Star Wars

The US military is planning to shoot down a spy satellite:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled U.S. spy satellite before it enters the atmosphere to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas from the vehicle's fuel tank, officials said on Thursday.

President George W. Bush decided to have the Navy shoot the 5,000-pound (2,270 kg) minivan-sized satellite with a modified tactical missile, after security advisers suggested its reentry could lead to a loss of life.

The Bad Astronomer has made a video explaining the situation:

Say You Want an Evolution...

Happy Darwin Day! That's right, old Chuck turns 199 this year!

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

PZ Myers, one of my favourite bloggers (and biology professor) outlines his activities today at Pharyngula:

Charles Darwin's Origin is 149 years old this year, and although it is a very good book and well worth reading for the historical context and as an outline of the beginnings of a science, it is, well, 149 years old. There's much more to evolutionary biology than Darwin. My talk is titled "Evo-Devo: the future of biology?", and I'm going to be discussing new perspectives on evolution, why I think development is an essential component of our understanding of how organisms evolve, and giving several specific examples.

Playing it safe in space?

Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who first conquered Mt. Everest alongside Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 88.

The New York Times ran a good obituary of Hillary, not excluding Tenzing's contribution like many accounts do. I was most struck by this passage:

The imperial explorer is now an anomaly. Much energy has been expended in recent decades showing just how closely many adventurers have been associated with the more venal aspects of the past, how claims to territory and control have turned triumph into cruelty. In contrast, a new explorer is imagined. The postmodern pioneer is not heroic, but deferential, putting little at risk, desiring safety above adventure, consideration above assertion, breaking new ground by giving the old a different shape.

This has also affected notions of risk and safety. This is most evident in the once thriving United States space program, which, unlike almost every exploratory project in world history, is intensely sensitive to loss of life and mission failure, focused on a kind of hygienic pioneering. In "The Right Stuff," Tom Wolfe showed how early astronauts were seen by traditional test pilots not as heroes, but as capsule-enclosed, passive creatures, padded and protected and stripped of initiative.

...

Is it that we have become spoiled by so much being easy and safe that we believe everything must be? Is this also why lovers of extreme sport seek such bizarre thrills (snowboarding down Everest!)? Otherwise "danger" is reserved for contestants on reality shows like "Survivor" and expunged from reality itself, which we believe should be subject to rational control.

I discussed this in my review of Matt Hern's Watch Yourself, where I postulated that progress requires risk. The space program (by which I mean the combined human endeavour to explore space, not any specific nation's efforts) has resulted in 22 deaths among astronauts/cosmonauts, or five percent of all people who've been in space.

Considering the high human cost that was involved in exploring this planet (which still occurs), is the human cost of space travel too high? This is a notion explored by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran in their excellent graphic novel, Orbiter. The space program is dead, the last nail in the coffin being the disappearance of a space shuttle. Years later, the shuttle returns, and a group of out-of-work space scientists are brought together to learn its mysteries...

The cynic in me wonders if the "human cost" of space exploration is the factor, or if the monetary cost is as much to blame. Does our trepidation of space travel have as much to do with the failure of Pathfinder as with the Columbia explosion? Is the instant disintegration of hundreds of millions of dollars and years of research too expensive a blow to our immediate gratification, consumerist, rate-of-return culture?

Book Review: Red Moon Rising by Matthew Brzezinski

October 4, 2007 marked an important historical anniversary. The 50th anniversary of humanity's exploration of outer space. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial object launched by human beings to escape the Earth's gravity (for six months, but a milestone).

In Red Moon Rising, Matthew Brzezinski covers the intense rivalries that served as the catalyst to the great space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, which would eventually culminate in landing men on the moon, and laid the foundations for today's space program, including the International Space Station.

Although the obvious rivalry between the Americans and the Soviets plays out over the course of Brzezinski's account, many other more personal conflicts come to the front of the stage. For the USSR's head of missile development, Sergei Korolev, his childhood obsession to touch space drove him relentlessly. Even years spent in Stalin's gulag did not dash the dream from him. His drive to put a satellite in orbit allowed him to navigate the treacherous waters of the Soviet military community.

Rivalries were, if anything, were more pronounced on the American side of the missile race. The army, navy, and nascent air force all had ballistic missile programs in the works, though it was the Army's that would place the first American satellite in orbit, thanks largely to the stubbornness of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's commander, Major General John B. Medaris, and ABMA's chief engineer, Wernher von Braun, the man behind the German V-2 rockets.

