Notes on Cryptozoological Fiction

This essay was published in Craig Heinselman's compendium Elementum Bestia earlier this year. It was written for an audience interested in cryptozoology, but, if that does not include you, please don't be deterred.





Cryptofiction – One Reader’s Thoughts
By Matt Bille

It’s not clear who created the genre of cryptofiction. Perhaps the unknown composer of Beowulf gets credit. More likely, the art goes back to some Cro-magnon telling stories around the campfire of how he saw a strange, unknown breed of short-faced bear (no doubt the size of a mastodon) or rediscovered a presumed-extinct cave lion.
There was a spate of cryptofiction (CF) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that produced some very enjoyable work, mainly in short story form. The writers were not just the expected culprits like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but included such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling (sea serpents) and Jack London (mammoths). Some of the short stories involved were told in the straightforward manner of a news report. Wells’ “The Sea Raiders” is a standout in this group: those who read about his murderous cephalopods could be forgiven if they thought the material was nonfiction. Chad Arment has put together a wonderful collection of such cryptofiction at http://www.strangeark.com/czfiction.html.
CF continued to crop up in all kinds of works, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan series, where his great apes are just one of many unknown species that play greater or lesser roles. But I want to focus this essay on cryptofiction’s most common 21st-century form, the CF novel. I’m defining a CF novel as one where the main plot centers around discovery or rediscovery of a species of animal (a “cryptid”) not recognized as existing by mainstream zoologists. The modern CF novel might be said to descend from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, written in 1912 and still in print. Most CF novels would be classified as thrillers, although genres like mystery, SF, and horror can all have cryptid themes.
That covers a lot of ground, and the lines around this subgenre are fuzzy ones. What, for example, does one do with Whitley Strieber’s superb The Wolfen? His creatures are natural animals, and he makes them quite believable, but I think of it as a horror novel. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s equally gripping Relic is a scientific thriller not based on any reported cryptid, and I never figured out whether to call it CF until the sequel, Reliquary, moved the story firmly into the realm of science fiction and saved me from further pondering.
There is also the problem of classifying cryptofiction with supernatural or mystical elements, as in Robert Masello’s Bestiary and Philip Kerr’s Esau. I suggest these are probably still CF, though a bit genre-bending. There are plenty of novels which include cryptozoological elements as secondary or even incidental components (Michael Crichton’s Sphere and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range, for example), but we’ll set those aside here.
In this reader’s opinion, the truly great CF novel has not been written. There are some top-shelf examples of the genre, with Eric Penz’s Cryptid, Petru Popescu’s Almost Adam, and Steve Alten’s The Loch all come to mind, but nothing I’ve read so far is really transcendent, the way Elizabeth Kostkova’s The Historian is for vampire fiction. There’s no reason there can’t be such a cryptonovel, given the inherently dramatic nature of the subject matter and the many human, scientific, and political conflicts which may be involved. It just has not quite been done yet.
By way of comparison, the vampire novel would seem to have been drained dry, with hundreds or thousands published since Mr. Stoker got the whole thing started in 1897. Yet Anne Rice made a fortune by providing a new and literate take on the legend eighty years later, and then Kostkova essentially did the same thing again, only even better, in 2006. If great novels with a fresh approach can be created in a genre as crowded as this, they certainly can – and, hopefully, will – be published in the CF realm.
Who writes cryptonovels? The authors can be established thriller writers who just choose to do a plot concerning an unknown or unconfirmed animal, or cryptid (e.g., Philip Kerr). They can be cryptozoological researchers who use the novels as a way of exploring what might be the truth behind cryptid tales (e.g., D. L. Tanner, Lee Murphy). They can also be thriller writers who start in CF and branch out from there (e.g., Steve Alten). They can even use the cryptid as a central part of a plot meant to explore some other topic. Frank Peretti did that in his Christian-themed Monster, where his sasquatches just happened to be in the same area as an ape-raising mad scientist who accidentally proves evolution doesn’t work.
The would-be CF author has a dual problem. First, the novel must be a good novel, with believable characters, stories, etc. The usual rules of good writing – people, motivation, story, and conflict – all apply in CF as they do everywhere else. So do details. Dean Koontz’ much-quoted (by me, anyway) maxim is that you can ask a reader to accept one major improbability as long as all the other features of the novel, including the small details, are solidly grounded in reality. (Koontz has not always followed his own rule, but it’s still a good one.)
That does not rule out minor liberties in geography or history, which crop up in non-cryptid writings by everyone from Stephen King to Dana Stabenow without hurting the story, but there are limits: James Michener’s creation of fictitious states in his novel Space was a jarring distraction even in the hands of a skilled writer. (I do hope Dana Stabenow somehow reads this: a novel putting her sleuth Kate Shugak on the trail of Alaska’s legendary Hairy Man would be great fun.)
The second part of the writer’s problem is the cryptid. A horror writer can invoke the supernatural and get away with almost anything, but a CF author can’t. The author has to make Koontz’s big improbability (the cryptid, in this case) seem probable, or at least plausible. The cryptid must be more or less consistent with the existing record and, to a large degree, scientifically believable.
Dedicated readers of cryptofiction are not a large lot, and the writer must appeal to a broader thriller/horror/etc. audience to make a novel successful. However, cryptozoologists are a hard-core bunch, well-read in the facts and theories of their field of interest. If an author attributes the Lachlan Stuart photo from Loch Ness to Tim Dinsdale, there will be hell to pay. It’s almost like writing a Star Trek novel, where an error on some obscure point of Vulcan protocol will draw a deluge of emails calling the author a Romulan or worse.
An author introducing a new or surviving creature has to assume many readers will have, or will look up, sufficient information to judge whether the creature involved might really exist. In James Robert Smith’s enjoyable thriller The Flock, I could generally get past the problems with undetected survival of his terror birds, but was stopped short when one “laughed” at the abstract idea of a dog taking him on, and I almost gave up on the book when the critter actually got a mental image from human hunters.
Sometimes CF authors seem not to know how to get to their tale, and so they gloss over too much. Robert Masello in Bestiary described his animals well, but never explained where they were for millions of years before they ended up as living treasures in care of an Iraqi dynasty. Sometimes authors go the other way, throwing a blizzard of scientific jargon at the reader in hopes said reader will thus buy into the creature’s reality. Dave Freedman’s Natural Selection, which mixes a few real data points and many imaginary (and some impossible) ones, is the most egregious offender on this point. (The astonishing thing is that, to read some reviews by major media outlets, this actually worked. The absurdity of Freedman’s flying mantas was somehow passed over, and I suppose I must give the author some credit for this accomplishment.)
For the author who plans to tell a series of stories in novel form, growth from one tale to the next is always possible and highly welcomed. I wrote harsh reviews of Steve Alten’s original Meg and its sequel, but Alten had improved as a writer by the second sequel, and did a better job as both author and cryptozoologist with The Loch. Likewise, Lee Murphy’s Naitaka corrected what I thought were flaws, most notably in characterization, that had marred his debut novel Where Legends Roam.
Human characterization is the hardest thing for any author to get right, and CF is even less forgiving than most thrillers in this light. The author must not only give us real people, but make us believe in how they would react when faced with the incredible.
Imagine being alone in the forest when confronted by a sasquatch. Some of us would stand and stare in fascination: some would reach for a camera or a gun; some (probably including me) would want to stay but would likely, by reflex, high-tail it out in search of reinforcements. The author needs to think about why this person is in the woods, what shaped their character, and how they would greet a giant, smelly, supposedly non-existent ape. Likewise, the quiet guy who was reluctantly dragged along on an African cryptid expedition should not suddenly burst forth with a long explanation of why a given fruit is probably good dinosaur fodder, unless it’s been established that 1) animal nutrition is his expertise and 2) his character is likely to grab the spotlight if opportunity presents itself.
In some novels (I’ll pick on Natural Selection again here), the author offers us a collection of two-dimensional folks who summon no sympathy from the reader even when they are eaten or dismembered. At the other extreme, Robert Laws is so sure his characters in Ferocity will hold the reader’s attention (and he’s right) that the cryptid gets two brief mentions in the first six chapters. (Laws’ book was going to be on my top picks, but his leaving his British mystery cats’ ability to hide from direct vision unexplained spoiled it for me.) Likewise, one of the reasons I admire Almost Adam is that Popescu’s characters keep us turning the pages even when his australopithecines are “off screen” and not even being discussed.
Not all characters, of course, are equal. By the nature of all fiction, length and pacing dictate that some characters will remain undeveloped. That’s no excuse for stereotypes, though. Examples in CF (especially prominent in CF-related films) include the skeptic who dismisses everything until the cryptid makes human McNuggets out of him or the wise old Native who tells the disbelieving white visitors to stay out of the woods. A personal non-favorite of mine is the business executive who is already wealthy and successful but casually orders or even personally commits kidnapping, murder, etc. in pursuit of more money or to settle a minor score. Even Enron wasn’t the Mafia.
The CF reader wants to be transported into a setting that is right for the animals involved and feels real to the reader. Eric Penz in Cryptid did this better than any other CF author I’ve read, making us see, hear, and smell our surroundings in the Northwest forests. I compared him to Barbara Kingsolver in this regard, and I meant it. One can do a good job with slightly less detail, as Alten did with Loch Ness and Popescu with Kenya, but the point is the environment matters to any cryptid, and thus to any writer or reader of CF.
The writer does not need to explain the plausibility of each point in so much detail that the story bogs down or halts. I remember reading a Tom Clancy novel that went on for two pages about how you make an automobile gas tank, and I remain convinced Clancy had given in to the temptation of simply showing off. CF authors should resist.
The flip side of that is that there’s no excuse for a flat-out wrong detail that most readers will catch. Alten gave us such a moment in Meg: Primal Waters when a prehistoric “flashback” offers us a Steller’s sea cow cruising a tropical lagoon without dying instantly of heatstroke. James Robert Smith does it when one of his characters brings out a Doberman weighing 170 pounds, almost twice the upper end of the bell curve for this breed. (I’ve already had a friendly exchange with Lee Murphy about his next novel – the guys on Mythbusters tried his hero’s playing-card-as-lethal-weapon trick, and it can’t be done.)
The last question that comes to mind is whether there’s a distinction between CF and “monster” thrillers. I think there is, but we are back to drawing fuzzy lines again. When the point is to have an exciting plot about terror, danger, and death, the author is usually not overly concerned with ensuring the creature (note I did not say “cryptid”) is plausible. James Rollins’ Ice Hunt is a first-rate page-turner, but his cetacean “grendels” not only survived 50 million years with no fossil record, but then survived while entombed in ice for fifty thousand years, and the explanation for all this is less than convincing. Just read it as a thriller and enjoy.
Taken together, all these points ask a lot of the would-be writer of great CF. No author will never convince every reader that his sasquatches have the right diet or that her giant octopus has the right mating habits. But he or she needs to show they’ve done the homework without drowning the reader in details that slow the story.
There is an enormous amount of unplumbed material in the crypto-world. We have several novels on sasquatch, but none on Africa’s dodi or Asia’s orang-pendek. We have several on Loch Ness, but almost none exploring sea serpents. Cryptid tales, by their nature, tend to involve exotic locales and often would, in real life, be the catalyst for many competing interests. They set up the most interesting kind of people stories – the kind where true character comes out under great stress – and offer the chance to enlighten readers on the scientific plausibility of the entire field of cryptozoology.
All this is, as I said in the headline, the opinion of one (albeit voracious) reader. Some people may love books I think little of, and vice versa. What is most important about CF is that it’s a vibrant, growing field, drawing in new authors who publish through all venues - large traditional presses, small presses, and self-publishing ventures.
I guess the bottom line of these notes is to tell writers of CF that there are many people eager to read your work, but we expect something of you, too. We expect you to treat the subject with seriousness and depth, not just have the cryptid pop out and chomp someone every now and then. The world needs more good CF, a lot more, and there’s room at the top for great CF. So go forth and write well.

