What "Nessie" isn't

www.plesiosaur.com is an altogether cool site with good information on the endlessly fascinating (and seemingly endless, as we keep finding new species) world of Mesozoic marine reptiles. In the link above, the author cogently explains why, if there is a "monster" in Loch Ness, it's not a plesiosaur.

Space exploration quote for the day

Gary Barnhard, National Space Society:

"We have wasted a generation of engineers on PowerPoint slides."

Lions use roads to make giraffe hunting easier

Giraffes, normally fleet-footed creatures for all their size, run much better on the grassy plains than they do on a hard surface. A giraffe forced to run on a paved road slows down, apparently through loss of traction (or perhaps just because it hurts to strike a hoof on asphalt.) As Darren Naish reports, lions in the Kruger and Nairobi National Parks have learned how to use this fact. They force a giraffe onto a road and chase it down there, with a improved probability of success vs chasing a giraffe across the plains.

The little asteroid hunter

Here's another article on one of most intriguing microsatellite projects, Canada's NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite). Bearing a striking resemblance to a digital camera, it's a good reminder of how technological advances are allowing important science to be done by smaller and less costly spacecraft. To be launched in 2010, the 65-kg, $12M spacecraft will perform dual missions: hunting for asteroids and serving as a platform for high Earth Orbit (HEO) space object surveillance. Microsats no longer have to be single-mission or single-purpose, as was often the case with older, bulkier, and less flexible technology.

Martian soil - it's good stuff

The first soil analysis from the Mars Polar Lander is in, and it's encouraging. The Martian surface has the minerals needed to support plants that don't mind alkaline soil. A lot of Earth plants would do fine. One investigator said, "There is nothing about the soil that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly ... there is nothing about it that is toxic."

Falcon 1 launch slips a month

The Falcon 1 launch from Kwajalein with the Jumpstart mission and other payloads (see below) has been set back. The range has informed SpaceX its assets are needed for other launches. "Launch is no sooner than late July to early August," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. "We will use the time to do additional checkouts."
COMMENT: I'm not impressed: the launch has been on the schedule a long time, and indeed is already behind the original schedule for technical reasons. A week before the launch is finally set to go, the range finds it can't support the flight for another month or more? It's puzzling.

Spotting species is an uncertain science

Anecdotal observations are important to scientists trying to determine the range, habitat, and migration habits of a species. But anecdotes can be wrong. Are they too widely accepted? Researchers for the US Forest Service's Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain Research Stations report that being too quick to accept anecdotal evidence resulted in mistakes in the conservation plans for three species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker. They want scintists and agencies to evaluate such data "on a sliding scale."

COMMENT: No one, including cryptozoologists, thinks every eyewitness account should be accepted. These folks are saying we should raise the bar a notch, and that has merit. The risk is that we could miss important data. It always has been, and always will be, on "a sliding scale."

Oldest four-legged animal found

Ventastega curonica is believed to be an evolutionary dead end, but it's an important dead end. It is, as far as paleontologists know, the earliest four-legged animal to emrge on Earth. The fossil remains found in Latvia indicate it looked, as one paleontologist put it, like "a small alligator with a fin." The theory is that this is a creature of the shallows that found advantage in being able to haul itself over sandbars or perhaps even out of the water.

Frogs that carry concealed weapons

Rogue: When they come out... does it hurt?
Wolverine: Every time.

That snippet from the X-Men movie concerns the metal claws Wolverine can extend through his hands on mental command. Now we know some frogs actually do something similar.
A team led by Harvard University biologist David Blackburn was spurred to investigate African frogs after Blackburn was scratched in the field by animals that didn't seem to have anything to scratch with. It had long been known that several species of the family Arthroleptidae sported small bony nodules near the fingertips, but no one had ever investigated these properly. Now we know they are claws that can be extended through the skin, at the cost of a non-trivial injury to the frog.

COMMENT: It's another reminder of how endlessly inventive nature can be. Still, the evolutionary reasons why the frog would have a hidden defense of this type are puzzling. Why not have the claws out all the time and avoid all that trouble, or develop retractable sheaths like cats? We don't know.

MicrospaceNews: ComDev's first contract

On the heels of announcing its intent to develop a full microsatellite capability, the Canadian firm ComDev has its first order. The satellite systems company has a $10M contract for the The Maritime Monitoring and Messaging Micro-satellite (M3MSat). THis will be a ''technology demonstration mission'' jointly funded by the Canadian Space Agency and the Department of National Defence. The satellite will use ComDev's automatic identification system (AIS) equipment to track ships in Canadian and international waters.

