Inga Popovaite, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, University of Iowa, very interesting. It was posted by EarthSky Voices in Human World, April 23, 2020, (www.earthsky.org). (Earthsky republished it from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license).

Dr. Popovaite writes:

Understanding isolation’s effects on regular people, rather than those certified to have ‘the right stuff,’ will help prepare us for the future, whether another pandemic or interplanetary space travel.

I was supposed to travel to “Mars” this month. The plan was to stay two weeks at the Mars Desert Research Station—actually in the Utah desert—to simulate human operations on the red planet. Eight of us were to live in a two-story cylinder, 24 feet (7 meters) in diameter. We would conserve water and put on mock spacesuits every time we ventured outside. (Image via George Frey/ Getty Images News/Getty Images, reprinted on www.earthsky.org.)

But, in an ironic twist, the coronavirus pandemic and the worldwide spread of social distancing put on hold our simulation of isolation on Mars.

My main goal had been to collect data for my dissertation. I research groups in space analog environments, isolated and confined places that share characteristics with human space missions. I’m especially interested in the way gender contributes to individuals’ influence within a group and how men and women manage their emotions in isolation and confinement.

(Image via David Howells/ Corbis Historical/Getty Images, reprinted on www.earthsky.org.)

I will not go to “Mars” this spring. As I am self-isolating at home, though, I keep thinking about what lessons for future space travel the current situation can provide. Astronauts have shared tips on how to survive long periods of loneliness and isolation. Maybe in return, the experiences of millions living under lockdown can offer insights into previously understudied social effects of isolation and aid future space travel….the more researchers understand the social effects of isolation on regular people – as opposed to those certified to have “the right stuff” – the better we will be prepared for the future, whether another wave of pandemic or interplanetary space travel.

Most group behavior research in space and space-analog environments focuses on leadership, cohesion, and conflict—factors that affect teams’ performance and their ability to complete tasks. It makes sense, as astronauts are first and foremost a team of co-workers on a specific mission.

But, by focusing on the professional level, researchers overlook other potential relationships between crew members – such as family ties or intimacy. It is not a minor detail: Interpersonal relationships can certainly change dynamics of group behavior. If you’ve ever shared a workplace with a romantic couple, for instance, you probably know there can be some drama.

So far, only one married couple has been to space. Researchers suggest that couples are better equipped to handle isolation because of mutual social support. Having couples on board makes the team feel closer as a whole.

However, anecdotal evidence from China suggests that divorce rates jumped after the quarantine. This factoid suggests that it’s not clear whether average real-world couples are better suited for isolation than single individuals.

Now, researchers like me have an opportunity to understand how couple dynamics influence life in isolation – including sex and sexuality, questions that NASA is not eager to address. While pregnancy can be dangerous, intimacy and sexuality can improve emotional and mental well-being over long periods of social isolation…. Men and women have the same general goal – to survive the pandemic and its aftermath – but they experience the quarantine differently. In most middle-class families, the traditional work-home divide is now gone, as both partners work from home. But women are still likely to spend more time running the household, including child and elderly care.

While at this stage there are no screaming toddlers in space, space-analog research shows similar trends of women taking care of other crew members. The widespread lockdown could allow researchers to get more data on how social norms and expectations about each gender—for example, who is supposed to offer more emotional support—influence behavior in mixed-gender groups in highly uncertain and stressful situations.

There is no doubt that coronavirus-caused social isolation will take a toll on individual and collective mental health. But staying home saves lives. Maybe this experience will also provide lessons on how to plan for future cities and social life on another planet.

As writers, we draw from our own experiences, even when creating fantasy or alien characters. So use this difficult time in your life to explore your own emotions and reactions, and those of the people around you, to lend more depth to your characters in crisis.