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An Inter-Species War breaks out between Dogs and Monkeys in a town in India.

Just a few months ago I published a post that described some of the evidence of an Inter-species war that had been observed by naturalists between Chimpanzees and Gorillas in the Loango National Park in Gabon, see post of September 4th 2021. By war I am not referring to the more typical predator prey relationship such as that between Lions and Zebras. No, the conflict in Gabon was a fight between two different species of ape that competed for many of the same resources. In that respect the war between Chimpanzees and Gorillas resembled many of the wars fought by humans over land or wealth.

When chimps go to war they are both brutal and cunning, after all they are our closest relatives. (Credit: New Scientist)

Now there are reports of another instance of inter-species fighting that has nothing to do with predator-prey nor is it in any way due to a competition over resources. The war that has broken out in Lavool in India, a town with a population of about 5000 located some 500km east of Mumbai, appears to be an act of retaliation by the local monkeys against the town’s dogs.

The town of Lavool in India is just one of thousands of towns in the world’s second most populous nation. (Credit: Yahoo News)

According to local people the fighting began about a month ago when a pack of dogs attacked and killed a young monkey. Since then the monkeys in the area have been taking revenge by snatching any puppy they can get their hands on and carrying them up into a tall tree or the side of a building and dropping them to their death. At least 250 dogs are thought to have perished this way, nearly the entire canine population of Lavool.

A troop of monkeys attach a dog in Lavool. This war seems to have been started by the dogs but it’s the monkeys that have gained the upper hand. (Credit: inf.news)
With their superior cunning the monkeys have taken to snatching up puppies and, climbing to a high place, dropping them to their death! (Credit: Kalam Times)

Such acts of revenge are not unknown among primates. According to Professor Stephanie Poindexter of SUNY in Buffalo whose research deals with primate behavior. “In studies of primates in captivity, in social groups in zoos, we’ve seen that when an individual is attacked in some way, the likelihood of them attacking someone related to their aggressor is higher.” The professor then adds. “Typically, there’s a preference for attacking a third-party associated with the original attacker, as opposed to the actual attacker.” In other words it’s the innocent who suffer.

Whatever kind of war or whoever is fighting it one thing always remains true. (Credit: AZ Quotes)

Even if revenge between individual primates is a well-known phenomenon a war of revenge by a group of primates against a completely different species is something entirely new, and may be getting out of hand. When the local villagers tried to stop the killing of their dogs by capturing the monkeys they failed to seize a single one. In fact several of the villagers were injured during the capture attempts, although whether the injuries happened by accident or because the monkeys were fighting back is unclear.

As Monkeys become more and more used to living in human populated areas their ability, and willingness to take advantage of any situation is increasingly making them more of a problem. (Credit: Pinterest)

However the attempts to seize the monkeys may have caused the primates to think that the humans were allied with the dogs because there are now reports of monkeys attacking children on their way to school. If those reports were true it would be bad for the monkeys. In order to safeguard human children the villagers would certainly begin shooting the monkeys, and it’s a lot easier, and safer to shoot a monkey than it is to catch one.

The Monkey God of Hindu India is Lord Hanuman. To honour their god the people of India would rather live with their country’s monkeys but that may not always be possible. (Credit: Pinterest)

It was once thought that concepts like revenge and war could only be attributed to ‘advanced’ creatures like we humans. However the more we learn about other animals, particularly those more closely related to us, the more advanced they seem, and the less advanced we realize we are.

Movie Review: ‘Don’t Look Up’ on Netflix

For the most part Science Fiction and satire don’t cross paths very often. The best known exception is of the course ‘The Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series but aside from those novels satirical science fiction stories and novels are rare and usually light on the satire. I suppose that’s because science fiction is usually an adventure in a completely different world while satire tends to poke fun at the world as it actually is.

The Original and still the best, the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ took pot shots at everything and everyone. (Credit: Amazon.com)

‘Don’t Look Up’ is a new movie now showing on Netflix that illustrates rather convincingly how science fiction and satire can be combined to produce a story that is both thought provoking, and hilariously funny. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio as two astronomers desperately trying to convince the world of the danger of a comet heading straight at the Earth ‘Don’t Look Up’ takes place in the superficial, instant gratification world of modern society.

Both a straight critique of modern society and an allegory for the threat of Climate Change ‘Don’t Look Up’ is now available on Netflix. (Credit: Netflix)

Lawrence plays Kate Dibiasky, a doctoral candidate in astronomy at Michigan State University who is searching for supernovas in order to measure the expansion of the Universe. (For me a lot of the fun in ‘Don’t Look Up’ consisted of hearing them mention a topic that I’ve blogged about! There were actually quite a few!) Just by accident she discovers a comet. Calling in her advisor Dr. Randell Mindy, played by Leonardo Dicaprio, the two work out the orbit of the comet and realize in horror that it will strike the Earth in 6 months and 17 days.

NASA is busy trying to catalog the orbits of any threatening asteroids in order to give us decades of warning of any danger. But comets can appear without warning with only months before a possible collision. (Credit: Space.com)

The two immediately inform NASA of their fears and once the space agency has confirmed their calculations they are whisked to the White House for a meeting with President Orlean, played by Meryl Streep. Problem is that the President is having a problem getting her Supreme Court candidate past the Senate, it seems he once appeared in a soft corn porn film, so the astronomers have a long wait and little time to brief the President about the crisis.

PhD student Kate Dibiasky, played by Jennifer Lawrence, accidentally discovers the comet while searching for supernova. (Credit: Refinary29)

Once the President is made aware of the situation she decides to “sit tight” and wait for scientists at a more prestigious university like MIT or Princeton to confirm the observation. She’s also worried about the effect of the end of the world on the upcoming midterms.

To President Orlean, Meryl Streep, the end of the world is just another crisis that can hopefully be put off until the next administration. (Credit: CNN)

Away from Washington the two astronomers attempt to get their story out to the people by the media and are scheduled to appear on a network morning show hosted by Bree Evantee and Jack Bremmer, played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry respectively. While Bree tries to keep the news of a comet destroying our planet light and upbeat Jack seems obsessed with supernovas, “…exploding stars, stars can explode???” he asks Dibiaski.

