Spring Cleaning - Blog Style

You may have noticed the blog template is different. You may not. The new template is still a work in progress (I'm working on the graphics still), but comments on the general style are welcome. The general changes are:

• Slightly bigger default font. I thought something was up... it turned out the previous template set all fonts to 90% size. It should now be at 100% of your default font size (as set by your web browser).
• The sidebar is now on the right.
• Same general ye oldde paper background, but the posts are now in a light coloured box to make them stand out.
• Titles are bigger and green.

I'm also editing my old posts, to make sure the formatting is consistent. Some RSS readers may see this as multiple new posts. If this happens to you, don't panic... I'm not really posting 100 new posts in one day.

Inspired by Nature: Rise of the Planimals

Animals with plant features, plant-animal hybrids or planimals* are a popular idea. Who doesn't love a photosynthesising animal? Such a creature might arise naturally, through magic or genetic engineering. This is a creation that fits nicely into both the fantasy and science fiction genres.

Nature isn't as fond of the idea, but it's not outside the realms of possibility. The green sea slug is able to photosynthesise, having stolen the chlorophyll-making genes from local plantlife.

This post welcomes our new planimal overlords.

How Photosynthesis Works

The chemical reactions are complicated, but all you really need to know is chlorophyll absorbs the energy from sunlight and that energy is used to make glucose. Life is one big sugar rush if you're a plant.

Green sea slugs can produce chlorophyll because the genes ended up in their DNA. No one knows for sure how, but retroviruses usually get the blame when genes start skipping between species**.

This is the easy part of becoming a planimal. It wouldn't be hard to engineer an animal with chlorophyll genes.

Where Photosynthesis Works

The next part is trickier, and even the slugs haven't figured this one out completely. Photosynthesis takes place in the chloroplasts. These are little structures found within the cell. The problem is chloroplasts aren't made by the cell's DNA - they have their own genetic materiel***.

This is more challenging than simply producing a chemical. It'd take time to evolve a mechanism for passing chloroplasts to the next generation.

The slugs have yet to do this. Instead, young slugs take chloroplasts from their food. These chloroplasts end up embedded in the lining of their digestive system (which is large and near the surface in the sea slugs, allowing sunlight to reach the chloroplasts).

This is a challenge for more advanced planimals, as their digestive systems don't usually see sunshine. A human planimal (a pluman?) using this method would have to evolve a way to move the chloroplasts out of the digestive system and into the skin cells.

Any planimal might eventually evolve a way to pass on the chloroplasts to their offspring. The most likely method is passing on a chloroplast in the egg cells (this is how mitochondria are passed on in animals).

Surface Area and Leaves

You have your chloroplasts and your chlorophyll genes. What's next?

Sunbathing. To make the most of the sun, you need a large surface area. This is why plants have flat leaves (or sometimes flattened stems). The green sea slugs have a flattened body, for maximum surface area.

A planimal is likely to develop a flat body or parts of the body that can be extended to photosynthesise.

Surface area isn't everything of course. There are times when surface area has to take a backseat. Cacti don't usually have a big surface area, because keeping in moisture is a bigger challenge in the desert than maximising sun exposure. A planimal might sacrifice photosynthetic efficiency because they need a more streamline shape to escape predators.

The Need to Eat

How efficient does photosynthesising need to be? The sea slugs can last without any food, when given sufficient light. Not all planimals would need this level of efficiency. Perhaps they only need to survive for short periods when food supplies are low.

It should be kept in mind that sea slugs and plants do not generate body heat. Humans generate a ton of heat and use up energy keeping their brains going (one of the downsides of intelligence). It would be much harder for a pluman to generate enough energy than it would be for a plant or a green sea slug of the same size.

Regardless of how efficient your planimal is, it will need some food for nutrients.

Sun Damage

Animals are not as good as plants when it comes to UV protection. The reason for this is simple: when an animal is over-exposed, it moves into the shade. Plants can't do this - both because they can't move and because they need the sun exposure.

A newly evolved planimal (or a poorly thought out genetically engineered planimal) has a problem. It lacks the enhanced UV protection of a plant, yet needs to stay in the sun.

