Princeton ESP Lab to Close

The only parapsychology research center affiliated with a major U.S. university, The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab, is closing after 28 years of exploring ESP, telekinesis, and similar topics. Skeptics have consistently argued the lab produced no significant results, and some Princeton officials and faculty viewed it as an embarrassment. The lab's founder, Robert Jahn, has just as consistently insisted the lab had proven the existence of the phenomena involved. "If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will," he said.
COMMENT: The sad thing about this subject, from a scientific point of view, is that it should not have been difficult for Jahn and his critics, like Martin Gardner, to agree on a set of controls for cheatproof, randomized trials with agreed-on standards for what results would have been considered significant. For some reason - perhaps the personalities or the absolutely fixed beliefs that clash on topics like this - it never happened. Now the skeptics will claim vindication and the believers will insist some results from the lab have never been explained, and that debate will linger for decades.

War and Medicine

Will Rogers once said, “You can’t say that civilization don't advance. In every war, they kill you in a new way.” As this article highlights, they also heal people in new ways. This article's point is not to claim that medical advances are worth the destruction of war - that would be insane - but to explore how human beings are endlessly inventive in their quest to advance technology (or do a little bit of improvisation) to save lives.

NASA's FY08 budget: Not much better

The President has proposed a 3.1 percent increase in the NASA budget for FY2008 compared to the budget request for 2007. The problem is NASA is not going to get the small increase it asked for for the rest of the 2007 FY (see earlier post). Even if this FY08 budget gets passed (nothing is assured there, except maybe the Earth Science portion), NASA will be faced with trying to recover from the cuts imposed in 07. It's going to be a tough year, especially with NASA trying to recover from the public relations disaster of astronaut Lisa Nowik's arrest and, as NASAWatch's Keith Cowing points out, the expected efforts of sensationalist media to taint all of NASA with the affair concerning what is, I believe, the only active astronaut ever arrested for anything more than traffic violations in the 46 years of the agency's human spaceflight program. See http://www.nasawatch.com/ as Keith follows both stories.

A Bonanza of Marine Life

Scientists with the Panglao Marine Biodiversity Project have discovered a trove of new species of molluscs and crustaceans around Philippine island. Researchers from 19 countries, led by Philippe Bouchet of the French National Museum of Natural History, reported, "Numerous species were observed and photographed alive, many for the first time, and it is estimated that 150-250 of the crustaceans and 1,500-2,500 of the molluscs are new species.”

Of Apes, Humans, and Culture

An excellent article by Kirsten Vala explores the question of whether apes have culture. She cites an authority who outlines four factors in what humans call culture and notes that chimps and orangutans exhibit thee of the four. It is our use of symbols that remains as the key differentiator between us and our closest primate cousins.

COMMENT: One conservationist wrote that humans can no longer be distinguished as "the tool-using animal" or "the language-using animal," since we have found other mammals can have both traits. He suggested we redefine ourselves as "the credit card-using animal."

Abe Lincoln's Nerves?

One of the fascinating things about history is how modern science allows us to look back and view long-dead people in a more complete light.
Historians and scientists have long bandied about medical diagnoses of President Abraham Lincoln. Chronic depression has been proposed and disputed; Marfan’s syndrome has been proposed to account for his disproportionately long limbs and large hands; and now a study of genes from Abe’s descendants has led to the idea he might have had a nerve disorder, ataxia, which could have accounted for the awkward, lumbering gait remarked on by Lincoln’s contemporaries. That gait seemed out of place for a man who, even as President, liked to show off the strength from his rail-splitting days by holding an ax out at arm’s length for several minutes, parallel to the ground, holding it with only his thumb and forefinger.
We may never have full knowledge of great figures from the past, but this kind of detective work is endlessly interesting stuff.
NOTE: It’s off topic, but anyone interested in Lincoln should read a superb book by Doris Kerns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. As hard as it is to imagine Abe is underrated, Goodwin makes the case that he is.

A Sad Anniversary for Space

We are closing out what has is always the saddest week of the year for those involved in the US space program. NASA held its official Day of Remembrance for fallen astronauts on January 29.
Forty years ago, on January 27, 1967, three men died when Apollo 1 caught fire on the launch pad during a test.
Four years ago, on February 1, 2003, NASA lost seven astronauts (six American, one Israeli) when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry due to damage from debris created at liftoff.
Twenty-one years ago, on January 28, 1986, the shuttle Challenger was destroyed during liftoff in a catastrophic accident traced to an O-ring seal in one of the spacecraft's solid rocket motors.

We cannot romanticize death, and we should never try. Nevertheless, there is no word that fits better than "heroes" for the men and women of these missions. They were the best our species had to offer, explorers who knew they were taking risks. We can honor their memories, and we can do what they would wish: to carry on the exploration of the universe.

Our explorers
Apollo 1
"Gus" Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee
Challenger
Michael Smith, "Dick" Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik
Columbia
Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, Dave Brown, Kalpana Chawa, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon.

Godspeed.

The Consensus on Climate

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has weighed in with an assessment to which 113 nations contributed. The resulting document says it is "very likely" (at least 90 percent certain) that climate change is caused by use of fossil fuels. The resulting temperature increases is estimated at 2.5 to 10.4 F by the year 2100. Ker Than, writing for LiveScience.com, adds context to the debate, documenting information both sort-of-comforting (other events have changed the Earth’s climate much more than anthropogenic global warming) and very discomfiting (the Earth will carry on pretty much without even noticing what happens to a few billion smart primates over the upcoming centuries).
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070201_gw_life.html

NASA budget - bad news

I mean, REALLY bad news.
The House-passed bill covering the rest of the FY 2007 budget chops NASA funding $550 million from the amount proposed by the Bush Administration, which had already been under attack as a virtual zero-growth budget that hit space science especially hard. “It's a double whammy," said the Planetary Society’s Louis Friedman of the $16.2B budget. "First the science underpinnings to the NASA exploration architecture were removed; now the whole enterprise seems to be collapsing."

A Survey of Sloths

Sloths are not what most people think of when they they think of interesting mammals. But did you know there were giant sloths who dug burrows 20m long? Aquatic, sea lion-like sloths? In my second borrowing this week from Darren Naish, I can't resist posting this fascinating item.

Next Round of Hobbit Debate

Scientists are still debating, not always politely, the status of the "hobbit" remains found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. The latest shot: Florida State University anthropologist Dean Falk and his team believe they have disproved the criticism that the only individual (a woman known as LB1) whose cranium has been found was a microcephalic dwarf. Falk has written that, after comparing the skull with those of known microcephalic individuals, the Flores measurements don't fall within the range displayed by that particular deformity. In addition, while there's only one cranium so far, there are two lower jawbones, and they match remains from LB1 and not any type of modern human. In other words, the meter-tall hobbits are once more established as a separate species. Opponents like Robert Martin of the Field Museum. though, are not convinced. This increasingly heated discussion is likely to continue until more examples of distinct Flores skulls can be found. (For whatever it's worth, I'm on the separate-species side.) Further digging at Flores has been held up by a mishmash of scientific and political disputes, but may resume soon.

One More New Mammal

Joining the mammalian ranks from the cloud forests of Peru is a rather cute squirrel-sized mammal, Isothrix barbarabrownae. This nocturnal critter, related to the spiny rats, is described as medium brown with a much darker "crest" on the head and shoulders. It has a distinctive appearance, with a furry, white-tipped tail, a large head, and a long, thick coat. Bruce Patterson of the Field Museum says, "The new species is not only a handsome novelty. Preliminary DNA analyses suggest that its nearest relatives, all restricted to the lowlands, may have arisen from Andean ancestors. The newly discovered species casts a striking new light on the evolution of an entire group of arboreal rodents."

