6 ms·
I had read this before. It's horrifying. How do you stop the chain reaction of proteins folding into lower energy states? It's not like a bacteria or virus;
by Xcelerate 5y ago
I had read this before. It's horrifying. How do you stop the chain reaction of proteins folding into lower energy states? It's not like a bacteria or virus; it's more like ice-nine, except instead of water it's your brain.
- adamhp 5y agoThis really puts it into perspective...
- anotha1 5y agoTo save someone else the time, the "ice-nine" referred to in this comment is fictional.
- fao_ 5y agoTo be fair, "Cat's Cradle" is a famous work of science-fiction
- anotha1 5y agoFor which generation?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nitrogen 5y agoFor a new generation of 10000 every day. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- fao_ 5y agoAre there many noteworthy modern science fiction authors that hold up to the Asimov / Clarke / Lem generation? I would think someone reasonably versed in science fiction would have at least heard of it -- I'm a "zoomer" and I have.
- shkkmo 5y agoWe have a number of very good modern science fiction authors that easily rival them. While none of them may be as iconic, I think that has more to do with competition in the genre and breadth of the market.
- omgwtfbbq 5y agoName some? My experience with authors like Cixin Liu and some contemporaries is that they are unreadable, this could just be bad translations in Liu's case but I'm not at all convinced modern writers rival the classical greats in SciFi.
- Sophistifunk 5y agoFWIW either the writing or translation seems to get better as 3BP progresses.
- shkkmo 5y agoI found myself similarly underwhelmed by Cixin Liu given all the good things I'd heard. I'm horrible at remembering names, but three of my favorites off the top of my head are Peter Watts, Neil Stephenson and Kim Stanley Robison. I've generally had decent luck finding new authors by just by seeing who gets Hugo and Nebula nominations.
- FpUser 5y agoI read a lot including Sci-Fi and did not find any who are close. Does not mean they do not exist. Most likely not as famous and not exposed to wide public.
- intergalplan 5y agoThe actual writing from a lot of the golden age and New Wave sci-fi authors is... OK at best, with a few exceptions (Bradbury's distinctively poetic and dreamlike prose, for example). Tons of modern sci-fi authors write stories with more literary merit, better clarity, better-conveyed action, more believable characters and dialog, and so on. The improvements there are really obvious when reading, say, an early 70s The Hugo Winners or collections of 1950s stories, and then a 90s The New Hugo Winners. Whether their ideas and worlds stand up to Asimov and company, or happen to be appealing to a particular reader, is another matter, but the command of writing itself is overall better, I'd say. I don't think a modern author would have much luck getting novels or stories in major magazines published with Asimov-tier dialog & characterization, for example. Plus those eras were full of tons of garbage, in addition to what we remember. New Wave (60s and 70s) in particular tended to some very special interests that I don't think have held up too well, with some exceptions. A lot of that era's stories are very in love with sex & drugs and not in a way that really translates into a good tale. Most of those aren't exactly well-beloved these days. On the flip side, there are definitely some modern sci-fi authors that are among the most famous but have some serious problems putting together an entirely good novel. I'll refrain from naming names but among them is maybe the only author whose book has ever made me mad at them for wasting such a good idea, setting, and opening, by just having no damn follow-through and getting super lazy in the last 1/3 or so. They're probably a top-5 sci fi name, among active authors today. But I stand by the overall quality level being notably higher on at least some dimensions, and it's even true for that guy.
- intrasight 5y agoSeminal work of sci-fi, I highly recommend if for no other reason than to get the ice-nine references you'll inevitably come across.
- Xcelerate 5y agoThe funny thing is when I posted that, I hadn’t heard of Cat’s Cradle; I was just familiar with what the fictional ice-nine referred to.
- Izkata 5y agoHowever, "ice IX" is real and distinct from "Ice-nine", so clarity is worthwhile. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX Also I only know of Ice-nine because of fun facts like this, didn't even know the name of the story let alone have read it.
- giantg2 5y agoBleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too.
- fao_ 5y ago> Bleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too. I remember reading that nothing but incineration would work in the context of Food-and-Mouth disease, but it seems modern techniques in brain surgery do use bleach. Interesting. Essentially, the only thing that works is disintegrating the prions. You can't wash them off, since you're simply washing them into the water cycle. You can't deal with them in a way that preserves other biological matter, since they are proteins, disintegrating them means disintegrating any other proteins in that area.
- AbrahamParangi 5y agoPrions aren’t new, they’re probably as old as proteins- and they haven’t ice-nined the world yet.
- HDMI_Cable 5y agoTo be fair, neither did ice-nine until somebody decided to eat it.
- Metacelsus 5y agoGene-drive to edit wild animals so that they don't express PRNP (or express a stabilized version)
- titanomachy 5y agoStabilized maybe, it’s probably necessary for something even if we don’t know what yet.