AUTHOR
Matt Bille is a writer of non-fiction cryptozoology (see his books Rumors of Existence and Shadows of Existence, both from Hancock House). He is working on a CF novel which has yet to find a publisher, and hopes any hints of professional jealously do not color the above essay. Matt’s website is http://www.mattwriter.com/.

Cold-adapted dinosaurs?

Paleontologists studying 115-million-year-old dinosaur tracks in Australia report the tracks are evidence that dinosaurs flourished in a period where temperatures ranged from 20 degrees Centigrade (68F) in the summer to a chilling -30C (-22F) in winter. Paleontologist Thomas Rich speculates the species which left the tracks, a carnivore standing about four meters high, may have been a truly warm-blooded species equipped with body fat to ward off the cold. This find reminds us about how much we still have to learn about the most fascinating creatures ever to walk the Earth.

Discovery is in Orbit

The STS-120 mission of the space shuttle Discovery is off to the International Space Station after a smooth and safe launch. Concerns about the outer layer of some of the carbon-fiber heat-resistant panels were examined by NASA leadership, but it was decided the mission could safely proceed on schedule. During the countdown itself, a patch of ice near the hydrogen umbilical on the external tank was examined and discarded as a possible hazard. This link provides a blog written as the countdown was in progress.
NASA notes: "The STS-120 mission will mark the first time females have been in command of both the space shuttle and the International Space Station at the same time. Space shuttle Discovery is being commanded by Pam Melroy, and Peggy Whitson is currently serving as the station's commander."

Progress on commercial space transport

SpaceX, the pioneering private launch firm founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, reports its Falcon 9 / Dragon mission for the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program has passed the Critical Design Review (CDR) stage. The CDR was vital to getting NASA funding for the next stage of the program. Documents, hardware, and presentations to NASA got SpaceX the thumbs-up to proceed with the project. Musk said, "In terms of overall design maturity of the Falcon 9 project, we are well ahead of the curve for a program of this size. Few CDRs feature multiple hardware items in fabrication, assembly, integration and test phases." SpaceX plans to fly a demonstration mission carrying cargo to the International Space Station by 2009.

Alaskan tribe receives ancestor's remains

Over ten years ago, human remains estimated at 10,000 years old were found in a cave in the Tongass National Forest. Studies indicated they belonged to the ancestors of the Tlingit nation of Alaska Natives. What's notable about this find is that everything was done right in accordance with the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Tlingit leaders agreed the bones could be studied before their return to the tribe for appropriate reburial. Now the U.S. Forest Service has handed them back, and Tlingit will proceed with permanent re-interment. Anthropologist Rosita Worl, a Tlingit, said, "I think ours is a really good example of what can be accomplished when scientists and federal agencies recognize the legal rights of Native people. They're professional with them, they're sensitive with them. They're equal with them."
COMMENT: This was a simpler case than that of Kennewick Man, whose remains have been claimed by several tribes and remain the subject of contention. Still, it's a good example of how both science and cultural sensibilities can be accommodated when everyone starts with the right mindset.

Strange new creatures of the deep

Completing a trio of animal discoveries and rediscoveries in the news is the latest find from the ocean depths. Researchers off the Philippines have photographed a swarm of strange species, some of them new to science, at depths down to 2,900m. Notable examples include a black jellyfish and a bizarre orange worm with 10 tentacles.

South China Tiger seen again in the wild

The South China tiger, Panthera tigris amoyensis, has not been seen in the wild in over 20 years. There were an estimated 4,000 prowling the forests and mountains 50 years ago - today, there are 68, all in zoos. The subspecies was the victim of development and poaching for the value of its body parts in traditional medicines.
Or so it was thought. A farmer in northwestern China reported seeing the animal two weeks ago, and experts have confirmed the authenticity of the resulting photographs (it's not clear from the AP report whether the farmer took the pictures or officials he talked to came out and got them). It's still unknown whether there is a stable wild population, but even the single sighting is a rare piece of good news for tiger conservationists.

A New Mammal - the Dwarf Manatee

Loren Coleman has posted on the cryptozoology site Cryptomundo a version of the announcement of a formal description my Marc van Roosmalen, et. al., of a large new mammal van Roosmalen had been investigating for some time. This is the dwarf manatee, Trichechus bernardi. It's the second known freshwater-specializing manatee and, at 1.3m in length, by far the smallest. A holotype is in hand, and the species has also been filmed in the wild. DNA analysis confirms its long-term genetic isolation from other manatee species. Sizable new mammals are the rarest of new species, but they still come along more often than most people realize.