No Shortage of New Species

New species discoveries in the Earth's remaining wild places are continuing. Just one example is the new sucker-footed bat from Madagascar. Myzopoda schliemanni doubles the number of species known in its genus, and, as a rare exception to discoveries on Madagascar, is not endangered. Field Museum biologist Steven Goodman reports the bat uses its adhesive feet to climb around on broad-leaf plants of the genus Ravenala.

The Next Shuttle Launch

From Tariq Malik's always-handy Space and Astronomy blog on LiveScience.com comes the news that NASA will launch STS-117, the next mission for the shuttle Atlantis, on March 15. This is a major ISS construction mission, carrying the Starboard 3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) segment with two new solar arrays. The payload weighs about 16 metric tons. Three spacewalks will be needed to install the new hardware and fold up an old solar array.

A New Space Power - Iran

Aviation Week reports that Iran plans to join the ranks of space powers with a satellite launch. Iran has built a launcher based on one of its theater ballistic missile designs, and Alaoddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission in Iran's parliament, says it will launch "soon." The size of the satellite was not given. In recent years, Brazil and North Korea have attempted satellite launches with indigenous vehicles, but neither succeeded.
COMMENT: Iran's program has naturally been viewed with some alarm, since the nation seems bent on developing nuclear weapons, and the satellite launcher could test technology for a longer-range missile, even an ICBM. Iran likely has several aims. The program could simultaneously raise the nation's international prestige, improve its missile technology, and provide a foundation for an independent reconnaissance satellite system, such as Israel has developed.

The largest dinosaur ever?

Darren Naish, in his blog Tetrapod Zoology, calls attention to a new paper on what may have been the largest animal ever to walk the Earth. A discovery from 1878 has been reexamined. Result: "Based only on a single enormous vertebra, now lost, Amphicoelias fragillimus has been estimated to have reached a length of 60 m and may have attained a weight of 150 tons!" Naish notes, "If these estimates are valid, then this animal was twice as long as Supersaurus and Diplodocus, and perhaps over four times heavier."

Not so incidentally, Naish's must-read blog is moving to:
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/

Antisatellite fallout

Experts concerned by the capability (and the unknown intentions) behind a Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test also have a more immediate worry. The violent destruction of an old weather satellite in sun-synchronous low orbit has left hundreds of pieces of debris, all of them capable on damaging other spacecraft. Even the International Space Staion (ISS), in a lower-inclination orbit, is potentially vulnerable as the space junk crosses its orbital plane and gradually drifts down toward the ISS altitude.

A prehistoric biplane?

One of the strangest of ancient reptiles - Microraptor gui, a little dinosaur with feathers on all four limbs, may be stranger than we imagined. The 125-million-year-old reptile fossil, which would have been perhaps 75cm long in life, may have glided through the air with its hind limbs held lower than its forelimbs, creating something resembling a living biplane (or, perhaps more accurately, what we would call a staggerwing).

A rare visitor on video

A Japanese team has caught one of the least-known of large marine animals - a frilled shark, an elusive, primitive dweller in the depths below 600 meters - on video.

A Launch Slip for SpaceX

SpaceX's first orbital launch (second launch attempt) has slipped into February after an anomaly was discovered on the second stage of the Falcon 1 vehicle on the launch pad at Kwajalein Atoll. In a December update, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had cautioned that, given the many upgrades to the vehicle since the first launch ended in failure, there could be a series of tests and countdowns ahead before launch.
COMMENT: SpaceX was originally over-optimistic about the timetable for making their low-cost ($6.9M) vehicle operational. However, the company has the backing and the brains to succeed, and I expect it will.

China tests anti-satellite weapon

The first in-space test of an antisatellite weapon in two decades has been accomplished by China, a nation not previously known to have ASATs (suspected, yes, but not known).
The USSR tested numerous ASATs in orbit, but the ASAT capability of Russia has presumably withered away. The US did one test in 1986, then scrapped its own system.
China appears to have used a kinetic kill vehicle separating from a ballistic missile to destroy an old weather satellite in low orbit. The US and Russia have expressed concerns, but the diplomatic fallout is uncertain.

Goodbye to a Great White

It's been a big news week for sharks, with the loss of the Georgia Aquarium star, Ralph the whale shark, followed by a bit of good news. The second great white shark kept successfully in captivity was released into the Pacific. The Monterey Bay Aquarium released the unnamed male, two meters long and weighing 77.5 kg, with a tracking tag attached to let scientists follow him for the next 90 days. The shark was brought to the aquarium after being netted by fishermen on August 31, 2006. The only other great white kept more than 16 days in captivity was also housed at Monterey Bay. Great whites can, in exceptional cases, reach over 7 meters as adults.

The Space Show

Follow the link above for the January 9 appearance by myself and colleague Kris Winkler. We spent 90 minutes discussing microsatellites, the Vision for Space Exploration, and related topics. Our thanks to Dr. David Livingston for this opportunity.

Animals on the EDGE

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has launched a new campaign to save the world's most endangered mammals.
The ZSL is drawing attention to 100 Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE )species. Most of these, unlike charismatic icons such as the giant panda, are currently receiving little or no conservation attention. The EDGE program will focus on ten of these species each year.

This year's top 10 is headed by the Yangtze river dolphin, which (as noted in an earlier post) may already be extinct.

The first 10 are:
Yangtze River dolphin
Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna
Hispaniolan solenodon
Bactrian camel
Pygmy hippopotamus
Slender Loris
Hirola antelope
Golden-rumped elephant shrew
Bumblebee bat (usually rated as the world’s smallest mammal)
Long-eared jerboa

Planet-hunting from your PC

In a project called systemic (no capitalization), hundreds of amateurs around the world are using their PCs to sift through the mountains of data collected by professional astronomers, looking for the tiny gravitational anomalies that could signal undiscovered planets around other stars. Participants download the systemic console software, usable on Mac, Windows, and Linux computers. (See http://oklo.org/)
The Internet has proven to be a way for amateurs to swell the ranks of professionals in this and other scientific endeavors. Global networks of volunteers look for signs of alien intelligence, examine the light around distant stars for additional planetary clues, and even examine an archive of NASA images to detect grains of stellar material brought back to Earth by the Stardust probe.

Some GOOD News on Science Education

It's common, and at least partly justified, to decry the state of science education in the United States. So it's nice to read that the number of high school students taking physics has reached a record high. Moreover, the number of bachelor's degrees in physics has gone up 31 percent since 2000. Continuing a trend that's been visible since 1986, the percentage of high school students taking physics has now hit 30 percent. The percentages of minority and female students are likewise up significantly, with 47 percent of today's physics students being girls. Michael Neuschatz of the American Institute of Physics attributes the increase to wider choice, with more schools offering specialized classes rather than a single broad physics class, and the desire of college-bound students to show challenging science classes on their transcripts.

Last Mission for Atlantis

In September 2008, the Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis will fly a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, arguably the greatest Shuttle-enabled science triumph in NASA's history.
Then the orbiter will retire, the first of NASA's shuttles to pack in in as the program heads for shutdown in 2010. Atlantis will be used as needed as a source of parts for the last two orbiters. Its fate after 2010 is undecided.
There no longer seems any doubt the controversial decision to retire the Shuttle in 2010 will be executed. Remaining missions, except the Hubble flight, are all taken up with service and support of the International Space Station (ISS). Soon, work will begin to convert one Shuttle launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, Pad 39B, for the Ares rocket booster that will fly the new Crew Exploration Vehicle.

RIP, Ralph the Shark

Ralph, the 7-meter whale shark who entranced audiences at the Georgia Aquarium, has died of unknown causes. Ralph was one of four whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in the aquarium. It's the only facility in the United States, or indeed anywhere outside of Asia, that maintains a population of the world's largest fish. The whale shark is capable of growing to 15 meters or more. The aquarium's other three whale sharks, Norton, Alice, and Trixie, appear fine.

