Two more Presidential candidates speak on space

In the nation's most space-conscious state, Florida, candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have expanded on their views on space flight in general and human spaceflight in particular. Giuliani asserted strongly that the U.S. needed to bolster its human spaceflight program, while Romney agreed it was a priority issue but didn't commit to specifics.

Review of Shadows of Existence

Terry Colvin, with permission of WIlliam Corliss (an indefatigable collector of oddities and publisher of Science Frontiers newsletter) has passed along this review of my 2006 book Shadows of Existence. I'm flattered, to say the least. Thanks, Terry.

Shadows of Existence: Discoveries and Speculations
in Zoology
M.A. Bille, 317 pp., 2006, $19.95p

Rarely does one find a book so densely packed with
information. This subject is cryptozoology, and Bille
divides his book into five fascinating parts:

*New Creatures: 29 essays on the newest whales,
the mammals of Vu Quang, the unknown horses,
and so on.
*In the Shadows of Existence: 13 essays on the
thylacine, monk seals, woolly squirrels, and
so on.
*The Classic Mystery Animals: 10 essays on
Nessie, the Yeti, Bigfoot, lake creatures, and
so on.
*Miscellanea: 18 essays on the Yarri, the giant
octopus, weird fish, and so on.
*Resources: the basic library of cryptozoology,
reviews of many indispensible books, major
periodicals, internet sites, pertinent
organizations.


SCIENCE FRONTIERS is a bimonthly collection of digests
of scientific anomalies in the current literature.
Published by the Sourcebook Project; P.O. Box 107;
Glen Arm, MD 21057. Annual subscription: $8.00.

Loss of a rocket pioneer

Wernher K. Dahm, a longtime associate of Wernher von Braun who worked on the V-2 and made important contributions to US ballistic missile programs, has died at 90. Dahm's career included serving as chief of the aerophysics division and later chief aerodynamicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He did not fully retire until last year, when he was the last of the von Braun team still working for NASA.

Thanks to Loren Coleman for pointing out this news item.

10 real-life Star-Trek technologies

Some of these are still experimental, but in many ways we're getting surprisingly close to future Gene Roddenberry and company predicted in 1966.

Personally, I want the phaser (the non-lethal one, of course).

Ares booster problems: how serious?

There's been a lot written (including material in this blog) about the known and theorized problems with the extremely elongated Ares I/Orion stack NASA plans to use in returning astronauts to orbit after the Space Shuttle is retired. This article describes the biggest problem, oscillation that could cause the stack to shake severely in the first minutes of flight. NASA does not expect this to delay the Constellation plan to return humans to the Moon by 2020, but it's increasingly hard to believe that problems with the rocket originally sold as a "safe, simple, soon" solution will not damage the schedule or cause potentially crippling cost overruns.

Also see www.nasawatch.com, where Keith Cowing posted some detailed questions to NASA about Ares/Orion problems and got new answers, some of them clear and to the point and some very fuzzy. Cowing reports it's increasingly clear from internal documents that the first Ares flights will be delayed, even though NASA has denied that looking at an extended schedule was anything but a contingency exercise.

COMMENT: I support the Vision for Space Exploration and believe NASA can get the job done. But the agency seems to be going out of its way to insist all Area/Orion problems can be solved without major budget or schedule impacts. As a student of history, specifically the history of space programs, I've stopped believing them. NASA should be much fore forthright and forthcoming.
USUAL REMINDER: These are my personal opinions as a freelance science writer, nothing more.

Shooting down space conspiracy theories

An idiotic book called Dark Mission (I won't dignify it by giving the author's name), has sold very well with its bizarre and provably false conspiracy theories about how, among other coverups and conspiracies, NASA faked the loss of three Mars probes to avoid disclosing information about the nonexistent "face on Mars." Here James Oberg dismantles the book while pointing out the damage such fiction can cause.

New trees are still found, too

Despite being 18m high, a palm tree just described as Tahina spectabilis was never noticed until it piqued the curiosity of a plantation owner on a family picnic in Madagascar. British biologist Bill Baker compared the discovery to a finding a new species of elephant. He said, “It’s the most astonishing new palm in the last 50 years. It’s absolutely enormous.”

A new moray eel - right under scientists' noses

Gymnothorax baranesi, a new species of moray eel, was just described from the Gulf of Aquaba in the Red Sea. The most interesting part is that this sizable fish was found very near a marine institute in waters thought to be thoroughly studied and known. Mother Nature still has her surprises.

Thanks to Loren Coleman for posting this item.

More on Debbie Martyr's work

Loren Coleman, who has long corresponded with Debbie Martyr concerning her pursuit of the elusive orang-pendek of Sumatra, here offers a profile of her work and the results to date.

A science of happiness?

Yes indeed. Some researchers and two authors whose works are reviewed here are trying to work out what makes humans happy. It strikes me that dissecting something as complex and amorphous as human happiness is akin to dissecting a frog in high school biology: you don't learn anything useful, and the frog dies. Still, it's a fascinating subject to ponder, even when a supposedly intelligent human being complains in a book that America has "eliminated melancholia" and the supposed creative genius that arises from it.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for this item.

Why No Giant Insects?

Readers my age will remember the days of staying up late to watch black and white films like Them and The Deadly Mantis. But why, in real life, are there no insects larger than small rodents? This study pinpoints the answer. The tracheal channels carrying air around the insect's body have to become proportionately larger as the creature is scaled up. The result is that the current record-holder for insect mass, the beetle Titaneus giganteus, is as large as a modern insect can get.

Bull-sized fossil rodent discovered

Even David Letterman's jokes about New York City rats don't measure up to Josephoartigasia monesi. A 1,000-kg rodent is a startling find: no one knew the order Rodentia had produced a form larger than the 700-kg Phoberomys pattersoni.

High School students discover new asteroid

I love stories like this. Finding an asteroid as part of your high school project? Beats the heck out of building little clay volcanos.

A MESSENGER to Mercury

NASA's MESSENGER probe has made its first close pass by the planet Mercury, dipping to within 200km of the surface and gaining the first of three gravity assists which will enable it to settle into orbit around the mysterious world.

A truly twisted snail

A snail's shell is normally an elegantly simple spiral. A new species of land snail, however, has a shell so bizarrely convuluted it looks like a tunnel maze in a children's playground. It coils around four distinct axes instead of the usual one (some known land snails do have two or even three axes, but this is a record). Opisthostoma vermiculum, from Malaysia, is only about 1mm long and has not been observed alive. Why the shell is so strange, and how the snail maneuvers with this contraption without getting caught up in plants and debris, are unsolved riddles.

Figure skates 5,000 years old

A cool (hah) bit of archeological news about the origin of a sport we think of as dating back only to Hans Brinker. People in what is now Finland were using bone ice skates for winter travel 3,000 years before the birth of Christ.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmond Hillary, conqueror of Everest, has died at 88. Hillary was not only an explorer, but a great humanitarian who was revered in Nepal for his efforts to bring education and other benefits to impoverished communities. His curiosity extended to the Yeti, whose existence he believed he had disproved. The world has lost a great man.

"Your flight has been delayed...."

The mission of the space shuttle Atlantis to the ISS has now slipped to February 7 at the earliest. NASA wants to test and replace a connector which allows sensor wires into the propellant tank.

