Who flew first?

Wrights are challenged again.
It's not news that there are other claimants to the title "first in flight." Some people, like Maxim, certainly achieved short hops.  The Wrights, though, were first in controlled, practical flight. They were the first to develop, methodically, the aerodynamics behind their craft, test wing shapes in a wind tunnel. and reshape the wing to control flight.  Gustave Whitehead no doubt did some hops (maybe even some impressively long ones), but I think the Wrights stand supreme in the invention of controlled flight.

John McCain on Neil Armstrong's walk

I thought I had finished my tribute to Armstrong, but this is a unique coda to his story.  Senator John McCain, in 1969, had no idea Armstrong had landed on the Moon.  How he found out, and what it meant to him and his fellow POWs, is a very moving story. 

Farewell, Neil

Neil Armstrong, per his wishes, was buried at sea. The former Navy pilot's remains were consigned to the deep with proper honors from the U.S.S. Philippine Sea.

We had heroes once / and we will again / why shouldn't we? - Mary Chapin Carpenter

Looking askance at weird news

I have my conflicts with CSICOP and sometimes disagree with Sharon Hill, but she's one of the livelier writers on science and skepticism, and what she says here about teaching kids to think critically is well-phrased and important. She recounts helping them pick apart a "giant owl" photograph that made the rounds of the Internet even though you could see there was something not right about it. (Speaking of a class with Lawrence Krauss (author of The Physics of Star Trek, a great read), she also highlights one of my favorite themes: kids can still be fascinated by science if it's done right.)  In her Doubtful News, this week she corrects some media hype about "living cells" being found in a frozen mammoth (they were no such thing, only well-preserved.)  She's always worth a read.

Latest new primate looks like... well, us

New monkey from Congo

The newest priamte is colorful and downright fascinating.  It looks like a long-nosed old professor.  The lesula, Cercopithecus lomamiensis, "looks right back at its beholder, calm and pensive, examining you as you examine it," a human observer noted.  Check out the photo in the attached article. 

And it is, of course, yet another reminder that we don't know all the animals, not even all the primates, in this still-big world of ours.

JFK and the Moon: 50 Years ago today

President Kennedy gave his Moon speech (which included other goals, such as telecommunications satellites) 50 years ago today. "A man on the Moon in this decade"  was an audacious goal to set: there was no certainty, even in NASA (Wernher von Braun probably excepted: love or hate the man, he never lacked confidence), that it could be done before 1970. 
NASA's celebration

View entire speech

Indeed, JFK wondered about it even after he set the goal. He had a continuing interest in desalinating the oceans, and probably would have made that our top technical goal if it had been more feasible.  But he stuck by Apollo, and Johnson and Nixon did so after him, and we made it. 

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Amen.

Annual article post: 9/11 and science

Demolition? No.

Good article on why the "truthers," sincere though they may be, are wrong on every claim about the physics involved in demolition claims concerning 9/11. Remember also that any complex event, especially one that has never happened before, will produce oddities, both material and in human perceptions. Believe the science. Honor the heroes based on the real events.

Expert comment on my book Shadows of Existence

Dr. Marcus van Roosmalen, whose new adventure travel idea I discussed below, also had the time to read my 2006 book Shadows of Existence: Discoveries and Speculations in Zoology.  His take:
"Yur book is excellent and trustworthy - considering the fact that you depicted and described the white-throated black jaguar so realistically. No sensationalism."
Dr. Van Roosmalen is certain the white-throated jaguar exists and is not just a melanistic specimen like the black jaguars you can see at your zoo.  The cat reported from Brazil is a solid black (with none of the hidden rosettes you can spot in your zoo janguar when the lighting is right - with a white underside and throat. Why is he so sure? Well, he has seen it.
""I just read Matt Bille's 2006 Shadows of Existence. I was flabbergasted to see the 'onca-cangucu' or white-throated black jaguar, the pictorial evidence I am after already for more than 15 years, so accurately depicted on page 65 - exactly the beast that I was so fortunate to get a glimpse of in the wild, not long ago."

Credit for the stunning illustration goes to the highly talented Bill Rebsamen, premier artist of cryptozoology. 

Update: Hunting New Mammals with Marc van Roosmalen

Dr. van Roosmalen has created a poster showcasing his proposed trips in search of "cryptid" mammals (so far undocumented species.) This is a topic Marc knows better than anyone else in the world, and this kind of trip offers a chance at scientific immortality: being part of the discovery of new speices.  It's a new spin on adventure travel. 

NY City has created its own ant species

I don't know if the newest species of ants use their chemical signals and antennas to say, "Hey, I'm WALKING here!" but they are denizens of New York City. In fact, they have a very restricted range reported as "traffic medians on Broadway between 63rd and 76th streets." Aside from the burning question of whether these creatures are Giants or Jets fans, it appears to be an example of adapting to a very specific environment. Insect species endemic to tiny environments, such a single tree, may be common in Brazil, but they don't normally emerge from US cityscapes. Or maybe they are normal, and we just haven't looked enough.