A Catfish named for a Batman

A new species of South American catfish has been named Otocinclus batmani.
The 4-cm fish, from rivers in Columbia and Peru, has a tail marking resembling a black "bat" symbol. Ichthyologist Pablo Lehmann wrote, "The name batmani, alludes to Bob Kane's hero Batman of the comic adventures, which had a bat shape for his symbol, referring to the single W- or bat-shaped vertical spot on the caudal fin."

The Space Show

I and co-author Kris Winkler are on the syndicated radio program The Space Show tonight to discuss microspacecraft and NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. They have podcasts and audio files if you miss the live show.

An Island of Ice - sign of climate change?

One of the six large ice sheets in the Canadian Arctic has broken free near Ellesmere Island. This is the first time in 30 years such a large Arctic shelf this size (25 square miles) has been observed to break loose. One scientist observed, ""This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead." This event has obvious implications for climate change as well as, eventually, posing a hazard to shipping if the ice mass stays intact and floats south. It punctuates the series of Arctic ice cover losses discussed in earlier posts, which have raised much concern about polar bears and other animals of the region.
(It should be noted that ascribing this activity to human-caused global warming is not universally accepted. A scientist at the libertarian Cato Institute (http://www.cato.org/) argues the Arctic ice cover was at an unusual peak in the 1970s, and the losses since then may indicate, at least partly, a normal cycle.)
COMMENT: There has been too quick a rush at times to ascribe everything from Hurricane Katrina to the cherry blossoms in the Northeast this month to human-caused climate change. Proponents of quick action on climate change do need to avoid oversimplifying and thus weakening their case. While warming is definitely occurring, the Earth's climate is one heck of a complex system, and that has to be addressed in any scientific understanding of the issue.

Did we miss life on Mars?

There is no proof the 1976 Viking landers missed finding life on Mars. There is, however, an intriguing new theory about how they could have.
Geology professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch has published a paper suggesting that the VIking experiments could actually have killed life isntead of finding it. By adding water to Martian soil and then warming it - a logical way to look for Earth-type microbes - Schulze-Makuch suggests the experiments may have drowned and/or baked life forms with significantly different chemistry.
In the cells of Earth-based life forms, the basic internal liquid is some variant of salt water. On the cold, dry Red Planet, a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide may have evolved instead. Astrobiologist Mitch Sogin, a member of a National Research Council committee on alien life, said, "I'm open to the possibility that it could be the case." Future probes carrying more sophisticated experiments may settle the question.

A meteorite crashes the party

Freehold Township, New Jersey, 50 miles south of New York City, is not the place for big science stories. Not until this week, when a celestial visitor ripped through the roof of a two-story house and embedded itself in a wall of the upper floor. Puzzled homeowners found a metallic rock weighing 377 grams and about the size of a lopsided golf ball. Geologists from Rutgers University, with the help of an independent metallurgist, identified the visitor as a meteorite. The sample was unusually iron-rich, indicating a possible origin in the interior of an asteroid smashed by a cosmic collision. Legally, it's the property of the unnamed family whose property it landed in. Their plans for it are unknown. This is, after all, a situation only a few homeowners in recorded history have had to deal with.

A would-be astronaut's quest

Damaris B. Sarria, an engineer on the space shuttle program, is aiming higher. She wants to be an astronaut. In this blog, she is chronicling her current career at NASA and her efforts to prepare for the astronaut selection process and eventually fly on the Crew Exploration Vehicle now under development. She began her blog in May 2005 and will continue it for however long it takes (no one knows when NASA will select another astonaut class, as there are mroe than enough people to fly the Shuttle through its 2010 retirement).

I wish her the best of luck. Per ardua ad astra.

Unveiling the private spaceship

The Goddard, the technology testbed for the suborbital passenger-carrying spaceship being built by Jeff Bezos' company, Blue Origin, has been unveiled on video. Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, has been keeping his plans as quiet as possible, but has now released clips of his test vehicle's first flight on November 13, 2006. The heritage from the successful McDonnell-Douglas DC-X test vehicle will be apparent to space buffs.

Nepal loses a herd of rhinos

Nepal introduced 72 Indian rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) to a nature reserve in the southwest of the country starting in 1984. They can't find a single one. While 23 are known to have died, an "extensive search" has turned up no trace of the others, except for one skeleton. The Babai Valley was abandoned by forestry personnel in 1999 due to a guerrilla conflict, but, now that things have calmed down, the government is still looking for the rhinos, or for remains of the bodies left by poachers (who would have taken only the horn). An official said, "Where did they go? I have no answer. It is a mystery."

COMMENT: While this is obviously bad news for conservation, the species is fortunately doing well in India and elsewhere in Nepal. What this story highlights is the difficulty of keeping track of animals, even large ones, or finding their remains. It was only in December 2005 that the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) was confirmed to be living in Vietnam, years after it was written off as extinct.

Matt Bille

Florida's Bigfoot

If it's unlikely the Pacific Northwest harbors an undiscovered ape, it would seem absurd to think the much-traveled state of Florida could have a population of similar creatures. Yet, there have been sightings of what's often called "the Skunk Ape" going back decades, at least.
Now film students at Florida International University have trekked through the swamps and woods to produce a documentary on the story. They did not find the Skunk Ape, but as one student said, "'There are a lot of things going on in the Everglades, a lot of reports of smells and sightings and a whole bunch of things. Who are we to say because we didn't see it, it doesn't exist? Maybe there is something out there.''

It would be nice to think so.

ADDITIONAL COMMENT: Back in 1976, I was doing campaign research for a fellow running for Florida state legislature in what was then District 48, centered around Vero Beach ( about an hour south of Canaveral on the east coast). We naturally combed all the newspapers printed in our district. One, I believe from the town of St. Cloud, was headlined "800-Pound Hairy Creature Stalking Reedy Creek" and discussed a Skunk Ape sighting in that very rural area. We made a lot of jokes about it being our opponent out campaigning, but I never did read anything more about it. There was even a rumor going around the high school that some students had a sighting about the same time near Vero, on the banks of the Indian River (which is really a lagoon), though I never tracked it to a first-hand account.
The sightings in those days did lead to a bill introduced the next year in the Legislature making it illegal to "molest or annoy" a skunk ape. As I remember it, one legislator brought up the topic and asked, "Mr. Speaker, would you tell me why anyone in his right mind would annoy a giant eight-foot-tall ape?" (I was a page in the Florida House at the time and witnessed the exchange on what must have been a slow legislative day. This was on the floor of the full House, but I'm not certain whether the bill had actually made it out of committee or was just brought up as a point of interest for discussion. I do know it didn't pass.)

Astronomy can be really cool

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has sent a team to Antarctica to explore the universe.
The team launched a giant helium balloon carryng a two-meter telescope weighing 2,000 kg. The BLAST (balloon-borne large aperture sub-millimetre telescope) has been floating since December 21, 38km above the surface of the Earth. According to CSA, BLAST will "identify large numbers of distant star-forming galaxies, study the earliest stages of star and planet formation, and make high-resolution maps of diffuse galactic emissions."

