BBC
Acronyms / Information and Communications / Society
Acronym for Beyond Coast Broadcasting Company. One of the colony's broadcasting organizations, its network covering the whole of Beyond. BBC has frequently been the one breaking new ground in the media over the years. Its information programs in particular, such as News Order and Beyond News, have received both wide praise and high ratings. It broadcasts throughout space via an array of several dozen satellites.
Karen Hojo is a popular news anchor with this station.
BCCH
Acronyms / Life Science / Society
Acronym for Beyond Coast Central Hospital. The largest general hospital on Beyond Coast. Chris Goldwin serves as its director. It employs approximately 800 doctors, divided into 25 departments. It is the most advanced transplant hospital in the world, famous on Earth as well; there are many patients who travel all the way from Earth just to receive treatment there. It has also been designated as the colony's emergency relief hospital, ready to assist in the event of an accident or disaster. The first floor consists of examination rooms, the second floor and above for patient rooms. In addition, it has its own zero G ward located in the center of the colony.
Acronym for Beyond Coast Police Department. Gates Becker serves as its chief. Developed as the police force to succeed the Policenauts. With the establishment of AP and the use of EMPS, BCP has transformed itself into an organization better adapted to the unique environment of outer space. In addition to its headquarters, it also maintains 20 substations. BCP conducts all police operations on the colony as well as any rescue operations within the vicinity of the colony.
bent cigarette
Culture and Sports / Society / Technology
The only type of cigarette that still produces secondary smoke. It is lit simply by bending the end of the cigarette, and similarly, bending the filter extinguishes it. Since the chemical reaction it utilizes does not produce any ash, an ashtray is not necessary with this type of cigarette, and it has also reduced the littering of cigarette butts as well as lowering the risk of fire associated with cigarettes. Furthermore, as it does not give off secondary smoke, a known cause of cancer and other diseases, its effects on surrounding people are extremely limited. Due to the addition of ignition and extinguishing parts, it is somewhat longer than a conventional cigarette. Sold exclusively in certain areas on Earth.
Jonathan Ingram smokes mixed cigarettes, an offshoot of the bent cigarette, composed of chemically processed leaves and conventional dried leaves at a 7-to-3 ratio. This composition results in them giving off a little ash and smoke.
Beretta 92F
Society
The last handgun to use gunpowder. A recoil gun, this is Jonathan Ingram's weapon of choice. He has modified his with a laser sight, and uses special 10-round magazines with armor-piercing bullets.
Beyond Coast
Outer Space / Society / Technology
Mankind's first space colony, completed in 2010. It orbits around Lagrangian point L5, one of the 2 most stable gravitational areas around the Earth in relation to the Earth and the Moon (the other being L4). The circle it makes with the Moon and 2 of the other Lagrangian points, likened to the shores of the vast ocean of outer space, has given it the name "Beyond Coast". It is the first and last O'Neill colony, shaped like a cylinder. It makes a full rotation every 2 minutes, creating artificial gravity nearly equal to 1G. It has 3 mirrors for gathering solar rays and can produce the effect of night by closing them for 8 hours. The mirrors also serve as radiation shields.
The other reason the colony was named Beyond Coast is because its climate is based on that of the west coast of America. Its energy needs are supplied by solar energy stations positioned outside the colony, in addition to nuclear reactors.
The colony is approximately 4 miles in diameter and 20 miles long. The total surface area of any one of its 3 surfaces is 56 square miles. The combined 3.5-mile thickness of the cylinder and its atmosphere helps reduce the cosmic radiation drawn in by the mirrors to 0.5 rem all year round. It is also equipped with protective shields that automatically lower during times of intense radiation bombardment.
Parts of the colony's outer walls and mirrors have since deteriorated with age; the ISPA is studying a plan to replace all of the colony's parts over the next 10 years.
Beyond Coast 30th Anniversary Festival
Culture and Sports / Society
A festival celebrating Beyond Coast's 30th anniversary. There are numerous events currently being held all over Beyond to celebrate the birth of mankind's first space colony. The Tokugawa Group is its main sponsor and has provided most of the funding for the celebrations. The main focus of the events is on AMM, the Astronauts Memorial Museum.
Beyond Coast Organ Distribution Network
Information and Communications / Life Science / Society
A network allowing for the registration and exchange of information related to all aspects of organ transplantation, such as donor and recipient blood types. Established in 2015 as a response to the beginning of the era of mass organ donation, which includes hearts, livers, kidneys, bone marrow, corneas, joints, and bones.
Beyond News
Culture and Sports / Information and Communications / Society
A BBC news program, featuring a wide area of topics covering both Beyond Coast and Earth. It conducts interactive, around-the-clock broadcasts via a series of satellites, covering breaking stories as they happen.
Beyonds
Culture and Sports / Outer Space / Society
Slang for Extraterrestrials, people born and/or raised in outer space. In a narrower sense, it also refers to people living on Beyond Coast; approximately 40% of Beyonds are second-generation citizens born on a space colony. As even the most minute accident could turn into a major life-threatening incident on a space colony, Beyonds are taught to respond to everything in their daily lives in a calm and precise manner. This is reflected in their fashion, way of speaking, culture, and feelings, creating an undeniably unique group of human beings. Beyonds are capable of keeping their emotions under control and maintain a cool demeanor even amid the constant tension experienced on a space colony. People from Earth call the calm and concise way Beyonds speak a "Beyond accent"; conversely, on Beyond they call the inflectional and emotional way Terrestrials speak a "Home accent".
bimodal system
Society / Technology
A transportation system designed to alleviate the effects of traffic jams by giving vehicles the ability to drive on railway lines. On Beyond Coast, it is intended for use by emergency vehicles such as police cars and ambulances.