Robotic romance?

Artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht has offered the belief that human beings will have sex - and marriage - with robots in this current century. He suggests the politically liberal U.S. state of Massachusetts will legalize such relationships around 2050. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. thesis (no doubt the first person to do so on the topic of human-robot relationships).
COMMENT: Human relationships are so complex that you can't say no one will ever want an intimate relationship, including marriage, with a robot - someone probably will. But legal status with something that can be disabled or dismantled at will? Not a recipe for stability. Let's leave the robots out of this.

Shuttle and Station

Although NASA safety experts recommended a two-week delay due to minute cracks in the outer layer of some protective carbon fiber panels, NASA has decided to launch the shuttle Discovery on schedule on October 23.
COMMENT: This will very likely turn out OK, but the cultural message is unsettling: disregard a possible safety concern and launch on schedule.

Meanwhile, a new crew has docked at the ISS via a Russian Soyuz capsule. Those on board include NASA's Peggy Whitson, the first woman to be in command of what is, for now, Earth's only long-term space outpost. With her were cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor.

Darren Naish on Cryptozoology

Dr. Darren Naish, a British paleobologist, has consistently produced some of the most well-researched and scientific articles in the cryptozoological literature. In this post on his blog, he ties it all together in the form of a presentation he's given to conventions on the topic. Naish's insistence that cryptozoology be neither overly restrictive (i.e., counting only large or spectacular animals) nor overly credulous is a valuable insight, and his explanation of it well worth reading.

Steve Fossett may be lost

Authorities have called off the search for pilot/adventurer Steve Fossett in the mountains of Nevada after five weeks of futility. Searchers spotted several other aircraft wrecks, at least on never noticed until now, but found no trace of Fossett. Friends are continuing the search on a small scale, and some, like fellow entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, think Fossett may yet walk out of the mountains. The official view, though, is that Fossett - a man who gave the term "daredevil" new meaning by pushing the limits of balloon, glider, and powered aircraft flight - probably died in the crash of his single-engined plane.

The Birds From Brazil

There have been many new species of birds discovered in Brazil over the last two decades (I have written about several, but I haven't had time to look up the total, so trust me on that). The newest arrival is a handsome brown, black, and white species dubbed Formicivora grantsaui, the Sincorá Antwren. According to BirdLife International, it inhabits a limited area, and that only between altitudes of 850 and 1,100 meters - an interesting reminder that a species' habitat can be restricted by height as well as acreage. This habitat preference, as well as its unique vocalizations, helped scientists classify the bird as distinct from a visually similar relation, the Rusty-backed Antwren (Formicivora rufa).

Shuttle Discovery launch uncertain

With the space shuttle Discovery slated for launch on October 23, NASA is trying to decide whether three of the reinforced carbon panels protecting the leading edges of the spacecraft's wings need replacing. The outer coating on the panels has experienced "degradation" from an unknown cause. Some engineers are optimistic, noting that Discovery has flown twice with this problem and not experienced any further degradation or resulting difficulties. Others are still unnverved by the "unknown cause" part of the equation.

Teleportation, just not for you

Is teleportation of science fiction type ever going to arrive? It will be a long time, if ever. Some recent developments, however, are raising startling possibilities about the utility of teleporting something else: information. Experimenters have already succeeded in "teleporting" the quantum properties of particles, the first step toward a quantum computer with infinite storage and (to us humans) seemingly infinite speed, as well as enabling light-speed transference of huge amounts of data across interplanetary distances.
This CNN article quotes Valerie Jamieson, physics editor of New Scientist, who offers a helpful analogy.
"This is not teleportation as we like to think of it, namely an object disappearing from one place and reappearing in another. Rather, it is about the transferring across space of the quantum properties of particles, and in particular their spin." She suggests imagining a pool table. "In the traditional view of teleportation a spinning ball will de-materialize at one end of the table and exactly the same ball will re-materialize at the other end. In quantum teleportation the spinning ball stays where it is, but its spin is transferred to another ball somewhere else on the table, in effect creating a Doppelganger. It is an aspect or a 'property' of the original ball that has been transmitted rather than the ball itself. Although to complicate matters the process of transmission would destroy the original ball."

Senator Clinton on space

Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton is to be congratulated on being the first of the Presidential candidates to address space policy. It's unfortunate that she didn't say much. Words like "balanced" and "robust" don't commit anyone to anything. Basically, she made a promise to each constituency - earth science, space science, and human spaceflight - to do better by them. The exception was the promise to "speed" development of the next generation of human spaceflight vehicles and launchers, but even that really commits her to nothing - you can always say something along the lines of "We sped it up compared to what the last Administration was likely to do." Finally, she gave no figures and mentioned no funding sources. It also doesn't help to recall that her husband's administration was really supportive only when it came to Earth science. That Administration was no friend to commercial space development or to human spaceflight - at one point telling NASA to halt all planning for a human presence beyond LEO.
Still, Senator Clinton deserves to be commended for two things. One is simply teeing up the space issue, increasing the chance other candidates will address it seriously. The other is her promise in the space speech to reestablish Congress' Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). Now, she can't actually do that, only Congress can. But it should be done. The OTA did some excellent work.

AAS Conference announcement

Here's the official announcement of the American Astronautical Society's upcoming conference in Houston, TX.
Theme:
"Celebrating Fifty Years - But, What's Next?"
REGISTER ONLINE BY OCTOBER 12 AND SAVE $50 OFF FULL REGISTRATION http://www.astronautical.org/

The Skeptical (and despised) Environmentalist

This Times Online profile of Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, is interesting in a couple of ways. One is that Lomborg drew enormous fire from environmentalists and climate scientists for his work challenging the numbers behind most global warming scenarios, but he has persevered. Right or wrong, he remains a voice challenging the current majority view. That is as necessary for good science as it is for good government. The other is that he advocates policies that result in net contributions to the welfare of people over those that sound good but don't end up changing behavior - and he puts most responses to global warming in that category.
I'm no expert on climate change or the degree to which it's human-caused, but I try to point out a couple of things. One is that this situation is incredibly complex and doesn't translate accurately to the kind of simplified presentation shown in An Inconvenient Truth. The other is that sincere dissent should not be criminalized - which some environmentalists have demanded, literally, for global warming skeptics.

Easier dental work?

Harvard researchers report they've come up with a way to kill the pain of dentistry without the numbness and drooling that results. It's interesting because the solution is a well-known plant extract used in a new way - based on one researcher's intuitive "What if?" thought. The result: a compound made up of capsaicin (extracted from red peppers), which binds to receptors on pain-sensing neurons - and ONLY on pain-sensing neurons, not those directing touch, movement, etc. - and allows an anesthetic called QX-314 to infiltrate those neurons. There's a lot of work to be done yet to go from rat experiments to human trials, but the story is a good illustration of how the inventive process works.

One More Sputnik Item

In a good article in Scientific American, JR Minkel neatly summarizes the Sputnik story. The article does say Sputnik was short for "simple satellite," which it wasn't, but Minkel makes the important point that there wasn't a lack of aerospace technology on the US side. There was just no impetus for government to put funding in the right places until Sputnik went up.

The Sputnik Generation

Before we leave this 50th anniversary celebration, I should point out some great articles and links. The title link is to an article by James Oberg on the lessons we have learned - and not learned, or mislearned - from our space efforts of the past half-century. Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log (http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/) includes a series of excellent entries about what's happened since Sputnik and what we should expect in the next half-century. Finally, New Scientist offers a great collection of material at http://space.newscientist.com.

More Avian Intelligence

We've come to think of birds as clever enough, able to use a stick for a tool or figure out how to open a backpack zipper. But a new study with miniature cameras attached to crows has shown the birds make tools, bending, shaping, or stripping twigs and grass leaves to suit their purposes. They also use grass to rummage around on the ground for food, something never reported before.

HAPPY SPUTNIK DAY

Greetings to all who are excited about the past, present, and future of space exploration.
Co-author Erika Lishock and I appeared on the radio/Internet program The Space Show last night to talk about this anniversary's meaning, and that show is archived at www.thespaceshow.com.
To put it all in a nutshell: no matter how big our other problems and concerns, humanity must never forget to look up and outward. It may sound romanticized, but it's still true: cultures which take their eyes off the horizon will never be what they might have been. We can still do great things together that benefit all of humanity.

