“I’d give it a 50-50 shot that you could find it somewhere underground. But then that’s a guess.” The NYT surveys the current thinking about prospects of Martian life, and how astrobiologists plan to go about proving or disproving its existence. (To wit, the European Space Agency plans to send an tricked-up rover to the red planet after 2011…hopefully, it’ll get past the Dubya Pentagon’s rash of Moonraker weapons.) Update: In somewhat related news (to the second story), Slate‘s Fred Kaplan assesses the Pentagon’s overly enthusiastic vision for ground-based future tech.
Category: Science
The F-Chip.
“I might as well be reading tabloids out of the grocery store…Anything to get a rise out of the viewer and to reinforce certain retrograde notions.” Sam Kimery, a former Republican precinct captain, builds and markets a device that blocks FOX News from infecting your television. Looks like Christmas will be easy this year.
Dark Globes No More.
Only a decade after the discovery of the first extra-solar planet, two separate teams of scientists manage to “see” exoplanets directly for the first time. “Dr. Geoffrey Marcy, a planet hunter at the University of California in Berkeley, called the results ‘the stuff of history books.‘”
King of the Underworld
Despite feeling kinda rotten, I did venture out to the movies on Saturday night (armed with a hefty bag of throat lozenges) for an impromptu double feature. At the top of the bill was James Cameron’s IMAX extravaganza Aliens of the Deep and, all I can say is, if Cameron wants to make Battle Angel Alita using this funky 3-D technology, hail to the King. Granted, I haven’t seen a 3-D movie since the days before Captain Eo. Nevertheless, the effect was much improved, and made what could have been a staid underwater documentary comprised of what look to be outtakes from The Abyss into a riveting, jaw-dropping wonder.
I’ll admit, I was also fond of Cameron’s central conceit here, which is that our best bet for finding life in this solar system — at Europa, say — would be of the kind inexplicably thriving around thermal vents in the darkest, deepest parts of the ocean, where the sun never shines (and thus photosynthesis never takes place.) And what strange life it is! Innumerable swarming shrimp scuttle between ice-cold and boiling-hot water with nary an antenna twitch. Strange symbiotic tube worms ensnare food for their inner bacteria, which digests for them. Ethereal jellyfish float by, improbably yet undeniably alive. And, thanks to the 3-D, it seems you can reach out and touch all of these creatures just before your eyes — in fact, you can see them better in their natural habitat than any human being possibly could. It’s really quite amazing.
Like I said, I don’t know if Aliens of the Deep would be everyone’s cup of tea — most of the film just involves young astrobiologists and underwater explorers enthusing over their wild and crazy jobs in tiny little subs. But, whenever a strange new animal popped up on the screen, and particuarly when the camera hurtles past the moons of Jupiter on its CGI-way to far-flung Europa, I thought to myself, “Now, that’s Edutainment!”
We are Dancing Mechanic.
“In the quest for artificial intelligence, the United States is perhaps just as advanced as Japan. But analysts stress that the focus in the United States has been largely on military applications. By contrast, the Japanese government, academic institutions and major corporations are investing billions of dollars on consumer robots aimed at altering everyday life, leading to an earlier dawn of what many here call the ‘age of the robot.‘” And to think I was geeking out over the Roomba just a few weeks ago.
Raking over the Muckrakers.
“The reasons for the companies’ actions are not hard to find: They face potentially massive liability claims on the order of the tobacco litigation if cancer is linked to vinyl chloride-based consumer products such as hairspray. The stakes are high also for publishers of controversial books, and for historians who write them, because when authors are charged with ethical violations and manuscript readers are subpoenaed, that has a chilling effect. The stakes are highest for the public, because this dispute centers on access to information about cancer-causing chemicals in consumer products.” Twenty chemical companies, including Dow, Monsanto, Goodrich, Goodyear, and Union Carbide, attempt to deflect a lawsuit landslide by subpoenaing peer reviewers of the recent book Deceit & Denial and by hiring a gunner — Phillip Scranton of Rutgers University — to defame the scholarship of its authors, historians David Rosner and Gerry Markowitz (the former of whom I took a class with several years ago.) The official Markowitz-Rosner response is here.
Scranton’s major allegation? Like every other historian and/or author in the business, Rosner and Markowitz suggested some possible reviewers to their publisher. (It seems they figured it might help to know something about carcinogens.) Otherwise, the pair appear to be guilty of making an argument that flies in the face of corporate profits and of letting their sources speak for themselves — Says AHA Vice-President Roy Rosenzweig of Deceit & Denial: “In my opinion, the book represents the highest standards of the history profession.” For his part, Scranton refused to comment for Jon Wiener‘s article for The Nation above, but if I were him, I’d start talking…because right now he comes off as the lowest of corporate stooges.
Ice, Ice, Baby.
Alright, stop, collaborate, and listen — Images sent back by the ESA’s Mars Express show the remants of icebergs once floating in a Martian Sea near the equator, and suggest that large ice blocks may well still exist just underneath the dusty surface (increasing both the chances of life on the Red Planet and the prospects for a successful manned mission.) Word to your mother.
The Wookie and the Droid.
For the last time, Berkeley, this is not the droid you’re looking for. As any of you who’ve met me in person know, I love the little guy, but sheltie hair is the bane of my existence — it’s invariably all over my carpet, clothes, possessions, etc. (If I ever tried to commit a serious crime, the CSI guys would be at my doorstep in 24-48 hours, carrying Ziploc bags full of the stuff.) Whatsmore, Berk’s archnemesis (other than possibly the Door Buzzer) is the Vacuum Cleaner. Whenever I had it out (which was often, due to the endless shedding), he’d go absolutely ballistic, barking up a storm you can hear in the lobby five floors down.
So, given that my old vacuum had died yet again (which has twice cost me $100 to fix), and that I had to go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters anyway, I procured my first Roomba droid early this afternoon. Alas, it doesn’t speak Bocce, but I must admit, it does a pretty solid job of haphazardly sweeping every corner of my nook-and-cranny-filled apartment. Plus, it’s a droid. How cool is that?
As for Berk’s reaction, the jury is still out. On one hand, he doesn’t recognize the (quieter) Roomba unit as a member of the Vacuum clan, so mercifully there’s no more barking. But, he definitely doesn’t seem to like it tooling around his territory either, and spent most of its first cycle trying to flip it. Ah well, baby steps. I’m sure I’ll have ’em playing holographic chess in no time…Roomba, let the Berkeley win.
Caverns of Mars.
After perusing “methane signatures and other possible signs of biological activity,” two NASA researchers claim there may well be life presently existing in subsurface Martian caves. We’re talking mitochondria, not Morlocks…but still, such a discovery would be exciting stuff, to say the least.
Abe Lincoln and the World of Tomorrow.
“Bob Rogers, BRC’s founder and chairman…draws two circles, labeled ‘scholarship’ and ‘showmanship,’ on a sheet of yellow paper. The circles overlap, but only slightly. That tiny slice of shared space, he says, is where the museum needs to be.” By way of Dangerous Meta, the Washington Post examines the mild controversy surrounding high-tech exhibits at the Abe Lincoln library. If BRC is consulting a sizable number of outside historians on the scholarship, as they seem to be doing, then what’s the problem? Gimmicks like Tim Russert introducing 1860 campaign ads are a bit facile, sure, but if they help get more laypeople intrigued in Lincoln’s life and times (and don’t unduly misrepresent the history), I’m all for it. Besides, my feeling is, if historians don’t get behind such efforts, they’re going to happen anyway, and with much less historical rigor to them.