The Inconvenient Truth: A Mixed Bag

Having finally gotten around to seeing Al Gore's global warming film, I came away thinking it is being overpraised.
This being a film, the science had to be simplified due to time constraints. That's always true. But Gore simplifies by ignoring important points. To him, all recent warming of the Earth is human-caused. No time is spent on the important issue of how much of the measured warming can definitely be ascribed to human actions and how much is normal long-term change expected for a planet in an interglacial warm period.
The visual effects are mostly effective, even if some (like the drowning of Manhattan) illustrate "worst case" scenarios that Gore presents as likely, if not certain. Gore blames Hurricane Katrina on human-caused warming, which is hardly established fact, and, in a litany of side effects of warming, he includes the emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis. (Huh?)
While Gore mainly points the finger at the U.S., he does a good job of making it clear the situation is global by spending some time on the contribution to greenhouse gases made by China's rapid population and economic expansion.
At one point, Gore throws out a very important statement that needs support. He says that if we "do the right thing" (changing energy technologies, ending greenhouse gas emissions) we will "create new wealth and jobs." That may be true, but it requires explanation, especially when not a word is said about the costs (hundreds of billions of dollars, on a global scale) involved in changing over from fossil to renewable energy.
As a movie, the film meanders. Detours on Gore's personal life and political experiences make the viewer suspect this is a bit of a campaign commercial as well as an environmental film. There are bits that don't make sense (the weird Simpson-ish animation near the beginning, for example) and could have been replaced with more scientific information.
Overall, Gore set out to make a point here, and he generally does it well. He's become more relaxed and engaging than he was as a candidate, although my 10-year-old (who watched with me for a school assignment) still compared him to a "really boring teacher." Still, there is too much oversimplification and overstatement involved in driving the point home. Gore leaves himself open to criticism, some of it accurate, that could have been avoided if the film spent more time on the science of the core subject and less on everything from Gore family farm to non-warming-related extinctions.
So see the film, but don't take it as the whole story of a complex subject.

Defense Technology - Top 20 Stories

The editors of DefenseTech.org review their 20 most popular posts of the year. These concern high-technology efforts with military applications, but many of the solutions being developed have broader implications. Everything from super-sized airships to miniature sensor networks is covered, along with some highly speculative stuff that may or may not really be coming out of the Pentagon and its labs.

THANKS to Robyn Kane for pointing me to this item.

A mini-Lost World

Scientists analyzing a specimen of amber some 220 million years old have found well-preserved fungi and algae, along with bacteria and other microbes. This find, from Italy, is unusual to begin with, as it's one of the oldest organism-preserving amber specimens ever found. What is most surprising, though, is that the microbes look very much like modern counterparts. Lead investigator Alexander Schmidt of Berlin's Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, reports finding very few or no differences between modern and Triassic specimens. Schmidt concludes, "Although there were big changes in the composition of forests from the Triassic to recent … their microhabitats probably changed little, even during extinction events."

Polar Bears v. Global Warming, Part 2

As mentioned in an earlier post, loss of sea ice off the northern coasts of Canada and Alaska is likely to have serious consequences for Ursus maritimus, the polar bear. In a move which surprised many conservationists who had criticized the Bush Administration for downplaying global warming, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has proposed putting the polar bear on the Endangered Species List as a "Threatened" species. It normally takes a year or so for a species to go from a proposal to a formal place on the ESL.

RIP: President Gerald R. Ford

As the nation pauses to remember the late President, who died this week at 93, it is worth remembering that he was a member of the House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration which, in 1958, helped draft the Space Act that created NASA. While the brevity of Ford's term and the economic conditions at the time meant he made no major changes in the space program, he always supported space exploration. American space achievements during his time as President included the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission, the landing of two Viking spacecraft on Mars, and the opening of the National Air and Space Museum.

COMMENT: I met Ford once, as he accepted an invitation to address our Air Force ROTC dinner when I was in college in 1977. He seemed genuine, straightforward, friendly, and relaxed: truly a man who, in Kipling's phrase, "can walk with kings / nor lose the common touch."

S&T Leadership Quotes for 2006

The AIP has collected quotations on science and technology from America's political leadership for 2006. They are not, on the whole, terribly consistent or inspiring.

Examples:

"I have to say, this is probably the most depressing hearing I've sat through." - Rep. Gordon discussing proposed FY 2007 NASA science budget

"The American people, the taxpayers, expect more from basic science research than new knowledge alone." - Energy Secretary Bodman

"Some people attack Members of Congress for having Potomac fever. I think some Members of this House have Mars fever. The fact is, if we are going to make a choice about where to put the best money, right now, I think a far better bet is law enforcement." - Rep. Obey

"These agencies, which are not exactly on the tip of the tongue of most Americans, are keystones of our Nation's economic future." - Rep. Boehlert on NSF, DOE Office of Science, and NIST

National Geographic's Top 10

National Geographic has published a list of their Top Ten News stories for 2006.
To me, it's a very strange amalgamation of the serious and the offbeat.
Stories selected include include the demotion of Pluto from planetary status and the discovery of an Iron Age murder victim who used hair gel (seriously). There are two entries concerning the Judas gospel (in my opinion, an overhyped story of a text which seems no more authentic than many other post-Pauline writings). Then there are new species discoveries in Indonesia, the death of Steve Irwin, and some more oddities like an oversized rabbit terrorizing gardens in the UK.
Frankly, this is pretty disappointing. The magazine's website does not explain the criteria behind the selections, but a source with the prestige and authority of the National Geographic should be explaining to people what the ten most important stories were and why.

New Birds: Christmas Gift for Science

Wishing everyone a merry christmas, with the melodic sound of these three new species from Nepal trilling in the background.

Discovery is home

After 13 days in space, the shuttle Discovery returned successfully and safely to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission STS-116 continued construction of the International Space Station, took up a new station crewmember, supplies, and equipment, and launched three small satellite missions (see earlier posts). The next shuttle mission, STS-117, should go up in March 2007.

Do you like your calamari fresh?

Japanese researchers have filmed the capture of a live giant squid (genus Architeuthis) for the first time. This specimen, over 7 meters long, was a female, caught using a smaller squid on a baited hook. The animal was dead by the time it was hoisted to the deck, but this video gives viewers a look at what an adult (albeit a relatively small one) of this famous yet mysterious species looks like when battling at the surface.

The Year in Space Science

Aviation Week has posted a roundup of the achievements being made in space science by robotic probes and the people behind them as 2006 draws to a close. New explorations of Mars, Venus, and other bodies are teaching us more than even the mission designers expected. From water ice fields and craggy rock features beneath the surface of Mars to geologic processes on Titan, the discoveries just keep coming.

Europe's New Sauropod was a Giant

The giant herbivious dinosaurs, the sauropods, were known until now only from the Western Hemipshere and Africa. Now Spanish paleontologists have unveiled the fossils of Turiasaurus riodevensis - not just the first European sauropod, but a colossal beast even by dinosaur standards. At 125 feet long and 40 to 48 tons, Turiasaurus is the largest animal known to have walked the continent of Europe, and one of the largest dinosaurs known.

UPDATE: Dr. Darren Naish comments, correctly, that this is not by any means the first sauropod from Europe. I relied on the LiveScience.com story saying it was without checking any other sources, so that error is my fault. Naish knows whereof he speaks: his own sauropod discovery came to light in 2004. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4031789.stm

Naish's own blog on the sauropod dubbed "Angloposeidon" from the Isle of Wight, along with other matters paleontological and zoological, can be found here:
http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/

Side note: the LiveScience.com story has not yet been corrected, so at least I beat them to posting the correction. I sent the author an email documenting the error.

Thanks, Darren.

Discovery Wraps Up Successful Mission

The space shuttle Discovery is on track for a landing Friday afternoon, though weather has created some doubt about which landing site will be used. The vehicle carries two tons of surplus equipment and gear being returned from the International Space Station (ISS), along with one astronaut who was swapped out from the ISS crew. Astronauts on the Shuttle delivered and emplaced a new ISS structural element, the P5 truss, stowed a no-longer-needed solar array, and rewired the entire ISS electrical system to a more capable, permanent configuration. The ISS support mission required an eight-day stay at the orbital outpost and four EVAs. The Shuttle has deployed two of its three microsatellite payloads (see earlier post) and will deploy the last one today. That one is the Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment (ANDE), a Naval Research Laboratory experiment using two spherical microsats to measure the density and composition of the residual atmosphere found at orbital altitudes.