Ad astra,
Matt Bille

Sputnik and the Hams

Amid the current flood of articles on Sputnik, I noticed one that told a side of the story I hadn't really heard: that of the amateur radio community at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (then under contract to the Army) and its frantic efforts to establish the truth about the reported satellite. A series of improvisations, including the use of a metal window screen as an antenna, made that contact possible. The group would go on to make the first contact with Explorer I on January 31, 1958.

Saber-toothed cat not much of a biter

The saber-toothed cats (popularly called "saber-tooth tigers") were among the most fearsome-looking mammals ever to prowl the planet. But a new study says that, based on computerized reconstruction of saber-tooth skulls, the cat didn't have a strong enough bite to make those canines the primary weapon. Instead, Smilodon fatalis likely took down its prey with its forelimbs and claws and used the "can-opener teeth" to finish it off.

Sputnik and Science

A good article from LiveScience.com explores how the Space Age has spurred science education and scientific discovery. As NASA astrophysicist David Thompson puts it, "Sputnik made everybody think about science and technology more seriously."

Book of the month - The Physics of the Buffyverse

Yes, I'm serious. Jennifer Ouellette's book exploring physics through the activities of our favorite vampire slayer is fun, very well written, and genuinely informative. In the course of explaining everything from relativity to string theory, the author plays with the notion that, if you make one huge assumption - the supernatural characters have access to some mystical source of energy - a lot of things in Buffy's world could actually happen. So don't read this in a spooky graveyard.

Retrieving Mammoth DNA

Attempts to retrieve DNA from the bones and dried flesh of frozen mammoth remains have always been hampered by the post-death bacterial contamination, which meant up to 90 percent of what was recovered was not from the mammoth at all. A new study shows that retrieving DNA from an oft-overlooked source, hair shafts (previously thought to have almost no readable DNA), yields 90 percent mammoth DNA. This breakthrough will make it much easier to understand what ancient mammals - including ancient humans - were like through DNA analysis. It may also move us a step closer to the once-crazy idea of cloning mammoths or other creatures so they can walk the Earth again. One scientist on the project said of such cloning: "It's just a matter of time and money now."

A new Dawn for Space Probes

Boldly going where no machine has gone before, NASA's Dawn probe lifted off from KSC on an eight-year mission to study two unexplored celestial objects: the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Principal Investigator Christopher Russell of UCLA said, "Dawn will travel back in time by probing deep into the asteroid belt. This is a moment the space science community has been waiting for since interplanetary spaceflight became possible."

Astronauts: The Next Generation

From Press release: "Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company, announced today that famed game developer Richard Garriott, son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, has begun preparations for a "commercially active" mission to the International Space Station (ISS)."
COMMENT: OK, it has a whiff of a stunt about it. But it's still cool to have the first child of an astronaut make a space voyage. One more little step in the opening up of space.

Satellites and Cryptozoology

Benjamin Radford has an interesting suggestion for cryptozoologists: that the image-scanning software being used to search the ever-increasing supply of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery for pilot Steve Fossett be used to comb lakes and forests for signs of "cryptids." While a sasquatch might not show up, a family group might, and a large animal on or near the surface of a lake should eventually get captured in a lucky shot.
COMMENT: I must voice one quibble here. Benjamin is a well-informed and scientific writer who's skeptical on cryptozoology and many other topics, but that's no excuse for setting up a subject for ridicule by referring to a "12-foot Bigfoot," when no serious cryptozoologist thinks we have small King Kongs roaming the Northwest.

Turmoil for the Mars Science Laboratory

The most complex spacecraft ever developed for a trip to Mars has been "descoped" because of cost overruns. The $1.7-billions Mars Science Laboratory has lost its Descent Imager and had other experiments "defunded," meaning that no more money will be forthcoming and the development team will have to make do with the budget it has. Planetary scientists are naturally furious, but NASA Headquarters has made it clear there's no money to cover a $75M overrun. The probe is scheduled to be launched in 2009.

New Species from Vietnam

Since the early 1990s, a flood of discoveries has poured out of Vietnam, often from remote regions bypassed by the decades of warfare in that region. The latest round is not as spectacular as the finding of the 100-kg Vu Quang ox, but it reminds us of the bioversity yet to be cataloged. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has announced 11 new species of plants and animals including a reptile dubbed the white-lipped keelback snake, two butterflies, and five orchids. All came from Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam.

Upcoming Space Show appearance

I and Erika Lishock, my co-author on The First Space Race, will be on the radio/internet program The Space Show on Wednesday October 3 (the night before the Sputnik 50th anniversary). The show is from 7-8:30 PM Pacific time. It's live on AM 11550 in Seattle and is available on the Web live at www.thespaceshow.com.
Thanks as always to Dr. David Livingston for having us on the program.

Obituary: Alex, the talking parrot

Alex, an exceptional African gray parrot, has died in his cage at Brandeis University at the age of 31.
Alex was the subject of a decades-long experiment to see if a parrot could go beyond mimicking words and apply them to objects and events the way humans do. The answer was a limited, but still impressive, "yes." Alex learned over 100 words and could use them in simple sentences and even conversations, such as asking for the red box out of a collection of differently-colored shapes. He could count up to six and apparently understood the concept of zero. "He was so extraordinary in breaking the perceptions of birds as not being intelligent," said his lifelong trainer and lab partner, Irene Pepperberg, who compared his intellect to a five-year-old child's.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for pointing me to this story.

Velociraptor - feathers and all

It appears the stars of Jurassic Park should have been decked out in feathers.
Alan Turner, of the American Museum of Natural History led a new study of a velociraptor forelimb found in 1998 which discovered quill knobs - which anchor feathers on modern birds - on the fossilized bone. “Finding quill knobs on velociraptor, though, means that it definitely had feathers." Turner said. "This is something we’d long suspected but no one had been able to prove.” The link above includes a really cool - and scary - illustration.

The "hobbit" as separate species

Well, it's time for Round 457 in the debate over whether the remains of a 90-cm primate called Flores man, Homo floresiensis, or "hobbit" represent a few microcephalic humans or a new species. This one sounds pretty convincing. (Granted, I've always been in the separate-species camp, so perhaps I'm too easily impressed, but some experts are saying the same thing). A team led by Matthew W. Tocheri of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History has concluded the wrist bones of the Flores specimens are very similar to those of apes like the chimpanzee and early human relations like the autralopithecines, not like those of modern humans. Not all dissenters have been convinced by this study: some, most notably Robert D. Martin of the Field Museum, insist the cranial capacity of the most complete Flores specimen, LB1, indicates insufficient brain power for any sort of "normal" (non-pathological) examples of a human species.

When is an animal "discovered"?

One of my fascinations is with cryptozoology. When researchers pursue "cryptids," as the uncaught or unclassified are called, an interesting question arises: when you declare victory? When is an animal "discovered?"
I had an interesting exchange on this with anthroplogist/cryptozoologist Dale Drinnon, who thinks me something of an idealist about the way science works. Admitting that that is true, here are my thoughts.

It's easy to say that a certain cryptid has been discovered - to our satisfaction - and thus is no longer a cryptid. But saying it has no impact on science or conservation, and thus does not accomplish anything concrete.
While some zoological scientists may be too restrictive in what they accept, there is at least a standard for formal discovery and acceptance - a holotype available for physical examination and a paper published in a refereed journal. Granted, the zillions of tropical insects, etc. don't all get papers on them specifically, but the significantly-sized animals usually put on crytpid lists would all rate publications. And the insects and spiders and so forth at least turn up on the databases kept by the IUCN, the USFWS, etc., providing "evidence of acceptance."
Photographs or seafloor trackways have on occasion gained some acceptance as type specimens, but not in any of the controversial cases cryptozoologists spend most of their efforts on.
Without that standard, anyone can declare, say, the yeti discovered to their satisfaction, based on reports and sometimes hard evidence that, for whatever reason, is difficult to access. The trouble is that everyone's opinion is essentially equal, and there's no meaningful impact on science, conservation, etc. made by declaring a species discovered. (There would be if, say, George Schaller said it, but cases where a widely recognized authority endorses a cryptid as discovered (not just deserving of investigation, ut discovered) are rare indeed.)
Even having a scientific credential does not mean one's opinion has any measurable impact - Jeff Meldrum's endorsement of sasquatch, for example, has not led to funding for sasquatch investigation and conservation, has not gotten the animal in textbooks, etc.
My own inclination is to declare an animal "discovered" only when the two-pronged standard of an available holotype (at least in the form of a DNA sample) and peer-reviewed publication is met. Those standards are not magically correct, and may overlook some valid species, but they are the closest thing there is to a formal standard accepted worldwide.
And that, of course, is just one person's opinion.

