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Eight Worlds
The Eight Worlds are the fictional setting of a series of science fiction novels and short stories by John Varley, in which the Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other worlds and moons of the Solar System have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud at the edge of the Solar System. Faster than light travel is not (as yet) possible, though it's mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of ''The Golden Globe'', and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars. The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist. The Eight Worlds story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", published in 1976, was adap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eight Worlds
The Eight Worlds are the fictional setting of a series of science fiction novels and short stories by John Varley, in which the Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing an alien invasion of the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other worlds and moons of the Solar System have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud at the edge of the Solar System. Faster than light travel is not (as yet) possible, though it's mentioned that test-flights will begin soon at the end of ''The Golden Globe'', and the species has not as yet managed to extend itself to other stars. The series mostly deals with the ways in which technology and necessity shape morality and society. Instant sex changes are considered a matter of fashion, rather than gender identity, and many long-standing human sexual taboos no longer exist. The Eight Worlds story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", published in 1976, was adap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ophiuchi Hotline
''The Ophiuchi Hotline'' is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer John Varley. It was nominated for a Locus Award. Part of his Eight Worlds series, the novel opens in the year 2618. Plot summary Prior to the beginning of the story, humanity has been expelled from Earth by powerful aliens known as "the Invaders", and scattered across eight planets and satellites of the Solar System, the so-called Eight Worlds. The Invaders originate from a gas giant planet, and have occupied Jupiter, forbidding human access to it. Human expansion to the Eight Worlds has been aided by a broadcast of information from outside the Solar System, named "The Ophiuchi hotline" after the constellation from which it appears to originate. The information received from this includes extensive material on biological modification, and while sex changes and other modifications have become routine surgeries, experimentation with human DNA remains taboo and forbidden on penalty of death. Related to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lion
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane. It is a social species, forming groups called ''prides''. A lion's pride consists of a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The lion is an apex predator, apex and keystone predator; although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur and have been known to hunt Human, humans, lions typically don't actively seek out and prey on humans. The lion inhabits grasslands, savannas and shrublands. It is usually more diurnality, diurnal than other wild cats, but when persecuted, it adapts to being active nocturnality, at night and crepuscular, at twilight. During the Neolithic period, the li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microgravity
The term micro-g environment (also μg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is more or less synonymous with the terms ''weightlessness'' and ''zero-g'', but emphasising that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small (on the International Space Station (ISS), for example, the small g-forces come from tidal effects, gravity from objects other than the Earth, such as astronauts, the spacecraft, and the Sun, air resistance, and astronaut movements that impart momentum to the space station). The symbol for microgravity, ''μg'', was used on the insignias of Space Shuttle flights STS-87 and STS-107, because these flights were devoted to microgravity research in low Earth orbit. The most commonly known microgravity environment can be found aboard the ISS which is located in low-earth orbit at an altitude of around 400 km, orbiting Earth approximately 15 times per day in what is considered free fall. The effects of free fall also enable the creation of short-du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the ''Odyssey''. But in the ''Aeneid'' by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war. Metaphorically, a "Trojan horse" has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmosphere is g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homage (arts)
Homage or ''hommage'' ( or ) is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic. The term is often used in the arts, where one author or artist shows respect to another by allusion or imitation; this is often spelled and pronounced like the original French ''hommage'' (). Description It was originally a declaration of fealty in the feudal system—swearing that one was the man (French: ''homme''), or subordinate, of the feudal lord. The concept then became used figuratively for an acknowledgement of quality or superiority. For example, a man might give homage to a lady, so honouring her beauty and other graces. In German scholarship, followers of a great scholar developed the custom of honouring their mentor by producing papers for a ''festschrift'' dedicated to him. In music, homage can take the form of a composition (''Homage to Paderewski''), a tribute albu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
70 Ophiuchi
70 Ophiuchi is a binary star system located 16.6 light years away from the Earth. It is in the constellation Ophiuchus. At magnitude 4 it appears as a dim star visible to the unaided eye away from city lights. History In the Ptolemy's 2nd-century Almagest star catalogue this star system is listed as a 4th magnitude star, the ''28th'' (or ''4th outside the constellation figure'') in ''Ophiuchus''. It is star ''No. 261'' in this catalogue. This star system was first catalogued as a binary star by William Herschel in the late 18th century in his study of binary stars. Herschel proved that this system is a gravitationally bound binary system where the two stars orbit around a common center of mass. This was an important contribution to the proof that Newton's law of universal gravitation applied to objects beyond the Solar System. He commented at the time that there was a possible third ''unseen companion'' affecting the orbit of the two visible stars. Variability 70 Op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is slightly less massive than Eris (dwarf planet), Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Compared to Moon, Earth's moon, Pluto has only one sixth its mass and one third its volume. Pluto has a moderately orbital eccentricity, eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance (). Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance prevents them from colliding. Pluto has moons of Pluto, five known moons: Charon (moon), Charon, the larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 million vehicles per year. The company was originally founded as a spinoff of Toyota Industries, a machine maker started by Sakichi Toyoda, Kiichiro's father. Both companies are now part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world. While still a department of Toyota Industries, the company developed its first product, the Type A engine in 1934 and its first passenger car in 1936, the Toyota AA. After World War II, Toyota benefited from Japan's alliance with the United States to learn from American automakers and other companies, which would give rise to The Toyota Way (a management philosophy) and the Toyota Production System (a lean manufacturing practice) that would transform the small company into a leader in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans, with a population of roughly 383,000 people. Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th century Louisiana French, Dominican Creole, Spanish, French Canadian, Acadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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