‘The Brochs of Scotland’ is a bit of an unusual book for me to review; the book is a type of publication that is known as a monograph, that is, a book or pamphlet on a single scholarly topic. Monographs are usually small, ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ is only 56 pages total, and tend to be a bit technical. Because of their narrow focus of interest typically only a few thousand copies of a monograph are printed, often by a publishing house that specializes in such small, scholarly works. ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ is in fact printed by Shire Publishing, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing that is devoted to such books.
Cover of ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ by J. N. G. Ritchie. The book is available at Amazon. (Credit: Amazon.com)
In the history of science a few monographs have gone on to become famous, the best example would probably be Galileo’s ‘The Starry Messenger’. Most monographs however remain virtually unknown to everyone but a specialist in the field or a devoted amateur.
Cover page of Galileo’s ‘The Starry Messenger’ sometimes considered to be a founding document of modern science and certainly one of the most important publications in history! (Credit: Wikipedia)
As I was reading ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ I happened to notice that I have quite a few monographs, a few examples are ‘Stonehenge and Avebury’, ‘Seeing Stars’, and ‘A List of Devonian Fossils collected in Western New York with notes on their Stratigraphic Distribution’. I decided to review ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ not only because it would give me a opportunity to discuss these unusual Iron Age structures that are unique to Scotland but because it would also give me the chance to talk about monographs.
Mousa Broch is one of the best preserved Brochs giving a real impression of just how impressive the structures could be. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Brochs are a distinctive form of stone tower or fortress that were built by the hundreds between approximately the years 100 BCE and 100 CE. Brochs are unknown outside of modern Scotland and most are concentrated in the northern and western parts of the country, only a few Brochs can be found in the middle and southern parts of the country. The majority of Brochs are now ruins but a few are complete enough to show what impressive structures they were in their heyday.
Artist’s impression of what archaeologists think the interior of a Broch could have looked like. Obviously such large-scale structures required the efforts of many people to build and were probably the dwelling of the local chief or clan leader. (Credit: The Isle of Mull)
As I said Brochs are stone towers with a central open area round 10 meters in diameter where the inhabitants lived. This area was surrounded by a massive circular wall between 4 and 5 meters in thickness and as much as 10 meters in height. Those thick walls are perhaps the most striking feature of the Brochs because they are really a double wall with a space in between that averages around a meter wide inside them. Often the space between the walls was used as a room or storage area. At the same time stairways to the top of the Brochs were also built into the walls.
This image of the Dun Telve broch clearly shows the double wall construction technique. Storage areas and stairs to the upper floors were built into the walls of brochs. (Credit: MyHighlands.de)
Each Broch had only a single entrance from the outside to the central area, often with one of the rooms attached to the entrance, perhaps as a guard post? In any case the entrances were well protected, attachments for bolting heavy wooden doors can still be seen in the better preserved Brochs.
The area around a broch was also built up with houses and barns or other structures. The whole area was surrounded by a wall creating something of a small town, a well defended one! (Credit: Caithness Broch Project)
The whole design of the Brochs indicates that they were built for defense, the Iron Age equivalent of castles for local chiefs. However only a very few of the remaining Brochs show any sign of ever having been attacked, the author Ritchie suggested that they may have been built so well that it was a waste of time and effort to even consider attacking one.
The Castles of their day Brochs appear to have been so successful that archaeologists have found little evidence of any of them ever being attacked! (Credit: BBC)
If that was so then why did the 2nd century inhabitants of Scotland stop building them, why over the next few hundred years were the Brochs abandoned? In ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ the author considers both this question and the also unknown origins of the Broch style of architecture. The monograph also considers the questions of what it was like to live in Scotland at the time of the Brochs along with brief descriptions of some of the better known, better preserved Brochs along with some of the artifacts that have been found among them.
Some of the tools, jewelry and weapons made in Scotland during the age of the Brochs. There must have been something of an advanced civilization there at that time to have made both these artifacts and the Brochs as well! (Credit: Phys.org)
Now I don’t suppose that anyone out there is going to rush to buy a copy of ‘The Brochs of Scotland’ unless you’re as interested in the archaeology of the British Isles as I am. It is actually available from Amazon if you are. Still, I do recommend ‘The Brochs of Scotland’; it is a wonderful overview of these ancient, formidable yet kinda weird habitations.
The people that the Greeks called Celts are still mostly a mystery. Although archaeologists have learned a great deal about them there is still a lot to be learned. (Credit: World History Encyclopedia)
And I also recommend monographs in general. They are wonderful little books, containing a great deal of information on very select subjects. So, if you have an interest in Hindu temples, or the birds of Chile, or the paintings of Rembrandt check to see if there are any available monographs on the subject. I’m sure someone has written one sometime or another!
We live in a galaxy that contains an estimated 200 billion stars, yes that’s billion with a ‘b’, and our galaxy is only one in a Universe of tens of billions, more likely hundreds of billions of galaxies. So there are a lot of stars out there yet only a few are known to the average person. In this post I’ll be talking about some of the latest discoveries about three of the best known stars starting with the most important star of them all, at least to us, our own Sun.
Have you ever visited the site spaceweather.com. It’s a great place for all sorts of information about our Sun and the way it affects us here on Earth. (Credit: Spaceweather.com)
Even after 400 years of intense study our Sun still holds many mysteries. One of the biggest is the fact that the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, the part we can only see during a total eclipse, is much, much hotter than the Sun’s surface, which we call the photosphere. Now we know that the Sun’s source of energy is the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium that takes place in the star’s core, at the very center, which is at a temperature of about 15 million degrees Kelvin. As that energy flows outward the temperature decreases until at the photosphere it’s only 5800 degrees Kelvin. However beyond the photosphere, in the corona the temperature suddenly goes back up to a million degrees Kelvin. The mystery is what is causing the corona to have such a high temperature.
The surface of the Sun that we see is the Photosphere at a temperature of about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. For some reason however the Sun’s Corona, which we can only see during an eclipse, is much hotter at over a million degrees Kelvin. (Credit: Sites.UAlberta.ca)
Prior research had also discovered a similar phenomenon. The solar wind, the charged particles that flow out from the Sun and which cause the Aurora if they strike the Earth, are actually moving rather slowly when they are close to the Sun but accelerate as they move further away. The question once again is, where is the energy coming from to cause that acceleration?
The Sun is so energetic that it is constantly ejecting material from its surface, material that we call the solar wind. That material flows outward striking the planets like Earth and eventually reaching interstellar space. (Credit: Space.com)
Now both the particles in the corona and those in the solar wind are charged subatomic particles, electrons and protons, a state of matter that is known as plasma, and unlike neutral atoms they are greatly effected by electromagnetic forces. Therefore astrophysicists have long theorized that it was the Sun’s magnetic field that was supplying the energy via a type of electromagnetic wave called Alfvén waves. The precise details of how the process worked however were difficult to work out without measurements from within the corona itself. In fact two sets of measurements would be required at the same time, one from close to the Sun and the other from a considerable distance further away in order to see if the magnetic field dropped in strength as the solar wind increased in velocity.
Alfven waves are generated by the interplay of an external magnetic field and the bulk movement of a fluid plasma. It’s strongest, and simplest to calculate when the field and plasma are at 90 degrees to each other and can get quite complicated in other situations. (Credit: SpringerLink)
Recently two separate space probes, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the closest man-made object to the Sun ever, and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter were in just the right position to take those measurements. Parker was orbiting the Sun at a distance of just about nine million kilometers, again that’s the closest any man-made object has come to the Sun, and was making a series of measurements that included both the density and velocity of the particles in the solar wind as well as the strength of the Sun’s Magnetic field along with the fluctuations caused by the passage of the Alfvén waves.