No collision with Mars

Well, darn. For all the planetary scientists who were hoping to see what happened when 2007 WD5, a rock half the size of a football field, slammed into Mars while we had plenty of instrumentation in Mars orbit and on the surface to analyze the results - well, it's not going to happen. WD5 had a 1 in 25 chance a few weeks ago. Now that further information has been gathered on its trajectory, we know know the chances are miniscule. Any Martian microbes are presumably OK with this, but it's a letdown for Earth.

A bit more on orang-pendek

Cryptozoological researcher Bobby Short pointed out to me that this article by Dr. Henry Gee of the journal Nature is still available online. Gee ponders a possible connection between the "hobbits" found on the island of Flores and the orang pendek.

Cave Bears Not So Cuddly

The fearsome-looking cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was long believed by paleontologists to be largely or wholly vegetarian. Some 30% larger than today's brown bear, the cave bear had a wide distribution across Europe and neighboring regions until its extinction some 20,000 years ago. From caves in Romania and Turkey, however, we now have fossils indicating meat-eating and, plausibly, even cannibalistic behavior. High levels of the Nitrogen-15 in the Romanian fossils indicated the animals there made meat of some kind a significant part of their omnivorous diet. Fossils from Turkey show that large bears killed cubs, just as modern brown bears do, to establish their own reproductive line. Did they eat the cubs, too? This grisly behavior also occurs in modern bears. This case is a good reminder that we have much to learn about even well-established fossil species.

News on a cryptic primate: the Orang-pendek

British conservationist and writer Debbie Martyr, aided by wildlife photographer Jeremy Holden and others, has pursued Sumatra’s orang-pendek (“short man”) or sedapa since 1989. She believes she has seen the animal herself and has collected footprint casts, unidentified hairs, and numerous eyewitness accounts of a primate something like a gibbon, but larger and habitually bipedal. While there is still no type specimen in hand, the search is quite “respectable” as cryptozoological quests go. No less an authority than the WWF's Dr. John MacKinnon once found what he believed were the animal's tracks, and Dr. Henry Gee of the journal Nature suggested the orang-pendek might be connected to the fossil discovery of diminutive humans on the island of Flores.
Martyr's search for the orang-pendek has been necessarily sporadic, interrupted by events like the tsunami and the battle against illegal logging and other threats to Sumatra's remaining wild forests. Martyr's conservation efforts are funded by Flora and Fauna International (FFI). She and her colleagues are trying to preserve habitat for Sumatra's wildlife, especially the critically endangered Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae or Panthera sumatrae).
I had a chance this week to ask Martyr via email what the latest news was on the orang-pendek.
She replied that the last sighting she knew of was in February 2007. She described it as "a good description and first hand witness report of two bipedal large bodied apes." Unfortunately, the area involved is now being clear-cut by farmers who seem to have some kind of government protection, as they are felling trees without interference despite being over 1km inside the boundary of the legally protected Kerenci Seblat National Park. The park is the location of Martyr's office, which she currently shares with an orphaned bear cub and two leopard cat kittens.

To support this worthy conservation effort, go to:
http://www.fauna-flora.org/

Another note on candidates and science

Evolution always shows up in some small way in U.S. elections, in part due to the importance of theologically conservative Christians to the Republican party. Of the major candidates still in the fray, only Mike Huckabee has said he rejects evolution (some others, such as John McCain, have endorsed the idea that "the hand of God" guided our development, but only Huckabee raised his hand when asked at a forum who did NOT believe in evolution). So this article on CNN is helpful in clarifying exactly what was said. Huckabee did back off from explicitly endorsing the belief we live on a young Earth (that is, thousands rather than billions of years old), saying he didn't know.

A great source for space policy and law

WHen I attended the University of North Dakota, my space law professor was a very accomplished lady named Joanne Gabrynowicz, who has gone on to head theThe National Center for Remote Sensing, Air, and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. In October 2007, Joanne and three colleagues launched the Res Communis blog, which keeps up on space law and policy news.

Science in the U.S. Presidential campaign

How big a role are science and technology issues playing in the current Presidential campaign?
Not very. While every candidate has some position on alternative energy, other topics get a mixed reception. This isn't surprising, given that no U.S. election, even after the oil crisis of 1973, was really dominated by any sort of sci-tech issue. I've reported earlier on the mix of positions (again, with some candidates not taking any position) on the U.S. space program. This report from LiveScience.com gives a good overview, with links, of what has been said so far on a broader range of issues. (Oddly, LiveScience Senior Editor Robin Lloyd did NOT mention the candidates' positions on space.)

NASA and Google study meteor shower

In an innovative public-private partnership created by NASA's Ames Research Center and internet giant Google, Google moguls park their jets at NASA's Moffett Field, and NASA gets to make use of them for science missions. Yesterday a Google-owned Gulfstream V flew a ten-hour mission to higher latitudes to let NASA scientists observer the intense but relatively localized Quandrantid meteor shower.

Thanks to the always-helpful Kris Winkler for this item.

Space science on a budget

This interesting article from the NY Times describes how, with a flat budget, NASA space science director S. Alan Stern is getting the maximum practical number of missions done by being hard-nosed about holding missions to their original budgets or at least to minimal overruns. It's a difficult situation that sometimes requires accepting less scientific return (like a cut in mission duration) to keep projects from being canceled in a zero-sum budget world.

Evolutionary beliefs by the numbers

A new survey of American showed that 61 percent agreed with the statement "all living things have evolved over time."
Out of that majority, 36 percent agreed the cause was "natural processes such as natural selection," while 25 percent agreed that "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things."
COMMENT: I'm a Christian who has yet to be convinced there are workable "all natural" explanations for some of the more unique human traits, such as our desire to engage in philosophy and theology or our ability to appreciate beauty. But I have never understood my friends who argue that the Earth must be young and we are misinterpreting mountains of evidence (literally) that indicates it's billions of years old. Creation science tries to build as case that the tiny number of freakish events contradicting standard science (such as ancient fossils redeposited in newer strata) are the rule rather than the exceptions. As long as you accept the premise that Genesis is an allegory written for people who couldn't possibly understand geology, paleontology, etc., there is no contradiction. Evolution is a bedrock (again, literally) explanation of our origins and should be understood by all. Even if you don't believe it, you need to know it.

Looking for the Great White: Look out behind you

This rather chilling pic shows what happened when marine biologist Trey Snow went out to observe great white sharks in a tiny inflatable kayak. A 4-meter shark is shown pulling up behind the frail craft of the man, showing that the observer, in the wild, is often the observed. In this case, the shark opted not to bite the strange object, so fortunately this column is not an obituary. I salute all those willing to take risks to get something accomplished for science and conservation.

Wish for the New Year

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It's my tradition to wish out the old year by sharing one of the great poetic expressions of hope and renewal. Whatever our spiritual beliefs or philosophies, we can all find a shared sentiment in this poem.

"Ring out, wild bells" from In Memoriam

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.




And since hope is always buoyed by laughter, I add another perennial favorite: Dave Barry's recap of the year just passed.

http://www.miamiherald.com/dave_barry/story/359826.html



The best of wishes to all,
Matt Bille

New Book to Watch For: Your Inner Fish

Available for preorder now and out January 15 is Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body (Pantheon, 2008) Shubin is a palenontologist, anatomist, and now author who made one of the great "missing link" discoveries showing how fish became land vertebrates.

