of armageddon news.
After cometary impacts, biological disasters are among the most common causes given for the fall of mankind.
Our ability to create life is reportedly one step closer according to an article in the NY Times here.
This is my favorite part:
“But there are concerns that synthetic biology could be used to make pathogens, or that errors by well-intended scientists could produce organisms that run amok.”
That’s the well-intended scientists. They never even mentioned the evil ones.
I’ve been a science fiction fan since at least 1963. That year saw the original airing of Fireball XL5a super-marionation SF kids show.
In trying to date my history as a fan, Fireball is the first thing with science fiction elements I can put a solid chronological marker on. I know I was exposed to other science fiction elements before ‘63, but these are vague memories of indeterminate date.
Considering that I watched every single episode (more than once), Fireball is as good a place to start as any.
Forty five plus years later I’m still a fan. In recent years I’ve begun expressing my interest through a website devoted to a favorite author and my pulp magazine collection.
As time goes by I’ll be commenting on various things related to science fiction here. For the time being, I’m going to be posting some images from my website and maybe saying a thing or two about those images.
To start, I offer this:
Science Fiction was first published in 1939 by Columbia. It enjoyed a relatively long run although not a continuous one. It was merged with Future Fiction, reissued under its own name on two separate occasions and eventually ended up as The Original Science Fiction Stories, which eventually folded in 1960. The magazine was edited by Charles D. Hornig and this first cover was created by the inestimable Frank R. Paul.
The background image is from the Spitzer Space Telescope and is a composite of a stellar nursery named DR21 in the constellation Cygnus. DR21 is home to one of the most massive new stars ever seen, one that is more than 100,000 times brighter than Sol.
More images combining NASA space telescope images (Hubble and Spitzer) and science fiction and fantasy magazines can be seen on my site Rimworlds. (If you just want to see the pretty pictures, go here. Otherwise, select the Gallery link when you get to the front page.) The majority of that site is devoted to the Rimworlds Concordance Project chronicling the Rim Worlds stories of science fiction author A. Bertram Chandler.