NASA opening astronaut applications

NASA has opened up its application system to select the next class of astronauts. The basic requirements? A bachelor's degree in math, engineering, or science and three years' experience. In practice, this is the most competitive job hunt on Earth and those selected will have much more extensive resumes. The chosen class will have to have patience, too: they likely will not get to fly any Shuttle missions and will be doing nonflight duties until well into the Orion CEV program.

Look, up in the sky! A new bat!

A large, very distinctive new species of bat has been described from the Philippine island of Mindoro. Flying foxes are the world's largest bats, with wingspans on some types in the range of 180 cm. The new bat has orange fur and three white stripes on its face. An American-Filipino scientific expedition caught the type specimen after hearing of its from island residents. As zoologist Jake Esselstyn put it, "A local resident of [the town of] Sablayan first described the flying fox in great detail to us, but we were unconvinced until the species showed up in our nets." Now it's in the Journal of Mammology as well.

The Shuttle heads for launch

Although it's not certain just when. NASA's decision to replace leaking seals on the shuttle Discovery's starboard main landing gear will take time and may imperil the launch date of October 23. It might slip considerably further. The shuttle is slated for a 13-day mission, with the main goal being to deliver and attach a new Italian-built node to the ISS.

Happy 150th birthday, Tsiolkovsky!

OK, I'm a day late - the Russian space theorist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 150 years ago. It merits repeating that the founder of modern space-travel theory was a poor, almost totally deaf rural mathematics teacher who was fired by an imagination that kept him awake nights working out equations and concepts ranging from large hydrogen/oxygen-powered rockets to staging, space stations, and space suits. The world will owe him a debt for all time.

"Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever." - Tsiolkovsky

Item I add just to show that I know it: English-speaking readers may look at his surname and assume the "T" is silent, but it's not. The Cyrillic character beginning his name is pronounced "ts."

Google Launches a New Moon Race

The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. have announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon with up to $30M in prize money at stake. The winner must land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon and meet several requirements including sending video, images and data back to the Earth while traveling at least 500 meters on the lunar surface.The $30M is broken up into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize, and $5 million in bonus prizes for additional mission objectives.
COMMENT: This is wonderful stuff. I don't know if you can do this mission for $20M, but there are companies in the small "Newspace" field that will certainly try, just as the did for the original Ansari X Prize. My early favorite, if they choose to compete, would be a team of SpaceX Technologies (launcher) and a small-vehicle specialist like SpaceDev.

Japanese probe off to Moon

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), supported by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., has launched the nation's heaviest, most ambitious lunar probe. The Lunar Orbit Explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE) went up from the Tanegashima Space Center on an H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 13 at 10:31:01 a.m. on September 14, 2007 (Japan Standard Time).

Bad news for the Florida panther

Florida wildlife officials confirmed that the 15th Florida panther this year was killed on by a vehicle, eclipsing last year’s record of 11 panthers killed by vehicles. The panther was a two-year-old male discovered on I-75 just west of SR-29. After hitting a bottleneck of 20-30 surviving animals, the Florida panther has climbed precariously back to 90-100 cats in total. However, no species can handle having 10-15% of its population killed every year. The panther's case is a reminder that even an intense, well-funded conservation program may not succeed unless accompanied by the provision of adequate habitat with minimal road hazards.

A kilogram isn't what it used to be

The agreed-on international physical standard for the kilogram, a cylinder kept in airtight conditions in a locked vault in France, has lost weight. Losing 50 micrograms isn't much - about the weight of a fingerprint, as one writer put it - but it's baffling. As physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures put it, the master kilogram and its many copies used around the world "were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart. We don't really have a good hypothesis for it."

Species on the Edge

The IUCN has released its annual Red List of threatened species worldwide. It's not fun reading. The number of animals and plants threatened with extinction is 16,306, up 200 from last year. The number of documented recent extinctions of species is now 785 this year. Another 65 species are hanging on only in captivity or in cultivation. The Yangtze River dolphin, which was declared extinct only to have one sighting report come in afterwards, is "Critically Endangered and Possibly Extinct."

Disturbing news for the gray whale

This is not a good time to be a gray whale, individually or as a species. As if the recent news that some idiots killed one off the Northwest coast of the U.S. with a machine gun wasn't depressing enough, there's no reason to worry about them all.
In 1994, the gray whales of the eastern north Pacific were removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List in a step considered a major success for conservation. The population was up to 20,000 individuals, considered equal to its historic (pre-modern whaling) level. But a new analysis of the whale's DNA indicates the original population was much larger, perhaps five or even six times as large. That it's apparently leveled off at around 22,000, combined with the small but increasing numbers of underfed animals observed, indicates things aren't as healthy and stable as we'd hoped. Some researchers suspect that warming has damaged the Arctic ecosystem and cut the crustacean population the grays depend on. It's too early to be sure, but there's definitely reason for concern.

The Viking Past

Archaeologists are opening a Viking burial mound in Norway to analyze the bodies of two women placed there over 1,100 years ago. The bodies were found in 1904 along with a longship, now in a museum, that told us much about the Vikings. The longship was apparently the grave for a queen, buried with another woman who might have been her daughter or a servant. The bodies were re-interred in 1948.
COMMENT: This kind of story, and others like the current display of an Incan princess, always bring up the question of how ancient human remains ought to be treated, and whether there's a chronological dividing line between burials that are and are not OK to disturb. It's a given that there is much cultural, medical, and scientific information to be gained by studying human remains, but there are ethical gray areas.
My view is somewhat stricter than that of most archaeologists (and, granted, I'm not an archaeologist at all). For what it's worth, though, I believe graves belonging to cultures still extant should be opened only in cooperation with representatives of those cultures. Graves of cultures unknown or no longer extant could be opened if there's reasonable expectation of important knowledge, but bodies should not be kept forever on display. After a period of study, they should be re-interred in or near the original site, or at least in a museum or other facility near the original site. This view is unrelated to any views about spirituality or an afterlife. It's just my thought about how to treat all cultures and all humans with a universal level of respect while still preserving the interests of science.

Trouble for a private space venture

It might be said that most private space ventures have trouble - hurdles from legalities to finances have laid low many a sincere effort to build new launch vehicles or innovative payloads. It's especially sad, though, to read that NASA declared Rocketplane Kistler in default for lack of progress and private financing for its effort to develop an alternative cargo services to the International Space Station. Bankruptcy appears quite possible. People at the two companies that eventually merged to form Rocketplane Kistler included well-known and respected names in the space engineering community. It now appears they couldn't quite get it done. If RpK does fail, it nevertheless deserves a salute as a valiant try, and its alumni will no doubt go on to contribute elsewhere. This leaves SpaceX as the only contractor under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

Seeing Sputnik

A thread on sci.space.policy brought to mind the question of what people were actually looking at when they "saw Sputnik."
In developing our book The First Space Race: Launching the World's
First Satellites, (Texas A&M, 2004) I and/or co-author Erika Lishock discussed this with a lot of people, including James Van Allen. The consensus was that Sputnik 1 itself
was never observed with the naked eye, except possibly for brief
flashes near dawn and dusk. (Jim Oberg has an authoritative article on this in the new issue of Astronomy magazine.) What the newspapers and everyone else
announced about where to look for Sputnik related to the core stage of
the R-7. Even this usually appeared as a small, although sometimes
very bright, point of reflected light.
This in no way diminishes the importance or impact of the experience
people all over the world had in watching a Soviet satellite (whatever
piece of hardware it was) track across the night sky. Among other
things, it was the experience of watching with the naked eye that
inspired the physicists and engineers at China Lake to start one of
my all-time favorite programs, the audacious shoestring satellite
effort called Project Pilot or NOTSNIK.
Alas, work schedules will force us to miss the big commemorations.
I'll make it to the AAS National Conference in November, which might
be called one of the "close out" American commemorative meetings, to be
on panel about what NASA's first 50 years offers in the way of
projections about the next 50.

