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Vitals (novel)
''Vitals'' is a 2002 techno-thriller novel by American writer Greg Bear, nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2002. The main protagonist is Hal Cousins, a scientist who wishes to find a way to prevent death. He gets his funding from angel investors – rich businessmen who are determined to live a thousand years. On an exotic ocean floor lifeform retrieval mission in a small deep sea vessel, his pilot goes berserk, starts spouting gibberish, and tries to kill him. He survives, but when he gets back to the ship, he finds that a member of the crew ''also'' went mad and started spouting gibberish, killing four scientists on board the ship. The rest of the crew is distant from him, on the grounds of what he calls ''bad mojo''. He is disowned by the sponsor in question. Hal's twin brother Rob is murdered, by someone who is later revealed to be Ben Bridger. The story develops from there, taking in his twin brother's widow, Lissa; Rudy Banning, a once respected profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitals (novel)
''Vitals'' is a 2002 techno-thriller novel by American writer Greg Bear, nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2002. The main protagonist is Hal Cousins, a scientist who wishes to find a way to prevent death. He gets his funding from angel investors – rich businessmen who are determined to live a thousand years. On an exotic ocean floor lifeform retrieval mission in a small deep sea vessel, his pilot goes berserk, starts spouting gibberish, and tries to kill him. He survives, but when he gets back to the ship, he finds that a member of the crew ''also'' went mad and started spouting gibberish, killing four scientists on board the ship. The rest of the crew is distant from him, on the grounds of what he calls ''bad mojo''. He is disowned by the sponsor in question. Hal's twin brother Rob is murdered, by someone who is later revealed to be Ben Bridger. The story develops from there, taking in his twin brother's widow, Lissa; Rudy Banning, a once respected profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavrenty Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolsheviks, Bolshevik and Soviet Union, Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during the World War II, Second World War, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin in 1941. He officially joined the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Politburo in 1946. Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after the war. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organizing purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials. He would later also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Science Fiction Novels
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blood Music (novel)
''Blood Music'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Greg Bear. It was originally published as a short story in 1983 in the American science fiction magazine ''Analog Science Fact & Fiction'', winning the 1983 Nebula Award for Best Novelette and the 1984 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Greg Bear published an expanded version in novel form in 1985. ''Blood Music'' deals with themes including biotechnology, nanotechnology (including the grey goo hypothesis), the nature of reality, consciousness, and artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r .... Plot summary In the novel, renegade biotechnologist Vergil Ulam creates simple biological computers based on his own lymphocytes. Faced with orders from his nervous employer to destroy his work, he inje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria are vital in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, extremophile bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide and methane, to energy. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth (LEB), which can be defined in two ways. ''Cohort'' LEB is the mean length of life of a birth cohort (all individuals born in a given year) and can be computed only for cohorts born so long ago that all their members have died. ''Period'' LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed, from birth through death, to the mortality rates observed at a given year. National LEB figures reported by national agencies and international organizations for human populations are estimates of ''period'' LEB. In the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, human LEB was 26 years; in 2010, world LEB was 67.2 years. In recent years, LEB in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) is 49, while LEB in Japan is 83. The combination of high infant mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transhumanism
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations as well as the ethics of using such technologies. Some transhumanists believe that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with abilities so greatly expanded from the current condition as to merit the label of posthuman beings. Another topic of transhumanist research is how to protect humanity against existential risks, such as nuclear war or asteroid collision. Julian Huxley was a biologist who popularised the term transhumanism in an influential 1957 essay. The contemporary meaning of the term "transhumanism" was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, a ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenophagy
Xenophagy (Greek "strange" + "eating") and allotrophy (Greek "other" + "nutrient") are changes in established patterns of biological consumption, by individuals or groups. * In entomology, xenophagy is a categorical change in diet, such as an herbivore becoming carnivorous, a predator becoming necrophagous, a coprophage becoming necrophagous or carnivorous, or a reversal of such changes. Allotrophy is a less extreme change in diet, such as in the case of the seven-spot ladybird, which can diversify a diet of aphids to sometimes include pollen. There are several apparent cases of allotrophy in Israeli '' Longitarsus'' beetles. * In microbiology, xenophagy is the process by which a cell directs autophagy against pathogens, as reflected in the study of antiviral defenses. Cellular xenophagy is an innate component of immune responses, though the general importance of xenophagy is not yet certain. * In ecology, allotrophy is also reflected in eutrophication, being a change in nut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism. Born to a poor family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, ''Pravda'', and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microbiology
Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, protistology, mycology, immunology, and parasitology. Eukaryotic microorganisms possess membrane-bound organelles and include fungi and protists, whereas prokaryotic organisms—all of which are microorganisms—are conventionally classified as lacking membrane-bound organelles and include Bacteria and Archaea. Microbiologists traditionally relied on culture, staining, and microscopy. However, less than 1% of the microorganisms present in common environments can be cultured in isolation using current means. Microbiologists often rely on molecular biology tools such as DNA sequence based identification, for example the 16S rRNA gene sequence used for bacteria identification. Viruses have been variably classified as organisms, as they have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Techno-thriller
A techno-thriller or technothriller is a hybrid genre drawing from science fiction, Thriller (genre), thrillers, spy fiction, action (fiction), action, and War novel, war novels. They include a disproportionate amount (relative to other genres) of technical details on their subject matter (typically military technology); only hard science fiction tends towards a comparable level of supporting detail on the technical side. The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines (espionage, martial arts, politics) are thoroughly explored, and the plot often turns on the particulars of that exploration. This genre began to exist and establish itself in the early 20th century with further developments and focus on the genre in the mid 20th century. History The genre dates back to as early as the 20th century and a lot of techno-thrillers are comparable to science-fiction and many of the subcategories within science-fiction. The popularity of the genre had evolved s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
