Astronomers think that they have finally solved the mystery of ‘Fast Radio Bursts’ (FRBs), and what are FRBs anyway?

Go out some clear night and look up at the night sky, it’s much better if you can get away from big city lights by the way. If you think about it there really aren’t that many different types of objects up there. Aside from the Moon, if it’s out, all there really is up there are a lot of points of light, stars. O’k some stars are certainly brighter than others, and if you look closely it is easy to see that there are some stars with distinct colour to them. Nevertheless, from here on Earth the Universe just looks like a lot of points of light, a lot of stars.

The night sky may look beautiful, but there really don’t appear to be a lot of different types of objects. Appearances can be deceptive however. (Credit: Forbes)

Of course we all know that’s not true. With the invention of the telescope we quickly learned that stars and planets are very different. We also learned that some stars are giants while some are dwarfs.

The visual differences between the stars is summed up in the Hertzsprung Russell Diagram. (Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory)

Then, as new types of telescopes were invented, other stranger kinds of objects were discovered. Radio telescopes discovered both quasars and pulsars while X-ray telescopes discovered black holes. One very unusual discovery was made when CIA spy satellites were the first to observe Gamma Ray bursts.

Quasars are the brightest steady objects in the Universe. They are now known to actually be a supermassive Black Hole in the center of a galaxy that is feasting on nearby stars, releasing some of that energy. (Credit: Hubble Space Telescope)

Based upon the observations from those telescopes astrophysicists then had to figure out what those objects actually were. Quasars for example turned out to be supermassive black holes in the centers of distant galaxies that are devouring nearby stars and releasing some of that energy feast. Pulsars are the remains of stars that went supernova, been crushed down into neutron stars and are emitting radio waves like a lighthouse. Gamma Ray Bursts on the other hand are caused by giant stars collapsing into black holes.

A Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) is even brighter than a Quasar but it only lasts for a few seconds. When a supermassive star explodes as a supernova some of its energy is released as gamma rays creating the GRB.

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are the newest member of the cosmic zoo. Now FRBs are exactly what they sound like.  Without any warning a powerful burst of radio waves occurs that only lasts for a tiny fraction of a second. Transient events like FRBs are a curse to scientists because you’re never looking right at it when it happens, and by the time you say ‘what was that’ and turn around to look at it it’s gone.

The Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Large reflector dishes such as Parkes can only observe a small region of the sky at any one time. That’s what makes finding transient objects such as an FRB so difficult. (Credit: Square Kilometre Array)

In fact the very first FRB was actually ‘discovered’ in an analysis of old data from the Parkes Observatory in Australia. The data had been collected in 2001 but the FRB wasn’t recognized until 2007. Then it wasn’t until the 15th of January in 2015 that an FRB was detected live, also at Parkes Observatory. Canada’s new Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope, which unlike other radio telescopes is designed to have a wide field of view, has detected dozens of FRBs since it first went online in 2018.

The CHIME telescope in Canada is a different type of radio telescope that has a wider field of view. That now makes it the go-to instrument for studying FRBs. (Credit: Phys.org)

One of the few things that we do known about FRBs is that the most common frequencies of the burst are from around 800-1400 Mega-Hertz (MHz), that’s not to far from the frequencies used by your cellphone. Also, when astronomers say fast they mean really fast, each event being a single spike of radio waves lasting no more than a few milli-seconds. And because FRBs are scattered evenly across our sky, rather than being concentrated along the Milky Way, they must come from intergalactic space, perhaps as far away as billions of light years. At those enormous distances the energy released during those few milliseconds must be more than our Sun emits over the course of more than a dozen years.

A typical observation of an FRB. The burst releases different amounts of power at different frequencies but the entire event only last a few milli-seconds. (Credit: Daily Mail)

The mystery of FRBs has generated a lot of attention in the astronomy field and with all of that interest it’s not surprising that new discoveries are being made every year. A few FRBs have been discovered that are irregular repeaters, that is they have erupted more than once but without a predictable pattern. On the other hand FRB 180916 has been found to repeat on a schedule of once every 16.35 days. (By the way FRBs are numbered by the year, month and day they were first observed hence FRB 180916 was observed on the 16th of September in 2018.)