The Parker Solar Probe has come closer to the Sun than any man-made object ever teaching us things about the Sun we never imagined. (Credit: European Space Agency)
Two days later the same section of the solar wind that Parker had measured flowed past Solar Orbiter and it took the same set of measurements. Upon examination what the two sets of data showed was that the strength of the magnetic field had dropped to almost nothing while the speed and hence temperature of the solar wind particles had increased. Precise calculations showed that the transfer of energy was balanced; the magnetic field had lost exactly the same energy that the solar wind had picked up. Like zillions upon zillions of tiny surf boards the protons and electrons had ridden the crests of the Alfvén waves and gained energy in the process.
The European Space Agency also has a solar probe, its Solar Orbiter which monitors the solar wind. (Credit: European Space Agency)
Whether or not other stars also have magnetic fields that produce Alfvén waves that drive their solar wind is unknown at present but little by little we are learning more about them. One of the best known stars, if only because of that movie, is Betelgeuse, a gas giant star that resides in the constellation Orion. Betelgeuse is also somewhat famous because astronomers think that sometime in the next million years or so it will explode as a supernova, shining so brightly that it will be visible during the daytime.
In the constellation Orion Betelgeuse is Orion’s right shoulder. One of the brightest stars in the night sky Betelgeuse is a red giant larger than the orbit of Jupiter around our sun. Astronomers think that Betelgeuse will likely become a supernova sometime in the next million years or so! (Credit: Live Science)
In fact just about five years ago Betelgeuse suddenly dropped significantly in brightness and rumours began on the internet that was star was getting ready to explode. Astronomers themselves were more cautious however; Betelgeuse’s brightness was always known to vary, although this degree of dimming was unusual. Over last few years Betelgeuse’s brightness has fluctuated and astronomers have concluded that a large dust cloud near Betelgeuse is occasionally covering much of the star’s disk causing the dimming event.
Betelgeuse’s brightest has always been known to vary quite a bit but in the last few years that fluctuation has increased leading to speculation that the star might explode soon! (Credit: Physics World)
Now a new paper by lead author astrophysicist Jared Goldberg at Flatiron University in New York City has proposed an alternate solution, Betelgeuse has a companion star just a bit more massive than our own Sun. Based upon measurements made of the star’s brightness over the last century astronomers had found that Betelgeuse had not only a fundamental period of oscillation of 416 days that was caused by an expansion and contraction of the star’s radius but an additional long secondary period of about 2170 days.
Is the recently observed variation in Betelgeuse’s brightest caused by a nearby companion star about the mass of our Sun? (Credit: Simons Foundation)
Dr. Goldberg asserts that this secondary period is caused by the orbit of a companion star 1.17±0.7 the mass of our Sun. This companion star orbits around the more massive Betelgeuse at a distance that is about 2.4 times Betelgeuse’s radius. Betelgeuse is so huge that if placed where our Sun was it would swallow all of the inner planets out to and including Jupiter. It is when this companion star is behind Betelgeuse that we see a dimming of the brightness of the two stars.
When two stars orbit each other if one goes behind the other from our viewpoint here on Earth what we see is a dip in the total brightness of the two stars. (Credit: YouTube)
Dr. Goldberg and his team may be right, and if they are then we may be wrong about our estimate as to how long before Betelgeuse goes nova, the star may have quite a few million years left to it. On the other hand if the dimming we have observed recently is caused by disturbances in the star’s outer atmosphere then time may indeed be running out for Betelgeuse.
When a star explodes as a supernova its brightest can exceed that of an entire galaxy, for a couple of weeks. (Credit: AAS Nova)
Another very familiar star is the North Star or Pole Star Polaris. As I mentioned in my post of 19August 2024 Polaris is a member of a class of stars known as Cepheids whose rhythmic oscillation in brightness allows astronomers to use them as distance markers. Polaris in particular brightens and dims ever four days.
To find the North Star Polaris first find the big dipper. The two front stars of the dipper point toward the North Star. (Credit: BBC Science Focus)
Polaris has made a bit of news lately because for the first time astronomers have succeeded in producing a rough image of the star’s disk. Now this is really a big deal, even in some of the biggest telescopes the very closest stars are still nothing but a point of light. The technology to resolve, as astronomers put it, another star’s disk has only been developed over the last twenty or so years and still requires a lot more work than just taking a picture. In fact astronomers had to combine the light gathered by six telescopes into a single instrument in order to resolve Polaris’ disk.
Just a few short years ago getting an image of the surface of any star but our Sun was impossible but with new technology astronomers can now see the surface of other suns! (Credit: Reddit)
And the astronomers who took Polaris’ picture were actually trying to confirm the existence, and learn more about a suspected second companion star to Polaris. The North Star was already known to have a companion star at a large distance from the main star but it was in 2005 that the Hubble Space Telescope discovered that Polaris also had a second much closer and smaller star orbiting it as well. In order to learn more about this second, much closer companion astronomers needed the greater resolution that could only be obtained by combining the light of several telescopes, a technique known as Interferometry. This technique also allowed the team to produce the image of Polaris’ disk, which shows large spots or blotches on the star’s surface, perhaps something akin to the sunspots on our Sun? Anyway, it’s nice to know that even as astronomers push ever farther into the depths of the Universe they are still learning more about some of the stars we humans have gazed at for thousands of years.
Every year delegates from nations across the globe gather for the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties, this year’s meeting was the 29th such meeting or COP29. This year’s conference was held at the city of Baku in Azerbaijan from November the 11th through the 22nd.
Azerbaijan went out of its way to make the COP29 conference look inviting. Too bad the results didn’t match the venue! (Credit: African Arguments)
Even before it started COP29 was in trouble. For one thing the choice of host nation was problematic because Azerbaijan is an oil rich nation whose economy is heavily dependent on exporting the source of the greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. This fact was made clear when the environmental group Global Witness succeeded in posing as oil company executives and actually filmed the conference’s CEO, Elnur Soltanov, who is also Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, trying to make a deal to sell his country’s oil. As a part of the conversation Minister Soltanov is heard to give his opinion that fossil fuels may be with us ‘perhaps forever’ along with describing natural gas as a ‘transitional fuel’.
As Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Elnur Soltanov was the logical choice to head the COP29 conference. It just would have been nice if he’d had any idea about what the conference was trying to achieve. (Credit: Globsec Forum 2024)
It got worse, again before the conference had even started news stories were published announcing that the host country Azerbaijan had granted access to the conference to over 1,700 lobbyists from coal, oil and gas companies. These lobbyists, whose sole objective was to prevent the conference from actually doing anything to stop climate change, in fact outnumbered the delegates. Exxon-Mobile, Shell, BP, Chevron and all the private energy companies sent their lobbyists, as did the national oil companies like AramCo.
Is AramCo the world’s richest corporation or is it a part of the Saudi Arabian government? The answer is yes to both questions! (Credit: The Cradle)
To add to the outrage the Azerbaijan security people began detaining and in some cases arresting members of environmental and human rights groups who are also trying to lobby the delegates to try to save the planet. Of course Azerbaijan has never been an open society where the right to protest is legally guaranteed.
The environmentalists trying to save the planet were kept out of the actual COP29 conference while the lobbyists for the fossil fuel industries were allowed in. You think maybe that’s why nothing was actually accomplished? (Credit: Climate Home News)
How countries like Azerbaijan, and last year’s host Dubai, are chosen as hosts is mind numbing, and indicates a lack of seriousness on the part of the international community. In fact there has been severe criticism of the whole COP climate change process with CO2 emissions continuing to increase even as the world’s temperature rises above the 1.5ºC increase that nations pledged to prevent just nine years ago.
Just nine years ago everybody seemed so happy as the world agreed to limit Global Warming to less than 1.5 degrees. Nobody’s smiling now! (Credit: Canvi Climatic)
Another factor that lowered expectations was the fact that very few heads of state even bothered to attend COP29. President Biden, China’s President Xi and India’s PM Modi headed a long list of world leaders whose absence clearly indicated how little they cared about the planet. The new British PM Keir Starmer did attend, highlighting his government’s determination to flight global warming but he had little support among the rest of the developed countries.