Yes, stars can explode. This one did about a thousand years ago. (Credit: The Atlantic)

It isn’t long before the story has gone viral with predictable results. President Orlean finally decides to act and deflect the comet because saving the world might help her poll numbers only to have an Elon Musk / Jeff Bezos type character named Peter Isherwell, played by Mark Rylance, suggest that he has a better use for the comet, which is chock full of valuable materials.

There’s been a lot of press coverage of all of the valuable metals there are on the asteroid Psyche, and a lot of crazy, for now, ideas about how to get them. Now it’s great to imagine the technology of the future but we have to solve today’s problems with today’s technology. (Credit: Space.com)

So the comet now becomes a jobs creator and everyone in America soon takes side to either ‘Just Look Up’ or ‘Don’t Look Up’. Those slogans kinda reminded me of ‘Build Back Better’ or ‘Make America Great Again’, which I’m certain is what the writers intended. In order to avoid giving too much away I’ll stop there.

In ‘Don’t Look Up’ the media treats a collision with a comet as just another news story, the same way is actually does treat the threat of Climate Change. (Credit: The Sentinel Assam)

‘Don’t Look Up’ is delightfully funny in places, even having a couple of running jokes that have nothing to do with the comet. At the same time it is a painful reflection of our current shallow, celebrity driven culture. The acting is uniformedly excellent although I was surprised at how hard Meryl Streep tried to be funny, a bit too much for someone playing a President I thought. The special effects worked well on my TV screen, which is one of the advantages of watching a Netflix movie as opposed to seeing one on a big theater screen where CGI can sometimes look cartoonish.

I know this will get me in trouble but I think CGI works much better on the little, i.e. TV screen. In the theater, on the big screen too much CGI starts to look like Bugs Bunny and friends. (Credit: StudioBinder)

All in all ‘Don’t Look Up’ was a fun 2 hours and 18 minutes but I hope that it will be more than that. Maybe it could start a fashion for science fiction satire.

Global Warming Update for December 2021: Tornado outbreaks strike the US twice in a week, in December! And that’s not the worse news!

It’s an easy thing to understand, severe weather, as typified by lightning and tornadoes, normally occurs during the warmer part of the year. That’s not only because warm air just has more energy than cold air does but also because warm air carries a lot of moisture with it. You see, because of what chemists call the latent heat of evaporation, water vapour has a lot of energy associated with it, that’s what makes steam engines so powerful!

It takes more than twice as much heat to boil a gram of water already at 100 degrees C than it does to heat a gram of water at 0 degrees C to 100 degrees C. There’s a lot of energy contained in water vapour, that’s why thunderstorms can be so powerful! (Credit: Coquitlam Weather and Climate)

That’s why for decades the spring and summer months in the great plains states were known as ‘Tornado Alley’ where hot, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico would encounter cool, dry air coming down from Canada. These conditions were perfect for the outbreak of tornadoes and year after year growing up I can recall hearing about the their destructive power in states like Oklahoma, Nebraska and to a lesser extent Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. That’s the reason why ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is set in Kansas, ’cause that state was ground zero for tornadoes.

What used to be ‘Tornado Alley’ in the US. Thanks to global warming a much larger part of the country now gets to ‘enjoy’ all those twisters. (Credit: Pinterest)
The Wizard of Oz is set in Kansas because everyone knew that tornadoes were a constant threat in that state. (Credit: Gifer)

Not any more, Tornado Alley is now a much bigger place thanks to global warming. This year massive tornado outbreaks happened in the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia during the months of February and March, cold months that used to have calm weather in the Deep South. And then in early September there was a tremendous outburst of severe storms in the Delaware valley brought on by the passage of the remnants of hurricane Ida. As they were reporting on that storm the local TV meteorologists kept repeating. ‘This doesn’t happen in the Delaware valley, it just doesn’t happen here!” See my post of 8 September 2021. In all this year the Delaware valley has received over 50 tornado warnings from the National Weather Service, more than were called during the first 50 years of my life.

Now the Delaware valley has become a part of ‘Tornado Alley’ as year after year new records are set for severe storms. (Credit: WPVI)

Still the worst was to come, for on the night of the 10th of December, the first month of winter, a huge mass of warm, moist gulf air pushed its way up the Mississippi river valley. Starting in Arkansas and Mississippi a severe thunderstorm erupted that grew in intensity as the storm pushed northward into Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. Over 50 tornadoes were spotted across 8 states causing a trail of death and destruction. At the latest count more than 90 people are known to have died and almost as many are still missing.

The town of Mayfield in Kentucky saw the worst of the tornadoes with much of the town being reduced to nothing but rubble! (Credit: NPR)

The greatest destruction took place in Kentucky where the town of Mayfield was virtually wiped out by an EF4 tornado with peak winds of 300 KPH. That tornado is now known to have traveled over 200 km and spent more than two hours on the ground. Indeed, it is possible that the Mayfield tornado may have had the longest track of any measured tornado, anywhere, ever! And again, the commentators who described the chaos on TV kept repeating. “This doesn’t happen in December.”

The tornado struck a candle factory in Mayfield while more than 100 employees were at work. Some were rescued from the wreckage but many were not. (Credit: Reuters)

But it happened again not a week later as on the 15 of December as another gulf air mass pushed its way through Nebraska into Iowa and Minnesota. This storm system only produced about 20 tornadoes causing only 5 known deaths. Still, this doesn’t happen in December.

Only a week after Kentucky was struck by tornadoes another severe storm system ignited from Nebraska through Wisconsin. (Credit: National Weather Service)

We have to get used to the plain fact that when it comes to severe weather all the old ‘rules of thumb’ no longer apply. Global warming is simply putting more energy into the sky and that energy is generating more violent, more destructive weather, everywhere. Unprecedented violent storms have become ‘the new normal’.