Following the GeneSat-1 Mission

Here is a unique resource for following a microspacecraft mission. This "dashboard," provided by engineers at Santa Clara University (partners with NASA Ames on this mission), allows viewers to check the spacecraft parameters and orbit at any time. As of this morning, everything was nominal. The experimental bacteria on board, a harmless strain of E. coli, are growing nicely and already providing data.

A Year of Fabulous Fossils

Neatly collected here by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman are ten of the most amazing fossil discoveries of the year. They range from Mongolia's little Volaticotherium antiquus, which set the date for gliding flight by mammals back an astonishing 70 million years and required creation of a new order, to the "Demon duck of doom" from Australia and the continuing studies of the most controversial fossil find in decades, the "hobbits" of Flores. Then there was the elephant-sized camel from Syria and the new species of giant carnivorous marsupial, not to mention a very large South American monkey and two new hominid discoveries from Africa. All that in one year.

More news on microspacecraft

It's a big week for small spacecraft.

First, NASA's 3-kg GeneSat-1 is on orbit and looking perfect as it begins its mission of studying the growth of bacteria in microgravity.
Today, the Space Shuttle will begin deploying a series of microspacecraft for three missions. The Shuttle has not been used much recently as a satellite launcher, since the cargo capacity is usually taken up by equipment for the International Space Station. Microsatellites, though, can take advantage of the small amount of leftover capacity on ISS missions.
The first satellite to be deployed is the smallest. The Microelectromechanical System-Based PICOSAT Inspector (MEPSI), smaller than a coffee can, will demonstrate its ability to maneuver in space and inspect larger vehicles. Next out will be the Radar Fence Transponder (RAFT), built by midshipmen at the US Naval Academy to test space surveillance and communications protocols. The final microsatellite mission, the atmospheric neutral density experiment (ANDE), is a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) project using two satellites.

COMMENT: Microspacecraft are not the answer for everything we want to do in space. They cannot, for example, handle high-resolution imaging or bulk communications traffic. However, tight budgets for space hardware and high launch costs, combined with steady advances in miniaturizing space technology, guarantee them a bright future.

Biological Bonanza from Borneo

The World Wildlife Fund reports that scientists exploring the wilds of Borneo have discovered 52 new species in the past year. Stuart Chapman, the International Coordinator of the WWF's Heart of Borneo Programme, says, "The more we look the more we find. These discoveries reaffirm Borneo’s position as one of the most important centres of biodiversity in the world.” The new finds include 30 species of fish, two tree frogs, and three trees. One of the new fish, less than a centimetre long, qualifies as the second-smallest known vertebrate. Other examples include a tree frog with brilliant green eyes and a catfish with protruding teeth and an adhesive patch on its underside allowing it to stick to rocks. The "new 52" are added to the 361 new species of animals and plants found on the island since 1996.

THANKS to Dr. Cherie McCollough, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, for pointing me to this item.

News from NASA

On Earth, an item from the San Jose business journal (see title link) reports NASA has partnered with one of the great innovators of the 21st century, Google, to work on problems including improved human-computer interfaces and the handling of massive amounts of data. This kind of public-private partnership is critical in an age where NASA is struggling just to maintain its cut of six-tenths of one percent of the Federal budget. It's interesting to note this new approach came out of NASA's Ames Research Center, where Director Simon "Pete" Worden is instituting a host of novel efforts, including increased development of microspacecraft. One of those microspacecraft is the tiny GeneSat-1, which is now doing well on orbit after a Sunday launch.

NASAWatch suggests this collaboration may go still further...
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2006/iss013e79715.med.jpg


Meanwhile, in space, the shuttle Discovery will undock from the International Space Station today after a complex mission involving four spacewalks and the rewiring of the ISS' power system. Keep up with the mission at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Thanks to Kris Winkler for the first item in this post.

The Ivory-bill: The search continues

More than a year after the dramatic announcement in April 2005 of the rediscovery of the "extinct" ivory-billed woodpecker, the story and the search go on. Since that stunning announcement, some experts have questioned the data used to claim the bird survived in Arkansas, while others reported evidence for a second population in Florida. This item from the AP recounts one of the latest Arkansas sighting reports. Connie Bruce of Cornell University's ornithology laboratory told a reporter, "We get thousands of sightings ... and we're pleased that the public is interested and actively involved and that they do call us and advise us of these sightings.... We all want to locate this bird."

For full information on the continuing story, see the Nature Conservancy/Big Woods Conservation Partnership site at:
http://www.nature.org/ivorybill/

A Big Step for Small Space Missions

At 0700 EST today, a Minotaur rocket lifted off from Wallops Island, VA, carrying two experimental satellites. This flight is interesting for several reasons.
First, the Minotaur is based on a converted Minuteman ICBM, which makes it the most economical operational launcher now available in the U.S. (SpaceX's Falcon 1 will be less than half the price, at $6.9M, but has yet to fly successfully.) The total mission cost was given at $60M, including the booster, both satellites, and $621,000 for range costs.
Second, this launch marks a return to orbital missions for Wallops. NASA fired Scout orbital boosters from this location for many years, but it's been two decades now since Wallops was used for anything larger than suborbital (sounding) rockets.
Third, the payloads are milestones in the use of small spacecraft. The larger is the Air Force's sensing and communications experiment, TacSat-2. Riding along is NASA's GeneSat-1, a three-kilogram microsat carrying bacteria whose development will be studied in orbit.
Finally, there is the commercial aspect of the launch. The launch pad used was leased from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.
Congratulations to all the people and agencies who made this historic flight a success.

A Stunning Fossil from New Zealand

A long-held belief among paleontologists and mammalogists is that New Zealand never had indigenous mammals. The lack of mammalian competition was one factor in the diversity of bird life that developed on New Zealand, including the spectacular giant moas. Until now, there were no mammalian fossils to refute the idea. Now the remains of a mouse-sized creature, estimated at 16 million years old, have turned up. Tim Worthy, co-leader of the expedition that made the discovery, reported, "This amazing find suggests that other mammals are waiting to be found there, and that New Zealand belonged to the birds only in more recent times."

Cryptozoology Books of 2006

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has posted on the always-interesting Cryptomundo blog a list of the top books on cryptozoology published in 2006. My Shadows of Existence: Discoveries and Speculations in Zoology (Hancock House, 2006) rated an honorable mention, and a full review of my book is pending. Other winners this year on Loren's list included anthopologist Jeff Meldrum's Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science: Chad Arment's The Historical Bigfoot: and Joe Nickell's Lake Monster Mysteries.

Global Warming cools upper atmosphere

That headline is not a misprint. A scientific team led by Dr. Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado reports that an odd side effect of global warming caused by greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere is that the thermosphere, the envelope of very thin air starting at about 100 kilometers, will be cooled. The reason is that CO2 molecules collide with air molecules often in the lower atmosphere, producing heat, but are unlikely to collide with any in the thermosphere, so any heat they carry is dissipated into space.
Orbiting objects like the International Space Station will benefit from this reduction, since a cooler thermosphere is less dense and thus causes less drag. (Thermospheric drag is predicted to drop about three percent by 2017.)
Unfortunately, low-orbiting space junk and debris benefits the same way, meaning it will be a hazard to space travelers longer than expected. The other long-term effects of this cooling of the thermosphere are unknown at this time.

Yangtze River dolphin feared extinct

Scientists in China report an extended expedition in search of the baiji, or white dolphin, a nearly blind river-dwelling cetacean, yielded no sightings. August Pfluger, co-leader of the international effort, says they may have missed a few dolphins, but not enough to constitute a viable population. He adds, ""We have to accept the fact that the Baiji is functionally extinct. We lost the race."