The Ape and the Panda

Chinese scientists have unearthed new fossils of the largest ape that ever lived, alongside those of giant pandas with which it apparently competed - and lost. The fossils, 400,000 years old, came from a limestone cave on the island Hainan. They indicate that, in this habitat, the bear and the ape both utilized a bamboo-heavy diet, putting them in direct competition. The pandas persisted, although they became slightly smaller over time, while "Giganto" apparently vanished entirely.

Mars: Countdown to Collision?

The odds are still against the asteroid called 2007 WDS colliding with Mars - but they are improving. When I first blogged on this, the odds of a collision with the 50m-wide object were 1 in 75. Now they are 1 in 25. If the collision does take place, reports NASA JPL, it will do so at 2:55 a.m. PST on January 30. Stay tuned....

Science Stories of the Year

The end-of-year lists are coming out. I like this one from USA Today because of the prominence it gives to the discovery of new animal species, both living and prehistoric.

Army buys Macintosh

We Mac lovers no longer feel quite so alone :)

Tiger attack at SF Zoo

A Siberian tiger penned behind a moat over 6m across and a wall over 5m high nonetheless got out on Christmas Day, killing one man and injuring two more before it was shot dead. There's no word yet on whether human error was involved, but it certainly seems likely. One unofficial tally (there is no official one) is that there were 44 big cat attacks in the US in 2007, although this includes pets, carnival sideshow animals, etc.

Merry Christmas, and an idea for that gift you forgot

I received a set of DVDs containing the BBC series Living Planet. Even viewers like myself who think they know something of natural history will gape at images of otters driving off a crocodile, cranes battling team-hunting golden eagles as they try to surmount the Himalayas, and macaques swimming underwater just for the fun of it. And that's just part of Disc 1. Diary segments about the challenges and techniques of filming this series are just as fascinating as the documentary itself.

Global Warming - an inconvenient dissent?

A Senate minority report objects to the insistence by Al Gore and others that there is a scientific consensus on human-caused global warming and only a few fringe scientists and paid oil company spokesmen are objecting. The report lists 400 scientists in relevant disciplines, some of them quite prominent, who doubt either the mechanism of global warming or the claim that it will be severe.
COMMENT: My non-expert opinion: I do think the Earth is warming, but I'm not at all sure how much of it can be laid confidently to human causes and how much is part of a natural cycle. I'm unnerved any time a majority supporting a scientific theory tries to paint itself as all-knowing and the opponents as cranks or criminals (seriously: some environmentalists have predicted criminal trials for "global warming deniers"). The point I do think I can make with confidence is that this is a complicated issue, not the gradeschool-simple cause and effect painted by Al Gore's famous slide show.

In some positive space news....

NASA's Kennedy Space Center has released a a list of its successes for the year. These included launching three Shuttle missions and four unmanned science spacecraft, hosting the World Space Expo, and making progress on the Constellations spacecraft and infrastructure. For 2008, the Center has an ambitious list: five Shuttle launches and ten robotic spacecraft.

Missing Mars

An optimal Earth-Mars trajectory is available every 26 months, so naturally NASA tries to use those opportunities to launch its probes to the Red Planet. A major mission, the $475M Mars Scout, was slated for the 2011 launch window. The agency, however, found a "serious" conflict of interest in one of the panels formed to pick the contractor for the mission. Restarting the selection process will delay the flight until the 2013 window and add $40M to the cost. NASA won't say where the conflict occurred or whether it involved an individual, one of the institutions competing for the contract, or one of NASA's support contractors.
COMMENT: This is inexcusable. You're supposed to do your "due diligence" before you appoint panels for this kind of thing. When the details leak out, as I'm sure they will, I would not be surprised if the conflict was something that could have been discovered with an Internet search.

Mars under attack

A newly discovered asteroid has at least a one in 75 chance of hitting the Red Planet in January, and the odds of a collision appear to be improving. The wide chunk of rock known as 2007 WD5, 50 meters in diameter, could make a dent in Mars comparable to what a similar-sized body did 50,000 years ago on Earth. This impact resulted in the 1.2km-wide Meteor Crater (a.k.a. Barringer Crater) in Arizona. The Mars rovers are not believed to be in danger if a collision occurs, but you can be sure every instrument on Earth, in space, and on Mars will be pointed at the impact site if this cosmic smashup actually happens. The damage done to Mars, the plumes thrown into the atmosphere, and all other aspects of the collision would tell us much about our sister world.

Weirdest science story of the year?

Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log lets you vote. Was it the development of transparent-skinned frogs? Radiation-proof underwear? The discovery that Viagra cures jet lag in hamsters? (I'm not sure how useful that is - I have yet to see a hamster on my business flights, and certainly hamsters have no need for Viagra for the drug's primary use.)

Vote now!

Another cryptozoological outfit of note

John Downes' Centre for Fortean Zoology fills a niche in the UK similar to the one the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club occupies in North America. The CFZ is a little too willing to consider poorly supported or illogical claims for my taste, and their Weird Weekend conference conflates cryptozoology with UFO and general Fortean enthusiasts, a combination I think cryptozoology, in its claim to be a hard science, should stay far away from. Still, I'm the guy writing from his armchair and the CFZ folks are out actively pursuing animals, so I can't criticize too much. They recently arranged a small expedition to Guyana in pursuit of cryptzoological critters, and they do a lot of investigation of odd or out-of place animals in the UK. Construction of a museum is underway. Good hunting, chaps!

From small ancestors, great whales grow

Evolutionary biologists have long debated the origin of the whales. Now a raccoon-sized mammal called Indohyus, which lived 48 million years ago in what is now India, has been put forward as a candidate for the ancestor of all whales. Despite obvious differences between the semi-aquatic, muntjac-like Indohyus and the largest creatures that ever lived, a team led by American paleontologist Hans Thewissen reports that there are strong skeletal similarities, especially in the skulls and middle ear bones. Other experts are awaiting more analysis to support this fairly radical notion.

ISS crewmember's mother dies

Ofttimes one of the costs involved in exploration is separation from loved ones. My sincere condolences to astronaut Daniel Tani, whose mother has died on Earth while he is in orbit, enriching our knowledge aboard the International Space Station.

Dragons are Too Seldom

With the new cuddly-monster film The Water Horse coming out, it's not surprising to see the media revisit the long-lived mystery of Loch Ness. Adrian Shine, one of the most experienced Nessie searchers, made a wonderful comment on the subject: "If there are no dragons there, there really ought to be.”

The giant rat of Papua

Researchers in in the Foja mountains of Indonesia's eastern Papua province have collected two new species of rodents: one a tiny possum, the other a very large rat. One scientist, Kristofer Helgen, says, "The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat. With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip." The expedition was sponsored by Conservation International.
Thanks to Cameron Leuthy for drawing my attention to this item.

For Something Different: Grendel = Sasquatch?

Cryptozoologists have speculated on whether some form of human-like primate, be it a surviving Neanderthal or an unknown species, has been behind European folklore about "wildmen" and "trolls." Grendel of Beowulf fame pops up often in this conversation. The reason is that some translations, like a prose version I read in high school, explicitly make Grendel a wildman of some sort. The version I remember (and cryptid researcher Dale Drinnon agrees we read the same book) makes him about seven feet tall, "drooling with spit, stinking and hairy." Does that accord with the actual text of the poem?