Seems we’ve had to learn to live with several ‘New Normals’ the past few years, none of them very pleasant. (Credit: UiO)

And there’s even worse news. For at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) a group of researchers announced on the 13th of December that there is strong evidence that the foundation of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is becoming unstable. This instability could lead to a major breakup of the world’s largest ice formation within three to five years.

Larger than Scotland and averaging more than a kilometre in thickness the Thwaites glacier could cause a sea level rise of a metre or more if it all melted. (Credit: The Sun)

As large as the state of Florida and with ice depths of between 800m and 1 km Thwaites already is pouring an estimated 50 billion tonnes of ice melt into the ocean every year making it responsible for about 4% of current sea level rise. Recent studies however have shown that warm ocean waters have been undercutting the glacier’s foundation and support. Already cracks are appearing on the Thwaites’s surface and the fear is that further undercutting could lead to a massive collapse of the entire glacier.

Warm waters are undercutting the Thwaites glacier. Scientists are now concerned that the whole glacier could become unstable within the next five years. (Credit: Daily Mail)

Such a breakup would be a major disaster for if the entire Thwaites glacier were to slide off into the Antarctic Ocean the result could be a sea level rise of as much as 70 cm! And since Thwaites acts as a roadblock holding back several other large glaciers there is that possibility that a breakup of Thwaites could begin a general destabilization of the whole western part of the Antarctic ice sheet. If that were to occur the resulting rise in sea level could be as much as three meters.

A sea level rise of only one metre (3.3 ft) could submerge a huge portion of the state of Louisiana yet this state is so dependent to the petroleum industry that its members in congress oppose all measures to cut down on carbon emissions. (Credit: Pinterest)

Now such a catastrophe of that scale would not happen overnight but rather over a period of years if not decades. Nevertheless the scientists at the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) are convinced that over the next few years the glacier’s melting will rapidly increase, leading to a large increase in the rate of sea level rise.

The small Louisiana town of Isle de Jean Charles has had to be abandoned due to sea level rise. The people of Isle de Jean Charles are now considered to be America’s first climate refugees. (Credit: NRDC)

Just two more signs that Climate Change is no longer a long term problem, the long term has become the here and now!

Space News for December 2021: More news about Space Stations and Astronomers get a new orbiting X-ray Telescope.

Space tourism is back in the news as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and CEO of the e-commerce site Zozotown, has traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Accompanying Maezawa was his own personal assistant and videographer Yozo Hirano who will film his boss’s activities during their 12-day stay in orbit. Unlike the Inspiration 4 tourist flight back in September, Maezawa’s mission also included the veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin as pilot.

Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa (r) with his personal cameraman Yozo Hirano (l) and Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (c) before takeoff to the ISS. (Credit: PCMag)

Maezawa’s visit to the ISS with his assistant makes eight non-professional, paying customers who have traveled into orbit this year, in addition to the four Inspiration 4 crewmembers there were also the Russian actress and her cameraman / producer back in October. That equals the total number of tourists who had ever flow into orbit before 2021 and is 40% of all the people who went into orbit this year. No matter how you look at it space tourism is now a significant portion of the space industry.

Russian Actress Yulia Peresild spent nearly two weeks aboard the ISS shooting scenes for the first feature film to be shot, partially in orbit! (Credit: CBS News)

Another sign of the growing importance of tourism and just general commercialization in space are the ongoing plans for future commercial space stations. NASA has made it clear that the space agency wants out of the business of running a space station in Low Earth Orbit. In order to move forward on the Artemis program going back to the Moon while maintaining a presence in LOE NASA has decided to help build a commercial space station that it could then rent space on.

Right now the fate of the ISS is very much up in the air. Scheduled to remain in orbit until about 2030 there is talk of sections being used for a new station or the whole thing might be brought down from orbit. (Credit: ESA)

To help finance this effort NASA has provided a combined $416 million dollars to three aerospace firms, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origins and Nanoracks corporations to fund the design phase of their space station efforts. The plan is for the space agency to choose one of the designs in 2025 and then help finance the construction of that commercial space station. NASA would then become one of the tenants of that station while other nations or corporations; even tourists could also be tenants. By the way NASA’s choosing one of the three designs doesn’t mean that the two rejected ones won’t get built. If the commercial space industry really takes off in the next half dozen years there may very well be a need for multiple space stations in LOE.

Illustration of Northrop Grumman’s plan for a commercial space station. NASA is helping to fund the design of this station and would be one of the tenants once the station is built. (Credit: Northrop Grumman Newsroom)

The current schedule is for the ISS continue to provide a home in LOE for astronauts until 2030 while the first modules of any new commercial space station would be launched in 2028 or 29. Nevertheless with China now building its own space station in orbit and the push for a commercial station it won’t be long before things start getting a mite crowded up there.

Blue Origin’s design for a station is called the Orbital Reef. It certainly is fancier than Northrop Grumman’s but in space that’s not always a good thing. (Credit: Spaceflight Now)

Of course LOE isn’t only occupied by space stations, in fact there are thousands of unmanned satellites circling our globe right now, many of them are commercial in nature, like communication satellites. Then there are the satellites designed to look back at the Earth, to study it from a height. These include both weather satellites and landsats.

Then there are the space telescopes designed to study the rest of the universe from outside the limiting effects of Earth’s atmosphere. The most famous of these space telescopes is of course the Hubble space telescope, which has revolutionized astronomy in the years since it was launched. But there are others like the Kepler planet hunting telescope or the Chandra X-ray telescope.

Perhaps the most famous satellite since Sputnik, the Hubble telescope has revolutionized our view of the Universe. (Credit: Business Insider)

On the 8th of December a new X-ray telescope was launched into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. At a cost of $188 million dollars the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE telescope may not be as newsworthy as the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch on the 25nd of December. Nevertheless in its own way IXPE will have many opportunities to add to our knowledge of such high-energy astrophysical objects as black holes, pulsars and magnetars.

The Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE Space Telescope will peer deeply into the heart of astronomical objects such as black holes and pulsars. (Credit: Semantic Scholar)
Launched aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket the IXPE telescope took off from Kennedy Space Center on December 8th. (Credit: NASAspaceflight.com)

You see the difference between IXPE and the Chandra X-ray telescope is that IXPE measures the polarization of the X-rays it detects. All light, whether visible or X-rays or radio waves have an amplitude that can either go up and down or side to side as the wave travels through space. This is the polarization of the light, either vertical, up and down, or horizontal, side to side.

Most of the light in the Universe is unpolarized, that is made of of many different polarizations. Certain materials only allow a distinct polarization to pass through. This allows scientists to study the conditions under which the light is generated. (Credit: ScienceFacts.net)

In most cases, say the light from the Sun, there is a random mixture of polarizations. Calculations in both quantum electrodynamics and general relativity however tell us that in certain very intense regions, strong magnetic or gravitational fields, the X-rays that are generated should be polarized in certain ways. Therefore by measuring the polarization of the X-rays coming from just outside a black hole’s event horizon, or from the surface of a pulsar IXPE will be able to give astronomers new details about the conditions there.

The first ever image of a black hole. The IXPE telescope will look at the light coming from just outside the event horizon of black holes hopefully revealing some of their secrets. (Credit: NASA)

Every time astronomers look at the Universe in a new way they’ve discovered new details that profoundly changed our knowledge. One can only hope that IXPE, and James Webb when it finally begins operation, will revolutionize astronomy the way that Hubble and Chandra and Kepler already have.’

Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope of Christmas day. Although the launch went perfectly the JWST still has more than a month of travel and several complicated, and critical instrument deployments to carry out before it can be called a complete success. (Credit: Science)

And hopefully astronomers will soon have an even more powerful tools for learning about the Universe as on Christmas day at 1220 GMT the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was successfully launched from French Guyana aboard an Arian 5 rocket. Now I just said that the launch was successful but the JWST still has a lot of complicated maneuvers to complete before it can begin its work of discovery. I intend to discuss the JWST at length in a post in another month or two so, for the moment I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the telescope’s deployment continues to be a success. 

Topology is the branch of Mathematics that deals with the shapes of objects and spaces. What is it and how do mathematicians and scientists use it?

Did you ever take a rubber or foam ball or other object and squeeze it or pull it, changing its shape. If you did then you performed an operation from a branch of mathematics called Topology, the study of geometric shapes and spaces. That said, much of the work of topologists concerns the relationship between two shapes or the ways that one shape can be morphed into another.

Squeezing, stretching twisting and bending are all operations that can be performed on a geometric shape without changing its basic topological properties. They can also really relieve stress. (Credit: DepositPhotos)

Consider the shape of a baseball and an American football, obviously they are pretty closely related. Pull on the opposite sides of the baseball and you’ll get the shape of a football while if you push in the ends of the football you can make it round like a baseball. If you think about it that’s also true of a frankfurter, it’s just a sphere that’s really been stretched. Stretching, squeezing, twisting and bending are one set of operations that can be performed to change the shape of an object. Two shapes are considered to be homeomorphic if the can be transformed one to the other by only stretching, squeezing, twisting or bending.

Topology also is concerned with the relationships of objects in different dimensions. The 1D ball is of course just a point, 1D anything really, the 2D ball is a circle while the 3D ball is a sphere! (Credit: Science4All)

Now consider the baseball and a doughnut. It’s pretty obvious that you can’t go from one to the other just by Stretching, squeezing, twisting or bending, it’s that hole in the doughnut that makes it a completely different kind of object. In order to make, or eliminate the hole you have to perform an operation like cutting, tearing or gluing. So topology recognizes two distinct classes of operations. On the other hand a doughnut and a coffee mug are considered to be homeomorphic because you can squeeze and massage a doughnut shape into that of the mug, even forming the bowl of the mug, without either cutting tearing or gluing.

It is possible to go from a doughnut to a coffee cup just by squeezing and shaping. The two objects are therefore homeomorphic. (Credit: GMA Network)
Every time you add a hole to a shape it changes the topological properties far more than any amount of squeezing or twisting. (Credit: plus.maths.org)

We can also perform the same sort of exercise with the letters of the alphabet in capitals to discover that they fall into a series of classes:

No holes with a continuous, but not necessarily straight line:

          (C, G, I, J, L, M, N, S, U, V, W and Z)

No holes and three tails: (E, F, T and Y)

No holes and four tails: (H, K, and X)

One hole and no tails: (D and O)

One hole and one tail: (P and Q)

One hole and two tails: (A and R)

Two holes and no tail: (B)

It is simple to see how any member of one class can be transformed into another member of the same class by shaping, but not a member of another class.

Historically Topology is considered to have started with a famous problem stated by the mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1736 known as the ‘Seven Bridges of Königsberg’. In this problem, see figure below, the question is can someone cross all of the seven bridges of the town of Königsberg, modern Kaliningrad, without crossing any bridge twice. The answer is no but obviously the analysis is a study of shape and connections.

The ‘Seven Bridges of Konigsberg’. Go ahead, try crossing all of them without crossing any twice! (Credit: Mathematical Association of America)
Attempts at finding a solution the seven bridges problem led to the development of network theory and yes we’re talking about the World Wide Web, Cable TV etc., etc. (Credit: The Reliants Project)

Other similar problems were studied over the years after Euler. One interesting one is known as the ‘hairy ball’ theorem, which states that it is impossible to comb the hair on a hairy ball without creating a cowlick somewhere. Again the ball can really be any smooth 3D shape, so long as it contains no hole. And in case you think that mathematicians are just playing silly games with a ‘hairy ball’ the more formal name for the theorem, that a continuous tangential vector field on such a surface must be non-vanishing, is of considerable importance in many types of field research.