biodegradable plastic
Life Science / Society / Technology
A type of plastic that breaks down into hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon within 1 to 2 weeks when mixed with compost. The accumulation of plastic materials in landfills had been a problem since the latter half of the 20th century until the development of this plastic at the beginning of the 21st. Modern biodegradable plastic is made primarily out of a lactic acid polymer, with the lactic acid obtained by fermenting various starches. It can then be injection molded, or processed into film or fiber. It has simultaneously solved both the waste disposal problem and the oxygen replenishment problem on Beyond Coast, with all products required to be made out of biodegradable plastic wherever possible.
bioethics
Life Science
Compound noun of Greek origin, made up of bios, meaning "life", and ethikos, meaning "moral philosophy". An academic field that emerged in the latter part of the 1960s, it involves numerous different fields of thinking, such as life science, medical science, medical treatment, nursing, law, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, religion, ethics, literature, and the arts, which have all come together to study how new advances in science impact our perception of the value of life, and ways that society can address these advances.
Anna Brown majors in bioethics at UCBC.
biohazard
Life Science
An organism or substance hazardous to human beings and/or other organisms. As experimentation in biotechnology has progressed, the chances of a genetically modified harmful organism escaping out into the general population have increased. Laboratories on Earth have set up strict isolation protocols, but even so, there have been calls for all such experimentation to be moved to outer space.
biomechanics
Life Science / Technology
A field of science that, among other areas, studies the flight mechanisms of animals and plants and applies these findings to engineering. There are many organisms in nature possessing mechanisms that allow them to fly extremely long distances while only using very small amounts of energy; this science uses these discoveries to make new advances in man-made flight.
The flight mechanisms used in EMPS and massquitoes were created with technology developed in this field.
biomort
Life Science / Society
A person who is brain dead. Some distinguish between a biomort and a neomort, or someone who has recently become brain dead. Different from a person in a persistent vegetative state, where only the cerebral cortex has stopped functioning; with a biomort, it is the brainstem, the body's own life-support system, which is no longer functioning. The cells of a biomort can be kept alive by giving it hormones or life-extending drugs such as vasopressors, and also by connecting it to artificial organs such as an artificial respirator. At the end of the 20th century, the criteria used for determining brain death varied from country to country, region to region, but a worldwide consensus on establishing brain death was finally reached with the beginning of the Space Age at the start of the century.
biovestite
Culture and Sports / Life Science / Society / Technology
A person who has undergone sex reassignment treatment at the genetic level, instead of via previous techniques such as surgery and hormone treatment; therefore, it is also possible for a woman to become a man with this method. While not permitted by law in most industrialized countries, sex change operations are conducted in many developing countries. However, because gene therapy sex changes require highly specialized facilities, it is thought that the number of people actually performing them is extremely limited.
bird leg
Outer Space / Society
The phenomenon whereby a person's legs appear thinner in weightlessness due to bodily fluids becoming concentrated in the upper half of the body. One of the adaptation phenomena of zero gravity, causing the opposite effect of Moon face. Spaceplane crews wear special uniforms that maintain negative pressure on the lower half of the body, as the sudden rush of fluids to the upper half can cause irregular heartbeat, fatigue, and SAS. Companies offering zero gravity spa tours, which give people the chance to experience bird leg first-hand, have often been the subject of interest on Earth.
black poppy
Life Science / Society
A so-called "bio poppy", developed through genetic engineering of the opium poppy, traditionally valued for ornamental and medicinal purposes. It is the main ingredient of the semi-synthetic drug Narc, offering a particularly pure opium extract. Although its petals are purple, the black spots on its pods have earned it the name the "black poppy". It is said that one would need a specialized facility containing considerably advanced technology to cultivate such a genetically modified and delicate species of plant, but nevertheless, the government has gone to great lengths to strictly ban all black poppy cultivation.
bone marrow transplantation
Life Science / Technology
A treatment for blood diseases such as leukemia, aplastic anemia, malignant lymphoma, and various immunodeficiency diseases, where bone marrow stem cells are taken from a donor and implanted into a recipient, allowing them to once again produce healthy blood. It was once also used to combat the decreased bone marrow function that can occur as a side effect of cancer treatment. The recipient's diseased hematopoietic stem cells, the cells responsible for creating new blood, are killed off with radiation and then substituted with the donor's healthy bone marrow. However, if the donor and recipient do not possess matching HLA types, a severe rejection reaction will occur following the transplant. There were previously numerous cases of a rejection reaction occurring even when HLA types matched, resulting in low success rates, but success rates have since risen considerably by giving the recipient substances such as biological proteins before the procedure, thereby reducing the occurrence of such reactions.
It was once necessary to remove approximately 1 liter of stem cells directly from the donor's femur, which resulted in the donor having to be hospitalized and placed under anesthesia, but it is now possible to extract stem cells from the bloodstream, or what is known as peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Following extraction, the stem cells are then cultured in a laboratory. This type of transplant has also virtually eliminated the number of accidents during procedures.
bridge-to-transplant
Life Science / Technology
A method of temporarily extending a person's life through artificial or animal organs until a matching organ donor can be found. There are many cases of patients whose lives have been extended through the use of large-sized artificial organs as replacements for failed organs. Almost all artificial organs are still neither small nor durable, and are therefore used mainly as a temporary measure.
burst line
Information and Communications / Society / Technology
A private communications exchange terminal that uses codified information and burst transmission. Television stations such as BBC have set up their own burst lines as a means of obtaining information from sources, and many businesses and individuals also use their own such network to collect information, rather than any public network. A burst line compresses and codes information in real time, transmits it, and then decompresses and decodes it in real time, with virtually no time lag between the sender and the receiver. Nearly all communications systems employ this method of coded communication, as the world stands on the verge of yet another information explosion. In order to maintain a high processing speed, video or images are not usually sent.