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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
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| Allswell | ||
| An organic compound found (or placed) in food that calms and mellows those who partake of it. |
| Allswell: A naturally occurring chemical that, when present in sufficient concentrations in the brain, engenders the feeling that everything is fine...
The food that you eat is probably grown from crops whose genes partake of the Allswell sequence, or even stronger stuff. Melancholy thoughts may never come into your mind at all. When they do, you have the power to dismiss them... |
| From Anathem,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Morrow in 2008 Additional resources -
|
After one of the avout had left his concent, and had partaken of outsider foods, he had this experience.
Philip K. DIck fans may recognize "hubrizine" from We Can Build You.
Allswell! The thought hit me like a snowball in the nose. I'd been out of the concent for a little more than two months, eating extramuros food the whole time. Lio and Arsibalt and the others had probably made it to Tredegarh in less than a week - too brief a time for them to be affected. But I had been out long enough that the ubiquitous chemical must have taken up residence in my brain - subtly altering the way I thought about everything.
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Tech news articles related to Anathem
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Allswell-related
news articles:
- Kava 'Anti-Energy' Drinks
| Bacteria Now Make Biofuel Like Oil |
| Youthful Brain With A Flip Of A Molecular Switch |
| Human 'Quadruple Helix' DNA |
| The Plastic Eaters - Amazon Fungus Lives On Plastic |
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