The ‘Hairy Ball’ problem is another example of what what at first glance seems like a silly joke having real consequences. (Credit: SlidetoDoc.com)

It wasn’t until the year 1847 that Johann Benedict Listing first used the term ‘Topologie’ in an article entitled ‘Vorstudien zur Topologie’. Since that time different topology has seen several distinct sub-subjects develop including algebraic and differential topologies along with the original geometric topology. Other fun sub-subjects of topology are knot theory and set topology.

Another branch of Topology is knot theory. Again what seems like just a fun topic really has tremendous uses. Just imagine each of these knots as a protein! (Credit: SlidePlayer)

In modern science topology is becoming an ever more important mathematical tool. In evolutionary biology the morphing of a clamshell into a snail shell is studied by topology revealing the genetic pathways that generated the two classes of molluscs. In biochemistry the shapes of proteins and nucleic acids are analyzed by knot theory.

Topologically the shells of clams and snails only differ by the directions that they grow, akin to stretching in different ways. Genetics has shown that those different growth patterns are controlled by only a few genes. (Credit: Routledge Handbooks Online)

In physics topology has been used in condensed matter physics along with quantum field theory and perhaps most important of all in cosmology, by studying possible shapes and structures for the Universe as a whole. While some aspects of topology, like the seven bridges problem are both easy to understand and fun to analyze, topology is also a very subtle mathematical discipline, which can take years of study to master. A proposal well worth the effort.

Paleontology News for December 2021. Several new species of Dinosaurs.

To most people paleontology means dinosaurs and although that may be a simplistic viewpoint nevertheless it is the giant skeletons of those ancient creatures that most obviously show how life here on Earth today is very different from what it was in the past. With each new species discovered by paleontologists we get a better picture of how much life in the past differed, and in some ways was very much the same as life today. Here are a few of the latest finds.

Think of fossils and usually this is what comes to mind, Dinosaur bones. (Credit: Field Museum)

At any time in life’s history those plant eating animals that don’t want to get eaten by predators have three basic choices, run fast, fight back or grow armour. In today’s world animals like turtles or armadillos grow either tough hide or bony scales as protection but during the cretaceous period there was a small family of dinosaurs known as the ankylosaurs who possessed perhaps the best armour of all. With it’s back and head covered in bony plates and with a bony club for a tail the best known ankylosaur, Ankylosaurus magniventris was a tough meal indeed for any hungry T rex to chew on.

Normally considered to be a peaceful plant eater I certainly wouldn’t want to get an Ankylosaurus angry at me! (Credit: Cartoon Network Animals)

Now a new species of ankylosaur named Stegouros elengassen has been discovered in Chile whose tail managed to evolve into perhaps the most fearsome weapon ever possessed by a living creature. In fact the tail of S elengassen bears a striking resemblance to the ancient war club / sword called the macuahuitl that was used by Aztec warriors. Even the Spanish conquistadors who defeated the Aztecs were impressed by the macuahuitl, which was constructed from a stout wooden club into which sharp fragments of obsidian had been embedded.

While perhaps not as well protected as A magniventris, Stegouros elengassen’s tail weapon still must have made it a fierce fighter. (Credit: Daily Mail)
Aztec warriors carrying their weapon the macuahuitl. In the century before Columbus the Aztecs conquered much of Mexico with these weapons. (Credit: All That’s Interesting)

Similarly in the tail of S elengassen seven pairs of bony spikes stick out the side and were stiffened by a coating of fused osteoderms that also flattened them into a more lethal knife like or axe like shape. The animal itself was about 2 meters in length and surprisingly its back does not appear to be as well armoured as many of its relatives. Perhaps with that deadly tail it didn’t need so much protection.

Even as just a few old bones that tail of S elengassen looks pretty nasty! (Credit: Nature)

The specimen of S elengassen was discovered at the southern tip of Chile in a cold, windy valley known as the Rio Las Chuinas. Paleontologists from the University of Texas have been working there for the last decade hoping to learn more about the differences between the Dinosaurs of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

As a place to live the Rio Las Chuinas valley at the southernmost tip of Chile may not look appealing but as a place to look for fossils you couldn’t ask for more! (Credit: Flickr)

Now if a single dinosaur excites you what will a herd of dinos do? The find of an entire herd of 11 members of the species Tethyshadros insularis comes from Italy, a nation not well known for dinosaur discoveries. Discovered in a limestone quarry near the northeastern city of Trieste, T insularis lived about 80 million years ago during the cretaceous period and could reach a full length of 5 meters. In addition to being Italy’s largest find in terms of number of dinosaur specimens the discovery also includes the skeleton of ‘Bruno’ the largest and most complete dino skeleton ever found in Italy.

A species of small Hadrosaur, Tethyshadros insularis lived in herds during the cretaceous period in Europe. (Credit: Google Sites)
The skeleton of ‘Bruno’ the largest and most complete dinosaur ever unearthed in Italy. (Credit: Wikipedia)

The study of dinosaur social behavior is a hot topic in paleontology nowadays, back when I was young it was assumed that dinosaurs lived solitary lives the way most reptiles do today. Discoveries such as the Trieste herd have changed that notion however and now it is recognized that many if not most large plant-eating dinosaurs lived in large herds more like large herbivore mammals do today.

It’s now well established that many, perhaps most Hadrosaur species lived in large herds for protection. (Credit: YouTube)

The quarry has been providing dinosaur bones since 1996 along with fossils of fish, crocodiles, flying reptiles and even shrimp. The fossils have been taken to the University of Bologna for study where hopefully more can be learned about the social behavior of this species.

But did the big Sauropods or other groups? (Credit: Deviant Art)

Finally I’d let to end with a story that I hope, I say I hope is just a joke. As I was searching for stories about dinosaurs I came across an article about a ‘Noted Creation Scientist’ who had ‘Discovered’ the reason why men have nipples. Ready, it’s because we used to nurse Dinosaurs!!!