We have, of course, no definitive version of the poem, whose origins are lost in time. Indeed, since for a long time it was a tale told or sung orally, and changed constantly, there is not really an official nor an original form. But the most authoritative source we have, the one all modern translations spring from (at first, second, or third hand) is a single surviving manuscript in the British Library. When poet Seamus Heaney went back to this source and used it directly for his wonderful new translation, he shed some light on Grendel.

That Grendel was a seven-foot hairy wildman appears to be a later author's interpretation. Heaney's translation of Beowulf doesn't contain anything sufficiently descriptive of Grendel to be of much use. Heaney, in an introduction, provides his view after reading the sole surviving original text: that Grendel makes us think of "some hard-boned, immensely strong android frame, half Caliban and half-hoplite." (Caliban being the deformed (also not well described, but usually depicted as looking like a bestial subhuman or wildman) yet eloquent slave in The Tempest, while a hoplite was a Greek heavy infantryman.)

Grendel is "a fiend out of hell, a grim demon" from "the banished monsters, Cain's creatures." He attacks Beowulf with his claws ready, which doesn't sound primate-like, and the later description of the arm and hand Beowulf tears off doesn't sound mammalian at all. On the other hand, Grendel is sufficiently human to have a soul, which is condemned to Hell.

The description of his size is not consistent: he is bested by one human hero in unarmed combat, but a few pages earlier, it says he bore off THIRTY men at a time, which would make him gigantic. Nowhere is he compared directly in size to a man or anything else that would allow us to ascribe an approximate height to him. All we know for sure is that he could fit through the doors of the mead hall.

From a cryptozoological perspective, I don't think there is anything solid we can make of this. Grendel is a little-described fiend who, given the reference to the old idea of Cain's clan as outcasts from humanity, might plausibly be assumed to be hairy, even if the poem makes no further reference to it. His mother seems to be something else again: she's been seen with him stalking on the moors, but she moves better in water than on land.

They went a different direction with the recent film, which follows the poem about halfway before veering off into a different story. In this visually stunning but ultimately less than compelling version, Grendel is a huge, misshapen parody of a human, but is still a physical animal, while his mother is a supernatural entity who can be physical (in more ways than one) when she wants to be.

I've always thought that Grendel was useful only as evidence of humanity's long fascination with semi-humanoid monsters, and not as evidence of any specific animal that was then living, or indeed had ever lived outside the human imagination. This doesn't mean such things can't exist, only that we can't rely on an old Anglo-Saxon poem to prove it.

But what a poem it is.

Orion/Ares I passes Preliminary Design Review

I've been very leery of the Orion/Ares I stack NASA plans to use to put the next crew into orbit. The eningeers working on it, though, think they have conquered the most improtant problems, and the stack has passed a PDR. This is without settling officially on a landing mode, oddly enough, even though NASA officials have finally stated unequivically that it's going to be a water landing as the primary option.

Also: the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), successor to the ingenious LEM of the Apollo days, finally has a name: Altair.

Mammoth extinction: the smoking gun?

At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists offered new evidence that not only man, but nature, had a hand in the rapid decline of the mammoth and other North American megafauna. Eight 35,000-year-old mammoth tusks show damage apparently due to being peppered with tiny fragments of metal (mainly iron and nickel) moving at very high speed. All the impacts were from one direction. Richard Firestone from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said, "We think that there was probably an impact which exploded in the air that sent these particles flying into the animals."

Mars Sample Return planning underway

A mission to return samples from Mars to Earth has been proposed many times, but never funded to completion. Now a new effort is underway.

NASA press release, 10 December 2007:

International Group Plans Strategy for Mars Sample Return Mission

NASA and an international team are developing plans and seeking
recommendations to launch the first Mars mission to bring soil samples back
to Earth. The ability to study soil from Mars here on Earth will contribute
significantly to answering questions about the possibility of life on the
Red Planet. Returned samples also will increase understanding of the useful
or harmful properties of Martian soil, which will support planning for the
eventual human exploration of Mars.

A task force named the International Mars Architecture for Return of
Samples, or IMARS, recently met in Washington to lay the foundation for an
international collaboration to return samples from Mars. NASA hosted the
meeting. IMARS meeting participants included representatives from more than
half a dozen countries and NASA, the European Space Agency, or ESA, the
Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

First film of a rare mammal

Mongolia's long-eared jerboa, which looks a bit like a miniature kangaroo with comically oversized ears, has been filmed for the first time. The Zoological Society of London released the video in hopes of drawing attention to the need for conserving this endangered species. The Society's Dr Jonathan Baillie said, "The long-eared jerboa is a bit like the Mickey Mouse of the desert, cute and comic in equal measure. Unfortunately, it is just one of many unusual animals that are highly threatened but receiving little or no conservation attention. This is the most amazing and remarkable creature."

Human evolution accelerating?

A study led by Robert K. Moyzis of the University of California, Irvine, and Henry C. Harpending of the University of Utah reports that approximately 7 percent of human genes shows signs of having evolved via natural selection since the emergence of modern humans. What's interesting is that the rate of genetic change in humans has apparently been accelerating over the last 50,000 years, producing such things as populations more resistant to certain diseases. The reason, apparently, is that people have exploded in numbers and pushed into more environments. Other researchers are cautious about the findings, noting that alternative explanations are possible and that the test for determining which genes have evolved may be faulty.

A little more NASA news

I was pretty harsh on NASA the other day, because I was frustrated by the conflicting word on the Orion landing mode. I still am, but I should link to another news source covering reaction to the ESMD news briefing yesterday.

Shuttle Launch slips to January

Launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, with the critical Columbus laboratory module for the ISS, has slipped to January. The problem remains the persistently troublesome engine cutoff sensors (ECOs). January 2 is the earliest possible date.

Landing Orion

There certainly has been a lot of confusion about the landing mode for NASA's Orion CEV. For a long time, it was "baselined" that the capsule would come down on land as opposed to an Apollo-style water recovery. The advantage of that is that you can put down near your recovery base and save the cost and uncertainty involving having ships in place for every landing. The drawback of such a landing is the need for airbags and other equipment that add weight and cost. It's also harder to make a reusable heatshield for landing under the sterner conditions.
In the last few months, word has been leaking out that NASA is going to give up on land as the primary mode. As NASAWatch and other sources have documented, the agency is seemingly loath to admit it. Even after an Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) administrator finally said it in Space News, NASA communications to the public have made no mention of any change in plans. Now SpaceRef hhas published an internal directive making land a "contingency only" option (that is, the crew must survive in the event of a ground landing, but the reusable spacecraft won't be reusable any more.) Amazingly, NASAWatch has notes this morning from an ESMD telecon in which NASA insists no one has picked a landing mode for certain.
COMMENT: This is ridiculous. There's no excuse for not making the decision public and explaining the rationale at the time it was made. The agency seems to be going out of its way to trip over its own feet, making it look like NASA is hiding something for as long as possible.
The possibility that NASA has, indeed, been deliberately trying to downplay any change can't be ruled out on the evidence so far. A switch to a water landing makes the Orion look a little less unique, a little more like a recycled Apollo, which is not an insignificant point when scrambling for funding. It also contributes to the perception that the Ares I launch vehicle is marginal at best and might not have handled the weight needed to safely and reusably (my grammar is off there, but you get the point) land the Orion on terra firma.
A poster to a space newsgroup took this a step further, asking if this could be a step toward dropping the reusability requirement entirely. I know NASA would hate taking that step, but between the continuing budget crunch and the capacity of the launch vehicle the agency is hell-bent on using no matter how its timeline and capabilities slip, I'll bet it's being discussed in very hushed tones somewhere.
COMMENT TO COMMENT: I believe in the VSE and the Constellation program. They are valuable to the nation and to humanity. I just wish I could believe NASA was taking the right path and executing the program as best as it could be done.