Just this past April an FRB was definitively detected as coming from inside our own galaxy and astronomers believe that they can even identify the source as the known object magnetar SGR 1935+2154 which is located in the constellation Vulpecula at a distance of about 30,000 light years. This is significant because some astrophysicists have been promoting magnetars as a possible source for FRBs for the past several years.

A magnetar is the dead corpse of a star that blew up as a supernova. The remaining core has been chrushed so small that its magnetic fiend is super intensified! (Credit: Quanta Magazine)

Now magnetars are the dead corpses of massive stars that exploded as supernovas. What remains after that explosion is an object about as massive as our Sun crushed down to the size of a city, an object so dense that it has become composed mainly of neutrons, a neutron star. As the star was squeezed its magnetic field also got compressed. But while compressing a magnetic field may decrease its size it also increases its intensity and a neutron star with a particularly strong magnetic field is given the special name of magnetar.

But wait, didn’t I say near the top of this post that neutron stars are also known as pulsars. Yes indeed, in fact all of these creatures are so closely related that astrophysicists argue all of the time where one class ends and another begins, in fact many neutron stars may be both pulsars and magnetars at the same time.

Pulsars also are the dead core of supernovas, and they also have very strong magnetic fields. So is there any real difference between a pulsar and a magnetar? Perhaps not very much. (Credit: Pinterest)

And just because one FRB has been identified as coming from a magnetar doesn’t mean that they all do. There may be even more exotic animals in the cosmic zoo that are as yet completely unknown such as dark matter particles or even cosmic strings. So far we’ve figured out a bit about FRBs but there’s still a lot more to learn. But then isn’t that the whole fun of astronomy!

Pharmaceutical Giant Pfizer has released initial data on its Covid-19 vaccine. The Vaccine is safe and more than 90% effective but there’s some bad news as well.

Over the past month the news about the Covid-19 pandemic has just gone from bad to worse. Currently the daily increase in the number of cases has climbed above 100,000 while the death rate has risen to over 1,000 a day. Hospitalizations are surging and if the trend continues medical facilities in many states will soon be overwhelmed, possibly resulting in the deaths of many people who could have been saved if adequate medical care had been available.

Will this image of the Covid-19 virus become a new symbol of death for our age? (Credit: FDA)
As more and more Covid patients are hospitalized will we be forced to start rationing medical care? (Credit: Bloomberg)

It was hardly surprising therefore that the release of the initial data from the Phase 3 trial of Pfizer corporation’s Covid-19 vaccine was proclaimed throughout the media as something close to a divine miracle. In fact the news was good, better than expected. Of the 44,000 people who participated in the trial none showed any sign of harm that could be attributed to the vaccine.

More importantly the preliminary estimate for the effectiveness of the vaccine was calculated at more than 90%. Now it’s important to understand how that estimate is derived. First of all, only half of the 44,000 volunteers actually got the vaccine, the other 22,000 were given a placebo. Then, over the course of more than three months 94 of the participants tested positive for Covid-19 but 90% of those who tested positive were from the placebo group while less than 10% were from the group that had received the vaccine. Statistically that implies that Pfizer’s vaccine provides immunity to Covid-19 to more than 90% of those who receive it.

Stages of Vaccine development. Pfizer and Moderna are nearing the end of Phase III and are hoping to obtain FDA approval for wide distribution of their vaccine soon. (Credit: IndianYug)

While the full testing isn’t over yet, Pfizer hopes to have enough data to be able to ask the FDA for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the end of November. If that EUA is granted then Pfizer could begin to supply as many as 20 million doses of their vaccine by the end of the year with more to come in the first months of 2021.

Basic outline of the distribution plan for the Covid-19 vaccine once approved. (Credit: WTVD)

Other drug companies are also nearing the conclusion of their vaccine testing. Just this last Monday the drug company Moderna has announced initial results showing that their vaccine is 94.5% effective. And like Pfizer, Moderna hopes to ask the FDA for an EUA by the end of November. This progress is generating real hope that enough people could be vaccinated by next May or June to finally bring this horrendous disease under control.

That’s the good news; there are a few potential problems as well. The big one is going to be transportation, distribution and administration of the vaccine. You see in order to maintain its effectiveness the Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at a temperature of -70ºC (-94ºF), and while many vaccines need to be kept cool, -70ºC is unusually cold. So cold in fact that very few refrigerated trucks are capable of such a low temperature, which will make transportation difficult. At the same time your personal physician or local pharmacy is unlikely to have the refrigeration necessary to keep a supply of the vaccine on hand. So the question becomes, how is the vaccine going to get to you? This is the big reason why it will take almost half a year to get enough people vaccinated to make a difference.