New species: a wild (and impressive) insect

This is the world's newest stick insect - not the biggest, although still impressive. Definitely the most visually arresting, though, and strikingly unlike most stick insects. This one is multicolored, built relatively low to the ground, and wingless.  It needed a new genus to classify it.  Oh, and it sprays an offensive liquid like a skunk when threatened.  Fresh from the Phillipine island of Mindoro, welcome Conlephasma enigma.

Why some groups have more species than others

Why are there hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of species of beetles but only 23 known crocodilians? these scientists have found it has nothing to do with how old a lineage is. Instead, there are ecological limits - "adaptive zones" in time and physical habitat - where space, resources, and competition dictate how a given type of animal is more or less likely to move into new niches, which are likely to encourage the development of new species.  Essentially, it doesn't take much habitat, or many individuals, to sustain a beetle species. Beetles in a place like Brazil can speciate all they want without having to have some other species vacate a habitat.  Crocodiles may not have the opportunity unless an existing species dies out. This, Michael Alfaro explains, means, "If adaptive zones control biodiversity at the broadest scales, then the rate of species growth will be a good explanation of species richness only right after a lineage has entered into a new adaptive zone. Once the adaptive zone has filled up, then, no matter how much time goes by, the number of species will not change much...Most of the groups that we studied have hit their limits."

What's the implication for discovery of new species? Well, it's not a particularly earth-shaking finding that we are more likely to describe new mosquitoes than new crocodiles or mammals. It's harder to apply it to any specific habitat. There are oddities, overlaps, and evolutionary changes that create exceptions to the rules.  But this is a step toward understanding why evolution has come out the way it has. 

Aviation history - the Vulcan

As an aviation history buff, I appreciate the planes that took aerospace engineering in a new direction. The Royal Air Force's Vulcan's creation in 1952 is one of the unique moments, when a nation in search of a nuclear deterrent commissioned a radical new bomber. The four-engined Avro/Hawker Siddeley Vulcan was to soldier on, first in strategic and then tactical roles, until its retirement after service in the Falklands War. Today an enthusiats' club on shoestring financing keeps one Vulcan flying.  I saw one at an air show in the mid-70s when the RAF was still flying it, and I remember the giant delta-wing was amazingly maneuverable for its size.  It was also suprisingly quiet while it was approaching you - but it made a heck of a roar when it passed. Its only surviving contemporary is the USAF's B-52, which may soldier on until the airframe has 100 years on it, like like some sailing warship of the 18th century.  (Britain, alas, no longer has the capability to build any type of warplane indigenously: the US can build a new bomber, but it keeps losing budget dogfights before it can even reach the design stage.) . Here's to a great old bird.
 

In whale news - a little GOOD news

Whales are among my favorite creatures.  They were, perhaps, the first truly intelligent mammals to emerge on this planet - we primates took far longer to come up with big brains. The whales inhabit their own kingdom, one humans originally invaded with only malicious intent, but now try to understand.  We drove several of the largest species to near-extinction, and one of the smallest is now extinct (Yangtze River dolphin) and one on the brink (vaquita porpoise.)
So, all good news is welcome.  The mangnificent and unique humpback has several favorite mating grounds, one of them off the coast of Brazil.  In 1996, there were only a thousand of these whales left. In 2002, the Humpback Whaling Institute counted 3,000 in the region. The estimate 10 years later is nearly 10,000.   That doesn't approach the historical numbers of this species in the pre-whaling days, but it's a big nonetheless.  All victories in whale conservation matter, and this is a victory.
Meanwhile, in my old home state of Florida, a lot of effort by experts and volunteers going into rescuing stranded whales. We still don't understand the causes of stranding well, and often the animals can't be refloated: they just beach themselves again. Recently, 22 pilot whales beached themselves. Seventeen could not be saved, but in a small but heartening example of interspecies cooperation, five were brought to Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Institute for rehabilitation. This took the efforts of hundreds of volunteers to get them off the beach, a large staff at the Institute, and veterinary help from Sea World. The wales are doing better, and researchers hope they can be released soon. Bravo, rescuers!

Crypto-Expeditions with Marc van Roosmalen

Dr. Marcus van Roosmalen, one of the world’s best-known primatologists and its most prolific discoverer of mammals, has a new idea to get cryptozoologists involved up close and personal in his discoveries while also funding further work. As he explained it to me in an online conversation on 8/31/2012, his notion is to offer the cryptozoologist community organized boat expeditions he would into the 'Lost World' of the Amazon. He’d take 2-6 cryptozoologists paying for it (at, notionally, about 5,000 Euro each) on 2-3 week trips to capture on digital photo/video one or more of the cryptomammals he’s seen in the wild. He asked, “With digital scouting cameras to be placed along a freshly cut trail through the matrix high forest I think it must be feasible to capture images of the black white-throated jaguar - the onca-cangussu. Wouldn't that be something for any cryptozoologist?” (By the way, he honored me by praising my book Shadows of Existence, and he thought Bill Rebsamen had done a very good job of capturing the onca-cangussu in his illustration).