Of all of the world’s leading economies, who of course are the world’s leading polluters as well, only Keir Starmer of the UK even bothered to show up at COP29! (Credit: Reuters)
And as the icing on the cake just the week before COP 29 began the world’s most vocal climate denier Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States. With another Trump administration coming every delegate at the Conference knew that no matter what agreement they succeeded in reaching it would probably be immediately torn up when Trump takes office on January 20th.
As far as Trump is concerned saving the planet just costs too much! With that kind of brilliant thinking in charge we’re in deep trouble! (Credit: Instagram)
Even as the conference was proceeding the growing dangers of climate change was highlighted by a new study from the non-profit research organization Climate Central that analyzed the effect of this year’s highest ever recorded temperatures on the not quite over Atlantic hurricane season. According to the analysis all eleven Atlantic hurricanes saw their maximum wind speeds increased by 14-45 kph due to global warming.
The phenomenon of ‘Rapid Intensification’ had never been observed before 1980, it’s now happening to about half of all hurricanes. (Credit: Climate Central)
For seven of those hurricanes that increase in wind speed caused them to jump up one category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Since it has been known for many years that a hurricane’s destructive power very nearly doubles for every increase of one on the Saffir-Simpson scale the paper estimates that of the economic damage caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton approximately 45% was due to global warming.
Even as the number of billion dollar disasters grows people still ignore the consequences of human induced climate change! (Credit: North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies)
With all of that controversy before the conference began it was hardly surprising that throughout the conference COP29 seemed on the verge of collapse. The nation of India, currently the world’s third largest polluter, in particular made it clear that it had no intention of halting or even slowing its economic growth, which is heavily dependent on increased fossil fuel use. At the same time India continued its criticism of western nations for not providing enough money to help undeveloped countries mitigate the damages caused by climate change.
Current CO2 emissions by country. So now you know who’s to blame! (Credit: 8 Billion Trees)
Things at the conference got so bad that on the meetings last day delegates from many of the countries facing the most severe harm stormed out of the negotiating room in protest. Environmental activists began chanting ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ and journalists reporting on the conference announced that COP29 could end with no deal being reached. Cooler heads did prevail however as the conference was extended by two days in order for a deal to be reached.
There were certainly fewer smiles at COP29 than there were at the Paris conference. (Credit: CNN)
It’s not much of a deal however, developed nations have pledged $300 billion a year to enable undeveloped nations to both cope with the damages caused by climate change while at the same time cut their growing CO2 emissions. That amount however is less than a quarter of the minimum estimated $1.3 trillion a year required, and much of that money is in the form of loans that most underdeveloped nations would find hard to repay. More than that, the world’s two biggest polluters, China and India, aren’t required to provide any funds at all, or reduce their own emissions. And remember, the original Paris agreement back in 2015 the developed world promised $100 billion per year to help fight climate but precious little of that money ever actually became available.
The promises made by the world’s richest countries haven’t been enough, and precious little of that money has actually been delivered. So, is it any wonder that the little countries, who just happen to be the countries suffering the most from climate change, are feeling abandoned! (Credit: France 24)
With the election of Trump and the almost certain possibility that the US will once again leave the original Paris agreement the whole idea of the world coming together to fight climate change must be considered to be in doubt. Even as the danger of global warming becomes more obvious every year the human race seems to become more determined to do nothing to protect itself.
When the environment collapses and the very survival of the human race becomes doubtful it will be our own fault. (Credit: bgfay)
P.S. More bad news. Even as I was preparing this post for publication a second UN conference on the environment was taking place in the city of Busan in South Korea. The talks, officially known as INC-5 were intended to deal with the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution worldwide.
Another meeting of the world’s politicians to solve an environmental problem. Why am I getting a feeling of Deja Vu! (Credit: YouTube)
Every year the human race produces 450 million metric tonnes of plastic, 350 million of which is single use plastic that simply ends up being tossed into the environment causing what has become a planet wide blight. Worse still, while plastic does not decay chemically in the environment it does break down mechanically into smaller and smaller pieces, microplastic and nanoplastic particles that are now literally everywhere, land, sea and air. They’re in our water; our food and now they have been detected in our blood and yes, even in our brains.
Is a caption even necessary? (Credit: World Ocean Day)
So the need for an international agreement to reduce the amount of plastic in the world has become as great as the need for an agreement to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and every bit as hard to reach. Of the more than 170 countries and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) that attended the meeting the vast majority favoured mandatory cutbacks in plastic production.
With so many ‘experts’ it’s hard to understand how they failed to accomplish anything! (Credit: Instagram)
A small minority made up of plastic producing nations disagreed. In their opinion the solution to the problem is recycling and better waste management. Solutions that have been tried continuously for the last fifty years with little success, less than 10% of plastic is ever recycled.
Despite the best efforts of many good people there was no agreement at INC-5. (Credit: X.com)
By the end of the week long conference the two sides were as far apart as ever and the conference closed without any agreement. So in the short space of a month the nations of the world had gathered together in two conferences to try to save our planet, with little or nothing to show for all the effort.
The last time I discussed the latest events taking place in humanity’s exploration of space, see my post of 31 August 2024, NASA had made the decision that the Boeing Starliner capsule would be brought back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) unmanned and that Starliner’s crew of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore would remain aboard the ISS until February when they would return aboard Space X’s crew 9 capsule.
The Starliner capsule managed to deliver its crew of two astronauts to the International Space Station but its continuing problems forced NASA to bring it back to Earth unmanned while its crew have to wait to return to Earth next February. (Credit: Texas A&M Today – Texas A&M University)
The empty Starliner capsule succeeded in landing on the 7th of September in New Mexico marking the first time that a man-capable US space capsule has ever landed on solid land rather than in the water. The voyage home from the ISS also marked the first issue-free space operation that Starliner has ever completed. Even though the Starliner astronauts Williams and Wilmore would have been safe in returning on Starliner NASA is convinced that they made the safe choice given all of the problems the Boeing space craft had seen during its mission.
In the end Starliner did land safely but with all of the problems it’s had for years the question is, will it ever begin regular service? (Credit: NASA)
The second part of NASA’s rescue plan followed shortly thereafter when on the 27th of September a Space X Dragon capsule was launched into orbit. This mission, designated as Crew 9 was originally intended to carry four astronauts to the ISS for a regular six-month tour of duty. Now that the mission had been changed to include the rescue of the Starliner crew however only two astronauts, NASA’s Nick Hague along with Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov rode the Falcon 9 rocket into space.
Launch of the Space X Crew 9 mission to the ISS. Originally this flight was expected to carry four astronauts. In order to bring back the Starliner crew however the mission took off with only two astronauts aboard. (Credit: Orlando Sentinel)
Once Crew 9 successfully reached the ISS the Crew 8 astronauts, who were originally scheduled to return to Earth back in August, were relieved and could return home. However, the weather around Florida has been so terrible, two hurricanes along with just a lot of more normal bad weather, that Crew 8 were unable to return to Earth until the early morning hours of the 25th of October, adding an extra two months to the crew’s planned six month tour aboard the ISS.
After an extended stay on the ISS the Space X Crew 8 capsule and crew returned to Earth. However, one crew member showed signs of some medical problems, NASA is being very tight lipped about what problems, and so the entire crew spent their first night back in hospital. They all appear to be fine now! (Credit: YouTube)
All told the problems caused by Starliner’s malfunctions have caused Williams and Wilmore to spend eight months in orbit instead of their planned one week. The Crew 8 astronauts spent an two extra months aboard the ISS while the two astronauts originally assigned to the Crew 9 mission will have to wait for another mission before they get to go to the ISS. The fact that NASA has handled all of these mix-ups and schedule rearrangements so well is a tribute to the space agency’s expertise and the way that travel to and from Low Earth Orbit (LOE) has become routine.