Shuttle not up in air: just launch date is

OK, sometimes I go overboard trying for a cute title.
Anyway, the shuttle Atlantis' launch, which NASA hoped it could squeeze in today (Sunday), has bees postponed again due to the ever-troublesome ECO sensors. I suspect Shuttle program managers can't even say "ECO" anymore without at least two unprintable adjectives. At this point, a new launch date has not been set. If the shuttle can't get off later this week, it will have to wait until January for the next launch window.

Kenya's Deadly New Cobra

If you think newly described species are generally harmless bugs and the like, meet Naja ashei, the giant spitting cobra just described from Kenya. Almost three meters long and able to spit venom several meters, the snake was first reported in the 1960s, but has only now been identified as a separate species from smaller spitting cobras.

First Google Lunar X Prize Competitor

The Google Lunar X Prize has its first formally announced competitor. The team, called Odyssey Moon, includes the Canadian space firm MDA and The Planetary Society among its collaborators. Its founder is Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards, a founder of the International Space University.

Shuttle countdown holding

From NASA:
"The launch of NASA's space shuttle Atlantis will take place no earlier than Saturday, Dec. 8, at 3:43 p.m. EST. Thursday's scheduled liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., was postponed because of a problem with a fuel cutoff sensor system inside the shuttle's external fuel tank." The shuttle is to install and activate the Columbus laboratory module on the International Space Station.
COMMENT: The four engine cutoff, or ECO, sensors, have been a sore spot for a long time. They are continually being refurbished and point up the difficulties of sustaining a launch system, however capable it may be, built with 1970s technology.

A weird little species from Ghana

The latest report from a field survey by Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) concerns discoveries made in Ghana’s Atewa Range Forest Reserve. In addition to significant new populations of endangered primates, birds, and amphibians, the team collected nine new species. The oddest of these is described as a tick-like arachnid from the age of the dinosaurs. The bizarre little animal "looks like a cross between a spider and a crab." It joins a group with only 57 other living species known.

Last chance for a giant turtle

Rafetus swinhoei, the Yangtze soft-shelled turtle, is a contender for the title of "world's largest freshwater turtle." It's also, unfortunately, a contender for the title "turtle species closest to extinction."
In the zoo in the Chinese city of Changsha lives the last known female specimen, an estimated 80 years old and weighing about 40 kg. In a zoo in Suzhou lives a 90-kg turtle, about a century old, who is the last known male. After years of difficulties, the zoos have reached an agreement to allow the female to be sent to meet the male. Scientists will try both artificial insemination and old-fashioned mating in a last-chance plan to save the species.

Followups on two cryptozoological stories

The website Cryptomundo has put up new information on a couple of the sotries I've mentioned. One is that the photo of a yeti track reported by an American TV crew which is being circulated with the news story is actually an unrelated find from Malaysia. So we still don't really know what the track being reported on looks like. The other is that the recent photograph of a South China tiger, presumed extinct in the wild, was a forgery based on a picture used for a calendar - unfortunately.

Chimp vs. college students

You may have thought some of your fellow college students were more ape than human. That might be a compliment. The testing reported here from Japan indicates that on one measure, remembering the locations of a short string of numbers flashed up only briefly, chimps competed equally with college students, and one particularly bright animal went on in a more difficult test to best its human opponents.
COMMENT: As creatures born to survive in the wild, chimps may have a stronger reason, evolutionarily speaking, to be able to take in a scene at one glance, and thus their brains and eyes are better optimized for that task. Just a thought from a human.

The Hadrosaur from Hell Creek

A very rare fossil find - a hadrosaur fossilized so completely that its skin, tendons, ligaments, and other soft structures can be studied - is undergoing a CT scan at a Boeing facility normally used for large rocket engines and the like. The fossil "mummy" was found in the Hell Creek formation in North Dakota. Among the most interesting items in the research to date is that a calculation of the animal's lean muscle mass yields an estimate of the hadrosaur's top speed at 28mph. One paleontologist noted this would enable it to outrun predators like Tyrannosaurus rex, although the speed and hunting habits of the T. rex are a matter of some debate.

GAO on the Ares 1

A GAO report on NASA's Ares 1 booster agrees the agency is working hard to make the program executable, but worries not enough money has been set aside to bring the upper stage in on its aggressive schedule. The audit agency recommended NASA develop a revised business case for the Ares 1 and consider delaying the July 2008 Preliminary Design Review (PDR) if insufficient progress has been made.

"Sex Crazed Female Antelope Attack Tired Males"

That's the headline. Really. And I couldn't resist posting it.

In the footprints of the Yeti

An American TV crew has reported footprints near Mount Everest which, they say, resemble Yeti tracks. The legendary anthropoid of the high mountains apparently left prints by the Manju River at a relatively low (and thus livable) altitude of 2,850m. The producers from the show Destination Truth released pictures of a cast showing a "pristine" print about 30cm long and, from what I can make out from the image, very widely splayed toes.

COMMENT: I hope they found something, but we can't conclude much from what's been released. How do you say "this looks like a Yeti track" when there's no such thing as an authenticated Yeti track to compare it to? I presume they are referring to Exhibit A in anyone's case for the Yeti, the tracks photographed at a much higher altitude by Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1952. However, the cast displayed does NOT look much like the Shipton prints. What ever left that print had a foot which was very broad (about 20cm) for its 32-cm length but was broad along its length except for the heel. That is, those photos did not show a relatively narrow print which became much wider at the toes. So I'm not booking any flights to Nepal just yet.

Skeptic on Psychic Crime Solving

As Benjamin Radford writes in this article, journalists tend to banner the use of psychics in criminal cases without following up to see if the psychics did any good. Radford details a case where 30 psychics joined in the search for two missing women. Not only did they fail to help, but every clue they gave was wrong, and police wasted a lot of time chasing them down. Sloppy journalism like this, Radford points out, is what allows psychics (both the sincere and the publicity-seekers) to trumpet their rare "hits" and ignore their far more numerous "misses."
COMMENT: There is, as yet, no validated scientific theory that would permit any sort of ESP. I don't discount it entirely: I have two experiences with what's called "crisis telepathy" that I don't think I'll ever explain to my satisfation. This matter of psychics claiming to solve crimes is serious, though, if a psychic tip sends police in the wrong direction. If there are a hundred wrong tips from pyschics and one that turns out right, even if it's only general (e.g., "the body is near the river"), journalists tend to focus on the interesting story of the hit rather than explore the misses. Psychics were all over the Washignton sniper case without providing anything of use (of course, that was also true of the psychologists and profilers, all of whom gave the "while male loner" profile in a crime committed by two African-Americans).