COMMENT: If the baiji is going extinct, it will be the first cetacean driven out of existence by humans (in its case, by pollution and heavy boat traffic) in recorded times. Human activity has cost the planet at least two other marine mammals, the Japanese sea lion and (most scientists agree) the Caribbean monk seal. Two other small cetaceans, the vaquita and China's finless porpoise, another river-dweller, are on the edge. Will we act? There is hope, I think. It's hard to get most people excited about an insect or a toad going extinct, but dolphins and seals and their kin are kin to us. People notice them. And we would certainly notice their absence.

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again."
- William Beebe, 1906.

Sea Monster from the Antarctic past

The skeleton of a baby plesiosaur, 70 million years old, has been recovered from an island off Antarctica. One of the best skeletons ever found of its species (which could measure over 9 meters as an adult) was recovered by researchers working under freezing, extremely windy conditions and supported by the National Science Foundation. The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology's Museum of Geology, whose curator, James E. Martin, led the expedition, is putting the skeleton on display this week.

THANKS for this item to Dr. Cherie McCollough.

Turtles: Ageless yet Endangered

Turtles don't just live a long time (perhaps 250 years for some species), but scientists now understand they barely age at all. What they don't understand is why.
According to Dr. Christopher Raxworthy of the American Museum of Natural History, the organs of a century-old turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of a teenage specimen. He says, “Turtles don’t really die of old age."
Part of the reason is that turtles - somehow - can turn their heart off when it's not needed. The Smithsonian's Dr. George Zug (a delightful fellow who I interviewed on cryptozoology back in 1988) told writer Natalie Angier, “Their heart isn’t necessarily stimulated by nerves, and it doesn’t need to beat constantly. They can turn it on and off essentially at will.”
The turtle's only problem is us. Of the 250-odd species, perhaps half are in some level of difficulty. Some, like the giant leatherback of the seas, may be headed for extinction. It's important to save the turtles of the world: not just for their own sakes, but for what they might be able to teach us.
THANKS for this article to Kris Winkler.

Latest Shuttle Flight Looking Good

After a night launch that worried some safety officials, the shuttle Discovery is safely in orbit and appears to be damage-free. The STS-116 mission should dock with the International Space Station (ISS) about 1700 EST on Moday the 11th. The shuttle will deliver a new structural element, designated the P5 truss, and change out one crewmember on the station.

New Worlds of Marine Life

The report from the sixth year of the global Census of Marine Life effort includes some startling discoveries. Highlights include the shrimp Neoglyphea neocaledonica, found in the Coral Sea and nicknamed the "Jurassic shrimp" by scientists who knew it only as a fossil dated to 50 million years ago. Another was the marine crab covered in hairlike filaments, so strange it required creation of a new family, Kiwaidae. Expeditions trawled up new species from an unexplored environment 1,600 feet below the Antarctic ice shelf and a thermal vent three miles below the Sargasso Sea. A new rock lobster, weighing four pounds, popped up off Madagascar, and the Nazare Canyon off Portugal yielded a single-celled, shelled animal, of incredible size (0.4 inches in diameter).
As researcher Ron O'Dor put it: "We can't find anyplace where we can't find anything new."

Polar Bears v. Global Warming

While there's still debate on how much human activity is contributing to global warming, the effects of the warming itself are starting to show up in studies of individual species. The latest report on this concerns the polar bears of the Beaufort Sea region of Alaska's northern coast.
Two years of study by Eric Regehr of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicate that warming has reduced the sea ice in Canada's Hudson Bay area (which is to the east of the Beaufort Sea coast but at a similar latitude), and contributed to a 22% decline in polar bear numbers. Polar bears spend much of their lives on the sea ice along the coast, hunting seals. A decline in the ice cover shrinks the polar bears' range, increasing the competition for the small number of seals frequenting an area. If the ice melts entirely, the bears are forced onto shore, where they are sometimes driven to invade garbage dumps and come in close contact with humans. Younger bears are likely to lose out in this more competitive and dangerous environment, and if fewer young animals survive, the population inevitably drops.
While it's not clear yet whether the population in Alaska has not shown the same effects, the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to take action to protect the Alaskan population.

Predator fish team up

In the first known example of interspecies-cooperative hunting in fish, the moray eel and the grouper have learned (if "learned" is the right word) to work together in the Red Sea. When a stoutly built grouper, a daytime hunter, chases prey into a crevice too small for pursuit, the grouper looks for the nearest moray. The moray, which is normally resting in a crevice of its own waiting for nightfall, is lured out by the grouper's act of shaking its head. The grouper then leaders the moray to the prey. The two predators do not apparently share the meal - sometimes the grouper gets it, sometimes the moray does, but for the grouper, this at least provides a chance at prey that would otherwise escape. The complexity of this behavior (How does the grouper "know" the moray will cooperate? Why does the moray respond to the head shaking?) is puzzling and downright amazing.

Water on Mars

NASA has reported that images from the Mars Global Surveryor, taken in 2004 and 2005, show that water flowed onto the surface of Mars on at least two occasions within the last seven years. While liquid water would quickly freeze or evaporate, it apparently carried new sediment downhill in craters in the Terra Sirenum and Centauri Montes regions of the planet, leaving very distinct traces of its eruption onto the surface.

Space Exploration Conference Coverage

NASAWatch covers the AIAA Space Exploration Conference from Houston: THE place for space leaders and enthusiasts to be this week (OK, if they're not in Florida for the Shuttle launch).

NASA's New Plan: Moon Base in 2024

At the Space Exploration Conference in Houston, NASA unveiled the plans for it next major goal: an inhabited, permanent base on the Moon by 2024. The base may be at the north or south pole and will be supported by the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) now in development.

COMMENT: In a way, this is what Apollo should have been. If we were going to put in the money and accept the risk to land humans on the Moon, we should have aimed for a permanent base, where science, resource extraction, and other activities could be carried out. NASA did not lack for ambition in those days, but found it impossible to get the funding required. Now the big question is whether we will commit the money to get this new vision turned into hardware. NASA today takes about 0.7% of the federal budget. Executing the new Vision for Space Exploration will require a steady increase, but not a large one, to 1% or a bit more. It's not small potatoes, but it's not beyond our reach.

Next Voyage to the ISS

The space shuttle Discovery, slated to launch on December 7, has a big task ahead of it. Large sections of the International Space Station (ISS) will be powered down while the electrical system is reconfigured to a more powerful, more permanent setup. Discovery will also deliver a new addition to the station, release three satellites, and swap out an ISS crew member.

COMMENT: As impressive as this mission is, it would be more impressive if the ISS partners, particularly the U.S., had funded the work planned and required to maintain a crew larger than two people. With only two astronauts normally on board, and key science sections like the centrifuge module stranded on Earth, we are risking a vehicle and a brave and talented crew to support a space station that is not getting very much done in terms of science and exploration. And we're doing it on a schedule-driven night launch of the Shuttle, which the Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommended not be done since it limits the effectiveness of optical cameras looking for launch damage.
I agree with the idea that a permanent human presence in space is at least symbolically important, and the experience gained in assembling the station will be useful for future endeavors. As to the risk, there will always be risk in space travel, and we have to accept that if we want to further out from Earth. All that said, the objectives should be more important than to support a minimal station that makes the news only when there's a commercial stunt like launching a golf ball.

Calculator of the Ancients

One of the oddest artifacts ever found, the Antikythera Mechanism, has been subjected to a reconstuction that shows just how amazing the original device was. Found off Greece in 1901 and dating back perhaps 2,100 years, this assemblage of precisely crafted gear wheels was more sophistiaced than anything that would appear for a millennium. The bronze construction was a calculator that could add, multiply, divide and subtract. It could track the movements of the sun and moon and locate them within the zodiac, and could even predict lunar and solar eclipses.