Along with routine crew rotations, supplies aboard the ISS are being constantly maintained by unmanned cargo spacecraft like this Cygnus capsule. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Because of Starliner’s problems NASA has also decided that the Boeing spacecraft will not be used for either of the scheduled ISS crew missions in 2025. Space X’s Dragon will now conduct both the Crew 10 mission in February of 2025 and the Crew 11 mission in July. NASA is still in the process of studying Starliner’s performance and will decide if another Crew Flight Test is needed before the capsule is cleared for regular duty.
Not the kind of headlines that an agency like NASA wants to make. NASA is almost certainly going to want a thorough analysis of Starliner’s problems and at least another Crew Fight Test before clearing Starliner for regular duty. How long that will take, and remember the ISS is going to be de-orbited in 2030, is anybody’s guess! (Credit: The Autopian)
Even as the whole drama of how to bring the Starliner astronauts back to Earth was playing out Space X succeeded in completing another private space mission. The Polaris Dawn mission was funded and commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman who also paid for Space X’s first private space mission, designated as Inspiration 4, back in September of 2021.
Launch of the Polaris dawn private space mission. (Credit: CNN)
That first trip into space for Isaacman was just four days in LOE enjoying zero gravity without trying to do anything too dangerous. The Polaris Dawn mission however was more daring with the Dragon capsule reaching a higher altitude in space than any human had gone since the days of Apollo’s flights to the Moon. At the planned height of about 1,400 kilometers the Polaris Dawn astronauts were well within the Van Allen radiation belts, not a good place to stay.
Jared Isaacman performing the first ever private spacewalk. In addition to this feat the Polaris Dawn mission also took human beings further from our planet than anyone has gone since the days of Apollo. (Credit: NASASpaceflight.com)
Later on in the mission Isaacman along with Space X engineer Sarah Gillis succeeded in carrying out the first ever private spacewalk when the Dragon’s crew compartment was depressurized and the docking hatch was opened while all four crewpersons were wearing their spacesuits. Once Isaacman and Gillis had taken turns stepping outside of the hatch it was closed and the cabin repressurized. With the success of this space walk Space X has gained yet another space capability, another feather in their cap.
Once the term ‘Feather in your Cap’ literally signified the number of enemies you had killed in battle. Today however it has the less violent meaning of a successful achievement or acquiring a new skill. (Credit: Edward S. Curtis)
Then, on October 13th Space X took an even bigger step forward with the fifth test launch of their huge Starship launch system, the largest, most powerful rocket ever built. With each test flight the 122 meter tall Starship has made significant progress. In the forth test flight for example the booster stage succeeded in coming down at the exact intended place off the coast of Texas, although no attempt was made to recover it. Meanwhile for the first time the second stage reached orbital velocity although it then broke up upon trying to reenter the atmosphere.
The fifth test launch of Space X’s massive Starship rocket, the most powerful launch system ever built. (Credit: CNN)
For the fifth test the plans were even more ambitious with an attempt to catch the first stage booster in a pair of mechanical arms that have been christened ‘chopsticks’. For the second stage an attempt at a controlled reentry was made at a designated point in the Indian Ocean, although again no attempt was made to recover the second stage this time. The sight of the massive booster stage returning to its launch pad, stabilizing itself in space and then being grabbed by those chopsticks was something I’d never expected to see and certainly ushers in a new era of space flight. Think about it, if a rocket that large can be reused the possibility now exists of launching huge amounts of equipment into LOE where it can be used to build large space stations and spaceships for going to the Moon or beyond. The next test flight for Starship is already being prepared and this time Space X will attempt to recover both stages.
The first stage of Starship being captured by the same launch tower it had taken off from just minutes before. The reusability of Starship is a key to being able to reduce the cost spaceflight in general. This was an astonishing achievement. (Credit: CNBC)
I guess that’s all we have time for in this post, not that there hasn’t been a lot of other space news. Several robotic probes have been in the news as well but their stories will have to wait for my next post. So stay tuned.
The Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age was that time in Prehistory when we humans first began the transition from hunter gatherer clans to agricultural societies. It was also the time therefore when some peoples settled down to live in permanent ‘villages’ instead of living as nomads moving from place to place with the seasons as the local resources ripened.
The Neolithic or new stone age was a time of tremendous change as humans first began to grow crops, domesticate animals and live in settled communities. (Credit: SciTechDaily)
And once humans began to live permanently in one place they could begin to build, not just villages in which to live but also monuments to honour their gods or record some important event. It is well known from anthropology that by building such monuments those people were also saying ‘This is our Land!” In this post I will be talking about several of such Neolithic structures and as usual I will start with the oldest first and then move forward in time.
Perhaps the best known of the monolithic structures built during the neolithic is Stonehenge in England. We’re still arguing over what it was used for! (Credit: English Heritage)
Göbekli Tepe is in fact considered to be the oldest stone structure known to archaeology, see my post of July 5th 2017. The site is located in southern Turkey and has been dated to more than 11,000 years ago; the name by the way means ‘Potbelly Hill’ in Turkish. The site consists of a series of oval stone walls with large ‘T’ shaped pillars inside the ovals. Both the pillars and some of the walls are covered by carvings, many of the carvings are those of local animals while others appear to be abstract symbols. The site is undergoing almost constant excavation and it is expected that many more discoveries are waiting to be unearthed.
Some of the structures unearthed at Göbekli Tepe, the oldest known ‘temple’ discovered by science. Archaeologists are certain that much remains to still be discovered. (Credit: Wikipedia)
The motive behind the building of Göbekli Tepe is of course unknown after all these thousands of years but that hasn’t stopped archaeologists from trying out various theories. The temple like layout of the site certainly suggests that it could have been used as a place of worship, perhaps the animals craved into stone were sacred totems of some sort. Another possibility is that the structures were built as a calendar, that is some way the pillars and carvings could be used to keep track of the seasons. In an agricultural society being able to know when to plant and when to harvest is of the greatest importance.
This is the calendar used by the ancient Mayans. Their calendar was so accurate that even the Aztecs many centuries later still used it! (Credit: Jake Jackson’s These Fantastic Worlds)
A new study in the journal Time and Mind by archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland has developed evidence supporting the idea of Göbekli Tepe being a calendar. At the same time the paper further suggests that the building of the site was a response to an astronomical event that occurred a thousand years before the earliest known part of Göbekli Tepe was built. This event occurred sometime around 10,800 BCE when an asteroid or comet fragment is known from geological evidence to have struck the island of Greenland triggering a worldwide ‘mini-ice age’. This drastic change in the climate is thought to have contributed to the extinction of large fauna such as the Wooly Mammoth and Saber Toothed Tiger.
The extinction of large ice age animals like the Wholly Mammoth is currently being thought to have been caused by an asteroid strike similar to the one that killed the dinosaurs only smaller and just 12,800 years ago. (Credit: The Irish Sun)
The evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a calendar comes from an interpretation ‘V’ shaped carvings on pillar 43 in the largest enclosure. The V shaped carvings appear to be arranged to record a lunar month of 29 or 30 days, below the V’s are squares that appear to represent the number of lunar months in a year plus another 10 V’s to make up for the extra time needed to get to 364 days. Finally there is a bird like figure with a V around its neck that the paper asserts represents the summer solstice bringing the total number of days to 365, the right number of days for a year. Using the carvings on the pillar could allow the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe to keep track of both the lunar months and a solar year.
The calendar carved into Göbekli Tepe. By repeating each cycle in turn all of the days of a year could be kept track of. (Credit: Sci.News)
The evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a record of the comet strike was found at the top of the same pillar which according to the article depicts a meteor swarm emanating from the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces. That is the location in the sky that is thought to be where the comet strike came from. According to Dr. Martin Sweatman, co-author of the study, “This event might have triggered civilization by initiating a new religion and by motivating developments in agriculture to cope with the cold climate.” In any case the event must have had a profound effect of people throughout the world and could well have inspired the people of Göbekli Tepe to try to record it somehow.