Most Vaccines need to be stored at low temperatures but Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine needs to be kept very cold. (Credit: Financial Times)

Longer term there is also the question of how long will the immunity provided by Pfizer’s, or any vaccine last. Individual cases of people becoming infected with Covid-19 a second time have been cropping up now for months and studies have indicated that the anti-bodies produced by our bodies start to decay after only a few months. Currently epidemiologists are coming to the conclusion that it may be necessary for people to get vaccinated for Covid-19 every year, just like your yearly flu shot.

Getting a yearly Flu shot has become a routine part of many people’s lives. Will a yearly Covid shot have to become one as well? (Credit: Harvard Health – Harvard University)

Finally there are the ongoing difficulties of those people who needed to be hospitalized because of Covid-19 and survived, but whom months later have still not fully recovered. These patients have been given the designation of Covid-19 ‘Long Haulers’ and the question of just how long the disease will continue to impact their health is at present totally unknown. There are now tens of thousands of these unfortunate people, and more are joining this ill-fated group everyday.

So many people are suffering from long term effects of Covid-19 that they are even beginning to establish support groups. (Credit: Fox13)

There has even been speculation in the media that, assuming the ‘pre-existing conditions’ statue in Obamacare is struck down, Health Insurance Companies may try to classify anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19 as having a pre-existing condition. Just a few more ways in which Covid-19 may still be harming people years from now. Humanity has been suffering from the Covid-19 epidemic for almost a year now and even if the development of the first safe and effective vaccine is a big step forward there is still going to be a lot more suffering to come. We can only hope that the scientists who are studying Covid-19 now can learn enough lessons to enable us to handle the next pandemic better.

Book Review: The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays, by Arthur George.

Let’s be honest, we humans like to celebrate, we like to have a good time and we’re always looking for a reason, any reason to party. Now some of the reasons we celebrate are quite personal, it’s my birthday or it’s our wedding anniversary. Others are special for a small group of people; perhaps your bowling team just won the league championship. And of course there are the special days set aside every year for an entire population, either national or religious, to come together as a community and reaffirm the bonds that they all share. Those days are called holidays and some of them are historical in nature while others are our way of marking the changes in the seasons as we go through the year. Both kinds of holidays do have one thing in common however, we have mythologized them to the extent that sometimes it is difficult to decide where reality ends and mythmaking begins.

Let’s be honest, we humans will take any excuse to celebrate! (Credit: Pinterest)

That’s where ‘The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays’ by Arthur George comes in. Starting, as our year does, with the celebrations for New Year’s Day Mr. George examines Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Carnival or Mardi Gras, Easter, May Day, Independence Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving before finally concluding with Christmas.

Cover of ‘The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays’ by Arthur George. (Credit: Target)

For each holiday in turn Mr. George follows basically the same methodology, beginning with the origins of each holiday. The ancient festivals of Greco-Roman, Celtic, Hebrew and Germanic cultures are scrutinized, as is early American history. The festivals of these cultures provide the clues as to why a particular American holiday exists in the first place along with why it is celebrated at the time of year that it is. Following the growth of each holiday from its roots to the present day Mr. George then goes on to highlight how the various rituals associated with each developed.

The Classical Romans liked to enjoy themselves and celebrated many holidays both private and public. (Credit: Nova Roma)
The ancient Gaels (Irish) celebrated the end of the year at Samhain (Sow-Ween) which today we continue to celebrate as Halloween. (Credit: Reuters)

Of course many, perhaps most of our holidays are rooted in nature. The renewal of life every spring along with the end of the growing season in the fall are obvious examples but Mr. George shows in detail how even Groundhog’s day and May Day have for thousands of years been observed in connection with the yearly cycle of the Earth. At the same time other holidays, more political in nature still tend acquire features over time that relate to the time of year in which they occur, a picnic or baseball game on the 4th of July for instance.

The Maypole has been used to celebrate the beginning of new life at spring for thousands of years. (Credit: Omilights)

While the mythology surrounding religious festivals is well recognized Mr. George also succeeds in illustrating the legends associated with our secular holidays as well. From the figure of Lady Liberty to the fact that the phrase ‘The First Thanksgiving’ was only coined some 200 years after the event it was used to describe Mr. George clearly shows how we humans like to embroider the truth around those days we consider important.