COMMENT: These new findings leave us with more questions than answers. What brilliant individual or group designed and built the Mechanism? (It's been speculated the mathematician and atronomer Hipparchos had something to do with it, but no one really knows.) Were other devices also made? (At the least, any invention so complex must have had prototypes.) Why did the know-how embodied in the Mechanism disappear completely, without leaving even a mention of its existence among the records of the time? One need not be an "ancient astronaut" kook to shake one's head in amazement.

Bomb-Sniffing Bees

We are used to bomb squads that go "woof." Now they may go "bzzzzz."

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have trained honeybees to stick out their proboscis when they smell explosives. The effort is called the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project. Operational use is some way off, but, if the bees prove sensitive and reliable enough, the advantages of cheap, tiny bees over large, ground-walking dogs or complex sensing machines are obvious.

Dunkleosteus: The Ultimate Predator

There is a new study out concerning my favorite fossil species, the Devonian-era Dunkleosteus terrelli. Scientists at the Field Museum looked at fossils to build a computer model and analyze the animal's bite. Their conclusion: Dunkleosteus, armed with "biting plates" of bone rather than true teeth, was as scary as it looked. The force exerted by the animal's gaping jaws when they closed was estimated at 11,000 lbs (5,000kg), with the force at the tip of a plate being over seven times that.
Researcher Mark Westneat put it this way: "It kind of blows sharks out of the water as far as bite force goes. A huge great white shark is probably only capable of biting at about half that bite force."
Dunkleosteus, nearly the size of a killer whale, went extinct over 300 million years ago, at the end of the Devonian.

Cue very scary music...

The Brain of the Whale

Patrick Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York report the brains of humpback whales include spindle neurons, an "advanced" type of brain cell previously known only from the higher primates and the dolphins. Spindle neurons, believed to be used in cognition, may play a role in some signature behaviors including the unique "singing" of the male humpback.
Hof and Van der Gucht wrote, "In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species, it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales, and certainly humpback whales, exhibit complex social patterns that included intricate communication skills, coalition-formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage. It is thus likely that some of these abilities are related to comparable histologic complexity in brain organization in cetaceans and in hominids."

Genetics: More Complicated than we thought

An international team of scientists has published a paper containing potentially revolutionary findings about the human genome.
Genes were classically believed to come in pairs, with rare exceptions called "copy-number variants," but the new research shows that having an unusual copy number - one, three, or more examples of a gene rather than two - is much more common and important than believed.
Shorn of the scientific jargon, the discovery means a couple of things. One is that the human genome is more complex and variable than thought, potentially making it harder to point to one gene as the cause of a problem or defect. Conversely, we now know to look for variations that we used to think were not present or at best unimportant.
James Lupski of Baylor University added, "I believe this paper will change forever the field of human genetics."

The Science of Sleight-of-Hand

We've always known that a great deal of what magicians do involves misdirecting the audience's attention. Now we know why it works.

Gustav Kuhn of the University of Durham in England has videotaped the magician and the audience while the former appears to make a ball disappear in midair. While audience members insist they were following the ball all the time, the video shows almost all glanced at the magician's eyes for a cue about which direction to look. As Kuhn put it, "Even though people claimed they were looking at the ball, what you find is that they spend a lot of time looking at the face. While their eye movements weren't fooled by where the ball was, their perception was. It reveals how important social cues are in influencing perception."

Three new primates named

The world's smallest primates, all residents of Madagascar, are the mouse lemurs of the genus Microcebus. German researchers have identified three previously unclassified members of this ever-expanding group. The new chipmunk-sized, nocturnal critters (Microcebus bongolavensis, Microcebus danfossi, Microcebus lokobensis) join a genus which has expanded considerably over the last decade as scientists race against deforestation and other threats to study Madagascarene fauna. A researcher from the German Primate Center in Gattingen explains that the mouse lemur species, which look very similar and need a lot of work to differentiate, appear to have been split up primarily by river barriers on the world's fourth-largest island.

New Support for Fusion Reactor project

Thirty nations, including the United States, have signed a pact committing them to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which will be built in Cadarache, France. The project's cost is estimated at up to $10.8 billion U.S. Also signed on are the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, China, and Russia: most of the world's major technological powers. Commercial fusion power is variously estimated at 20-50 years off: ITER is intended to be the proof-of-concept reactor.

COMMENT: Over the long term, it is hard to imagine a reasonable alternative to fusion. It is much more difficult and expensive to develop than was once hoped, but for large-scale power generation with minimal environmental impact, it's the planet's best hope, and we'd best get going on it.

Raiders of the Lost Duck

Conservationists from The Peregrine Fund Madagascar Project have rediscovered the Madagascar Pochard, a duck not seen since 1991 and classified as "possibly extinct." The site was a remote lake in the northern wilds of the island mini-continent.
Stuart Butchart,Global Species Programme Coordinator, BirdLife International, said,
“Spectacular rediscoveries like this are extremely rare, but they provide a glimmer of hope for the 14 other bird species classified as Possibly Extinct.”

COMMENT: Madagascar was the site of another spectacular rediscovery, that of the Madagascar Serpent Eagle, which was found by a conservationist from the Peregine Fund after decades in presumed extinction.

The AIr Force's New Space Vehicle

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and DARPA are working on the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, intended to carry new equipment, experiments, components, and satellites into orbit for testing, then return then to Earth. The X-37B may be thought of as a quarter-scale version of the space shuttle, minus the astronauts. The Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office is responsible for the program to acquire, test, and demonstrate the OTV. A first launch in 2008 is hoped for.

COMMENT: Building a reusable demonstrator of this type makes a lot of sense: not just to have the capability to test and retest equipment in space, but to see if the OTV itself is a workable concept. If it suceeds (or even if it fails in flight) it will contribute a great deal to the design and construction of future reusable spacecraft. However, similar programs have been started by the military and/or NASA many times since the 1950s and have never been funded to completion. So I wish them the best of luck. The environment of space may be harsh, but it's nothing compared to the ones encountered at the Office of Management and Budget and on Capitol Hill.

Decoding the Neanderthal genome

This blog post gives a nice capsule review of the recent papers in Nature and Science decoding the Neanderthal genome. Author John Timmer explains the methods and the difficulties of this work in language us non-geneticists can understand. On the most interesting question - whether modern humans still carry Neanderthal genes - one of these two studies suggested (although not definitvely) that we do, while the other found no evidence. These papers represent a quantum leap in understanding our heavy-browed prehistoric cousin, but we are a long was from knowing everything.

A Cryptic Carcass

Paleobiologist Darren Naish, one of the most thoughtful of scientifically-trained cryptozoologists, here takes a detailed look at one of the semi-holy grails for those who believe in large unidentified animals still prowl the seas.
Naish agrees the eyewitness evidence for some sort of elongated large marine animal is impressive, but he can't accept one of the most-discussed pieces of physical evidence, the Naden Harbor, British Columbia, carcass of 1937. Naish wonders if this 3-4 meter, very slender, odd-looking thing did, as the contemporary reports had it, come from the gullet of a sperm whale. Ed Bousfield and Paul LeBLond published a controversial paper naming this the type specimen of a marine reptile, Cadborosaurus willsi. Naish agrees he does not know what this thing was (the specimen was lost, and only photographs remain), but is quite sure that Bousfield and LeBlond entered into far too much speculation given the limited amount of data one can be sure of from the photographs.
COMMENT: While the whole topic is often buried in the silly-season term "sea serpent," there really is a suprisingly good body of sightings that remain unexplained. The gold standard, as Naish notes, is the 1905 sighting by two well-qualified British naturalists on the yacht Valhalla, who carefully observed and sketched an animal that still cannot be reasonably assigned to any known species. More details are available in (of course) my book Shadows of Existence, among other sources.

First Launch for Blue Origin

Blue Origin, the secretive space-tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, has carried out its first test launch. No information has been released about the rocket-powered test craft, except that it was a short suborbital flight, lasting under a minute and not exceeding two kilometers in altitude. No other information has come out of the launch site in western Texas or the company's Seattle HQ.