Brzezinski's book is a fast-paced, enjoyable read giving a lot of insight into the scientific and political environments of the USA and USSR of the late 1950s. The personalities involved leap off the page and come alive, shaping the course of the historical narrative. Highly recommended.

The Day The Science Died

Another icon has passed away.

Don Herbert, AKA Mr. Wizard, has passed away at the age of 89.

Mr. Wizard, through both his show in the 50s and the 80s, introduced two generations of children (including this blogger) to scientific principles illustrated with common household items.

It's almost ironic that a science icon passes on while public understanding of science is in such a tailspin.

Via Pharyngula.

Bill Hicks Friday

One of my favourite bits from the legendary Bill Hicks:



Bill, you died far too early.

From Science After Sunclipse.

Two-fisted science stings like a bee! Or an ant, or a wasp...

As kind of an update to my previous post on Two-Fisted Science, here's another entry.

Justin O. Schmidt is an entomologist best known as the author of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a listing of various insect bites and stings and the relative amount of pain caused.

How did he acquire his data? He let himself get stung by all these insects. On purpose.

Via Retrospectacle.

Designer guys

Intelligent design:



Unintelligent design:



Just plain stupid:

Star gazing

This evening, the Deranged Squirrel, Mad Jenny, and The Blogless One (AKA JL), went to an author visit (at our library) from the Dean of Canadian science fiction, Robert J. Sawyer.

Alas, poor Hominid--I knew him!

Sawyer read from his latest release, Rollback (which is highly recommended), and fielded questions from the audience. He is a talented public speaker and storyteller, and very well-informed and practiced, nimbly parrying and riposting a question of mine concerning the first novel of his I read, Calculating God, and the Anthropic Principle. Afterward, he autographed two books for me:

The Hugo Award-winning Hominids.	Its immediate sequel, Humans.

Click on the photos to enlarge them. As you can see, Robert J. Sawyer is a keen observer of humanity.

"Here we go!"



Today is the 46th anniversary of the flight of Vostok I. Its sole passenger was Yuri Gagarin, and Vostok I, a "tin can sitting on top of a bomb", would make him famous. On April 12, 1961, Gagarin became the first person in space.



























































Yuri Gagarin

In my youth, I was fascinated by outer space, and voraciously devoured books on space flight and astronomy. I read pretty advanced and detailed non-fiction on the subject. In fact, I remember when I was nine, I participated in my local public library's summer reading club, and that year's theme was outer space (timed for the arrival of Haley's Comet). I read several thick non-fiction books on the subjects of astronomy and space travel (one I recall was a detailed chronological narrative of the American space program up to that point), but the librarian would only accept fiction. Then the fiction I chose apparently wasn't advanced enough for her tastes, but I suppose my prepubescent self couldn't make her understand that I cared very little for "stories" back then and preferred history and science (I wouldn't start reading fiction with any sort of devotion until I was twelve). With all the stifling conditions she placed on me I still wonder to this day why I joined her profession.

Although my childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut, or astronomer, or aeronautical engineer have long since faded, I still have a soft spot for space travel and the men and women who have struggled and continue to struggle to increase the range of humanity's grasp just a little bit more. I continue to mourn the death of manned space exploration and become upset when governments disrespect the memories of our space-faring brothers and sisters.

Here we go, Comrade Cosmonaut.

Two-fisted Science!

OK, to tide people over while I try and finish Why Darwin Matters and deliver that promised double-review, here's a little something.

I attended first aid training at work this past week, and the instructor showed us a video on hypothermia, featuring Gordon Giesbrecht, a professor at the University of Manitoba who is one of the leading experts on the topic. Mainly because, he experiments on himself! In this video we watched him ski into an icy lake to demonstrate the effects of hypothermia on the human body. What balls! Then he did it again, only this time on a snowmobile.

This reminded me of some of the scientific pioneers of past century, people with the courage and resolve to pursue their science with passion, heedless of danger.