Van Roosmalen is as busy as ever. He says, “I hope to publish more novelties (e.g., dwarf manatee, fair brocket, giant paca, another peccary, four big monkeys) in the peer-reviewed Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Science.” He added, “I have been on a riverboat trip up the Rio Negro, Branco and Demeni/Araca with ten undergraduates from SUNY universities and upstate NY Colleges during the last two weeks. Unexpectedly, I discovered a new species of tamarin!”

He told me, “I might go on organizing these expeditions for many years, as it will be fun, but also productive." Since his legal troubles (allegations of biopiracy), despite his exoneration by Brazil's Supreme Court, he can't  get the proper license to take a type specimen from the wild to establish any of the 40(!) mammals on his discovery list, and he is afraid of being jailed if he transports any holotype material, dead or alive, to accomplish the DNA testing needed to describe new species in the peer reviewed literature. He hopes these expeditions will result in more video and sighting evidence to pass along to government agencies and other scientists who can help him protect endangered habitat and collect the needed holotypes to properly describe more animals. .

He would appreciate feedback (email him through Facebook at http://facebook.com/marcus.vanroosmalen or go to his website at www.marcvanroosmalenconsulting.com) about how many cryptozoologists might be interested in this kind of work. I can’t do it in the short term (back problems and family obligations), but he describes it as a relatively comfortable trip made mainly on his well-equipped riverboat.

Who’s on board? Let Marc know if this interests you, even hypothetically.

The Invaders: New Bee Species are Parasitic

Five new species of bees have been reported - and all are strange. They are parasites, stealing into other bees' nests and depositing their own eggs in the nurseries.  Jakub Straka of Charles University (Prague) and Michael S. Engel of the University of Kansas reported the bees from the islands of Cape Verde. The invades (or "cuckoo bees") choose times when most of the target colony is out foraging and it's easier to slip in unnoticed.  Their fast-incubating eggs hatch, and the larvae wipe out the unhatched eggs around them.  Fiendish!

Bringing back extinct species

In this article in The Atlantic, Rebecca J. Rosen muses on the possibilities of bringing back extinct species, whether we should, and something I hadn't thought of before: if we bring them back via genetic manipulation, should we try to tweak their nature a bit for our preferences or our current environmental conditions? 
The example she uses isn't the best - the California grizzly bear is not an extinct species, just an extirpated population, and we could bring it back any time we wanted just by moving Grizzlies in from other states.  Still, her question of bringing back a predator with a genetic modification that makes them detest human flesh - if such an adjustment is possible - is a good one.  Do we bring an animal back just as it was (my heart says yes, my brain is unsure) or do we try to give evolution a hand and adapt it to a different climate or the presence of humans or whatever else has changed?
Good questions, ones that might really matter in the near future.

Are disc-shaped aircraft behind UFO sightings?

This is a reasonable question, one asked again in a recent post on The Cryptozoologist. After all, experimental aircraft have taken on a lot of odd shapes over the past 70 years or so, since the science of aerodynamics became less guesswork and more engineering in the years before World War II.  You can find plenty of Internet claims and speculation about German disc-shaped aircraft, and all the other major powers had their experimental planes too, some of them very weird.  But to stand in for "flying saucers" in the postwar world requires high performance as well as striking appearance, and I don't think it happened.

The reasons I discount disc-shaped aircraft, beyond the occasional experimental vehicle, is that the aerodynamics stink. They're hard to control. As with a flying wing, you are spreading the aerodynamic effects over this huge surface, much of it far away (relatively) from the ailerons and other control surfaces that give it direction. I don't believe for a moment the Nazis or anyone else developed a high-performance disc in the 1940s-1990s. That said, the sophisticated digital controls and other advances in the B-2 era might, I think, allow you to develop a high-performance disc today, but it would be a big investment for no real return unless getting the disc shape was the entire purpose of the project: payload would still be minimal. The exception would be if you got away from the jet propulsion system into some kind of propulsion that delivered thrust evenly around the disc (you can do that with jets, but the complexity and weight penalties will kill you, and the Coanda effect mentioned by some of the Nazi buffs is real but even less efficient.) "Revelations" by "insiders" about German or American disc aircraft never try to explain the engineering of the thing.
For those who are curious, I did try to come up with a practical disc in fiction: Send me an email if you'd like to read my story "The Old-Fashioned Way."

The CubeSats are coming

Cubesats at 10cm on a side, and they are the next big tiny thing in satellites.

See in New Scientist (registration required)

Spontaneous Human Combustion solved?

I try to take a properly skeptical approach to ofddities, but the riddle of SHC has always seemed to me to need a better explanation that than the brush-off it gets in sources like Skeptical Inquirer. How can a human body burn to ashes with only its own fat for fuel?  A "wick effect" - a human candle - sounds theoretically possible, but hasn't been duplicated in practice. This researcher thinks the answer lies in body chemistry: that the right circumstances can permeate the body with highly flammable acetone. 

See it in New Scientist (registration required)