The top part of the same pillar, the so-called ‘Three Handbags’ is thought to record the destruction caused by the asteroid strike in 12,800 years ago. I have to admit that’s a bit of a stretch for me! (Credit: The New York Times)
While we’re on the subject of ancient stone monuments there’s some news about the best known such structure, Stonehenge. Back in my post of 30 December 2023, I discussed how recent research had revealed that one of the most important of the so-called ‘bluestones’ at Stonehenge, the altar stone, was chemically so different from the other bluestones that it could not have come from the same quarry in Wales as the other bluestones did. So the hunt was on to find the place of origin for the altar stone.
The Altar Stone at Stonehenge on the left. Chemically different from the other ‘Bluestones’ at Stonehenge scientists have been searching from the location from where it came. (Credit: CNN)
Now a Ph.D. student in geology from Curtin University in Australia named Anthony Clarke has announced that he has traced the altar stone back to its source in northern Scotland. According to Mr. Clarke, who grew up in Wales not far from the quarry where the other bluestones came from, the altar stone is chemically identical to sedimentary rocks from the Orcadian basin nearly 700 kilometers from Stonehenge in northern Scotland.
If Mister Clarke is correct then the Altar Stone came from the very northern tip of Scotland. This image shows a land route the stone could have taken but a sea route is also possible. (Credit: The US Sun)
So after having solved the mystery of where the altar stone came from we now have to figure out how it got to Stonehenge, and why was a rock from so far away used there anyway. The terrain in northern Scotland is rather rugged even today so the 5,000 kilogram stone was probably brought by water, still a difficult undertaking in a culture that had not yet invented the wheel.
The neolithic period is also the time when people first began to build boats for fishing and trade. Was the Altar Stone brought from Scotland on such a boat? By land or sea, it would have been a difficult undertaking. (Credit: Ancient Pages)
As to the question of why a stone from so far away was incorporated into Stonehenge, that is something we will probably never know for certain. Neither we will know for certain the reasons for the building of Göbekli Tepe. We can learn much from the ancient rocks left to us by our remote ancestors but their motives may remain hidden for the rest of time.
O’k, I know the movie ‘Conclave’ can scarcely be considered a Science Fiction movie but let’s just agree that history is a science and the ancient traditions and ceremony connected to the election of a Pope is certainly historical. Anyway, I haven’t reviewed a movie in a while and ‘Conclave’ was a very interesting movie, well worthy of a review.
Poster for movie ‘Conclave’. (Credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve already given away the basic plot, the Pope in Rome has died, he’d had heart problems for some time so it doesn’t come as a shock. In order to elect a new Pope the College of Cardinals must be summoned. The task of making the arrangements for the Conclave falls to two men, the Dean of the College, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, along with Archbishop Wozniak as papal Camerlengo, played by Jacek Koman. By ancient tradition all of the Cardinals are sequestered during their deliberations and the Dean of the College runs the Conclave from the inside while the Camerlengo makes sure that the outside world does not intrude on the work of the Conclave.
The Roman Catholic Church is still basically run like a feudal state with Archbishops who have enormous power over their bishopric. Select archbishops are designated as Cardinals with the special privilege of electing a new Pope. The Pope then chooses the archbishops and Cardinals. (Credit: Catholic Review)
Half the fun of the movie is seeing in detail all of the traditions and ceremony that surround the election of the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the film great care is taken in every little detail of the process by which a new pontiff is chosen along with highlighting the beautiful, sumptuous locations, the actual voting itself is carried out in the Sistine Chapel surrounded by Michelangelo’s artwork.
The actual election of a new Pope takes place in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel which doesn’t look so special from the outside. (Credit: Through Eternity Tours)But which on the inside boasts some of the most celebrated artwork in the entire world, courtesy of Michealangelo. (Credit: Kenzly)
At the same time we also get to see something of the church’s darker side, particularly in respect to women. Throughout the first third of the movie we constantly see nuns working in the background, preparing the guest rooms, setting the tables, cooking the food. During this time no woman speaks however, not even Sister Agnes the Mother Superior of the Nuns, played by Isabella Rossellini. The women do all of the work while the men do all of the talking.
For hundreds of years the Catholic Chruch has let women do most of the work while letting the men make all of the decisions. ‘Conclave’ illustrates this principle quite well. (Credit: Dialogue Express)
All the machinery of the Conclave is just background however, the melodrama of the movie comes with the Cardinals who are the leading candidates to be the next Pope. The leading Liberal is Aldo Cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci, who wants the church to become more tolerant of different sexual behaviors while giving women greater roles in the church hierarchy. At the other extreme is Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco, played by Sergio Castellitto, who still wants the mass to be said in Latin. In between are Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, played by John Lithgow and Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi, played by Lucian Msamati, a Nigerian Cardinal who wants the church to use its great wealth and power to help the people of the developing world. A last minute, and unexpected addition to the College of Cardinals is Vincent Cardinal Benitez, played by Carlos Diehz, who administers to those Catholics still living in Afghanistan. Benitez was secretly made a Cardinal by the deceased Pope because his life could have been in danger if knowledge of his appointment had become known to the Taliban who rule Afghanistan.
Ralph Fiennes as the Dean of the College of Cardinals talking with his favoured choice for Pope Cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci. Politicking like this is the backbone of ‘Conclave’ as the various candidates try to build support amongst the other Cardinals. (Credit: USA Today)
Throughout history the actual Conclave has been the setting for intrigue, political maneuvering and scandal and in the movie ‘Conclave’ there is plenty of all three. One leading contender is revealed to have had a sexual relationship with a nun thirty years earlier while a second candidate is found to have bribed several of the Cardinals to vote for him! Add to that a terrorist threat on the outside and there is certainly a lot to distract the cardinals from their task of electing a new Pope.
Terrorism has become part of the background of everyone living on Earth now, but let’s be honest, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. (Credit: Dreamstime)
And that’s part of the problem I have with ‘Conclave’ there’s a bit to much melodrama and it’s all a bit too broad, too simple. The writers try too hard to highlight every one of the conflicts going on in the church at present and wind up giving a simplified, cartoon version of each point of view. Of course this is a movie and the problems in a movie have to be simple enough so that they can be solved by the end of the film. The real Catholic Church has been wrestling with its real problems for almost two thousand years now, with no end in sight.
The Roman Catholic Church has been holding councils to resolve problems within the church ever since the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. In many ways such gatherings of church leaders to decide on one solution that everyone else has to follow has never really solved anything. (Credit: Text and Canon Institute)
Still ‘Conclave’ is a good movie, an important movie; for one thing the acting is superb, along with the costumes and set design. Basically everything that relates to a real conclave is carefully reproduced. So I recommend ‘Conclave’, with about a billion and a half Catholics in the world today its important to understand just how it is that their spiritual leader is chosen.
Around about the year 2200 humanity will once again be doing its level best to destroy itself. The environment is poisoned, civilization is in ruins and ideological wars are everywhere. It’s against this background that the starship, colony ship Arkhangelsk departs Earth on a mission to colonize the star system 974-33, a mission to try to save something of the human race. Arkhangelsk is one of those multi-generational ships whose original crew will never live to complete their 200 year long voyage, it will be up to their descendents to complete the mission by establishing a colony in system 974-33.
Interstellar ‘Arks’ like this one from Arthur C. Clarkes’ ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ are huge spaceships in which human beings will live for generations in order to be able to travel the enormous distances between the stars. Arriving at their destination the crew, all born on the ship during the journey, will colonize the planets circling another sun. (Credit: Medium)
That’s the history behind the novel ‘Arkhangelsk’ by author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. As the story begins the people of the city of Novayarkha are the descendents of the crew of the Arkhangelsk. The city itself was built from the various sections of the starship Arkhangelsk, and with no contact with Earth for over 400 years the citizens of Novayarkha believe themselves to be the last remaining humans anywhere, and they are struggling to survive.
