http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10372708-23.html

Laminated Rat Brains is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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Well, well, well, here’s something REALLY amazing – it seems that the Hubble Space Telescope has taken it’s first picture of a planet orbiting another star. Out of all the stars in the universe it happened to photograph a planet orbiting the fairly well-known star called Fomalhaut.

Who among us already knew that such a planet existed around Fomalhaut? Raise your hand if you know the answer!

The first photos of any extrasolar planet are exciting in their own right.  But it’s mind-boggling if you recall that Cordwainer Smith wrote in “The Dead Lady of Clown Town” about a strange world he called Fomalhaut III.  And now Hubble’s newly discovered actual planet has been named “Fomalhaut b”, eerily similar!

Major Breakthrough: First Photos of Planets Around Other Stars (Space.com)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081113-hubble-exoplanet.html
For quick reference concerning Cordwainer’s Fomalhaut III, see:
The Dead Lady of Clown Town – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Lady_of_Clown_Town
I included Fomalhaut II on my 160th Century Worlds Tour weather advisory page, in the form of an animated GIF file:
Travel Advisories & Weather of the Worlds
http://www.fourth-millennium.net/cordwainer-vr/travel-advisories.html
The advisories change after an interval, and Fomalhaut II is one of them.
What are the odds of such a prediction coming true  when the number of stars in the universe in nearly infinite?

I’m only a humble space robot artist but I know a fantastic coincidence when I see one!

Hubble Space Telescope Follows Cordwainer Smith’s Lead is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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So I have started a category of this blog called “It’s Happening Now,” and when you come across news items that remind you of something in a CS story, do come by and post a comment on this post with links if it was something online you found. Please comment on what bit of what story it reminds you of!

Comments do have to be moderated by me, but unless I am traveling, I am pretty good at keeping up with that, so your comment should appear within a few hours normally. (Normally? Nothing is normal here.)

Did Cordwainer Smith See the Future? Post Your Sightings Here is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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They say sometimes the “truth is stranger than fiction”. Not for us Cordwainer Smith fans – we’ve heard it all before!!!

Rat-brain robot aids memory study – BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7559150.stm

Rat brain flies jet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/07/rat_brain_flies_jet/

Can a spaceship be far behind?

I believe at least some credit for these breakthroughs belongs to CS. Not quite “laminated” rat brain neurons but still eerily similar.

He had also sent this to CS researcher/biographer Alan Elms, who replied:

As for whether the rat brain in the first experiment was laminated, this description of the process sounds close enough for non-fiction: “The blob of nerves forming the brain of the robot was taken from the neural cortex in a rat foetus and then treated to dissolve the connections between individual neurons.” One wonders — I wonder — whether these researchers were originally inspired by reading “Think Blue, Count Two.”

Alan later sent me this link, with the comment, “Just to clarify the historical record on laminated rat brains a little…”  http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/08/15/rat_brain/index.html

Thanks, Corby and Alan, for providing such a great start to the “It’s Happening Now” section of the blog.

Think Blue, Count Two: Rat Brains Running Robots is a post from the Cordwainer Smith Blog, run by his daughter.

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