Unveiling the prehistoric food chain

Paleobiologist Jurgen Kriwet at the Humboldt University of Berlin has unveiled an amazing fossil showing two steps in the food chain. Unearthed in Germany, the fossil is of a shark which has swallowed two young amphibians, about 20-25 cm long, called temnospondyls. In turn, one of the amphibians had a small bony fish in its stomach. This minidrama, which occurred over 250 million years ago, is interesting for many reasons, one of which is that no other shark, extinct or living, has been documented to eat amphibians.

Your Robot is Ready

OK, not quite ready. But the latest advances in robotic "helpers" for humans, coming out of Japan, are pretty startling.

Space and the Republicans

Space finally made it into a Republican Presidential debate, although only two candidates (one of them highly unlikely to win) addressed it. Governor Mike Huckabee endorsed, in general, the current Vision, while Rep. Tom Tancredo said the exploration (meaning human exploration) of Mars was unaffordable.
Earlier, Senator McCain had endorsed President Bush's initiative, and Governnor Romney and Mayor Giuliani did so a bit more cautiously.

Nature, Nurture, and Genius

A new study offers an interesting view of what we call "genius," emphasizing that it's often narrowly focused (chess grandmasters who can remember and analyze countless moves scored no better than average at memorizing strings of numbers) and must be developed with hard work. I think the study's authors played down the genetic influence a bit too much, but it's fascinating reading.

ANGELS microsatellite program advances

Press release from Orbital Sciences:

"Orbital Awarded $29.5 Million Contract For ANGELS Satellite Program By Air Force Research Laboratory
– Orbital Sciences Corporation ...announced it has been selected by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., for a $29.5 million contract to support the execution of the Autonomous Nanosatellite Guardian for Evaluating Local Space satellite program. The ANGELS program supports the continued initiatives of AFRL’s Space Vehicle Directorate to develop innovative nanosatellite technologies capable of independently providing localized space situational awareness.

COMMENT: The program has morphed from a very innovative idea (tiny nanosatellites flying "escort" for large, expensive spacecraft) to a slightly less challenging, though still valuable one, with 50-70kg satellites providing space situational awareness (SSA). According to AFRL, the original idea was simply too difficult with current technology. OTHER COMMENT: This is not, and has never been, a weapons program. I throw this comment in a lot when reporting on military microsatellite development because the Center for Defense Information, a private group that gets quoted in the press a lot, routinely paints all such efforts as being efforts by the US to "weaponize space."

Space Battlelab deactivated

USAF press release from Schriever AFB, Colorado:
"The Air Force Space Battlelab here stood down in an inactivation earlier this month by Space Innovation and Development Center Col. Robert Wright. Colonel Wright and 595th Space Group Commander Col. Stephen Latchford retired the Space Battlelab's guidon before an audience that included all the previous Space Battlelab commanders.
The inactivation completed Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley's direction to inactivate all Air Force battlelabs, Colonel Wright said. The Battlelab's mission was to directly support combat operations through innovative and revolutionary applications of space systems. Its goal was to turn around projects at low cost within 18 months." The SDIC will continue some projects along these lines.

COMMENT: I have worked with the Space Battlelab (which, despite the name, did not develop weapons) and was very impressed with this small, dedicated group which had a number of successes in the low-cost application of space technology. The SBL will be missed.
(Oddly, the press release archived here by SpaceRef is credited to US Space Command, which (due to a decision I continue to believe is unwise, not that the Pentagon cares what I think), no longer exists.)

Next Step in Commercial Access to space

With over $200M in NASA funding made available for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to the ISS by the disqualification of contract holder Rocketplane Kistler, Lockheed Martin, ATK, and PlanetSpace have submitted a bid. SpaceX, which holds the other COTS contract, has also applied for the new money to speed up its own booster/spacecraft development program.

More Bug Naming News

Meanwhile, a butterfly discovered in a Florida museum's collection had its naming rights auctioned off to fund an entomology research program. The grandchildren of Margery Minerva Blythe Kitzmiller paid $40,800 to name the insect Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae.
COMMENT: While the concept of selling species names is still a bit controversial, it's always seemed to me a win-win situation, in which market forces are harnessed to fund scientific research. Given estimates of 10-30 million animal species yet to be named (the overwhelming majority being tropical insects) it's not like opportunities to honor scientists and other worthies will be crowded out by patrons willing to pay for a name.

The Springtail and the Senator

At the dedication of the new Twin Creeks Science and Education Center in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the facility's Congressional patron, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, was honored in an unusual way. Earnest Bernard, the chair of Discover Life in America, which is coordinating the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), announced a newly found insect species from the park had been named the Lamar Alexander springtail, or Cosberella lamaralexanderi. Not only did Alexander secure funding for the center, but the new bug has a checkered color pattern somewhat resembling Alexander's political trademark, the plaid shirts he wore when campaigning. Alexander was appreciative, saying: "It is a pretty cute bug."

Giant Sea Scorpion discovered

British and German scientists have unearthed the claw of a sea scorpion an astonishing 2.5 meters long. Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae is the largest of the known Eurypterids, aquatic or amphibian creatures which are the ancestors of modern scorpions, and, some scientists think, of all the arachnids.

Obama Talks Space - Sort of

Senator Barak Obama has become the second Democratic candidate for President to say something important on future space policy, but he did it indirectly, as an aside to his education plan. To pay for an $18B/year increase in Federal aid to education, one of his solutions is to delay NASA's Constellation program for five years.

COMMENT: It's not at all clear how much money you could free up this way, and NASA supporters are naturally deeply cynical about the idea that any major cuts would eventually be restored. It's easy to say "we'll delay a program five years," but it's extremely difficult to do it without causing significant and permanent damage. You have to find a level of spending which will maintain the critical workforce and minimize the "brain drain" over those years, while also maintaining the physical infrastructure and keeping enough work going to ensure the contractors and NASA centers are capable of completing the program eventually. I'm not arguing NASA is sacred or that Constellation must be executed as it stands today. I do, however, think that this plan will be a disaster for human spaceflight. We will see a mass exodus of top engineers, managers, and scientists into related fields like private spaceflight and aviation, and the experienced astronauts who would have been first to fly the Orion CEV will likely be gone, too.

Dating: Not just for humans

How do animals impress prospective mates? In many ways, some of them kind of amusing (the way the bower bird builds a relatively huge structure and never uses it for anything after he's gotten a lady to swoon over it), and some downright bizarre.

Update on NASA's future

Updating the post on Lori Garver's speech (below):

Space News reports that it's very unlikely the $1B add-on will survive the House-Senate conference committee, adding considerable uncertainty to an already cloudy picture. Add to that: days after Garver's speech, NASA indicated that avoiding the "brain drain" would take another $2B the agency is highly unlikely to get.
COMMENT: I'm often less than complimentary about recent decisions from NASA management, but Mike Griffin and company are in an impossible position. Congress and the Administration want the agency to pursue a slate of missions that is flat-out impossible with the current funding level, made worse by Congressional earmarks and the political impossibility of closing any of NASA's ten centers. Limping along under these conditions makes it probable the desperate agency will try to cut corners anywhere it can - raising the odds of failed programs and, potentially, disasters. It's easy for me to say, but I can't see a solution without Griffin telling the Administration and Congress, "We can't do this. Either let us close centers, or give us enough money, or fire me, but do something."