Creationists often talk about men and dinosaurs living together before Noah’s flood, the fact that they have no evidence of any such thing doesn’t seem to deter them at all. (Credit: Patheos)

Of course females of every species of mammal have nipples in order to be able to nurse their offspring. After all we’re called mammals because our females have mammary glands that produce milk and nipples so that our babies can get that milk. Male mammals also have nipples although they have no use for them, and biologists have wondered about that for thousands of years. The consensus opinion is that, since nipples don’t hurt males in any way it’s simply too much trouble, genetically to get rid of them in males while at the same time making sure females have them!

Why do men have nipples. Basically it’s because women need them and it just isn’t worth getting rid of them in men! (Credit: YouTube)

But not according to Dr. Andrew Canard who, when speaking to a semi-annual meeting of Young Earth Creationists and Flat Earthers at Devil’s Den, Australia gave a lecture entitled “The Use and Abuse of Male Nipplage”. In his speech Dr. Canard revealed his faith-based evidence that between the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Flood there was a great deal of Dino on Man nursing going on.

The word Canard can mean either a duck or a tale tale. Several stories about a Doctor Andrew Canard are circulating that must be satire, at least I hope they are. (Credit: Patheos)

As I said, I hope this is all just a joke. The article I got the story from certainly treated it as a joke with the conference quarrelling about whether Boston Cream Pie is a Pie or a Cake as well as other just plain silly arguments. And all of the references I Googled about Dr. Canard also treated him as something of a joke so I think, I hope Man nursing Dino is truly ‘fake news’ but ya never know. Considering some of the lunatic things that actual members of Congress are doing to grab a few headlines the actual lunatics out there must be going crazy, pun intended, to try and stay ahead.

Fortunately while nuts like Dr. Canard, and some members of Congress may seem amusing for a brief while it’s Stegouros elengassen and Tethyshadros insularis and other actual dinosaurs who will always be interesting.

New Research into Xenobots, living Robots made from Animal Cells has now developed an entirely new form of Reproduction, or has it? The answer is a bit Complicated.

In these posts I have spoken several times about advances in Robotics, see posts of 23 February 2019 and 23 November 2019. I have also recently posted about the research underway to develop a totally artificial form of life similar to that which may have been Earth’s first living creature billions of years ago, see post of 25 September 2021. In this post I’m going to discuss research that has been conducted over the last few years to develop ‘living robots’ called Xenobots, research that has found an entirely new method of reproduction, one that is different from that of any known natural life form.

Built from living stem cells Xenobots (r) are designed (l) to perform simple functions. (Credit: Active8 Robots)

Xenobots are the creation of a group of biologists at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering who teamed with computer and robotics experts at the University of Vermont. Built from the embryonic stem cells of the frog species Xenopus laevis, Xenobots consist of an outer wrapping of skin cells to maintain shape and provide protection with heart muscle cells inside to provide movement. The first Xenobots were announced early in 2020 and had been programmed to perform simple tasks like walk or swim, push objects or carry payloads. The scientists hope to someday fabricate Xenobots that can perform useful functions like gathering up plastic microparticles from the ocean or perhaps be inserted into our bloodstream in order to deliver antibiotics directly to the site of an infection.

The African clawed frog Xenopus laevis. Stem cells from this critter have been used to manufacture living robots. (Credit: Wikipedia)

The Xenobots are designed by a computer algorithm that specifies the placement of both the skin cells and muscle cells in order to carry out the desired function. The actual Xenobot is then assembled biologically from several hundred of the frog cells. The manufactured Xenobots can then survive for several weeks without food and have even been observed to heal themselves after an injury.

Designed by a computer algorithm (top) xenobots can perform simple tasks for up to two weeks, until they starve that is! (Credit: Tom Garrett – Medium)

Now a new ‘species’ of Xenobot, one that looks superficially like the gobbling ‘Pac Man’ character, has been manufactured. This new Xenobot has been designed and assembled in order to gather up several hundred individual frog stem cells and assemble them inside its ‘mouth’. These ‘baby’ Xenobots will, within a few days both resemble and function like its ‘Parent’ Xenobot’. These second generation Xenobots can then go out and repeat the process, gathering up single cells to form grandchild Xenobots.

Designed to move in circles and gather up stem cells the self-replicating xenobots can build a copy of themselves, sort of. (Credit: Popular Science)

This method of reproducing is entirely new, no living creature ‘builds’ its young in this fashion. Single cell organisms split into mother and daughter cell, Multi-cellular creatures either bud asexually or produce offspring by some form of sexual union while viruses reproduce by hijacking a cell’s metabolism and using it to build copies of itself. No known creature in nature gathers up individual cells and assembles then into a copy of itself. According to Joshua Bongard, co-leader of the research at the University of Vermont and a robotics expert, “With the right design…they (the Xenobots) will spontaneously self-replicate.”

Living creatures have evolved many different techniques for reproduction, but the self-replicating xenobots represent an entirely new method unknown in nature. (Credit: Britannica)

Some colleagues of the researchers are not quite so impressed however. They point out that individual frog stem cells will come together and segregate all by themselves without needing a Xenobot to gather them. And the ‘Pac Man’ shaped mouth of the Xenobot actually has to be made surgically by hand in the Xenobots. Perhaps most importantly the ‘baby’ Xenobots produced are smaller than their ‘parents’ because of which the whole process terminates after at most three or four ‘generations’. These facts may make the claims of ‘an entirely new form of reproduction’ seem like a bit too much hype, but even the critics agree that the research being carried out is very interesting. Living organisms are being designed and built to specifications in order to perform desired tasks.

The line between living creatures and manufactured machine is becoming blurry. Is this what Science Fiction called the Cyborg? (Credit: PNews)

Remember that is the goal here, to develop living machines that can help to eliminate plastic microparticles from the oceans, or to swim in our bloodstreams in order to deliver antibiotics directly to an infection. In many ways scientists are now blurring the lines between machine and living creature. Whether it be Artificial Intelligences that can think or Xenobots that can reproduce in the future the choice of mechanical or organic ‘robot’ could depend on the job you need them to do.

New Astrophysics Study proposes another process by which the heaviest elements, such as Gold can be created by Black Holes.