MIcrospaceNews: SSTL's next-generation Earth observer

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) issued a press release on its newest imager:

"SSTL's privately funded UK-DMC-2 has passed its Test Readiness Review (TRR) at its Manufacturing Integration and Test Facilities in Guildford, UK. Scheduled for build completion in September 2008, the new Earth Observation satellite will provide higher performance imaging capabilities to the Disaster Monitoring Constellation which is operated by SSTL's subsidiary DMCii.
UK-DMC-2 will carry an enhanced version of the DMC (Disaster Monitoring Constellation) camera which will provide 600km wide multi-spectral images of the Earth at a ground resolution of 22-metres. This is an advance on the current 32-metre DMC imager, which has been successfully providing imagery in support of deforestation, disaster relief and agricultural monitoring for over five years in the current constellation of five spacecraft."

COMMENT: The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) has been a major technical success for microsats as well as an outstanding example of international space cooperation. Good luck with the new generation!

NASA scientist James Hansen goes ballistic

You remember Dr. Hansen: a prominent climate specialist who complained loudly (and with some justification) that NASA had blocked release of his work supporting human-driven global warming. Whether you think Hansen is right or wrong, his recent actions threaten his credibility, and maybe they should. A stunning article quotes him as saying oil company executives should be tried for crimes against humanity for downplaying the threat of climate change. He told an interviewer that he intended to tell Congress: “When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organizations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime." The Guardian newspaper also reports, “He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated.”

COMMENT: Now this is ridiculous. First, how does Hansen propose to differentiate between someone putting out deliberate misinformation and the many people (including some energy company folks, certainly, but also independent scientists) who honestly disagree with the “scientific majority” position on this topic? He would criminalize scientific dissent, and that is a crime against the bedrock of free inquiry and debate on which all science rests. Also, it should be pointed out Hansen’s political intentions are a major, flat-out violation of the Hatch Act outlawing partisan political activity by Federal employees.

Dr. Hansen, you may have gotten yourself in the newspaper, but you have done your cause no favors this time

Microspace News: PreSat and NanoSail-D

While most of the attention concerning the upcoming Falcon 1 mission has focused on the AFRL payload, the launch from Kwajalein includes a NASA payload from Ames Research Center called PreSat. PreSat’s objectives are to demonstrate Ames’ 2nd Generation Modular Triple CubeSat Nanosatellite Platform as well as evaluation the performance of a Generic BioFluidic Sample Management and Handling Subsystem. The spacecraft will be bundled with AFRL’s Operationally Responsive Space payload and the NanoSail-D solar sail experiment. NanoSail-D is intended to deploy the first working solar sail and further a collaborative relationship between the Ames and Marshall centers for future small satellite initiatives. The sail will cover 10 square meters. The payloads will go into a high LEO trajectory of 685 X 330 km at an inclination of 9 degrees. Both NASA spacecraft are “blogging” as “themselves” on www.twitter.com.
See:
http://www.presat.org/
http://www.crestnrp.org/nanosail/

Exotic cat colonizes Florida?

This intersting post from Cryptomundo.com comes from Dave Pelly in Florida. Pelly has been gathering information to prove that central Florida supports a small population of the jaguarundi(Puma yaguarondi), a cat not known to be established further north or east than the southern regions of Texas and Arizona.

COMMENT: I love these types of mysteries, especially from my old home state. Though much smaller than the cougar (which is now known to be closely related), the fact that black or nearly black jaguarundis exist might account for some "black panther" reports from the American South. Good luck, Dave.

Microspace News: Sir Martin Sweeting wins award

Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, founder of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd,, has won the 2008 Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award. The "Arthurs" are given in the UK for contributions to space flight.
His acceptance comments included:
“It is a great honour to receive this award and especially in the month during which Sir Arthur sadly passed away. As a teenager, I was captivated by Sir Arthur’s books and particularly the film 2001: A space odyssey which inspired me to strive for a career in space.”


COMMENT: Surrey, founded in 1985, has launched 27 small satellites, many of them highly innovative and some real breakthroughs. Go forth, Sir Martin, and conquer new frontiers.

Microspace News: The N-Prize

Here is an interview with Dr. Paul Dear, founder of the N (Nanosatellite)-Prize. The N-Prize will be awarded thus:

"... the N-Prize is a £9,999.99 (sterling) cash prize which can be claimed by any individual, or group, who are able to prove that they have put into orbit a small satellite. The satellite must weigh between 9.99 and 19.99 grams, and must orbit the Earth at least 9 times. This project must be done within a budget of £999.99 (sterling)."
That budget includes launch, and you can't use a donated launch vehicle: someone has to invent a radical nanosat launch system. Conventional rockets, balloon launches, and gun launches are suggested options.

