- noun
- A variety of shrub native to Belzagor, able to detect nearby motion and withdraw its leaves as a defence against predators.
- Source
- Downward To The Earth
- verb
- To commit evolutionary self-deselection (suicide).
- Origin
- Charles Darwin; evolution of species by natural selection.
- Source
- Accelerando
- verb
- The act of transferring the extracted mind-state of a dead person into a fresh body.
- Origin
- Derived from rĕ- (again) and veniō (“I come”).
- Source
- Surface Detail
- noun
- The essence of a person’s phylogenetic tradition.
- Origin
- Leptós (thin).
- Source
- The Godwhale
- noun informal
- A street drug that stimulates rapid cognition, having novotrophin-B and MDMA as ingredients.
- Origin
- Phonetic transcription of “sense-a-wonder”.
- Source
- Accelerando
- noun
- A biomechatronic robot.
- Origin
- Portmanteau of ‘biological’ and ‘robot’.
- Source
- Rendezvous With Rama
- noun
- A sentient oceanic life form covering the surface of the planet Solaris.
- Origin
- Polús (many), possibly in combination with thera (“of her”).
- Source
- Solaris
- noun
- An artificial person, assembled from biological components.
- Origin
- Robota, serf labour.
- Source
- Rossum’s Universal Robots