Here’s a Subliminal Channel You Haven’t Considered Before
Scientists can manipulate air bubbles trapped in ice to encode messages.
Comments
Chris • June 24, 2025 10:53 AM
I called up the abstract and the first thing to cross my mind upon seeing the graphic was, “This is how time travelers will communicate with us.”
Steve • June 24, 2025 4:43 PM
@Mexaly: That’s nothing. I’ve been getting secret messages in my gin and tonics for years.
“I’ve been getting secret messages in my gin and tonics for years.” : which reminds of this short story by Clarke :
https:/++/archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v011n01_1956-07_MadMaxAU/page/n122/mode/1up?view=theater
Swede • June 25, 2025 12:31 AM
I’m sure the article is legit, but to me it felt a little bit like AI slop.
Clive Robinson • June 25, 2025 7:36 AM
@ Steve, sf, ALL,
With regards,
“I’ve been getting secret messages in my gin and tonics for years”
Back when even I was young, Douglas Adams had a gag about “gin and tonic” being a universal constant name with all intelligent organics, and a few that were not as intelligent 😉
He also noted the issue of “Swedish Meatballs” that although named differently popped up in most cuisines around the world.
Then there is the habit of stuffing guts with scrap meat, fat and optionally some form of spices and cooked grain rusk. It ranges from monstrous Haggis in the lowlands through to thin tubes hanging in cages in windswept trees.
We tend to call them sausages or salami or similar depending on if you eat them boiled –puddings– or raw –Iberian charcuterie– or just fried up with eggs etc for a late breakfast or “sarni filler”.
The humble sausage became a running theme in Terry Pratchett’s disk world works for a while along with “burnt crunchy bits”(BCBs).
Steve • June 25, 2025 2:21 PM
@Clive: You caught my reference.
Just enough time for another bath. . .
Clive Robinson • June 26, 2025 2:11 AM
@ Steve,
Yeh sort of, though I was a bit befuddled, because although I can get the “slice of lemon” effect easily, the “large gold brick” is still alluding me 8-$
For those that want to “follow along at home”,
https://www.cocktailchemistrylab.com/home/pan-galactic-gargle-blaster
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2025 10:50 AM
@ Bruce,
I might not have thought about it with regards water/ice due to basic physics and the energy involved.
But think back to multi-layer storage in Optical systems and “Magnetic bubble memory”.
In some cases they used nonlinear “solids” and multiple energy sources to fix a point in 3D space and turn it from solid to vapour phase state.
The resulting bubble had curious optical properties that enabled it to be “read through” as well as being “a read target”.
So the idea gas sort of been around for a half century or so, just not very practical in most cases.
And that’s the question to consider here,
“How practical is this water/ice system in room temperature operating environments?”