Out Lady Liberty is actually MUCH older than the USA. She has a clear relation to the Roman Goddess Libertas. (Credit: Ancient Pages)

More than that however, Mister George also delves into the psychological aspects of our holidays. In the book he also investigates the emotional benefits we humans derive from celebrating the renewal of vegetation in the spring or the shortest day of the year, December 25th. In ancient Rome, the Winter Solstice was known as the ‘Birthday of the Sun’, which of course eventually became Christmas, the birthday of the son of god.

December 25th was also the birthday of the Persian God Mithra whose worship spread throughout the Roman world in the years just before Christianity gained control. (Credit: Britannica)

I do have two very small complaints about “The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays’. One is that on several occasions Mister George limits himself with only covering the highlights of how a particular holiday developed. The reader often gets a distinct feeling that he could say a lot more if he wanted. At the same time the narrow focus on American holidays is quite arbitrary, comparisons to modern holidays in other countries are completely absent. I think that both problems stem from Mr. George’s desire to prevent the size of the book from getting too large, which books on mythology often do.

People in other parts of the World like to celebrate just as much as Americans. Mr. George could have spent a bit of time discussing those holidays. (Credit: Afro Tourism)

Nevertheless ‘The Mythology of America’s Seasonal Holidays’ is both an interesting and enjoyable book. If you want a better understanding of how much of our national culture began and grew, Mr. George’s book belongs in your library.

Can the Proteus Project revive interest in humans living beneath the Sea? Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of Jacques Yves Cousteau is betting it can.

Back on the 26th of October 2019 I published a post about how, during the 1960s there was a considerable effort made to develop the technologies that would allow human beings to live and work at the bottom of the Ocean. As I was growing up it seemed to me that the efforts of those aquanauts paralleled in some ways those of the astronauts in outer space, both seeking to explore and colonize new frontiers for the human race. And like the space race, during the 1970s public interest in living beneath the sea plummeted. However while manned space travel limped along for the next few decades stuck in Low Earth Orbit (LOE), efforts to colonize the oceans virtually disappeared.

Mercury Astronaut AND Sealab Aquanaut Scott Carpenter epitomized the exploration of ‘the new fronteir during the 60s. (Credit: Diving Almanac)

To me it’s not surprising therefore that even as NASA plans for a return to the Moon in the next half dozen years or so there is also renewed interest in exploring and settling the ocean depths. And one of the leading figures in this revival of ocean exploration has a lot of family tradition backing him up. He’s Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of Jacques Yves Cousteau, the engineer and oceanographer who designed and developed the Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or SCUBA gear and who on his ship the Calypso brought the mysteries of the sea into our living rooms through his documentaries “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.”

Musician John Denver, with guitar, partying aboard Calypso with Jacques Cousteau, far left. (Credit: Blue Ocean Network)

Now during the early 1960s Jacques Cousteau had personally organized and led the Conshelf Project that consisted of three separate manned habitats on the seafloor. In 1962 Conshelf 1 allowed two men to live for a week at a depth of 10m off of the Southern coast of France. Conshelf 2 followed in 1963 with six men living for a month at 10m in the Red Sea. Conshelf 3 in 1965 was the most ambitious with six men living at a depth of 100m for three weeks.

The two main structures of Conshelf 2 waiting to be installed on the seafloor. The starfish like structure on the right is the living quarters while the round house on the left is the garage for a two man mini-sub. (Credit: Medium)
Artist’s illustration of the interior of Conshelf 3. (Credit: Medium)

With that kind of family history you would expect that Fabien’s proposed undersea habitat would be both ambitious and well conceived. Project Proteus, named for a Greek sea god who was the son of Poseidon, is really a scaled up version of Conshelf 2 in that the main structure will be at a depth of 20m off of the coast of the island of Curacao in the Caribbean.

Designed to have more than 350 square meters of living space, Proteus will be a two-story structure housing a crew of twelve. Unlike previous underwater habitats where scientists would collect samples and data to be studied at a later time in labouratories on land Cousteau intends for Proteus to have enough space for a full sized, state of the art labouratory of its own.