An Ocean in Space

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected enough water vapor to fill the oceans on Earth five times inside the collapsing nest of a forming star system. Astronomers say the water vapor is pouring down from the system's natal cloud and smacking into a dusty disk where planets are thought to form. The observations provide the first direct look at how water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, begins to make its way into planets, possibly even rocky ones like our own. Dan Watson of the University of Rochester said, “For the first time, we are seeing water being delivered to the region where planets will most likely form.” The star system, called NGC 1333-IRAS 4B, is still growing inside a cool cocoon of gas and dust. Ice from the stellar embryo's outer cocoon is falling toward the forming star and vaporizing as it hits the disk.

Thanks to Kris Winkler for pointing me to this item

An Impressive Ape

A team from the departments of Anthropology at two Turkish universities has recovered a new species of Ouranopithecus, a fossil ape from the late Miocene period. This might be the second-largest prehistoric ape (after the famous Gigantopithecus) known to science.
"A new great ape from the late Miocene of Turkey:" by Erksin Savas Gulec, Ayla Sevim, Cesur Pehlevan, and Ferhat Kaya: Anthropological Science 115: 153-158, 2007.
Abstract: An adult maxilla and partial mandibles of a hominoid primate recovered from the late Miocene locality of Çorakyerler (central Anatolia) are recognized as a new species of Ouranopithecus, one of the rare western Eurasian hominoids to have survived well into the late Miocene."
Thanks to Loren Coleman for putting this on the Cryptomundo page.

Yeti photos auctioned off

The most famous item of evidence in the controversial case of the yeti can be yours. The original prints of four footprint photographs taken in a high snowfield over 50 years ago by Eric Shipton will be sold by Christie's later this month.

COMMENT: While the evidence for the yeti is unsatisfying at best, no one has ever explained these footprints. Options:
1. An unknown animal.
2. Prints of known animals (or humans) expanded by melting and refreezing. This is easy enough to disprove experimentally. Tracks melt into a blob - they don't expand in a way that gives you clear edges and well-defined toes.
3. A hoax. No evidence Shipton and his companion Ward hoaxed the prints has ever been offered.
4. Simply, a mystery.

Ares 1 - How Boeing won

Boeing won NASA's ~$1B competition to build the Ares I upper stage, which will boost the Orion capsule into orbit, based on price. The ATK/LockMart bid scored higher in both the technical and managerial categories.
COMMENT: "Technically acceptable, lowest cost" - it's hard to picture this being a good idea for something this complex and this critical. I'm trying in vain to think of a case in history where a complex system contractor chosen on this basis turned out to be the right choice in the long run. Either the price will go up and negate the savings (remember the Advanced EHF National Team approach? The Space Shuttle?) and/or the contractor will be temped to cut corners and say "that's good enough." I'm not impugning anyone at Boeing, but the record on selecting a contractor based on price over one with superior technical and managerial scores is not reassuring. NASA may well have made the wrong call. Sure, they are in a tight budget situation, but for lofting a manned spacecraft, you either buy the solution you think is technically best and push Congress for enough money or you find you can't afford that solution and you give it up.

Steve Fosset is missing

Aviation daredevil Steve Fossett, the first man to make a solo, non-stop, unrefueled aircraft trip around the world, is missing. A massive aerial search is concentrated in western Nevada. Fossett had taken off Monday from a private airstrip near Yerington, NV and has not been seen since. Fossett holds over a hundred world records or world firsts, including his solo circumnavigation of the Earth by balloon.

The Croc Hunter: a sad anniversary

On September 4, 2006, conservationist Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray while diving off Australia.

The link above connects to a CNN site where people all over the world can express their comments.

My thoughts: Irwin was, as his critics said, a showman, but science and conservation need showmen. While Irwin’s enthusiasm perhaps clouded his judgment at times, there is no denying his impact for good. He took a global audience through countless lessons about wildlife and the environment, and he made it all fun. He demonstrated a love for creatures from snakes to spiders to (of course) crocodiles that helped him get across to everyone how important these “vermin” or “killers” are in their ecosystems.

Of special note to cryptozoological researchers is that Irwin also made a brief search for the presumed-extinct Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine: he found no evidence, but didn’t dismiss the possibility the world’s largest known marsupial carnivore was still out there somewhere.

We miss you, Steve.

Dr. McCoy, you dropped your gadget

One of the staple items on Star Trek was the array of devices Dr. McCoy had to repair internal injuries without the need to open up the patient. (In the original series, some of those devices were (this is true) fancy salt shakers.)
It can take a while for science to catch up to science fiction, but University of Washington engineers and doctors from Harborview Medical Center are trying to perfect a small device which could seal punctured lungs using high-intensity ultrasound. The first successful proof-of-concept experiment has already been done. Human trials have not begun, but the device offers promise for a host of uses if the technique of focusing ultrasonic beams to create a "hot spot" and cauterize leaks is proven to work on lung injuries.

The Ultimate Question

Here's a great article and discussion on the ultimate question facing science (and religion, and philosophy): Why is there something rather than nothing? Doesn't the principle of entropy make nothing (or at least a dead, inactive universe) more "natural" and likely than this complex cosmos we live in?
One response to "Why?" is "Why not?" Another is that we have only one universe to examine, and that doesn't tell us anything about the possible alternatives. It's an endlessly fascinating (sometimes maddening) question.

Lucy - a Controversial Tour

Leading paleontologist Richard Leakey's voice is one of many raised against the decision to send "Lucy" - the 3.2 million-year-old partial skeleton considered the keystone of the current theory of human evolution - on an international tour. The fossil was flown out of Ethiopia in secret and is now in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Ethiopian officials say the tour will bring an important financial boost to the museums of the impoverished nation, but Leakey and others fear the fragile remains will inevitably be damaged, no matter how carefully they are handled.

COMMENT: I agree with Leakey that this was a bad idea. Yet, hypocritical though it may be, I'll try my best to get to Denver when the tour reaches my home state. The opportunity to see Lucy in person is one I can't pass up.

Russia Thinks Big in Space

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti has reported on the nation's new blueprint for space exploration - and it's an ambitious one. The plan envisions a cosmonaut on the moon by 2025, a lunar base seven years later, and a human expedition to Mars sometime after 2035.

COMMENT: The ghost of Sergey Korolev must be smiling. It's an audacious plan, every bit as ambitious as the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration. Whether Russia can pull it off, given the nation's economic and political challenges as well as the technical advancements required, remains to be seen, but nothing happens without a goal. It makes sense that something ambitious will eventually pull all the world's space powers into a joint program, but that, too, faces a lot of difficulties. The only thing we know for sure is that the next couple of decades should be very interesting.

A striking black cat

The "black panther" is a cougar variant often reported but never caught. When a woman in Florida reported one in her back yard, though, wildlife officials found something almost as unusual - a black bobcat. The 20-pound animal was safely captured alive. Researchers at the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary told that media less than a dozen such cats are on record, and all from the same South Florida region. The cat is not just black, but a striking, perfect obsidian. The Busch staff will take samples for DNA studies and then return the cat to the wild.
COMMENT: Researchers are to be commended for their desire to return to the wild an animal that would be a very big draw if put on exhibit.

A Wrinkle in TIme Travel?

Time travel of any sort is a long way off, if it can be done at all. Still, it's intriguing to read that theoretical physicist Amos Ori at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology thinks he's found a way to do it that just might, eventually, be practical. To vastly oversimplify: If space-time could be curved into a donut-shaped hole by extremely strong gravity fields, one could create a situation where time becomes a closed loop, and you can travel back in it. It will be generations before humanity masters such ability to manipulate gravity, and there's no way to be sure we ever will. This concept does explain why, if time travel is possible, we have yet to meet a tourist from the future. The theorized machine will not let you travel back into the time before the machine was created.