The Origins of Rome

In Roman legend, the city was founded by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, who were suckled in a cave by a friendly she-wolf. Archaeologists are unlikely to vindicate this tale, but they do think they've found what Romans in the days of Augustus believed to be the location of this cave. A vaulted sanctuary, buried 17m inside the Palatine hill, was decorated with colored marble and sea shells to mark it as the Lupercale (named for the Latin term for a she-wolf, lupa). There is at yet no direct access to the partly filled-in site, which has been explored with laser scanners and endoscopes while a debate continues on how to safely open up a passage into the fragile vault in a hill riddled with centuries of buildings and passages.

Stem Cells: A Way Out of the Debate?

As neatly summarized in this article by MSNBC's Alan Boyle, two groups of researchers have developed ways to genetically modify adult cells to create new cells identical to embryonic stem cells. Neither method is ready for large-scale application, but they offer the promise of further exploring the theraputic possibilities of such cells without the oral and ethical questions surrounding the use of stem cells from human embryos.
COMMENT: Whatever one's stance on the use of human embryonic stem cells (personally, it makes me very queasy), this is good news. Hopefully this progress will attract funding to determine the large-scale applicability of these methods. When there's a non-controversial way to pursue research, it only makes sense to pursue it that way. My other thought is that the media may well be overblowing the whole subject: no useful product derivered from embryonic stem cells has yet emerged from several years of research. The potential, though, is still there, and this news may indicate a workable route to pursuing further research.

A New Hurdle for the Ares Rocket

During a system definition review (SDR) which finished up in October, NASA and contractor engineers found a potentially serious vibration/oscillation problem with the five-segment solid-fuel "stick" Ares I booster design intended to loft the Orion CEV.

A NASA spokeperson said, in response to a question from NASAWatch:
"Thrust oscillation or resonant burning is a characteristic of all solid rocket motors. It is caused by vortex shedding inside the solid rocket motor, similar to the wake that follows a fast-moving boat. When the vortex shedding coincides with the acoustic modes of the motor combustion chamber, pressure oscillations generate longitudinal forces that may affect the loads experienced by the Ares I during the last phase of first-stage flight. NASA is assessing the analyses in more detail, looking for any potential impacts to the integrated stack and ways to mitigate those impacts. Results are due in spring 2008. It is a normal part of the development process to identify, mitigate and track challenges such as this."
NASA confirmed this meant a delay of six months in the Critical Design Review (CDR) but denies a rumor that this means a slip of over a year in the first human flight, currently scheduled for March 2015. According to NASA, there's enough flexibility in the development schedule to solve the new problem without long-term impact.

COMMENT: All large rockets, being elongated structures through which tremendous and complex stresses are acting, do have challenges of this type at some point in the design phase. Going all the way back to 1958, the spinning upperstage package on the Jupiter-C/Juno I had to vary its rotation rate to avoid a "coupling" of vibrations as the first stage burned fuel and thus changed its own characteristics.
That said, no large rocket has ever been this elongated: the Ares/Orion stack will have a ratio of height to diameter of 18:1.
NASA made an early decision for a Shuttle SRB-dervived booster for Orion over alternatives like man-rating a Delta or Atlas EELV to simplify the whole Constellation program, keeping the cost down and getting the program moving sooner. To me (insert my usual "I'm not an engineer" disclaimer here), the idea that this was a "safe, simple, soon" solution, as manufacturer ATK described it, is increasingly hard to argue for. The current Ares design is no more a "simple" modified SRB than the Vanguard booster was the "modified Viking sounding rocket" the Navy used to sell its program in 1955. (Insert usual "If that's not familiar, read my book" comment here.)
I understood the initial basis for proposing the Ares family, but that logic may not be valid any more. Some human spaceflight experts have always been leery of a solid-fuel booster, which cannot be turned off, despite the addition of an Apollo-type escape tower. If I were the NASA Administrator, I'd continue with the Ares program but invite the EELV makers to provide a new round of proposals for a backup booster option.



(Insert one more comment, emphasizing even more than usual that this is a personal opinion and not related to any company or organization I'm affiliated with.)

A Really Wayward Whale

I try to keep up with "lost cetacean" incidents, mainly because it puzzles me how intelligent animals with great sensory capabilities get so screwed up. This last one was really a wanderer - a minke whale that turned up stranded on a sandbar over 1,500 km up the Amazon in Brazil. At least report, the 6-meter animal was still alive despite being partially exposed to the air and sun, and officials were trying to determine if the creature could be freed and sent off in the right direction.

A Strange new Sauropod

On Tetrapod Zoology, a superb blog maintained by my acquaintance, paleogeologist Darren Naish, is a new entry describing

"Xenoposeidon proneneukos Taylor & Naish, 2007, an enigmatic and morphologically bizarre Lower Cretaceous neosauropod from the Wealden Supergroup rocks of East Sussex, described in the new issue of Palaeontology (Taylor & Naish 2007).

The new species is based on a single vertebra, about 20 cm long and 30 cm high, found in the Natural History Museum of London after roughly 115 years of being overlooked in storage. Paleontological enthusiast Mike Taylor brought it to Dr. Naish's attention, and the two co-authored the description. Without getting bogged down in the details, the bone shows at least three characteristics unknown in any other sauropod species from any location, indicating it belonged to its own family with a unique ancestry.

Congratulations, Darren!

A View of NASA's Future (Lori Garver speech)

I was in attendance earlier this week when Lori Garver, space policy advisor to Senator Hilary Clinton's Presidential campaign, was a lunchtime speaker for the American Astronautical Society's National Conference.
Garver’s talk was mainly an effusive pitch for her candidate, but there was more to it than that.
She restated Clinton’s policy and also reported the limited information she’d found on space statements by other candidates.
Here is her assessment of the two leading Democrats and three of the Republicans:
Senator Clinton: Promised increased support of aeronautics, Earth science, and robotic exploration, accelerating the development of Ares/Orion to avoid a “brain drain” when the Shuttle retired in 2010, and continuing to pursue human exploration, including lunar and eventually Martian ventures (NOTE: she did not specifically commit to NASA's current timetable for when humans should be on the Moon).
Senator Barak Obama: NASA is inspiring, but the agency should “do fewer things better” and must operate in light of a strict budget environment.
Governor Romney: Has not formed a policy yet, but said he’s seen no reason so far to change President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration (VSE)
Senator McCain: strongly in support of the VSE, including sending humans to Mars
Mayor Giuliani: Strongly supports an “aggressive space exploration” program.

Q and A

Q: I was able to ask a followup about what Senator Clinton’s policy meant for NASA’s topline.
A: Senator Clinton cosponsored the Senate-passed bill to add a $1B supplemental to NASA’s budget to make up for Katrina costs. Garver was asked by one of the Senator’s aides to make an estimate on what was needed to support Clinton’s NASA policy. She reported that adding the current $1B proposal to NASA’s budget and making that increased figure the new bottom line for smaller annual increases should do it. Garver said the current budget for exploration was “robust” and didn’t need a hike to carry out the new policy, but the other areas did need new money. She said her estimate was accepted by the campaign.

Q: What qualities do we need in the next NASA Administrator?
(NOTE: Garver has been mentioned as a strong possibility if Clinton is elected.)
A: The thing our recent administrators have not been able to do is better engage with, and be responsive to, the public, and that will be a key attribute to look for. Garver mentioned that, like many in the space community, she held up James Webb of the 1960s as the ideal Administrator.

