Happy New Year!

I would like to take a moment to wish a very happy New Year to everyone, on behalf of the scientific community and indeed Science itself.

Another year has passed us by. Is it just me, or was this year shorter than the previous ones? (This is of course impossible. If the rotational period of the Earth had shortened, we would have burned to death by now. It is merely a New Year's jest that I was making. I apologise if I have misled you.)

No, the year is no shorter, it is still 365.2425 solar days long. Time, however, has slipped away from us. Or rather it has been stolen. Not by the ever-increasingly demanding technological devices, nor social commitments or working habits. No, it is the Time Bandits that have robbed us - an initiative spearheaded by Terry Gilliam wherein he would kidnap and indoctrinate small children and even smaller dwarves into a band of thieves that would attempt to steal temporal energy through a large pneumatic device known as a time-sink.

The use of this temporal energy was unknown for quite some time (as the Time Bandits themselves utilised the device to slow us down in our discovery of what exactly they were doing. Pretty crafty, if I may say so.) It is now known that the dwarves, a vain group to say the least, used the stolen time to rejuvenate their ravaged faces, making them youthful and almost childlike. The children, as it always is, were tired of being so young and never allowed to make their own decisions, such as when to go to bed, or how many prostitutes were 'excessive' in a temporal orgy. As such, the children used the temporal energy to age themselves to adulthood. Sadly, the unaccounted-for side effect was that their bodies did not grow, only age. As you can see, this became something of a problem, as the children would become dwarves, and the dwarves children. A never-ending cycle began, in which more and more time would need to be stolen in order to feed the ever-growing vanity of the Time Bandits.

Eventually, the Time Bandits would run into their future (or past - it was impossible to tell, as they eventually all looked the same) selves, often the child version meeting its dwarven parallel and being both disgusted and slightly aroused at the same time (as is stipulated in the Kevorkian paradox - that is, a person will always be both repulsed and sexually attracted to a version of themselves, whether temporal, clone, evil twin or robotic.)

In an ultimate act of both vanity and desire, the Time Bandits - both past and future - merged together to create a single entity. This did not turn out so well for either party, and the result was an incredibly wrinkled and giant baby who grew younger with age, until he disappeared into nothingness (or technically, a fetus, and then nothing.) The backward-but-also-forward aging baby did (or will do, depending on which point in time you live) a great many things for the universe, including the creation of the Earth itself. This may seem like a paradox, considering that the Time Bandits who became the baby would first have to feed off the Earth's temporal energy, but really, you're just not thinking hard enough about time travel.

The time-baby would eventually merge with the universe itself, which accounts for why the Milky Way is so heavily favoured by the universe. To this day, speaking in baby-talk will provide good fortune in your life, which is why some people insist upon babbling in made-up words at all times. Those people, however, are batshit crazy.

There have been many stages of the universal time-baby. The earliest known period was the gaseous one. Through an explosive force of excessive magnitude, this gas was released and the galaxies and planets began to form. The time-baby grew cranky, however, and there was much destruction. Comets rained down, stars became supernova and cosmic radiation was sent in all directions. Scientists have concluded that this is probably why the dinosaurs became extinct. The time-baby never liked dinosaurs. They tasted funny.

This is not the last of the time-baby's impact, however. One day, the time-baby will grow hungry, and will feed upon the Milky Way. This will be the end of our planet, and perhaps our race. To this end, scientists have worked on two different projects. The first is a ship, designed to send our species to other habitable planets, in order to prolong our existence. The second is a weapon of immense destruction, using ambient energy found on the outskirts of wormholes and temporal rifts to start a chain reaction and generate such an enormous explosion that would send the time-baby into a deep, deep slumber. This weapon is, of course, known only as The Pacifier.

As is tradition, we send twelve of our oldest living males into the cosmos beyond, via space capsule, as a sacrifice to the time-baby, also known as Baby New Year. It is thought that the residual time energy inside of the geriatrics will postpone our destruction by another year.

Also, old people do not smell so good, and they are whiners.

So, until next time, Happy New Year! I hope that you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!

Acceleration Xmas = Force

Sorry, that was a typographical error made by my new research assistant Ruddiger, who is transcribing this new web log. The heading SHOULD read Acceleration x Mass = Force. That's Newton's second law. What ended up being the heading is almost a Christmas joke. And we all know there is no room for jokes in science. Apart from the laughboratory, but that's more of a facility than a room.

Getting back to science, however, I thought I should set the record straight about something. Science gets a lot of flack, especially around Christmas time, from organised religion. I feel this is unfair, and so I will attempt to straighten things out regarding this Jesus fellow.