"Spiderman was here"

OK, not really. But this communal spider web found in Texas, stretching for 200 yards, is pretty amazing nonetheless.

The Golden Frog

In the "cool new species" department, scientists in Columbia have identified a striking new species of frog, mostly golden-yellow in color. The "golden frog of Supata,"only about 2 cm long, is a member of the group called "poison dart frogs" - easily the most colorful amphibians on Earth.

NASA Notes

In a report which will not get nearly as much media play as the "drunk astronauts" business, NASA has been unable to substantiate any reports of astronauts being alcohol-impaired at flight time. As the new review points out, a lot of people would have to look the other way, given the extensive time spent with crew and support personnel before every launch.

Meanwhile, Boeing defeated ATK for the right to build the Ares 1 upper stage, the last of the major structural elements of the new lunar booster/spacecraft combination to be put on contract.

AAS Conference upcoming

The National Conference of the American Astronautical Society, slated for November 13-14 in Houston, might be called the exclamation point closing out a busy year of meetings and other activities surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Space Age.

I'll be on the panel for the opening session as we look at what NASA can learn from its history so far and what might lie ahead.

Did we miss Martian life?

It's the latest round in a long controversy. A hotly debated theory has been published suggesting the 1976 Viking landers might have found microbes on Mars - but we missed them because they were just too different from Earth varieties.

Startling New Ape Fossil

As the proponents of sasquatch and other alleged living unknown primates often point out, the fossil record of the known apes, such as chimps and gorillas, is a very incomplete one. Nine teeth (one canine, eight molars) from Ethiopia's Afar region may fill an important gap - while upsetting the whole view of ape evolution considerably. The teeth indicate a gorilla-like ape lived in Africa some ten million years ago, before (according to current theories) the common ancestor of all African apes inhabited the continent. The implications are considerable and are sure to set off a more intense search for other ancestral ape remains.
COMMENT: There have always been some people in the cryptozoological world who argue discoveries which upset widely held theories are suppressed to protect people's academic reputations. The publication of this paradigm-shattering find should help to disprove that.

A Void in the Cosmos

University of Minnesota astronomers have discovered a bizarre new structure in the universe - a "hole," a huge region devoid of stars, planets, and, apparently, even dark matter. From an Earth perspective, the hole, nearly a billion light-years across, lies in the constellation Eridanus. One astronomer summed up this complete puzzle by saying, "What we've found is not normal."

Some tweaks to the Shuttle

NASA has ordered replacement of cracked adhesive beneath the insulation foam on the space shuttle external tanks (ETs) being readied for use, trying to eliminate the foam loss which resulted in damaged tiles on the shuttle Endeavour. The work is not expected to delay the launch of the next shuttle due to launch, Atlantis, currently slated to head for the ISS on October 23.

New Haul of New Species

National Geographic News offers a look at new and little-known species, many of them quite strange, brought up from a recent exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. An international team of 31 scientists, assembled by the Norway-based MAR-ECO project and the Census of Marine Life program, spent five weeks combing the ridge with the latest in technological assistance.

Endeavour's triumph in pictures

The shuttle Endeavour put worries about tiles to rest with a perfect touchdown in Florida yesterday, coming home a day early to beat a threat from Hurricane Dean (which now looks unlikely).
NASA has put together a collection of striking photographs from the STS-118 mission. It remains to be seen whether the damage to Endeavour's tiles will force any postponement of the next mission.

Footprints on the sands of time

The oldest oldest human footprint ever found has been reported from Siwa, Egypt. Made in mud which then hardened into rock, the print was announced as a major discovery by Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. He said: "This could go back about two million years. It could be the most important discovery in Egypt."

Endeavour coming home

The space shuttle Endeavour has undocked from the ISS and is headed home a day early to avoid the possible effects an evacuation of the Johnson Space Center could have if Hurricane Dean comes ashore in Texas. Mission Control can operate from other facilities if need be, but NASA opted to keep things simple. Endeavour will come back Tuesday, with all eyes on that damaged tile section.

Some good prehistoric fun

OK, the blog Prehistoric Pulp is hardly a paleontology lesson. But it is a lot of fun. Go here to read and talk about depictions of the prehistoric in every medium from films to comic books. Revisit the Lost World!
Thanks to Loren Coleman for pointing out this site.

Crows rival monkeys in learning tool use

A fascinating experiment has found that one species of crow can not only use tools to get food out of a hole too deep for their beaks, but can figure out a more complex problem: using a short stick, the only tool within reach, to get another stick which is long enough to get the food. Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand reports, "It was surprising to find that these 'bird-brained' creatures performed at the same levels as the best performances by great apes on such a difficult problem." Three of seven crows grasped the solution immediately, without any trial-and-error: all seven learned it within 25 tries, a better record than posted by capuchin monkeys in a 2003 experiment.
Calling someone a "Bird brain" just may become a compliment....

The Future of Space Science

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, August 16, 2007
Source: National Academy of Sciences
WASHINGTON - Next month, the Space Studies Board (SSB) of the National Research Council will kick off a yearlong series of public lectures and colloquia in cities across the country and abroad. "FORGING THE FUTURE OF SPACE SCIENCE - THE NEXT 50 YEARS" will celebrate the spectacular achievements of space and earth science, examine new discoveries in both fields, and look ahead at what the next 50 years may bring. The series includes several "regional events" in locations across the country...

Comment: this is timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), which led to countless accomplishments by scientists around the world in addition to sparking the development of the first satellites. See the link for the locations and content of each event.

No repairs to Shuttle

NASA engineers have decided the shuttle Endeavour need no repairs to its heat-absorbing tiles. The three-inch gouge, while causing a great deal of concern, has been deemed not to be a threat to the shuttle's safe return. Contributing to the analysis was the fact the repair itself, while it's been practiced on Earth, carries some risk - an astronaut could bump into the tiles and cause more damage during the close work required.
COMMENT: A great deal of thought went into this, and some of the media coverage was horrible, either sensationalizing the risk or bashing NASA with no effort at balanced coverage. All that said, there is no way to know with 100% certainty if this call was right until the end of the mission. All fingers will be crossed until then.

Updates from Orbit

NASA is nearing a decision on whether to send astronauts underneath the shuttle Endeavour to patch the spacecraft's heat-shielding tiles before attempting reentry. Meanwhile, in an unusual incident, a spacewalk on Wednesday was cut short after one astronaut noticed a small puncture in his glove. The damage only affected the top two layers of the five-layer glove, but Rick Mastracchio was told to cut his six-hour EVA short. He and colleague Clay Anderson were able by that point to finish their major tasks on the ISS, so there was no significant effect on the mission.

WIldlife Mystery: Walruses found headless

Alaska Natives are the only people allowed to kill walruses under the law, and they are required to make full use of the carcasses, not just take the ivory tusks. This summer, though, someone appears to be killing on an unusual scale and taking only the heads, presumably for the value of the ivory. One one 40-mile stretch of shoreline, officials have found 79 walruses, all minus their heads. All had been shot. Alaskan agencies and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service are searching for the poachers, who can be punished severely under Federal law.

Shuttle damage update

NASA is still considering its options for repairing the gouge in the tiles of the shuttle Endeavour. The gouge, it's been confirmed, goes all the way through the tile, and the underlying felt covering the aluminum skin is exposed. NASA engineers are testing similar tiles in an arcject facility to simulate reentry and debating whether to use one of two remaining spacewalks to conduct an unprecedented repair job.

Inside the Mars Phoenix Lander

Are you wondering just what is packed into the just-launched Mars Phoenix lander? This very cool site has a fully illustrated breakdown of what instruments are on board and what each is meant to accomplish.

A zoological mystery - what is this pelt?

Dr, Darren Naish asks readers to identify a densely spotted carnivore pelt that does not seem to fit any member of the feline tribe, nor the spotted hyena. It's currently in Britain, but its age and provenance are uncertain.
Just for fun, Naish throws in a photo of a set of horns whose original owner also has yet to be identified.
Yes, there ARE many mysteries left in the natural world.

Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal skull?

Most anthropologists agree Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons never interacted except at spear point. This 33,000-year-old skull from Romania indicates that just might be wrong.

