jwz

The fluid dynamics of swimming jellyfish have provided a plausible mechanism for a once-wild notion: that marine animals, hidden from sight and ignored by geophysicists, may stir Earth's oceans with as much force as its wind and tides. Called induced fluid drift, it involves the tendency of liquid to "stick" to a body as it moves through water -- and a little bit of drift could add up quickly on a global scale.

That the mere motion of animals could play a profound role in water-column commingling was once considered absurd. The sea would surely absorb the force of a flapping fin, to say nothing of a phytoplankton's flagellae. It was a basic principle of friction, applied to water.

But in recent years, this consensus has sprung some leaks. When added up, winds and tides don't quite provide enough energy to account for the amount of water-mixing observed in the seas. In 2004, a study found that a school of fish could cause as much turbulence as a storm. Other researchers soon suggested that ocean swimmers could account for the gap. Soon after that, ocean physicists measured enormous turbulence generated by a swarm of krill, a crustacean considered too small to have meaningful mixing effects.

warren_ellis

Happy new year. May this one be kinder, funnier and more interesting than the last.

Photo by my good friend Brian Wood, who’s away with his family tonight. My family’s asleep, and I’m sitting here with whisky in the glass and Michael Cashmore’s SLEEP ENGLAND on the speakers, brushing the last traces of a brief snow flurry off my shaven head, and thinking about the future. Annual tradition, maybe, or perhaps just something coded into my bones. It’s the only way I know to break the new year in: to sit in the quieter part of the night and think.

This is Warren Ellis dot com, broadcasting into 2010.

warren_ellis

2009, it turns out, was not quite done with me. Fell over with a repeat bout of Mongolian Terror Trout Flu a couple of days after Xmas, and am only now back on my feet today. This is what happens when your child constantly brings back disgusting diseases from other children and your immune system never has time to recover. I ought to laminate the little horror and hose her down with boiling water and bleach before she re-enters the house every day.

I read today that auld acquaintance Patrick Stewart is to be knighted this new year for services to drama. This pleases me immensely. Patrick told me many times that Spider Jerusalem is his role model. I trust he won’t be headbutting any members of the royal family or vigorously wiping his arse on the Queen’s skirts during the ceremony.

Messages have piled up while I’ve lain in my pit semi-conscious and re-watching the (original, only) THE PRISONER box set, so, annoyingly, I have a bit of work to do this morning. A question on a film option, a couple of interview requests. I am, technically, Not At Work for a while longer, but not everyone gets the message.

New Year coming. This’ll be the first one in 25+ years where I’ll be asleep shortly after midnight. Roll on 2010. Raise a glass for me, because I’ll be raising one to you, and to a better year for all of us.

See you on the other side.

jwz

←← This guy!

Stolen from the bike rack at the top of the BART stairs at 4th and Market, around 7pm. This bike lasted over three years, though, which is an all-time record since way back in the nineteen-hundreds. (Previously.) They didn't leave a broken lock behind, which is somewhat puzzling. It was a u-lock with one of the new-style flat keys with the dimples on them, whatever those are called.

jwz

Please enjoy my 2009 music wrap-up. I'm slacking this year: no mixtape, no micro-reviews. However, it is a list of 40 fantastic albums that I advise you to acquire at your early convenience.

jwz

Anniversary of a cosmic blast

The sheer amount energy generated is difficult to comprehend. Although the crust probably shifted by only a centimeter, the incredible density and gravity made that a violent event well beyond anything we mere humans have experienced. The blast of energy surged away from the magnetar, out into the galaxy. In just a fifth of a second, the eruption gave off as much energy as the Sun does in a quarter of a million years.

Oh, and did I mention this magnetar is 50,000 light years away? No? That's 300 quadrillion miles away, about halfway across the freaking Milky Way galaxy itself!

And yet, even at that mind-crushing distance, it fried satellites and physically affected the Earth. It was so bright some satellites actually saw it reflected off the surface of the Moon! I'll note that a supernova, the explosion of an entire star, has a hard time producing any physical effect on the Earth if it's farther away than, say, 100 light years. Even a gamma-ray burst can only do any damage if it's closer than 8000 light years or so.