A Window onto ancient Rome

A beautifully preserved Roman cargo vessel, loaded with amphorae (sealed clay jars), is now yielding up its treasures, six years after it was discovered. The ship apparently sank in a storm of the southeastern coast of Spain about 2,000 years ago. The vessel was 100 feet long and carried 400 tons of cargo. This included lead, copper, and hundreds of amphorae, some containing fish sauce, a prized condiment in ancient Rome. Archaeologist Javier Neto told a reporter, "For archaeologists, a sunken ship is a historic document that tells us about ancient history and how its economy worked. This ship will contribute a lot."
COMMENT: The dimensions above make the ship considerably larger than the Santa Maria, the largest vessel in Christopher Columbus' little fleet sailing over fourteen centuries later.

Killer Whales: A dramatic look

In this stunning video posted on National Geographic News, two killer whales, or orcas, halfway beach themselves in pursuit of sea lion pups on the shore of Argentina. Once the two orcas (who are known to be brothers) have filled up their stomachs, they grab another pup and use it in what humans would call a sadistic game, tossing it back and forth to each other - in one case, batting it into the air with a mighty tail. Amazingly, the pup is not killed in this game. Even more amazingly, one whale takes the pup back to shore and releases it. Cetologists are puzzled, to say the least, at this behavior... just one more reminder of how hard it is to understand what goes on in the brain of another species.

Farewell, Mars Global Surveyor?

Mars Global Surveyor was launched ten years ago, and has been sending back data on the Red Planet ever since. Now NASA's mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have lost contact with the probe. A variety of things, from a power problem to a meteorite strike, could be to blame. The original mission, scheduled for one Martian year, has been extended many times, the MGS has mapped the entire planet, studied possible landing sites, and added greatly to our knowledge of the planet's past and the possibility of remaining water sources. The MGS may yet be revived, but, even if not, it's an example of how superbly a spacecraft can be designed, engineered, and operated to greatly exceed expectations. FOr those interested in costs, the mission cost $150M to build, $65M to launch, and costs about $7.5M a year to operate. Planetary scientists consider that one of the great bargains of the Space Age.

What's ahead for NASA?

Shelby Spires of the Huntsville (AL) Times writes that big changes are not likely to affect space programs, including NASA, in the wake of the U.S. midterm elections that brought the Democratic party to power in both houses of Congress. (Keep in mind it takes over a year to make a real change in the U.S. budget: the FY 2007 budget is set and the 2008 requests are well along). One thing experts agree on is that a Democratic Congress is more likely to fund space science, particularly Earth-focused environmental science.
COMMENT: Given that this Congress is unlikely to fund major NASA budget increases, the emphasis on science programs is likely to mean a slowdown in human spaceflight programs as money in 2008 and 2009 is shifted to science.

New Parrot Down Under

After ten years of fieldwork, wildlife cinematographer John Young has discovered a possible new species, the blue-fronted fig parrot, in the forests of southern Queensland, Australia. It's not certain yet whether this diminutive bird is a full species or a distinctive subspecies of the known double-eyed fig parrot Cyclopsitta diophthalma, but Young's discovery is important in any case: important enough that the Queensland government is keeping the location a secret while further expeditions are made. (The name "double-eyed" apparently derives from the brightly colored cheek patches (red for males, yellow for females) on this largely green-feathered bird, although they really don't look like eyes at all.)

New Phylum is Very Old

Xenoturbella is a 12-mm wormlike creature that would not seem very important, and no one thought much about it when it was first dredged from the Baltic Sea some 50 years ago. A new study, though, shows it is a very interesting beastie indeed. The critter is so different from everything else it belongs in its own phylum. There are only 30-some phyla in the animal kingdom (the exact number is disputed). Xenoturbella is literally brainless, and shows features indicating it has retained characteristics of the original missing link - the presumed common ancestor of all chordates, including humans. One researcher explained, "It is a basal organism, which by chance preserved the basal characteristics present in our common ancestor. This shows that our common ancestor doesn't have a brain but rather a diffuse neural system in the animal's surface."

Wind energy gaining steam (so to speak)

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates that, if wind energy is pursued "aggressively," it could account for 20% of US electricity demand by 2020. Factors slowing the expansion of wind energy include questions raised by environmentalists concerned with the number of birds killed by the turbine blades. A new report by the Department of Defense also raises concerns that tall windmills in some locations could degrade the capabilities of air-defense and air traffic control radars. So far, radar-related concerns have resulted in delays of some energy projects, but no cancellations. AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher says, "Decades of experience tell us that wind and radar can coexist. The American wind energy industry will continue to work collaboratively with government and others."

One Dolphin, four flippers?

Japanese scientists are studying a captured dolphin with a unique anomaly - it has four flippers. The animal has a second, small pair where hind legs might be expected in a land mammal. Seiji Osumi of the Institute of Cetacean Research said, "I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery." Vestigial hind legs or unformed protrusions have, in very rare cases, been found on other cetaceans, but this is the first case of well-formed, functional flippers.

Bigfoot and academia

Idaho State University anthropologist Jeff Meldrum is one of the leading scientific experts on the alleged unclassified ape of North America, the sasquatch. Unfortunately, that does not make him very popular with the rest of the faculty. Dr. Meldrum, a tenured professor, is considered an embarrassment by some of his colleagues. Thirty of them signed a letter objecting to his hosting a sasquatch symposium on campus. Fortunately, John Kijinski, dean of arts and sciences, is more tolerant, saying, "He's a bona fide scientist. I think he helps this university. He provides a form of open discussion and dissenting viewpoints that may not be popular with the scientific community, but that's what academics all about."

COMMENT: I'm with Kijinski. Yes, the odds are against there being an undiscovered primate wandering the Northwest. However, the scientific method demands freedom of inquiry, including inquiry into subjects that are considered "fringe."

NASA approves Hubble repair mission

NASA has approved a Shuttle mission to extend the life of the Hubble telescope. The action was widely applauded in the space science community, which has not had much to cheer about from NASA lately. The mission would launch in 2008 to allow astronauts to add seven years of life to Hubble by upgrading guidance and control components. They would also attempt to repair one instrument and replace two others, greatly improving the telescope's capabilities. However, NASA, having directed all possible funding into the Shuttle missions supporting the International Space Station, the planned retirement of the Shuttle in 2010, and the demands of the new Vision for Space Exploration, does not know where the estimated $900M budget for the mission will come from.

World fish stocks trending sharply downward

A new study indicates that global stocks of fish and other edible marine life, with the ecosystems they support, are headed for a cliff by 2050. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said, "I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are - beyond anything we suspected." He and his colleagues, who spent four years collating results of experiments and other studies worldwide, report that 29% of commercially valuable marine species have already "crashed" - that is, the populations are down an estimated 90 % or more - and the rest are following quickly. Overfishing in the main culprit, but coastal development and other ecological degradation is blamed as well.

COMMENT: This is not like global warming, where the observed changes leave some doubt about the overall trend and the human role in it. This is a crisis that essentially is impossible to dispute. While some nations, notably the US, believe they are maintaining proper controls keeping harvesting by their own fishing fleets to sustainable levels, the global picture is a very bleak one. This situation requires coordinated global action NOW.

New Species from the Pacific

A protected marine area northwest of Hawaii has yielded a bonanza of new and rare species of marine animal. A three-week expedition in the French Frigate Shoals area netted over a thousand species of invertebrates. Examples include a sea star (starfish) colored bright purple and measuring a foot (30cm) across the arms and "a hermit crab that dons a sea anemone and sports shiny golden claws."
There is still much work to be done to determine how many of these are new, but one zoologist with the team said, "There were lots of organisms that people were saying, 'Wow! What's that?'"