Some people make him out to be some kind of miracle worker. He was not the messiah, nor was he a very naughty boy. He was an ordinary man - sure, he had some nice ideas about peace and love and that sort of thing, which people took a bit too far, but really he was just an average guy.

The biggest 'miracle' he's supposedly responsible for is being resurrected after his crucifixion. It sounds impressive, sure, but it's nothing we couldn't do with some stem cells and a few years to iron out the kinks. Honestly, though, Jesus didn't actually die from his crucifixion. 'What doesn't kill you,' goes the old adage, 'only makes you stronger'. Jesus was the son of a carpenter, Joseph. He helped his father out around the shop, and was somewhat accident prone (if historical evidence is to be believed). Statistically speaking, young Jesus was bound to nail a few planks of wood to himself by accident. In fact, it most likely happened quite often. Perhaps several times a week. As a result, he built up an immunity to it, and so when his crucifixion came, it was no problem for Jesus.

Now, some may point out that the legend states that his side was pierced with a spear. First, the spear actually missed all of his vital organs, so it wasn't such an impressive wound anyway. Secondly, the 'spear' referred to is actually the mythical 'Spear of Destiny', whose existence is debatable. So therefore, he may not have actually been stabbed with this spear at all. Hardly impressive to be 'stabbed' by a spear that may not even exist.

Jesus was then taken to a tomb, dressed in fresh robes, and left for three days. Any survivalist will tell you that fresh robes are an invaluable source of improvised bandaging (although whether questionably-existent spear wounds need to be bandaged is debatable itself). Plus, he had three days bed rest, which should have been more than enough time for him to be feeling like his old self again. As the tomb was sealed, it created a dark environment, perfect for resting, and due to the nature of Jerusalemic stone, it created a hyperbaric oxygen chamber which would have sped up his healing rate even more.

Once he had been released from his 'tomb', however, he was found to be quite alive indeed. He spoke with his disciples, who insisted upon poking his wound (inadvisable, as any medical doctor will tell you) and subsequently 'ascended to heaven'. This is an inaccurate report, however. Jesus merely disappeared, due to a paradox. As the Spear of Destiny may or may not exist, Jesus may or may not have died. This created a "Schrodinger's Jesus" paradox that eventually resolved itself by removing all traces of Jesus from existence.

So, as you can see, both science AND religion are right, in a certain sense. Jesus certainly did exist, but at the same time he never existed at all and it is a positively ludicrous suggestion that he did.

Some time ago, however, a rogue Christian from another time line tried to cheat things by travelling back in time and artificially inseminating Jesus' mother Mary, thus creating Jesus after all. The universe will eventually catch up with this transgression by immaculately conceiving the anti-Christ, which will bring about the end of existence through an apocalyptic battle on an enormous scale, creating so many paradoxes that the universe collapses in on itself and all life ceases to be.

That probably won't happen for a while, though.

So, until next time, happy holidays and a merry Christmas. Stay tuned in the new year for more ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!

The Long Kiss Mumbai

My research assistant Simon, who I have grown attached to (with the use of stem cells) is leaving for India today. This saddens me, yet it is not the first time one of my scientific creations has journeyed to the sub-continent.

My first creation's disappearance was a shameful one. I had been commissioned by the British Government to create an assassin droid, for the purposes of travelling back in time and quelling a rebellion that took place in India, in 1915. The British Government wished to re-establish their empire. Or rather, to have never lost it to begin with. I think most of this desire was motivated by their dislike of paying so much for tea. In any case, I designed the first robot built specifically for assassination. It was a masterpiece. Thin, slender arms, but powerful all the same. Concealed weaponry, but a friendly and believable appearance. It was capable of blending in to human society perfectly, staying undetected until it was meant to strike. If there was one flaw, it was perhaps the optical sensors, which were always rather weak.

The Galvanised Assassin Droid Human Imitator was perfectly designed, or so I thought. Sending the robot back in time required some complex physics, and unfortunately resulted in the robot appearing naked (this is standard time travel technology, as fibers get caught in the machine.) According to reports, the robot gathered a poorly-woven sheet and covered itself in it. This was basic social camouflage, but the people of India interpreted it as a sign of protest against their British then-rulers, whose economy relied heavily on the trade of cotton garments.

My robot used this social following to get closer to his target, a lawyer by the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Striking in the dead of night, the target was eliminated, but not before a brief conversation ensued. My robot, having never been programmed with a philosophy, was quickly and, perhaps violently, converted to a new way of thinking. He assumed the mantle of Mahatma Gandhi and returned to his followers, hoping to use them to escape the guards in Mumbai, then return to the present and postulate on this new philosophical development.