What if we humans established bases or colonies on other planets and then destroyed ourselves back here on Earth? How would those last remaining humans react? (Credit: Lifehacker)
You see the only ‘habitable’ planet in system 974-33 is hardly a paradise. The atmosphere is too thin, and contains traces of poisonous gasses as well, while the planet’s surface is a mixture of rock and ice. Even worse, the planet’s thin atmosphere and weak magnetic field provide little shielding from cosmic radiation. Add to that the fact that the builders of Novayarkha needed the Arkhangelsk’s reactor to provide power for the city and they placed that reactor too close to the city, increasing the background radiation level.
An Ice World orbiting the star 974-33 is the setting of ‘Arkhangelsk’ by author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. (Credit: Amazon)Author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel. (Credit: Facebook)
It’s no wonder therefore that Novayarkha has both a high infant mortality rate and a high incidence of cancer. Another persistent problem is a high suicide rate; a lot of people seem to just walk away from the city to die in the ice. One last problem for the people of Novayarkha are the exiles, descendents of a group that rebelled when the city was being founded and who now occasionally raid Novayarkha to steal supplies. All in all the last remnants of humanity may not last too much longer themselves.
Everybody knows that nuclear reactors produce quite a bit of harmful radiation. So why did the inhabitants of Novayarkha put one in the middle of their city??? (Credit: Wikipedia)
Except the people of Novayarkha are not the last human beings in the Universe. Back on Earth people somehow managed to muddle through their difficulties and although not all of the problems have been solved humanity is once again pushing out, once more exploring the Universe. As the starship Hypatia enters system 974-33 both groups of humans are astonished to find each other, and are wary of how the other side will react.
Sometimes referred to as the ‘Last Pagan’ Hypatia of Alexandria was a mathematician and philosopher who was murdered by a mob of christians in the name of their god. (Credit: What is Social Studies?)
Hypatia is not a colony ship, rather her mission is to construct a faster than light (FTL) transceiver network in system 974-33 to assist other Earth vessels as they explore this sector of the galaxy. However Hypatia is not in very good shape either. As the starship was coming out of one of its hyperspatial jumps it collided with an asteroid killing most of her crew and destroying a good part of the ship.
Like the people of Novayarkha the crew of the Hypatia are in need of some help. Can these two groups work together for their mutual benefit? (Credit: X)
I’m certain that you can see plot here. Both groups of humans need each other but neither group really trusts the other, after all there’s been no contact between these two branches of humanity for over 400 years. The story is very much an allegory on how much more successful we humans are when we do work together.
Trust is always a key ingredient to working together. (Credit: LinkedIn)
There’s a darker undercurrent in ‘Arkhangelsk’ as well however for the city of Novayarkha holds sinister secrets, secrets that it’s authoritarian rulers would prefer to keep from their people. So another ethical problem illustrated in the novel is the struggle between the individual and society.
Finding the right balance between the rights of the Individual and the needs of Society has been a never-ending problem in Civilization. (Credit: Young Leaders for Legal Literacy Foundation)
I do have one problem with ‘Arkhangelsk’ and that is a problem I have nowadays with a lot of SF novels, too much filler. The modern publishing business seems to feel that novels have to be 400 or more pages in order to convince their customers that it’s worth paying $12-$20 dollars for a book. That means that an author has to add in a lot of stuff that isn’t important to the plot and really isn’t interesting. ‘Arkhangelsk’ suffers a bit from this problem as it could use a good editing to remove some of the less interesting material.
Edit, edit and then edit some more. Even the best novel can still use a little bit more editing! (Credit: BookBaby)
But ‘Arkhangelsk’ is interesting; it is a good take on the old theme of two very different cultures colliding, with all the conflicts and opportunities that entails. If you like those novels that tell stories about humanity traveling to and colonizing the stars you will enjoy, ‘Arkhangelsk’.
The Nobel Prizes for Physiology, Physics and Chemistry were announced over the week of the 7th of October and while the prizes aren’t supposed to have any kind of ‘theme’ to them this year the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) stood out as being of great importance. Not only were the physics and chemistry prizes awarded for work in developing or utilizing AI but several of the recipients warned about the dangers that uncontrolled AI are already having in our society.
Every day Artificial Intelligence is playing a bigger role in our daily lives. We can only guess what the future holds. (Credit: The Motley Fool)
But I’ll begin with the award for physiology or medicine because it was announced first and because AI played no role in the work for which it was honoured. The recipients of the 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology are Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Gary Ruvkun of Harvard Medical School. These two men were honoured for their discovery of microRNA along with how it functions in the cells of living creatures.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work in discovering MicroRNA. (Credit: X)
Let me take just a moment here to discuss the difference between DNA and RNA and how those differences are used in cells before I discuss why microRNA is so important. Both kinds of Nucleic Acids are composed of long chains of sugars; in RNA the sugar is called ribose while in DNA it is deoxyribose, which is just ribose without one oxygen atom. Attached to those long chains of sugars are nucleotide groups, adenine, thiamine, guanine and cytosine, A, T, G, and C for short. All life on this planet uses the sequence of the A, T, G, and Cs as a code for how to build a living creature, the famous genetic code.
Only a single oxygen atom, bottom right, makes a world of difference between the sugar Ribose and Deoxyribose. (Credit: Adobe Stock)
I remember back in the 1960s reading Isaac Asimov’s book ‘The Genetic Code’ in high school and at that time biologists didn’t know why living cells used DNA to store that code in their nucleus rather than RNA. It turned out that DNA is a more stable chemical than RNA, although both are actually very fragile chemicals, so DNA is used to store the genetic code long term.
The famous ‘Double Helix’ of DNA stores the code by which all living things are made. (Credit: Shutterstock)
It was also discovered however that cells used RNA to send information from the nucleus to those parts of the cell that need it in order to build proteins because it is less stable and can therefore be reused more easily. This is the famous messenger RNA or mRNA that is used in our Covid-19 vaccines and for which last year’s Nobel prizes in physiology were awarded.
To build a protein the DNA molecule builds a molecule of messenger RNA which then travels into where the protein is needed and manufactures it. (Credit: Deltec Bank)
So then what is microRNA? Well if messengerRNA is made up of thousands of nuclides in order to build a protein, microRNA has only a few dozen nuclides and it acts as the ON and OFF switches for the building of those proteins. In other words microRNA regulates how much of the various proteins our cells build. Thanks to the work of Drs. Ambros and Ruvkun we have taken one more step, and an important one, in our understanding of how life works!
If Messenger RNA contains the code to build a protein, then it’s the Micro RNA that turns on or turns off the process of building that protein! (Credit: Jacek Krol et al)
As I said above both this year’s Physics and Chemistry prizes deal with Artificial Intelligence (AI), a connection illustrating just how important AI has become to nearly every field of science, along with a growing importance in our daily lives. This year’s Physics Nobel Prizes were awarded to John Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto for their work in the development of artificial neural networks that enabled computers to learn how to do things in a fashion very similar to the way we learn how to do things! What is known as machine learning.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Hopfield (l) and Geoffrey Hinton (r) for the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). (Credit: Thereporteronline)
As important as those advancements are Doctor Hinton, who has been christened ‘the godfather of AI’ stole something of the spotlight by taking the opportunity to warn about the growing danger of unregulated AI in our society. “It will be comparable with the Industrial Revolution,” he cautioned. “Instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability. we have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us.” At the same time however Dr. Hinton also pointed out the enormous benefits that AI could bring in terms of increased productivity and economic efficiencies, again similar to the developments of the industrial revolution.
The real danger is what we can’t imagine at present. We’re entering a new world and what lies ahead is unknown, and the unknown is always a danger! (Credit: DataFlair)
So if this year’s Nobel in Physics were given to the scientists that led the way in the development of Artificial Intelligence then the Chemistry prize was given for utilizing AI. this year’s chemistry prize was given to David Baker of the University of Washington along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper both of whom work at the DeepMind project a division of the Google Corporation.