Tiny cooperative spacecraft project

DARPA is taking a serious look at mitigating the threat from ASAT weapons by putting some functions on 4.5-kg satellites called Tiny Independent Coordinated Spacecraft or TICS (TICS). These would be launched on need from a fighter plane by boosters not much larger than current air-launched missiles.

COMMENT: While modern advances in miniature computers and communications
technology make this practical, the basic rocket-from-a-fighter-jet can trace its origin to Project Pilot, or "NOTSNIK," the semi-official satellite program created by Navy
physicists and engineers in 1958. Their five-stage, 1,000-lb launch vehicle tried to orbit a 1-kg satellite and may actually have succeeded once, though the orbit was short-lived. This was not the model for Pegasus, whose designer was unaware of the project until I mentioned it to him once at the Conference on Small Satellites, but AFRL did try a couple of years ago to revive the idea, on two tracks, one working with DARPA on an impractically complex and expensive
launch aircraft (that's been killed), and then one using an F-15 or F-22 launch vehicle carrier. AFRL officers were likewise surprised that someone had actually done this and that some documentation survived (though not much), and I sent them what I had compiled. So I like to think I (and the oft-overlooked value of knowing history) made some contributions here.
The program is discussed in my book The First Space Race (Texas A&M
University Press, 2004)

NASA concerned about gouge in Shuttle tiles

The space shuttle Endeavor's mission has gone well so far, but NASA engineers are concerned about a divot three inches square in the silica tiles providing the spacecraft's main defense against the heat of re-entry. Likely caused by ice (although possibly by foam insulation) on liftoff, the damage will be carefully examined and measured by a camera and a laser tool on the Shuttle's robot arm extension. (The robot arm operator, by the way, is Barbara Morgan, originally the backup "Teacher in Space," who went through the rigors of becoming a fully qualified astronaut while she waited for her chance to fly.) If the gouge is determined to pose a threat, the crew will be directed to perform an EVA and use one of three types of on-board repair kits to fix it before reentry.

COMMENT: The tile system has never caused an accident, but it is unacceptably fragile and enormously labor-intensive to maintain. It's an outgrowth of the desire to keep development costs for the Shuttle down (which was successful) by trading off maintainability and reusability during the spacecraft's operational life. Of several options for the heat shield, the tiles were the cheapest to develop but the most expensive to maintain. All indications are the same short-sighted approach is afflicting the Crew Exploration Vehicle program.

UPDATE 8/12/2007: NASA has confirmed the damage is from a piece of foam, estimated as grapefruit-sized, that came off a strut on the External Tank (ET). Further study is still underway to determine whether the gash is deep enough to require repair. See:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227491/

Mesolithic settlement in the English Channel

From roughly 10,000 to 8,000 years B.P. the English Channel was a river valley, not an arm of the Atlantic. Off the Isle of Wight, archaeologists are excavating the first settlement discovered in that valley. Hearths, flints, and other Mesolithic objects are being mapped and/or recovered from the bottom under 11 meters of water, where silt has preserved perishable materials like wood. The Channel was inundated when glaciers melted from the last Ice Age, and the occupants of this and other settlements were forced to higher ground.

What the heck is gravity?

LiveScience.com has posted a good article on one of the great mysteries of physics. What is gravity? It's considered one of the four forces in the Standard Model of physics, but it's the one that refuses to "play nice" and fit into models. The Einsteinian universe accounts for gravity on large scales (like the gravity of planets, asteroids, or human beings), but breaks down on the subatomic scale. Some physicists look for particles called gravitons. Others search for gravity waves. None really understand the force that binds the universe together (as Yoda would say).

End of a Species: The Yangtze River dolphin

The Yangtze river dolphin, or baji (Lipotes vexillifer), until now listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, has been declared extinct. Early in 2006, the population was listed at 17. By the end of that year, researchers from the Zoological Society of London cruising the heavily trafficked, polluted river that was its only habitat were unable to find any evidence that even a single individual survived. In September, the IUCN will change its status with the next update of the Red List to to “critically endangered (possibly extinct)”. The last confirmed sighting was in 2002, the same year the only captive specimen died.
It is barely possible that a few individuals linger in tributaries of the Yangtze, but there is no chance they constitute a viable population.
It appears that humanity has driven a documented cetacean species to extinction for the first time.

Endeavour is Go!

The shuttle Endeavour had a perfect liftoff at 1836 EST, heading for the International Space Station on a vital construction mission. Mission commander Scott Kelly told controllers, ""We'll see you in a couple of weeks and thanks for loaning us your space shuttle."

Four mammals out of Africa

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered six new species, including four mammals, in a three-month trip to the forests west of Lake Tanganyika in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of the intrepid scientists, Andrew Plumptre, commented on the haul of a bat, a rodent, two shrews and two frogs by saying, "If we can find six new species in such a short period it makes you wonder what else is out there," ."

Watch a Launch as never before

Wednesday evening, the space shuttle Endeavor will launch at 1836 EST. Thanks to a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft, Windows users will be able to view it in a 3D environment that lets people examine the launch from all angles. It should be spectacular.

Old Life from melting ice?

As glaciers around the world are melting back, what are they releasing? Old microbes and even older DNA fragments, as it turns out.
Ice 100,000 to 8,000,000 years old was cut from Antarctic glaciers and carefully melted under sterile conditions. The result: healthy, fast-multiplying microbes, expecially from the younger samples. Scientists found there was a "half-life" of about 1.1 million years for DNA of frozen microbes: about half of it disappears in that time. So some samples showed, not viable animals, but fragments, which themselves could have unknown impacts if released into the aquasphere.

Your own Flying Saucer

In the "really cool stuff" department, a California company called Moller International is selling flaying saucers for $90,000. What your money actually buys you is a one-person craft able to fly at an altitude of 10 feet (3m), lifted by eight rotary engines that create enough downforce to make the craft fly with a 250-pound (114 kg) payload. The M200G can actually fly higher than that, but an onboard computer keeps it low enough so the driver does not, under U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations, require a pilot's license. Moller believes the craft will be popular with landowners who want to inspect property where ground vehicles or hovercraft are impractical.

Science v. Poaching in Malaysia

This very interesting article from the New Straits Times (Malaysia) describes how work is afoot to set up the country's first laboratory able to identify animals by DNA in an accredited system whose results will be accepted by courts. Malaysian conservation officials explain that, while their country's rich wildlife is under threat from both local and commercial poaching, they've lost cases because prosecutors could not definitively establish the identity of a confiscated animal part. The lab will also give the nation's scientists a new tool for differentiating animal populations, including identifying new species, and for studying wildlife diseases.

Ads in Space

Bigelow Aerospace, the firm which has raised a surprising amount of capital to pursue its goal of orbital hotels, has come up with a new idea: images, including advertisements, projected on the outside of its inflatable test modules while in orbit. The company's site shows some examples.

COMMENT: I applaud this company, as always, for its willingness to embark on a risky venture that, if successful, will help open up human space travel. I can't help but feel a little bemused by this new tweak, though. Who, exactly, is going to see the ads? UFO pilots?

The conversation on the bridge of a flying saucer might go like this:
"Look, Bleemborg. The earthlings have come up with another idea for the rest of the galaxy to laugh at."
"It is funny, Zorgfrog, but right now I do feel a craving for a vacuum-cold Pepsi."
"I hope these people don't exterminate themselves by nuclear war or global warming. They are much too entertaining to lose."
"Well, let's go ahead and dorfeltape this scene. The network executives back home are always happy to get a new segment for their hit show, 'Funniest Earth Videos.'"
"I still like the time we punk'd their Mars Rover with those ice cubes. Their news reports were hilarious."

Off for Mars

The largest, most sophisticated lander ever sent toward the Red Planet is off to a good start. The Mars Phoenix mission had a perfect liftoff this morning, courtesy of a Delta II booster rocket and the crews at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Landing in the Martian Arctic is set for late May 2008.

New Species from the Philippines

Conservation International scientists report a trove of species including a shrew (new mammals are always of interest) and a strikingly beautiful white and gold orchid.

Space: The Quest Goes On

In this article for WIRED, Michael Belfiore explains why, as bad as it was, the accident that claimed the lives of three men working on a private spaceship for Virgin Galactic is unlikely to derail the serious efforts being made to develop suborbital and orbital space travel on a paying basis.