A Mesozoic Vacuum Cleaner

A new dinosaur discovery from Africa, 10m long with a body mass approximating that of an elephant, shows a dentition unlike any other land creature of its time. With ten rows of tiny teeth, fast-growing and quickly worn out and replaced, in its flat mouth, Nigersaurus taqueti was a highly efficient browser - the "cow of the Mesozoic."

Flying High in Orbit

The Houston Chronicle runs an editorial applauding the recent record-setting spacewalk by Scott Parazynski by noting the mission set a new mark on the "wow factor" meter. It's hard to think of a better word than "wow."

To Clone or Not to Clone?

The United Nations University has released a new report recommending a global policy on human cloning. In the document, "Is Human Reproductive Cloning Inevitable: Future Options for UN Governance," the answer is NO, although perhaps with some narrowly defined medical or "theraputic" exceptions. The authors wrote that, among other aspects of this complex issue, "It is clear that any debate on human dignity needs to separate the various elements of the debate in order to consider whether opposition to cloning stems from concern for human dignity or respect for divine dignity.” The whole report defies thorough summary in this space, but it recommends an international agreement to ban most human cloning.
COMMENT: This seems a fairly sensible approach, but frankly, I doubt anything is going to stop human cloning from happening sometime in the next decade. That's not to say it's a good thing. It sounds naive or fuzzy or something to say that there are cases where we shouldn't take a scientific step, even if the reasons are good, but that's what I think in this case. THere are things humanity should stay away from, not just because of eithical or religious qualms but because we have no idea what the long-term effects on human society will be.

How Flight Began

How did flying get started? Did the earliest reptiles to take wing develop their abilities by hopping from the ground, or by jumping between trees? A new paper in Current Biology argues it was the former. Studying the toes of modern birds, early birds, and feathered ground-dwelling reptiles, the authors report that the toes of all types were similar, and did not match those of tree-dwelling reptiles. Accordingly, they argue. flight evolved from running and jumping on the ground, where winglike, feathered forelimbs might have aided in balance and directional control.

Thanks to Kris Winkler, my good friend and indefatigable volunteer researcher, for this item.

Norman Mailer has died

Norman Mailer, one of America's most colorful and talented writers, has died at 84.
Space afictionados will remember Mailer as the author of "Of a Fire On the Moon," certainly the most unique chronicle of Apollo 11. In this example of his "non-fiction fiction" style, mixing in a lot of his personal life and philosophy, Mailer showed a somewhat grudging admiration for a feat he thought was marred by the bland conformity of the agency and the voyagers carrying it out. He felt this conformity, even in post-Woodstock 1969, was a stifling force holding back all society - and yet, it produced Apollo.
In the book, he wrote: "The astronauts were the core of some magnetic human force called Americanism, Protestantism, or WASPitude... They were the knights of the Silent Majority, the WASP emerging from human history in order to take us to the stars."
He told an interviewer in 1973 about watching an Apollo launch: "It was a thunderingly beautiful experience -- voluptuous, sexual, dangerous, and expensive as hell."

VERY Big News from the world of whales

Loren Coleman has collected some very important news and links in one handy spot on the blog Cryptomundo.
First, there is a link to cetologist Robert Pitman's paper from 2006 on the first definite sighting of a live example of the enigmatic Shepherd’s beaked whale (Tasmacetus shepherdi).
Then there's a link to Pitman's Journal of Mammology paper on a new dwarf species of killer whale from the Antarctic.
Finally, a star-studded cetological team, with Merel L. Dalebout as lead author and a roster of co-authors including two more of the top experts on the mesoplodonts (beaked whales), William F. Perrin and James G. Mead, has determined that DNA taken from stranded whales in the Palmyra Atoll Wildlife Refuge and the Tabiteuea Atoll in the Republic of Kiribati indicate there's a yet-unidentified species in that little-known group.
I covered Pitman's studies of the fault lines between what was once thought to be a single species of killer whale (a.k.a. orca) in the Antarctic and the thoughts of Dalebout and others about yet-unidentified beaked whales in my 2006 book Shadows of Existence (Hancock House). Now, though, we have formal publication of more concrete conclusions in these areas. Thanks again to Loren for putting this together.

Chinese probe orbits Moon

In another first for China's space program, the Chang'e 1 spacecraft, launched October 24, has successfully entrered orbit around the Moon. It now enters a 12-month mission of studying our natural satellite. Pei Zhaoyu of the China National Space Administration reported, "All of the subsystems of the Chang'e 1 are in normal operation so far," and added, "The project is a comprehensive demonstration of China's economic, scientific and technological power."

Some observers have noted the timing is interesting, since Japan's first lunar probe entered its own orbit just a month ago. Given the long lead times for such missions, though, it's doubtful that timing is more than coincidence.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for this item.

Book of the Month: "Red Moon Rising"

This chronicle of the Sputnik era is one of several new histories which have come out this year, and it's a good one. Michael Brzezinski's Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age (2007: Times Books) stands out for a couple of reasons, including solid writing and an in-depth presentation of the Soviet side of events. He adds a good grasp of technical detail. As the co-author of another book on this subject, The First Space Race, I can speak with some authority when I say this is a valuable contribution. If anything gave me pause, it's his inclusion of the quote "Goldstone has the bird" in his acocunt of the Explorer I launch: we demonstrated that must have been based on incorrect memories, as no Goldstone tracking station yet existed. However, a few quibbles like that don't detract much from a book I recommend.

Florida's Weird Fauna

I grew up in Florida, so I noted with special interest the new book by Michael Newton titled, Florida's Unexpected Wildlife: Exotic Species, Living Fossils, and Mythical Beasts in the Sunshine State (2007: University Press of Florida). Florida is teeming with released or escaped exotic creatures (there was a monkey colony south of where I grew up in Vero Beach) and has its own "mystery animals" like sea monsters and the Skunk Ape.

It's official: the Giant Peccary

The formal publication of Marc van Roosmalen's paper naming the giant peccary (Pecari maximus) marks the latest in a series of mammal discoveries in the Amazin region by the prolific (sometimes controversial) zoologist and conservationist. The giant species has almost twice the mass of the previously established species in Brazil. An interesting note is that it was apparently discussed in a book by an American rubber-tapper named John Yungjohann, who described this species accurately as part of the fauna he encountered while working in the region from 1906 to 1919.

Triumph in Orbit

Scott Parazynski, supported by a cast of astronuts on the shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station (ISS) plus experts on the ground, pulled off one of the most difficult feats in the history of human spaceflight. In a complex seven-hour spacewalk, Parazynski anchored an extension boom on the ISS' robot arm, snipped tangled wires, and attached braces improvised on the space station to repair a 33.5-meter-long solar wing that was damaged last Tuesday. Parazynski, a doctor specializing in emergency medicine before he became an astronaut, surely never cured a more important patient. NASA can now proceed with the next launch in December, using the shuttle Atlantis, to continue the station's assembly.

Scott Parazynski's Challenge in Space

This Saturday or Sunday, U.S. astronaut Scott Parazynski will make one of the most difficult and potentially dangerous spacewalks in history. Parazynski will try to fix the ripped solar wing on the International Space Station. The plan requires travel almost from one end of the station to the other, a repair procedure which were just developed and can't be rehearsed, and the need to work next to an electrically charged panel that cannot be turned off. Astronauts on the ISS have already fashioned a brace from aluminum strips to take stress off the panel's damaged hinge.