This problem will sort itself out in the long term, as natural selection will favour those with better UV protection. In the short term, a new planimal might have increased risk of skin cancer and other sun-damage ailments. Delicate structures, like eyes, can be particularly susceptible to sun damage.

The 'I Skipped to the End' Summary

Five planimal facts:

• Your planimal needs genes to make chlorophyll and a supply of chloroplasts.
• They'll need a large surface area to really make a go of it.
• Warm-blooded animals may struggle to make enough energy, even with a large surface area.
• UV is just as dangerous to plants and planimals as it is to everything else.
• Planimals are cuddly. Have you hugged a planimal today?

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* The internet agrees it's a word. That's good enough for me.

** So why hasn't a retrovirus given me chlorophyll genes? It's not fair.

*** If you're wondering why they have their own genetic materiel, this is explained by endosymbiont theory. The theory goes that chloroplasts were once free-living single-celled thingies****. Somehow or other, they ended up living inside other cells as symbionts. This continued to the point that chloroplasts were no longer free-living and had become part of the cell.

Mitochondria are also endosymbionts. They appear in both plants and animals (and a number of other things). But we're not worrying about those, because they're not needed for photosynthesis.

**** Not the technical, biological term... but if you spend any time around biologists, you'll realise the thingies, gear-sticks and dongles outweigh the technical terms. Scientists have slang too. It's a pity more stories about scientists don't use slang. That'd be far funnier than most of the techno-babble people write for scientists.

[ Inspired by Nature Index ]

Other Worlds and Pepsi

The Drink

I can't say I like Pepsi, but it's not their fault. I don't like the taste of cola drinks*.

...but I can get behind them offering people money. Many ideas have gone up for voting, and the top few get money. John Klima, editor of Electric Velocipede, has an proposal up for voting. The idea is a magazine called 'Other Worlds' to promote under-represented writers in speculative fiction.

John has years of experience editing EV, and it won a Hugo, so he's got the business and editing experience to actually make it go**. You can vote using your Facebook account or by signing up (all you need is an email address). The plus side of Facebook is they make it easy for you to share it with your friends list.

Vote Here: Other Worlds

Voting ends on March 31.

The Bubbles

I was surprised that I only heard about this yesterday. It doesn't look like it's been publicised much on the blogosphere. This makes me a bit uncomfortable, because the whole Norman Spinrad*** thing was very well publicised.

I've commented before that I think we can end up promoting the bad over the good, because it makes for more exciting sounding news (or it gives us a good trainwreck to watch). Though we can learn valuable lessons from the bad things, the good things are what actually make things change. There does need to be a balance of discussing both.

If the blogosphere pulled together, I think we could do a whole lot better than being the 175th**** idea.



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* I do like cola flavoured sweets. Fizzy cola bottles for the win!

** Some of the other plans people have tried over the years, though well-intentioned, fell down because of lack of experience of the one planning it. A magazine is a business and it's harder than people think.

*** I keep wanting to write Spinrad as Spinard. Having read a number of comments/posts now, I realise I'm not the only one. I feel better about my poor name spelling abilities now.

**** The rank as I write this post. However, it is higher than it was when I voted yesterday.

Writing Diary: Official Birthdays

It's my birthday and also time for a writing diary post.

Feeling Official

Recently I've been feeling very official. I filled out the form to register as self-employed (something you're supposed to do in the UK). They claimed I'd get an email response, through the response looked suspiciously like a piece of paper sent by snail mail. I'm either hallucinating or the tax office hasn't quite got the e part of email down.

I was also sent the bill for my National Insurance contributions. Funnily enough, that was processed much faster than my original registering.

Which means I'm officially a writer, as far as the tax office is concerned, and will be filling out my first tax return* this year. I don't earn enough to actually pay taxes, but filling it out'll be good practise.

I had an additional dose of officialness after Cross Genres #16 arrived. It has an ISBN, making it the first book I've entered on LibraryThing where I'm an author.

Unfortunately, LibraryThing doesn't handle multi-author works properly. It lists the book under one author, rather than under all the authors. This means I don't have an official author page on LibraryThing yet... bah.

But I created a "Things I'm In, Yay!" category in my library instead.

Sales and Gubbins

My sale news isn't news if you've been stalking my bibliography. Bards and Sages Quarterly accepted 'Clockwork Fly', a piece of steampunk flash fiction. This happened awhile back, but I haven't had a writing diary post since then.