Artist’s illustration of the planned design for Project Proteus)
The face of a man with a vision. Fabien Cousteau’s Proteus Project isn’t lacking for daring, it’s just needs money! (Credit: Science / How Stuff Works)

The estimated price tag for the construction of Proteus along with the first three years of operation is $135 million US dollars, which Cousteau and his team are currently busy trying to raise. Cousteau is promoting Proteus as an International Space Station (ISS) for underwater research and like the ISS it is planned that Proteus will be permanently manned with groups of scientists coming to stay for a period of weeks or months and then being relieved by other scientists. 

Will Proteus become a long term science research station in an alien environment? Only time will tell. (Credit: Wikipedia)

In addition to studying the sea bottom as a large scale, long term habitat Proteus will also enable scientists and engineers to identify and solve some of the many problems humans face living in the oceans. For example, in an underwater home you can’t cook using an open flame, it would quickly use up all of your oxygen. At the same time stepping outdoors simply isn’t as easy as it is from any home on land. If humans are ever going to establish permanent settlements in the seas these and many other technical problems are going to have to be solved. And we need to solve them because in the years to come we are going to have to make better use of our ocean’s resources, while at the same better protecting all of the many creatures living there.

Just as the development of agriculture did 20,000 years ago, the farming of the seas has the potential to transform the way we live. (Credit: New Atlas)

Back in the 1960s it was said that since all life had come from the sea originally, so by exploring the oceans we were just returning to our ancient home. The Proteus project, like the ISS now in orbit, could be our first real home in a new world. 

Is there a ‘Wild West / Pioneer mentality? A new study by Psychologists provides evidence that there just may be.

Many people picture John Wayne or some other cowboy star as the archetype of the rugged, self assured, always ready to stand up for what he thought was right American. This myth of the pioneer individualist wasn’t created by Hollywood; in fact it at least dates back to the days of James Fennimore Cooper and his character Hawkeye in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’. Still Hollywood built on that image, making the ‘Wild West’ the natural environment where America’s national character both evolved and flourished.

Like it or hate it, images like this just scream American! (Credit: Roger Ebert)
Check out the resemblances between Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ and John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in ‘Stagecoach’. (Credit: Graphic Arts – Princeton University)

Historically frontier regions have been known to attract people who were not only seeking a better life but a life less constrained by the rules and mores of society. In order to survive in such harsh, lonely conditions those settlers had to be not so much strong in a physical sense but resilient and adaptable. The question today would be, are those traits still present in the descendants of those pioneers one hundred years after the close of the frontier.

Does building a new life in an unpopulated wilderness require a certain type of person or breed them? Probably both! (Credit: Boston University)

So is there actually such a type of person, psychologically speaking that is, and how would we go about measuring the traits of the sort of person who exemplifies the pioneer spirit? And where would you find such a person today?

Psychologists at the University of Cambridge have attempted to do just that. Using the results of an online personality test completed by over 3.3 million Americans they employed the respondents zip codes to separate out those who lived in rugged, mountainous regions, such as the Rocky Mountains from their lower altitude, more comfortably urban neighbors. By comparing the two populations the researchers hoped to discover if the people living in harsh, unpopulated surroundings actually developed a distinct personality.

Even today living in the Rocky Mountains is rustic and can certainly generate a feeling of isolation. (Credit: Pinterest)

To carry out their analysis the researchers assessed the results of the psychological testing using a standard psychological model known as the ‘Big Five’ for five fundamental personality traits. Included in the big five model are such characteristics as ‘Agreeableness’, ‘Extraversion’, ‘Conscientiousness’, ‘Neuroticism’ and ‘Openness to Experience’.

‘Big Five’ personality traits in Psychology. As an experiment try rating yourself in these terms. (Credit: Simple Psychology)

When the inhabitants of the Rocky Mountains were evaluated according to those categories they demonstrated low levels of ‘Agreeableness’, ‘Extraversion’ and ‘Conscientiousness’. These results indicate a personality that is marked by a lack of trust, more territorial, more self reliant and rebellious. On average the Rocky Mountain residents also showed low values of ‘Neuroticism’ showing a more secure, less neurotic mental state, which would give them the mental stability to deal with problems on their own, without any help from others. Finally they showed high values for ‘Openness to Experience’ showing that Mountain folk also have to be ready to accept new situations and do whatever it takes to survive.