Back in High School we all learned that the objects in our daily life here on Earth are made up of a large number of chemical elements such as oxygen or carbon or iron. We also learned that all of those elements, no matter how different, were themselves made up of only three types of sub-atomic particles the electron, the proton and the neutron. By the way those protons and neutrons are themselves made up of even smaller particles called quarks. At the present time that’s as far down as it goes.

The Periodic Table of the elements, more than 100 different substances, with many different properties, all made from just different combinations of Protons, Neutron and Electrons. (Credit: PubChem)

Now a trillionth of a second after the big bang the Universe was a seething mass of all of the elementary particles that make up what physicists call ‘The Standard Model’. As the Universe expanded and cooled however the quarks combined to form the protons and neutrons. All that took place within the first second after the big bang.

The Standard Model of elementary particles. Physicists think that there is some underlying simplicity beneath this model, like Protons, Neutrons and Electrons for the periodic table, but we haven’t figured it out yet. (Credit: Dreamstime.com)

After that most of the protons just stayed protons becoming hydrogen nuclei so that hydrogen, the simplest element is still the most abundant of all the elements. Later, we think about 2 minutes after the big bang some of the protons and neutrons came together to form helium nuclei. A million years later, as the first stars began to form those were really the only two elements that existed. Before the first stars formed the visible matter in the Universe was about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass. Virtually none of the other elements, like sodium, calcium or copper, were created in the Big Bang.

Our Universe’s baby picture, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). At this point the only chemical elements that existed were Hydrogen and Helium. Where did the rest come from? (Credit: Wikipedia)

So where did all of those elements come from, where did the carbon, oxygen and nitrogen that make up your body come from. Those elements, and many others were made inside of those first stars; they were generated by the fusion reactions that gave energy to those suns. Beginning with fusing hydrogen into helium as a star starts to run out of hydrogen its core becomes hotter and denser so that it begins to fuse helium into carbon and oxygen and then it will fuse carbon and oxygen to make the elements up to iron.

When a star, such as our Sun, reaches the end of its lifetime and is running out of both hydrogen and helium for fuel it starts to expel a large portion of its mass as a planetary nebula like the famous Ring Nebula shown here. This is how the Universe gets most of it’s Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon and other light elements up to Iron. (Credit: Sky and Telescope)

Iron is a dead end however because you can’t get any more energy by fusing iron so the star’s core can no longer fight the force of gravity and begins to collapse while the outer regions explode as a massive supernova. In that titanic detonation enough energy is released to produce some of the heavier elements such as silver, tin or iodine. Even so those elements are far less common in the Universe than are elements lighter than iron like carbon and oxygen.

The Crab Nebula is the remenants of a supernova explosion. There’s a lot of the lighter elements here but also a small amount of the heavier elements. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Then there are the heaviest elements of them all, elements like gold or lead or uranium. While a tiny amount of these substances may be created in supernovas astrophysicists now think that much of the heaviest atomic nuclei are produced in an even rarer cosmic event than a supernova, the merger of two neutron stars. This hypothesis is gaining favour thanks to the data obtained by gravity wave detectors like the Ligo experiment that have actually observed neutron star mergers.

With our new Gravity Wave Observatories astronomers can now study the mergers of two neutron stars. Theoretical studies indicate this is another source for even the heaviest elements. (Credit: Forbes)

Now a research group at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt Germany, in cooperation with scientists in Belgium and Japan have conducted computer simulations showing how even the heaviest elements could also be produced in the accretion disks that form around black holes. According to Doctor Oliver Just, an astrophysicist and member of the group, “In our study, we systematically investigated for the first time the conversion rates of neutrons and protons for a large number of disk configurations by means of elaborate computer simulations and we found that the disks are very rich in neutrons as long as certain conditions are met.” Which is a fancy way of saying the heaviest chemical elements could be produced in a black hole’s accretion disk.

First ever image of a Black Hole taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. What you’re actually seeing here is the accretion disk around the Black Hole itself. A new study proposes that the accretion disk of Black Holes may be a source for heavy elements. (Credit: Wikipedia)

As matter is drawn into the black hole from the accretion disk the release of energy is so great that some matter escapes before it enters the black hole. This escaping matter could therefore produce a small but constant output of heavy elements.

As matter is pulled into the Black Hole from its accretion disk so much energy is released that a small amount escapes from the polar regions at relativistic speeds. (Credit: Space.com)

At the moment this is just a hypothetical simulation but certainly the accretion disk of a black hole is a location where there is enough energy being released to produce even the heaviest elements. More data from observations of accretion disks is needed so that the group can refine their simulations and fortunately that data is now becoming available thanks to the work of the Event Horizon Telescope,the astronomers who two years ago released the first actual picture of a black hole. See my post of 17 April 2019.

Signals from radio telescopes around the world were combined to produce a single telescope thousands of kilometers in diameter. This ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ took the first ever image of a Black Hole. (Credit: www.ru.nl)

Where the chemical elements came from is a question that scientists have asked since the idea of atoms and elements was first suggested. Today we know a great deal, but there’s still much more to learn.

Space News for November 2021.

Lot’s going on this month in both manned and robotic spaceflight, so let’s get to it.

In manned spaceflight the big news this month was the scheduled crew rotation on the International Space Station (ISS) between Commercial Crew 2 and 3 using Space X’s crew Dragon capsule. It speaks to the efficiency of Space X as a provider of manned access to Low Earth Orbit (LOE) that the media had to look hard for a couple of small problems in order to have something to talk about in what is becoming a routine operation.

Space X Dragon Capsule carrying NASA’s Crew 3 arrives at the International Space Station. (Credit: Space News)

The first problem was simply a bit of bad weather at the Kennedy Launch Center in Florida that caused the takeoff of the Crew 3 mission to be delayed more than a week from its initial date of the 31st of October to the 10th of November. Once the weather cleared however the Falcon 9 rocket, carrying three NASA astronauts and one from the European Union, roared to life shortly after 9PM EST. After a flawless flight of about 22 hours the capsule docked successfully at the ISS where the four astronauts will now spend the next six months. Crew 3 is now the fifth manned mission for the Hawthorn California based Space Corporation who has now sent 18 people into space without any serious problems.