I've also been told that my poem 'The Dog's Complaint', will be included in the first Every Day Poets' anthology.

On Birthdays

I have caramel cake and a sparklie balloon. I also fired off this confetti bomb thing, which has sparklified the whole room. I know how to birthday...



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* I know in some countries, you have to fill out a tax return every year regardless. In the UK, most jobs don't require one and it's all handled automatically. It's only if you have a complicated tax situation, like self-employment, where a tax return is needed.

Making African Science Fiction Invisible

The blogosphere (and twitosphere) have been rumbling about the recent article in Asimov's Science Fiction. Article-writer Norman Spinrad made some zany proclamations such as "So, for now at least, and in the apparent absence of a significant body of science fiction written by born and bred Africans, this Caucasian American is probably the closest thing there is or has been to an African science fiction writer"*.

He seems to be basing his arguments on the old rule: if I haven't heard of it, it doesn't exist. Or the modern internet version: if I haven't Googled it, it doesn't exist.

I mention Google, because I was curious about what would come up if I Googled 'African Science Fiction Author'. Number one was a 2008 forum thread on the Asimov's Science Fiction forum**. Though not a lengthy thread, commenters mentioned:

• Chimurenga, an African publication which ran special issues for African speculative fiction (#12 and #13).
• Kenyan writer John Rugoiyo Gichuki, who won a BBC play competition with a science fiction piece.
• Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian-American speculative fiction writer.

It's clear that there are closer people than his Caucasian American author. Spinrad just didn't do his research to find out about them.

I suspect the point he hoped to make was that people should get out more and write about more places. The point he actually made was that white Americans/Europeans should write about more places, because the people from those places couldn't.

Would it be nice if more people set stories outside Europe and North America? Certainly. What isn't nice is to put the stories of white European/American authors on a pedestal, while ignoring stories by the people from those other countries***. You aren't experiencing the world if all you do is look. You have to listen to the voices of the people there too.



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* There were others things too, but I'm focusing on one point for the sake of brevity. Worth noting that the Caucasian American in question is entirely American. He doesn't have any African ancestry.

** It's not a name coincidence. Those are indeed the official forums for the magazine publishing Spinrad's article. And yes, it is amusing, in a twisty kind of way.

*** He discounts black authors who were born in Europe and North America as not being African in any way. This means they can be disregarded as 'the closest thing there is or has been to an African science fiction writer' in favour of a white author. It shouldn't need to be said that this has problems.

Edited to Add (11Mar2010): I'm not going to attempt to link to every response on this issue, but here are a few other posts of interest.

N. K. Jemisin focused on the discounting African-Americans point. Nick Mamatas wrote a longer piece addressing many of the points. Rose Fox at Genreville talked about the colonial attitudes. Charles Tan discusses it at the World SF blog.

The Race of Fu Manchu

I liked Fu Manchu as a child for all the wrong reasons. I didn't understand what was going on (not entirely anyway), so I filled in the gaps.

One of those gaps was race. Mr Fu and his minions were strange looking people. Strange in the sense that no race on Earth looked like them. My child self assumed they were an invented fantasy race of humans from another dimension.

It turns out they were actually white actors in yellowface. Back in the day, they didn't hire East Asian actors. Instead, they tortured white actors to try and make them look East Asian. Methods included wearing elastic bands around their heads to pull their eyes out of shape and wearing prosthetic eye-folds.

At the time, everyone raved about how awesomely realistic it looked*. I didn't know this as a child. It was an Emperor's New Clothes moment as I saw them for what they were - people who looked very peculiar.

Despite this misunderstanding, I still think my imaginary alternate universe version of Fu Manchu had a good thing going. There's no reason why fantasy humans have to look like real world humans. A bit of creativity in appearance could make some interesting people.

My version of reality was much cooler than the truth.



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* Nowadays, people openly mock how ridiculously un-Asian the people looked. It was the by-product of a strange kind of racism, where they sort of wanted people to be other races in things, but didn't want to hire actors who were those races.

Steampunk Story at Crossed Genres

Crossed Genres launched its steampunk issue today, which includes one of my short stories. Yay!

Story Link: Whirligig Fingers and Globular Thumbs