People in the Rockies aren’t without culture but it’s their own culture. (Credit: Twitter)

The psychologists separately analyzed the results from respondents who lived in the Appalachian Mountain regions, which were settled just about a hundred years before the Rockies, to see if there were any significant differences between the two groups of mountain dwellers. The scientists found that while the psychology of the residents of Appalachia were similar to those in the Rockies the eastern mountain inhabitants displayed more ‘Agreeableness’ and less ‘Openness to Experience’.  Could this mean that the frontier attitude lessens with time. That as a region becomes more settled, even if it remains less densely populated, the inhabitants of mountainous areas will become psychologically more similar to their low land, urbanite neighbors? That’s a question that only more data and further analysis can answer.

The similarities between the people of the Rockies and Appalachians are easy to spot but the differences are important as well. (Credit: YouTube)

What the results of the University of Cambridge do show is that the environment in which we choose to live says a great deal about our personality. And in return of course that environment will have its evolutionary effect on us. Just one more way of saying that we are a part of our environment.

Paleontology News for November 2020, two new studies look at the causes and effects of the Permian extinction, the greatest mass dying in the history of Earth.

The asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago may get more press coverage but when it comes to the biggest extinction event of all time the Permian extinction of 252 million yeas ago has no rival. More than 70% of all land species and 95% of all marine species disappeared within the space of just a few thousand years. And even those species that lived through the extinction must have suffered an unimaginable loss of individuals, leaving the entire Earth an almost lifeless, barren planet.

Along with thousands of other types of living creatures the Permian extinction killing off the last of the Trilobites! (Credit: Science Alert)

Unlike the Cretaceous extinction, which most paleontologists now agree was caused by an asteroid or comet striking our planet; the exact cause of the Permian extinction has been more controversial. The majority opinion is that it was triggered by a massive volcanic outbreak in the region of Russia known as the Siberian Traps. It is thought that the massive amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants released by the volcanoes caused tremendous changes in the climate leading to the massive dying. Sound familiar!

Massive volcanic eruptions certainly contributed to the destruction at the end of the Permian but were they the only cause? (Credit: Sci-News.com)
Geological maps of the Siberian Traps region. The huge extent of volcanic rock must have been caused by massive eruptions unlike anything seen on Earth since. (Credit: Saturian Cosmology)

Now a new study by scientists with the European Union funded BASE-LiNE Earth project have been able to outline a blow-by-blow description of the sequence of events that took place 252 million years ago. According to their website the BASE-LiNE Earth project is “… an international training, research and career development network for highly motivated young scientists…” The goal of BASE-LiNE Earth is to “…extend the knowledge on the complex and long-term Phanerozoic seawater history…” In other words the BASE-LiNE Earth scientists hope to use the latest scientific tools to learn more about the conditions in Earth’s oceans throughout the past half billion or more years.

Some of the members of the Base-LiNE Earth Project. (Credit: Base-LiNE Earth)

One of the sources of information that the BASE-LiNE Earth researchers hope to use is the fossilized shells of the marine invertebrates known as brachiopods. These small bivalved creatures are among the earliest animals to develop hard parts and since their shells were produced using the substances in the oceans at the time they lived those fossilized shells still carry the chemical traces of the composition of those ancient waters. By the way, although brachiopods superficially resemble clams in possessing two shells the animal inside those shells was very different, coming from an entirely different phylum.

It’s easy to recognize a brachiopod from a clam because each brachiopod shell is symmetric while it’s only when you put the two clam shells together that you get symmetry. (Credit: Skeptical Squirrel)

Back in the period of Earth’s history before the Permian extinction brachiopods greatly outnumbered clams, dominating the ecosystem of every ocean in the world making them the most common type of fossil from that early period of life. Therefore using brachiopod shells as time capsules of conditions from right before and during the Permian extinction makes perfect sense.

A few species of Brachiopod did survive the Permian extinction but today they are very rare. I have thousands of fossil brachiopod but I’ve never seen a live one! (Credit: www.baseline-earth.eu)

Using well-preserved shells of brachiopods collected from the mountains in the Southern Alps BASE-LiNE team leader Dr. Hana Jurikova was able to determine the pH of the oceans during the course of the Permian extinction. pH of course is a measure of acidity which is directly tied to the amount of carbon-dioxide dissolve in water. Now ocean acidification by itself is deadly to many marine organisms like brachiopods because it reacts with the calcium in their shells weakening and dissolving them. Harming if not actually killing the animal inside. And as we are all aware today the amount of carbon dioxide is also directly linked to the global temperature. So the fossilized shell of an ancient brachiopod can tell us a lot about the world’s temperature 252 million years ago.

