Ancient Logic

First of all, there’s the title of this story. Lock In is John Scalzi’s term for people suffering from the lingering aftereffects of an encephalitic flu that will strike the world in the near future. Most people who get this flu recover with no ill-effect. However, a certain percentage are left in a persistent fully paralyzed, conscious state, termed lock-in. They can’t move or speak, and exist completely dependent on society for care. However, Hadens, another term used to describe the survivors of the disease, possess a brain structure altered to a sufficient degree that they are are able to easily download their perceptions into mechanical bodies, called Personal Transports, and into the minds of even rarer subset of people who experienced the flu, Integrators. A strength of this book is that a reader gradually comes to understand the full scope of the Lock-In future.  This fast-moving book provides details of the disease and how Hadens cope wi...

The headline is interesting on its own, but I was actually more curious about the breakdown of chemicals available in Martian soil. One of the things that makes the Moon less attractive as a site for a permanent colony is the lack of elements needed for organic life. Having enough nitrogen available in the soil to have once supported life suggests that agriculture on Mars might be sustainable without outside intervention (ie launching nitrogen rich asteroids at the surface of the planet.) Nitrogen is essential for plants and other biological processes. In addition, nitrogen currently represents less than 3% of Mars' scant atmosphere, a figure that would have to be raised during any attempt at terraforming.