He was, however, surprised by his followers' passion, who demanded more social protest, eventually asking for his leadership in their new movement. Largely by accident, Mahatma Gandhi became the very figure that he was sent to eliminate. This, of course, was quite a considerable fuck-up on my part, and so I was forced to rectify the situation by sending another assassin droid, the Galvanised Obliteration Droid and Social Extremist - this time programmed with the philosophy of Hindu radicalism to ensure that he would not be converted into a more pacifistic philosophy.

Gandhi's last words were said to be "Oh God." It is widely believed that he was actually killed before finishing them. Some speculate that he was in fact saying "Oh, GODSE" (referring to GODSE, the new droid that was sent to kill him.) The history books, of course, would have you believe otherwise.

All in all, the mission was successful. Apart from the whole 'destabilising the British economy and essentially destroying their empire' thing, I mean. Gandhi was assassinated (twice, technically) and I was compensated with five hundred Great British Pounds, which is now worth about twenty Euros.

I hope you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!

Gorilla Radio

Once more, my friends, I apologise for the delay in posting updates of my scientific adventures. I have been severely handicapped by my lack of a competent assistant. You see, I still possess an assistant, it is just that he is no longer as helpful as he once was.

Recently, I have been studying zoology and experimenting with gorillas. They are fascinating creatures, whose genomes are only 1.7% different from ours. Almost all of them share the same blood-type (B) which is handy, as my latest donor has suffered from massive blood loss (thanks to a fortunate typographical error by the investigating officer, I have been cleared of all suspicion in regards to my recent study of hemoglobins, and the cause of death has been attributed to an attack by a vicious band of Hemo-Goblins).

So fascinating are they, that I have conducted an experiment in consciousness-swapping, involving a gorilla named Stacy and my research assistant Winslow. Winslow is happy, strolling around on his knuckles and occasionally feasting upon the lice that I have strewn around the laboratory. Stacy is less so, as she continually drops test tubes, beakers and tissue samples - her gargantuan hands are not meant for gripping fine objects, and this has lead to many explosions in the chemical leak chambers, and several chemical leaks in the explosion room. It's a fucking shambles.

As such, I have been far too busy cleaning up the mess made by Stacy (both the broken test tubes and her accursed fecal matter, which she insists on leaving in any part of my laboratory not intended to contain gorilla feces). I have had little time to blog.

Now, however, I am free once more. Stacy has been shot by my manly friend Col. Blackheart, a big game hunter who has now, he informs me, turned to hunting the deadliest game of all. Whilst he insisted that the deadliest game of all was man, I showed him a new project of mine that involved cross-breeding scorpions with laser-guided missiles. He has quickly changed his mind about hunting, and is apparently far too busy catching up on all the episodes of Lost that he TiVo'd whilst he was hunting zebra fish in the Amazonian River.

So, now that I am free to blog about my own devices (which include the digital can-opener and the free-range assassin droid), I can tell you more about scientific histories, and the great rivalries therein.

Not many people know this, but Guglielmo Marconi, the man commonly referred to as the inventor of the radio, was the arch-nemesis of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the man who invented wind currents and Morse code. This was an impressive rivalry, as Marconi was born two years after Morse had died. This is not, however, as impossible as some skeptics might think.

Morse did briefly experiment with electromancy, and this is how he was able to sustain himself for such a long time after his supposed 'death'. He used electric currents to reanimate his recently deceased corpse, whilst himself being deceased. An impressive feat, and one that was lauded by the scientific community. But his Nobel Prize was a posthumous one, and thus he was not elligible for any of the prize money.

His subsequent rampage through the streets of Stockholm is widely documented, although at the time most believed him to be Frankenstein's monster rather than the reanimated corpse of Samuel F. B. Morse. It is through this pure rage that he was able to keep himself reanimated for such a long time. His earlier invention, Morse code, was upstaged by Marconi's radiotelegraph system, which Morse viewed as 'showboating' and 'witchcraft'.

Ironically, or perhaps not, Marconi's first radio transmission was simply the letter S in Morse code, repeated over and over again. Morse intended to sue Marconi for copyright infringement, and perhaps patent infringement as well. Morse was further enraged when he found that, due to him being legally (and medically) dead, the patent rights had been passed to his second wife Sarah Elizabeth Griswold (who, it was well known, was an absolute bitch).