Dear says:
"It’s true that the prize money is ridiculously small for a space competition. Nobody in their right mind is going to enter for the prize money - and people who aren’t in their right mind are my kind of people! If the prize becomes bigger, then we’ll start to see entrants who treat this as a business proposition, and who are willing to invest huge resources to win the prize. I’d rather keep it small, so that we attract enthusiastic nuts who are doing it for the challenge."

Several serious teams have already entered. The N-Prize website is: http://www.n-prize.com/

COMMENT: OK, so it's impossible, or nearly so. Dear doesn't care: he wants to see just how ingenious space enthusiasts can be. I don't think it's going to be done, but I wish "full speed ahead" to everyone trying it: surely, out of their efforts will come some ideas that can be applied to other projects to reduce size and cost. As Shaw said, all progress depends on the unreasonable among us.

Ice on Mars

The white material uncovered by the Phoenix Mars Lander's digging scoop has disappeared over the last four days. Conclusion: "It must be ice," said Dr Peter Smith, the mission's Principal Investigator from the University of Arizona. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice." In two other spots, the lander arm has stopped digging automatically when it hit a hard surface just beneath the dirt.
COMMENT: They're breaking out the champagne at NASA. Evidence that Mars has a permafrost layer just under the soil in the north polar region has huge implications for understanding the climate, the planet's geological history, and its potential to support life. They'll have to use plain old Earth ice cubes for the toast, of course. Martian ice would cost several million dollars per kilogram if it could be delivered.

New bird from China

The latest new bird species comes from a forest near China's border with Vietnam. The Chinese media agency Xinhua has announced the finding of the bird, labled the Nonggang babbler (Stachyris nonggangensis).
The bird is dark brown with a few white and gray markings. It reportedly prefers walking to flying, except when startled.

THANKS to Loren Coleman for drawing my attention to this with his post on Cryptomundo.com.

The Yeti's foot

Over at Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology blog, there is a lively discussion of one of the most intriguing pieces of evidence in the cryptozoology files: the Shipton footprint. Taken in the snow on Menlung Glacier in the Himalayas by mountaineers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1951, it remains a puzzle.

Here's what I added to that discussion:

A few points:
First, the photo sometimes published showing a series of tracks is, if I recall correctly, an unrelated image of goat prints. If Shipton and Ward actually took a good shot showing the series of yeti tracks (which they should have, but I've not read of them ever referring to it), it was spoiled or lost.
Second, there does appear to be some melting and refreezing in the heel, but there could not have been much, given that other areas don't show it.
Third, arguably the most eminent scientist ever to write on the topic, John Napier, wrote he might accept a composite of a bare and sandaled human print, but the explanation was not really convincing: he would have dismissed the yeti entirely except this print was "the one item in the whole improbable saga that simply sticks in my throat."

Fourth, and most important: the composite human print theory, in my experience, just does not work. I have tried this at different latitudes, altitudes (ok, only up to 6,000 feet), temperatures, angles to the sun, and textures of snow (wet/heavy, dry, and in between). At the risk (ok, it was more of a certaintly) of my wife saying I was crazy, I've made bare prints in snow and then trodden on them with various types of footwear, and also tried it in the opposite sequence. It just doesn't work. The toes never lengthen and/or separate while remaining crisp-looking. They melt into a blob. There's some variation in shape, time, etc under different conditions, but the end result is still the same: At no time do I get anything resembling the Shipton print.

I'd be curious to know whether anyone else's experimental results have been different.

Matt Bille
http:/mattbille.blogspot.com

New bird from Columbia

From the Serranía de los Yariguíes mountains in Colombia comes the world's newest bird, a subspecies of the Pale-bellied Tapaculo christened Cytalopus griseicollis gilesi after conservationist Robert Giles. The mostly-gray bird is distinguished from other Pale-bellied Tapaculos by differences in its calls as well as a darker back and longer tail.
COMMENT: OK, it's "only" a subspecies - a category some biologists have almost given up on. But every distinct animal we find, every new addition to the richness of the zoological gene pool, is important. Expeditions to this same area have already yielded a new butterfly species and a strikingly colorful new species of bird, the Yariguies Brush-Finch described in 2006. Keep up the search!