I’ve toyed with writing fiction over the years. I’ve got some novel ideas I may one day wrestle to the ground… but really, I need to cut my teeth first on some simpler writing first. I’m not really planning on using this blog for that, but then an interesting thing came my way.

A little while back, fellow professional writer Wil Wheaton posted a link on Twitter to a story he liked on a website called Ficly. It’s a free website where you can write and post stories, but the catch is they can only be 1024 characters long. Including spaces.

The story he linked to was fun. And Ficly allows you to write prequels and sequels. When I read it I was having a rough day, and was having a really hard time nailing down some writing I needed to do for work (yes, I work). So I thought, what the heck, and wrote a prequel. It’s not all that good, but it was fun to write. At first I felt guilty spending time on it when I had so much else to do, but what I found is that it shook loose some mental cobwebs, enabling me to finish the difficult writing job I had to do for work that day. Call it a palate cleanser.

… but then I remembered an idea I had for a story back in high school. It was a pretty good idea, but I couldn’t make it work. Now I realize the problem: I was putting in too much exposition, too much explaining. Ficly doesn’t allow you to do that. Hmmmm.

So I wrote the story, and it’s on Ficly now. Titled "Deep", those of you who have read my latest book may recognize some of the science in it. But there’s a twist…

I suspect that in the coming months there will be opportunities to write more. I may have to dig through my old high school stuff. You never know where the 1024 characters will come from.

The 2008 Comic Con panel. Kevin Grazier, Jaime Paglia, and me. Photo courtesy AKovacs.

Last year I was on a Discover Magazine-sponsored panel about science and science fiction, and it was so popular (standing room only in a room that held 1000 people!) that we’re doing it again. But this time it’ll be bigger and better.

First, I’m moderating it. That means I get to tell people when they can talk and when they have to shut up, which will be fun considering most of the panelists are awesome Hollywood types who make great shows, and can buy and sell me or have me killed on a whim.

Second, we have some new blood on the panel! Here’s the whole list:

Jaime Paglia — co-Executive Producer of Eureka
Kevin Grazier — Battlestar Galactica and Vituality science advisor
Jane Espenson — major scifi writer/producer: Firefly, Dollhouse, Battlestar, and on and on
Rob Chiappetta and Glenn Whitman — writers for Fringe
Ricardo Gil da Costa — neuroscientist and advisor for Fringe

Coooool. Really though, of all of them, the only one I’ll feel comfortable telling to shut up is Kevin, but that’s just because a) we’ve been friends a long time, and 2) I want his job. I’ve been watching all these shows as I can to bone up on ‘em, and I have lots of questions to ask at the panel, most of which inevitably lead to, "Why haven’t you hired me to vet your scripts?" That should go over well.

Other bloggers have taken notice, include the the Science and Entertainment Exchange and our very own DM blog Science Not Fiction.

Between this panel and moderating the Mythbusters panel, Comic Con will rock the west coast. I hope to see some of you there– maybe we can figure out some sort of BA meetup. If you’re going to CC, leave a comment here and let’s figure it out!

[Update (July 6 2009): I checked this link last night, but in the meantime Generation Rescue — Jenny McCarthy’s antiscience organization and the hosting site for the video — removed the page for some reason. I don’t know why they did that, but the video is cached online and you can see it here. SCAM Blasting also has the video online.]

(Incidentally, as if her antiscience nonsense isn’t bad enough, this video is in flash, so you cannot fast forward or rewind; making it far less useful for its purported purpose: to "educate" parents, so I guess that’s a good thing). It starts off with the nonsense right away, when she says, "I am not antivaccine. I am antitoxin," then barely takes a breath before saying that vaccines are full of toxins, and that toxins cause autism.

Repeat after me: Vaccines do not cause autism! We know they don’t. The tests have been done, the studies examined, and we know that vaccines have nothing to do with autism. Anyone who says differently is trying to sell you something.

Things goes even farther off the rails from there, with her making all sorts of ridiculous and unfounded assertions. One of the first things she says is that autism isn’t genetic, and then confuses the issue with a statement about epidemics. But she’s wrong (which is pretty much the case with everything she says); there are strong genetic indicators of autism, but the underlying cause is still unknown. She makes claims about what triggers autism, when in fact no one knows what physically causes autism. But we do know vaccines do not cause them.

I hear antivaxxers all the time saying that if we don’t know what causes autism, how can we know vaccines don’t? But that’s just more empty rhetoric. It’s possible to not know something’s cause while still eliminating possibilities; that’s one way how medicine and science work. Start with an event and possible cause — for example, does chocolate cause acne? — then test the idea. If it comes up negative, move on. And, as I said, there is a lot of research on vaccines, and the conclusion is clear. When people like McCarthy say vaccines cause autism, they are ignoring the tsunami of evidence showing they are wrong.

We know a vast amount about children’s health issues; pediatricians devote their lives to them, and the antivaxxers are bent in throwing all this knowledge away, replacing it with fairy tales.

Vaccinations rid this world of smallpox, a scourge that killed millions of people. Measles was on the decline, pertussis was on the decline, rubella was on the decline. We are seeing a surge in outbreaks from these and other easily preventable diseases — including, tragically, deaths of children, deaths of babies — and a lot of it is traceable to the misinformation from the antivaccination movement.

I’m not a medical doctor. But I do understand science, and I have talked to many friends who are doctors, including one who is a pediatrician. So here’s my advice: Don’t listen to Jenny McCarthy. Talk to a doctor instead. Get real advice, based on actual science, knowledge, experience, and above all, reality.

That seems to be a place with which Ms. McCarthy is unfamiliar. But if you have young kids, reality is where you have to be. Your kids depend on it.

Tip o’ the syringe to BABloggee Jarno Verhoofstad.

I know that Star Trek is now old news, but just in case there are still some fellow nerds out there hungry for more info, some interesting stuff just popped up:

1) Another science review of the movie, making mostly the same points I did in my review.

2) Here’s an inside look at some of the things in the original script that didn’t make it into the movie. It’s an interesting peek at some of the things the writers were thinking that may give you insight into the characters.

Tip o’ the VISOR to ParrotSketch.

Yes, that’s Canis Minor. Click to embiggen, and feel free to share it with others.

Now I’m off to do what I do every July 4: read the Declaration of Independence.

Go out and be your own fireworks today.

If you’re wondering about the actual MJ shot, here you go:

That’s a screen grab from the video. I suppose it looks a bit like Jackson, though, like most examples of faces in the clouds, it looks more like Lou Ferrigno. Or maybe a zombie. Take your pick.

Incidentally, the clouds in question here are called mammatus, and are actually quite common here in Colorado, and I’ve taken a lot of pictures of them, like the one shown here. I remember the first time I ever saw mammatus clouds; I was in Maryland and the remnants of a hurricane had swept through. The clouds were like little bulbs hanging down, and I had never seen anything like it before… so I’m not surprised that people freaked out a little.

But I wonder, just how many people really did think this was a sign of some sort?

Sham-on!

Tip o’ the sequined fedora to Skeptical Teacher.