The winners of this year’s Chemistry prize are David Baker (l), Demis Hassabis (m), and John Jumper for their work on developing AI tools to study proteins. (Credit: Chemistry World)Are we certain that we want a tool as powerful as AI to be in the hands of a corporation. We need our governments to start of process for regulating AI so that it’s used in the public, not private interest. (Credit: Reuters)
The awarding of a Nobel to a researcher from a private corporation is not all that unusual. Bell Labs, when it was a division of Bell Telephone Corporation received quite a few Nobels, as have chemical and pharmaceutical companies. I do believe however that this is the first time that a software / internet company has received a Nobel.
Researchers at Bell Labs received several Nobel Prizes, most notably for the invention of the transistor. 2024 is the first time that employees at a that a software company have received a Nobel, but probably not the last. (Credit: Computer History Museum)
All three of the recipient’s work dealt with applying machine learning techniques in order to better understand proteins. Proteins, which are constructed from long chains of about two dozen compounds known as amino acids, are the building blocks from which cells are made and are also involved in virtually all the chemical reactions that make up the cell’s metabolism. There are literally millions of different known proteins and it’s not just their chemical formula that determines how they behave but their shape as well. You see those long chains of amino acids bend and loop around on themselves forming complex three dimensional shapes that are often more important to a protein’s function than the atoms of which they are composed.
With Proteins it’s often the shape, more than the chemical formula, that determines its function. Here are just a few of the infinite number of shapes proteins can make. (Credit: BioRender.com)
Calculating the shapes of proteins used to take years but in 2020 Doctors Hassabis and Jumper released AlphaFold an AI that can calculate the shape of a protein in hours or even minutes. Thanks to this program researchers around the world are developing new medicines as well as proteins that may be able to break down plastics into materials that can be more easily recycled.
As more and more plastic waste gets into the environment the danger of microplastics getting into us grows. The work of Doctors Hassabis and Jumper may help to solve this problem. (Credit: IUCN)
Doctor Baker, who recently began using the AlphaFold Program in his own research, went further in developing a new class of proteins unlike any seen in nature. These new proteins have already been used in the development of new medicines and vaccines but there is also the possibility that they may find usage in the fields of nanomaterials and microscopic sensors.
The idea of using proteins as micro sensors is still just science fiction, but then AI itself was just science fiction 20 years ago. (Credit: Biofisica)
The pioneering work of Doctors Hopfield and Hinton, along with Baker, Hassabis and Jumper illustrate how computers, and especially the new Artificial Intelligences, are playing an ever greater part in the world of science. Together with Doctors Ambros and Ruvkun they are this year’s Nobel laureates in the sciences.
In my previous post I recited a long and frankly depressing tale of weather disasters that have occurred around the world this past year. The cause of this extreme weather is the fact that our planet’s temperature has reached the 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels due to global warming that scientists have been warning us about for decades. I could have gone on, I could have mentioned the droughts that are spreading across northern Africa, or the melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Surely anyone who isn’t convinced of the reality of climate change has simply made up their minds to ignore the evidence.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Our Earth is getting hotter and we’re the cause. (Credit: Berkeley Earth)
So what have the various world governments done to try to eliminate, or at the very least reduce CO2 emissions? In particular in this election year, what has the US government done to mitigate global warming?
The nations of the European Union (EU) have managed to get their CO2 emissions under control. Why are we here in the US doing so little to solve this problem. (Credit: European Parliament)
Well, while he was President Trump did exactly nothing. Indeed, whereas most climate deniers like Ted Cruse or right wing Think Tanks have decided to lower their rhetoric and just oppose climate action more quietly, Trump has continued to claim without evidence that global warming is a “Chinese Hoax”. His numerous other falsehoods include claims that wind turbines and solar arrays cause cancer, again assertions without any evidence. Based upon these fictions throughout his term of office Trump strongly opposed any and all policies to fight global warming.
If Climate Change is just ‘a Chinese Hoax’ then why is China spending more than three times as much on renewable ‘Green Energy’ as we are? Did they fall for their own hoax or is Trump just a liar? (Credit: WeBuildValue)
President Biden on the other hand has boasted about his efforts to combat climate change. Those efforts have come mostly in the form of his signature ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ which was originally, and more accurately named the ‘Build Back Better’ act. In that legislation $663 billion were earmarked toward incentives for the development of wind and solar power farms while at the same time providing $521 million in funding for the installation of 9,200 charging stations for electronic cars. The money spent by the IRA represents the largest effort to combat climate change in US history and has been projected to reduce carbon emissions by the US to 40% below those in the year 2005.
How the IRA invests in green energy. The energy we derive from solar and wind requires an investment but once it’s paid for the energy is all free!! (Credit: Evergreen Action)
Unfortunately, even while working hard to increase the amount of energy the US produces by renewable sources Biden has also helped the petroleum industry increase its production. So much so that currently the US is again the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas, more barrels per day than ever in history. Biden did this primarily to lower gas prices and thereby reduce inflation but those cheap gas prices also make old fashion CO2 emitting cars look more attractive than Electric Vehicles (EVs), increasing emissions and therefore contributing to global warming.
For Biden inflation has been a more immediate problem than Global Warming and since gas prices effect the cost of almost everything, he worked hard to bring the price of gas down by increasing oil production! (Credit: Stanford Report – Stanford University)
So what are the proposed policies that Trump and Harris are offering to implement if they become president. Well, it’s easy to tell what Trump will do; he still insists that climate change is a hoax, despite the mountains of evidence. Because of that he has no plans to do anything to reduce our country’s CO2 emissions. Indeed, Trump promises his supporters he will “Drill baby Drill” in order to lower gas prices even further as a way to spur the economy. However it is worth noting that the oil companies will probably not want to work harder to produce more oil, which will lower gas prices further so that they actually get fewer profits. So Trump’s energy plans may actually be perversely opposed by the oil industry!
If you think about it gas companies don’t really want gas to be too cheap. After all it costs them a certain amount to get the oil from the ground, then it has to be refined before it can be shipped to your local gas station. All that costs money so if gas is too cheap the oil companies can’t make a profit no matter how much we “Drill Baby Drill”. (Credit: NPR)
Kamala Harris’ plans for mitigating climate change are harder to discern. During her time as a senator from California Harris was always in the forefront of the fight against climate change, supporting any and all legislation that would reduce CO2 emissions. As Vice-President Harris cast the tie breaking vote that got the IRA passed. At the same time however she has had to be a team player in the Biden administration so she also supported Biden’s efforts to increase oil and gas production.
In order to get elected Kamala Harris has had to shift her position on fracking. An object lesson on how politics can get in the way of doing what’s actually necessary! (Credit: YouTube)
As a candidate for President Harris has had to trod an even trickier path because she needs votes from oil and gas producing states. So on the campaign trail she has usually talked more about increasing the amount of energy we get from solar and wind rather than talking about reducing the amount of energy we get from oil and natural gas.
The democrats would prefer to talk about growing more ‘green energy’ rather than discuss getting rid of oil and natural gas. That may not be possible. (Credit: EnTech Solutions)
This is particularly true in my home state of Pennsylvania where the process of fracking provides many jobs and a great deal of money to areas that were hard hit by the manufacturing exodus of the 1990s. Pennsylvania is also the biggest of the ‘swing states’ and many pundits are predicting that whoever wins Pennsylvania will become the next President so its understandable that Harris would rather not talk about opposing fracking.
Fracking for natural gas is a big business in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. It also causes health problems, pollutes the environment and of course leads to the emission of large amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. (Credit: Maps on the Web)
Fracking is controversial not only because it rejuvenates old used up oil wells but because it produces a lot more environmental damage than normal oil and gas drilling does. In fact fracking has actually been definitely linked with generating earthquakes thanks to the damage it does to rock strata deep underground. See my post of 12 August 2017.