First, there was Auguste Piccard, Swiss physicist, explorer and inventor. In the 1930s, Piccard developed an interest in ballooning, and built a series of pressurized gondolas that allowed him to explore the stratosphere. He set several altitude records, then retired from ballooning--to pursue deep-sea diving! Adopting several of the principles used in building his balloon gondolas to submersibles, he set several deep sea diving records as well, notably in the Bathyscaphe Trieste. He sold the Trieste to the US Navy , and soon afterwards his son Jacques and a Navy officer set the record for deepest dive, 10,900 m in the Challenger Depth, the deepest part of the ocean. No vessel has matched or beat this record, and nothing currently exists that could.

Piccard's whole family were scientist-adventurers: his twin brother Jean Felix was an organic chemist and balloonist, and Jean Felix's wife Jeannette was the first woman to hold a balloonist's licence, set altitude records for a woman that held for three decades, and was one of the first 11 women to be ordained Episcopalian priests. Auguste Piccard is believed to have been the inspiration for Professor Cuthbert Calculus/Professeur Tryphon Tournesol from The Adventures of Tintin and August and Jean Felix were believed to be a big inspiration to Gene Roddenberry for the character of Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Next, Hiram Bingham III, a pilot and archaeologist who was probably the inspiration for Indiana Jones. The son and grandson of missionaries to Hawaii, Bingham also served as a US Congressman and Senator and was the shortest serving Governor in Connecticut history (one day). His most noteworthy act, however, was discovering the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu centuries after the European colonization of Peru.

His son Hiram Bingham IV, a diplomat during World War II, was later discovered to have helped many authors, artists and scholars escape German-occupied France, and protected Jews during this time, also arranged forged documents for those trying to make their way through Europe to a place of safety during the Holocaust.

Story Musgrave is a man with considerable credentials and is perhaps the most experienced astronaut ever to fly into space. Musgrave served as a pilot and electrical technician in the US Marine Corps, and was later tapped by NASA to become an astronaut. He became NASA's most experience astronaut, having flown more shuttle missions than anyone else, and is the only astronaut to have flown on all five shuttles. Believe me, this is a very condensed version of Musgrave's storied (ahem) career.

And while doing all this, he found the time to earn six degrees, including:

• Bachelor of Science in mathematics and statistics (Syracuse University 1958)


• MBA in operations analysis and computer programming (UCLA 1959)


• BA in chemistry (Marietta College 1960)


• MD (Columbia University 1964)


• Masters of Science in physiology and biophysics (University of Kentucky 1966)


• MA in literature (University of Houston 1987)

The last one seems out of place, eh? Musgrave claims he got a lit degree so he could properly express what space is like in literary language. This guy is just awesome.

Dian Fossey, of Gorillas in the Mist, spent years in Rwanda studying gorillas as one of "Leakey's Angels". The paleontologist Louis Leakey sent three female researchers to study primates in their native habitats: Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees; Fossey, gorillas; and Biruté Galdikas, the orangutans.

Fossey gained the trust of the animals and gained worldwide celebrity when her picture was featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine. She fought tirelessly against the extinction of the gorillas, and opposed poachers and zoos with equal vengeance. She even fought the notion of tourists visiting the gorillas in the habitat. It is believed that her brutal murder was motivated by elements of the Rwandan government who wanted to use the gorillas to attract tourists.

Her story was turned into the Oscar-nominated film Gorillas in the Mist, starring one of my favourite actresses, Sigourney Weaver as Fossey.

Speaking of Leakey, he is known for having said: "Nothing I've ever found has contradicted the Bible. It's people with their finite minds who misread the Bible."

Which should hopefully segue us into Darwin yet again.

Incredible

The beauty of our universe:

A whole lotta bull

So commenter "David F" on the Rolling Stone site posts

I don’t suppose anyone has seen the study that shows bovine flatulence is a larger cause of global warming than any man-made pollution.

...as suggested in this article:

There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.

And why are there 1.4 billion cows in the world?

Could it be because we raise them for food and clothing?

For unto you today is born a saviour...

...A Lizard King!

LONDON (Reuters) - Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

And I for one welcome our scaly overlords.

"I am the Lizard King, I can do anything."

—Jim Morrison, "Not To Touch the Earth"

Perhaps the "invisibility cloak" will soon be with us, a la Harry Potter and Ghost in the Shell. (Thanks to DailyKos.)

Also, here's a cool mash-up of Renaissance masterpieces with comic-book heroes. (Thanks to BoingBoing.)