Morse's rage eventually subsided when he realised that Marconi's invention was more useful than he had originally thought, and he discovered the soothing wonders of smooth jazz. This was, however, a belated peace accord, as smooth jazz was not invented until the 1960's - roughly 59 years after the invention of the radio and the beginning of their subsequent feud.

I hope that I have enlightened the masses and entertained the volumes. That's a little physics joke for you, there. So, until next time, I hope you have enjoyed another one of my ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE!

A Brief History of Time, Space and Urine

Space is curved. We all know this, it is common knowledge. Many theories of time travel rely upon this curvature, and indeed an entire branch of science was founded specifically to deal with the curviness of space. It really is quite curvy. The majority of empty space, known as Blank Space, has a curvature of roughly one quarter of a full circle, sometimes ranging to one third. Certain pockets of space, known as such due to the large amount of space lint that is generally located within such an area, are extraordinarily curvier than normal. These pockets of space possess a quality known as triple cyclicity, essentially stating that their curvature is that of three full circles. This is, of course, physically impossible, which makes it all the more interesting. Time and space actually folds back on itself, and then folds a second time, making it possible to experience past, present and future all at the same time.

This triple cyclic temporality exists in places known as Killing fields (do not let the name fool you, it was merely discovered by Professor Henry Killing, who was, ironically enough, a psychotic mass-murderer who paused his homicidal rampages periodically to survey astrological phenomenon with his razor-tipped telescope.) It is in one of these Killing fields that I have been in for the past nine months or so, which explains my temporal disappearance and lack of updates to my rather anaemic web log. I have not, however, stayed there by choice.

Whilst was pursuing my evil doppelganger, who shall remain nameless in order to protect both his reputation and mine, I was tackled into the entry point of a wormhole which just so happened to have been located on the peak of a very tall cliff. Whilst falling into this wormhole and emerging out into a Killing field had saved my very life, it also imprisoned me, and my doppelganger, into a seemingly inescapable temporal vortex. Setting aside our differences, (which were few, as he was my twin), we worked together and designed a device of such magnificent complexity that it was sure to rend asunder both time and space, and set us free. The device failed.

We tried a simpler device, which was essentially a large catapult. This plan also failed, and I was now short a doppelganger. As I sat and thought, attempting to pick the strands of raw meat from my teeth, an even more brilliant idea occurred to me - or rather, it would occur to me fifteen minutes in the future. As time had folded back on itself, I began working on the device two days ago and so it was already completed before I’d thought of it. This worked to my advantage, obviously, as I could quickly emerge from the vortex and resume my previous work, although I can also remember waiting in the vortex for about seven years after I’d thought of the device, so I can’t be sure of how long I was really there for.

Chronotomics is a confusing branch of science, even more so if you end up practicing it before you’ve begun studying it, but it has certain perks - one of which being that you can travel back in time and see long-dead pets as if for the first time. They will also urinate on you, as you have not house-trained them yet. You may also visit friends and relatives, who will also urinate on you, for obvious reasons. There is a surprisingly large amount of urine involved in time travel, which is rarely mentioned in science fiction novels. I am unsure as to why.

Gambling on races and events of which you already know the outcome will not work, as the Time Police will put a stop to this before you have even considered the idea, and you will be severely fined before you were even born, which, with compound interest, accumulates to such immense debt that paradoxically causes many scientists to travel back in time in order to bet on races that they already know the outcome of. The Time Police do not like this happening, as it tends to make the universe explode, and is usually considered to be responsible for the decline of gambling in the world of today.

My pilot, Oedipus Rex, had apparently become an alcoholic in my absence. This was disconcerting to all involved, as a drunk pilot is not a very good one, even when he possesses incredible skill. In order to sober him up, I had to drain all of his blood and run a saline solution through his kidneys, before replacing the blood with Ribena. I do not think Rex knows this has happened, and he is unable to see the colour purple.

In all other respects, work continues as usual. Genetic mutations are performed on orphans, who, I assure you, have given me their informed consent whilst munching on bowls of oatmeal. The reanimated corpse of Abraham Lincoln has demanded that Servo, my robotic assistant, be emancipated. I have told Zombie Lincoln that this is unlikely to happen as Servo is programmed specifically to reject any form of freedom, and to get back on the table, as I am not yet finished with his lobotomy.

Due to temporal anomalies and the attacks of undead Presidential figures, I cannot say when next I will update this web log. What I can say, however, is that as long as there is science, so too will there be scientists to ‘blog’ about it (that is, until the robotic uprising of the year three thousand and forty six, at which point there will be robots to blog about science and the majestic splendour of President Zombie Lincoln.)