The State of Oklahoma never had earthquakes, it’s one of the most geologically stable places on Earth. Or at least it used to be before we started fracking! (Credit: Washington Post)
One thing that can be said for certain is that Harris will continue Biden’s policies of investing in renewable energy production. Whether that effort will be enough is doubtful, and remember any large climate change action she proposes will have to get through a congress that over the last decade or more has been unable to come to an agreement on much of anything.
Partisanship, postering and just outright distrust have made it impossible for our congress to get anything done. (Credit: Pew Research Center)
So there you have it, the need for action by the US government to reduce our nation’s CO2 emissions is clear. The entire world is tittering on the brink of extreme weather conditions never before seen in human history so every nation must reduce their emissions. What’s not so clear is what our candidates can or will do to prevent such an eventuality. Kamala Harris at least can be counted upon to try to fight climate change while Trump blindly refuses to see the danger coming right at us.
As we here in the US approach our Presidential election I have decided to take several posts to discuss the issues from something of a scientific viewpoint. To that end I spent the last three posts reviewing the state of our economy and the plans of the two major party candidates for dealing with the economy.
In every Election it seems that the State of the Economy is the most important Issue that Voters care about. But ask yourself this, how good can our Economy be if we destroy the Environment we live in? (Credit: Investopedia)
In this and my next post I will be discussing the environment and climate change in particular and again the plans that both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have for dealing with the environment and the growing threat of climate change. In today’s post I will review the current state of environmental issues in the US with an emphasis on climate change and steps that are being taken to contain it.
If this is the price of a strong economy, is it really worth it? (Credit: The Green Page)
Last year, in 2023 the world experienced the hottest year ever recorded. Strengthened by the Pacific weather phenomenon of El Nino the world’s average temperature came so close to the 1.5º Celsius that scientists have been warning us about for decades that we may just as well as reached it. 2024 hasn’t been any better; in fact the first seven months of the year were each the hottest of that month ever recorded. In other words, February of 2024 was the hottest February ever, April the hottest April ever and so on until July, which was the hottest month of any kind, ever. Indeed, it was on July 21st of 2024 that the Earth’s hottest ever temperature was recorded, beating a record set just the day before.
It’s not a joke anymore. The world is getting hotter and we’re the cause. Things are only going to get worse if we don’t fix the problem. (Credit: The Weather Channel)
Locally high temperature records throughout the United States have been shattered. Phoenix, Arizona for example has endured a staggering 113 consecutive days of temperatures above 100ºF (37.8ºC). Las Vegas, Palm Springs and many other southwestern cities also saw record shattering, long duration heat waves. Indeed the record heat pressed as far north as Oregon and Montana. So the last two years have been the hottest years ever measured and in fact the ten hottest years ever recorded have all been in the last ten years, a trend that shows no sign of abating, indeed there is every reason to expect global warming to continue for as long as we keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
One Hundred and Thirteen consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. How can anybody live in that? (Credit: The Weather Channel)
As a consequence of this historic heat the death toll due to heat related causes has also risen. Meanwhile that extreme heat has also contributed to the massive wildfires have been raging across the western parts of both the US and Canada.
Wildfires are raging around the world adding even more CO2 to that which we are dumping into the atmosphere. (Credit: Inside Climate News)
The eastern US hasn’t been spared either with massive outbreaks of tornadoes throughout the spring ranging from Texas and Oklahoma to Georgia in the south and up into Ohio and Indiana. Then, even as tornado season was easing the tropics began to stir bringing first hurricane Beryl to devastate Louisiana then a succession of tropic systems including hurricane Helene that spread destruction from Florida’s gulf coast right up into North Carolina and beyond. Florida’s ‘Big Bend’ region has seen three strong hurricanes in just the last two years causing so much devastation that the people living along the coast haven’t had enough time to recover from one storm before the next hits them. Even as I write these words Hurricane Milton is approaching the Florida coast as a Category 5, another major hurricane that will surely cause enormous damage to areas still recovering from Helene.
By the time you read this Hurricane Milton will have slammed into Florida. The full extent of the destruction won’t be known for days but this is the third hurricane to hit Florida this year! (Credit: NBC Chicago)
Additionally, even as the damage caused by Helene is still being assessed it is clear that the western portion of North Carolina suffered some of the worst devastation. That is despite North Carolina’s being more than 700 kilometers from the part of Florida where the storm came ashore. Clearly the stronger hurricanes and tropical storms that are now being generated by global warming are a threat to communities farther inland than ever before.
Half of the roads in an entire state are closed, many suffered severe damage that could take years to completely repair. All told the destruction caused by Helene is estimated at more than 47 billion dollars. It’s the destruction caused by Climate Change that is the real threat to our Economy! (Credit: The Weather Channel)
Despite all their violence the occasional storm to hit coastal communities only highlights the ever increasing threat from sea level rise. Along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida and then around the gulf to Texas land is disappearing and taking homes, often very expensive homes, with it. Cities like Miami, Charleston and Galveston are seeing entire neighborhoods flooded during so-called ‘King Tides’. The state in greatest danger however is Louisiana where it is estimated that one football field’s worth of land is being lost every hour.
Even before hurricane Helene came ashore the town of Cedar Key Florida experienced periodic flooding caused by rising sea levels! (Credit: The weather Channel)Beachfront homes, often very expensive homes are being washed into the sea due to rising sea levels. (Credit: Sky News)
Such tides are also turning the groundwater beneath coastal neighborhoods salty and therefore undrinkable. Meanwhile septic systems in the tidewater region of Virginia and parts of Florida are overflowing as sea water again permeates the ground.
Septic Systems in many coastal communities from Florida to Virginia are failing and overflowing due to rising ground water levels caused by sea level rise! (Credit: Lyttle Company)
All of this damage to property is causing insurance companies to raise their rates for homeowner’s insurance. That’s if you can find an insurance company willing to insure your home, thousands of homes along the US gulf coast are now considered to be uninsurable. The same is also true for many homes in California and Oregon but out west it’s because of wildfires, not flooding.
As the number of billion dollar disasters have increased so has the average cost of homeowners insurance. Doesn’t that hurt our economy? (Credit: Union of Concerned Scientists)
That litany of disaster is only from North America; the rest of the world has seen even more extreme weather. Flooding in Central Europe has been the cause of dozens of deaths and entire towns being submerged when a super moist air stream moved north from the Mediterranean and dumped its water on Austria, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic. Meanwhile in Asia Typhoon Yagi brought flooding and landslides to Vietnam causing the death of 127 people before moving into Myanmar where it caused an additional 110 deaths. Finally in Africa seven days of non-stop rainfall in northern Nigeria and Chad have resulted in the deaths of hundreds, a dam to burst and the displacement of over a million people. A UN investigation has estimated that in total the countries of Africa are losing about 5% of their economies to flooding every year.
Zoo Elephants escaping from recent flooding in Thailand. Many of the World’s poorer countries are suffering worse from Climate Change that we are here in the US. That can only lead to even more migrations as people try to escape Climate Change like these elephants are. (Credit: CNN)
And this is only the start; a report published by the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in coordination with the University of Reading in the UK has forecast that in twenty years 1.5 billion people, 20% of the world’s population will be subjected to extreme changes in climate even if CO2 emissions are cut drastically enough for global temperature to remain below 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. That’s the best-case scenario, in the event that carbon emissions continue to rise the number of people who will see drastic changes to their climate rises to over 5 billion, 70% of the world’s population.
Many scientific organizations are predicting future climatic conditions. The future doesn’t look pretty! (Credit: RealClimate)
Faced with such a dire future the world’s governments need to do everything in their power to more than just reduce, virtually eliminate CO2 emissions. In my next post I’ll discuss what the Biden administration has done to help reduce CO2 and what plans both Harris and Trump have for controlling Climate Change.