Space X Mission Control in Hawthorn California. It’s from here that all Dragon missions, manned and unmanned are directed. (Credit: CNN)

There was also one little problem with the return flight of the Crew 2 mission and the press tried to get some fun out of it. Back in September the Space X Inspiration 4 tourist flight ran into a little difficulty with the Dragon capsule’s toilet, apparently the fan stopped working intermittently and during the three-day mission the toilet leaked a bit of urine. Space X quickly made some modifications to the Crew 3 capsule before it’s flight but the Crew 2 capsule was already in LOE docked at the ISS so when Crew 2 came back to Earth they were ordered to wear diapers during the day long return flight, just in case.

The toilet aboard the Crew Dragon capsule doesn’t allow for a great deal of privacy! (Credit: The New York Times)

Before you start feeling sorry for the Crew 2 astronauts it’s worth pointing out that back in the early days of spaceflight during the two man Gemini Program the Gemini 7 crew of Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent a then record 14 days in space without any toilet of any kind. The two astronauts admit that by the time they splashed down they smelled pretty bad. That was the norm for all of the Gemini missions. Even today if an astronaut is going outside for a 6-8 hour EVA they will were a diaper.

Two weeks living in a capsule with the volume of a phone booth. Astronauts Borman (r) and Lovell (l) would have loved to have had a leaky toilet! (Credit: NASA)

But the Crew 2 mission did come to a successful completion at 10:33 PM EST on November 9th. The four astronauts splashed down in the gulf coast of Florida after more than 200 days in orbit. Again, the fact that all the press could find to talk about was a leaky toilet is an indication of just how routine spaceflight into LOE has become.

Recovery of the Crew 2 Dragon capsule in the waters off Florida. (Credit: Space.Com)

And while the Crew 3 astronauts were settling in to their new home in LOE on Mars the little helicopter that could is still going strong. The Ingenuity helicopter, the first human built aircraft to fly on another planet, has now completed its 13th flight, after only being expected to carry out five. This latest flight lasted a full 160 seconds and according to a space agency spokesman “stands out as one of Ingenuity’s most complicated.”

Snapshot taken by the Perseverance rover during Ingenuity’s 13th flight on Mars. (Credit: YouTube)

So far the little helicopter has been able to keep up with the Perseverance rover as it treks across Mar’s Jezero crater, the aircraft acting as an aerial scout for the bigger rover. Just how much longer the little helicopter will be able to perform is unknown but Ingenuity has already gone from being just a technical demonstration to an integral part of the Perseverance rover’s mission to explore Mars.

Working as a team the Perseverance Rover can examine any interesting rocks formations spotted by the Ingenuity helicopter. (Credit: Business Insider)

And speaking of technical demonstrations the DART spacecraft was successfully launched aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket from Vanderberg Air Force Base in California at 1:20 AM EST on the 24th of November. The DART or Dual Asteroid Redirect Test is a NASA mission designed as a first test for possible techniques to defend our planet against an impact from an asteroid.

Launch of the DART spacecraft aboard another Space X Falcon 9 rocket! (Credit: SciTechDaily)

As I discussed in my post of 28th December 2019, the DART spacecraft will travel to the asteroid Didymos, which is orbited by a much smaller asteroid called Dimorphos. The object of the mission is for the DART spacecraft to literally slam into Dimorphos at more than 20,000 kph and hopefully deflect the asteroid’s orbit enough to be observed by Earth based telescopes.

The Mission of the DART spacecraft is to crash head long into an asteroid in an effeort to change the asteroid’s path. (Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Labouratory)

The impact is currently scheduled to take place in late 2022 although determining just how much the smaller asteroid’s path has been changed by the collision may take years to measure. NASA is presently tracking some 2200 asteroid’s that could potentially strike the Earth so that hopefully if any of them are headed our way we would have many years warning. In that case only a minute change in the asteroid’s velocity, years before a collision, would be enough to make it pass by our planet harmlessly.

There are literally thousands of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids out there in our Solar System. Here are the obits of a few. (Credit: Futurism)

Finally, the results of yet another demonstration test by a spacecraft in LOE have been published and in the long run it could prove to be more important that Ingenuity or DART. Last year, in November 2020 a 20kg CubeSat designated NPT30-I2 was placed into orbit. Built by a small aerospace company named ThrustMe the satellite was designed as a test bed for a new design of Ion Propulsion Engine that uses the element Iodine as it fuel.

The Spacecraft Propulsion System you can hold in your hand. The Iodine fueled NPT30-I2 Ion Engine it a big step forward in developing the spacecraft of the future. (Credit: Air and Cosmos)

All previous ion rocket engines, whether used in interplanetary probes such as NASA’s Dawn mission or Japan’s Hayabusa, or as station keeping thrusters for satellites in Earth orbit have employed Xenon gas as their fuel because Xenon is both easy to ionize and since Xenon has a heavy nucleus you get a good push from the gas. But Xenon gas is hard to contain, requiring heavy pressure vessels to store so scientists have been searching for a better fuel. Iodine has many of the same characteristics as Xenon, but it can be stored as a solid, greatly reducing the necessary weight and Iodine is significantly less expensive than Xenon as well.

The amount of thrust you can get from an ion engine is very small but it can continue to fire for literally years making them much more powerful than any type of chemical rocket. (Credit: ThrustMe)

The data published in the journal Nature clearly shows that NPT30-I2 performed well, carrying out its ordered maneuvers with greater efficiency than a comparable Xenon ion thruster. Iodine has its problems as well however; it can be very corrosive so a ceramic container is required to keep it from damaging other equipment. Also, since the Iodine must be converted into a gas before it can be ionized the thruster is not as responsive as one using Xenon as a fuel.

   With each new demonstration that shows promise, and with each success of new technology our ability to live and work in space grows.