Some brachiopod fossils. Since the animal that made them used chemicals absorbed from the seawater in which they lived these shells contain information about the oceans millions of years ago. (Credit : Illinois State Geological Survey)

So the question becomes, did the massive volcanic eruptions of the Siberian Traps release enough carbon dioxide to cause the Permian extinction by itself or were there other factors involved as well? On the basis of their analysis of fossilized brachiopods the BASE-LiNE Earth study team concluded that amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s oceans and atmosphere was more than sufficient to caused the great dying. If this result holds up it will mean that the smoking gun for the greatest killing in the history of Earth has at last been found.

And if the greatest mass extinction of life on Earth was due to nothing more than carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere what lesson does that hold of us today. It is true that the fossil fuels we burn for energy aren’t releasing as much carbon dioxide as the Siberian Traps did but hey, we’ve only been at it a 150 years or so. The Permian extinction was just a random act of nature but the extinction event we are causing now will be the work of our own selfishness and stupidity.

If a massive release of CO2 caused the greatest extinction event in Earth’s history you have to ask yourself, are we causing another? (Credit: Scientific American)

But some life did survive the Permian extinction and as the environmental conditions slowly returned to normal those survivors found themselves in an almost empty world, but a world of opportunity. In many ways the whole world was like the newly formed Galapagos islands where only a few creatures were able to colonize and diversify and evolve into many new kinds of animals, like dinosaurs, birds and mammals.

Some of the earliest mammals, known as synapsids, looked more like reptiles but there is evidence that immediately after the Permian extinction some were already developing hair and other more mammalian features. (Credit: Morgan’s Lists)

In fact a new study by Professor Mike Benton and Masters Student Tai Kubo at the University of Bristol in the UK now asserts that it in the period immediately after the Permian extinction that warm-blooded animals first evolved and spread. Professor Benton and Mr. Kubo base their conclusion on an analysis of hundreds of fossilized trackways of four legged vertebrates, reptiles both immediately before and after the Permian event.

What the footprints revealed is a major change in the gait of creatures as they walked. Before the Permian the trackways they found had the left and right feet spread far apart, a gait typical of an animal with a sprawled posture where the legs come out from the side of the body. Such an anatomy is typical of a slow moving cold-blooded animal such as an alligator or lizard. See image below.

The trackways of animals after the Permian extinction indicate a major evolutionary change in the anatomy. (Credit: University of Bristol)

Immediately after the Permian extinction however a new kind of trackway appeared, one where the right and left footprints were much closer together, almost in a line. Such a gait indicates that the animal’s legs come straight down from the body, an anatomy more similar to that of a modern dog or horse, the anatomy of fast moving, warm-blooded animals.

Benton and Kubo recognized that this change occurred in two major groups of reptiles, the synapsids and archosaurs, the ancestors of mammals and dinosaurs/birds respectively. While there had been some evidence of the presence of hair in the synapsids from this time period the work of Benton and Kubo represents the earliest evidence for warm blood in the archosaurs.

The Archosaurs eventually develop into both the Dinosaurs and Birds. (Credit: Britannica Kids)

Of course Professor Benton and Mr. Kubo are assuming that an upright posture is a definitive sign of an animal’s being warm blooded, which may be going a bit too far. While in modern animals the two characteristics may be intimately linked was that true 250 million years ago?

Still the study carried out by the paleontologists is further evidence that mass extinctions, however terrible to the creatures that experience them, can also open up new opportunities for evolution to make great leaps forward. A reminder that, without those mass dyings, we ourselves would not be here.

New study published that details evidence that not only did humans Evolve into what we are today, but that we’re still Evolving.

Oftentimes when you hear someone describing the process of evolution they will say something like “We evolved from the Animals”. Sort of making it sound as if the whole purpose of evolution was to get to us so that now that we’re here evolution is over!

The Standard image of Human Evolution makes it all seem as if we were the preordained result. This cartoon version of reality ignores that fact that evolution is still an ongoing process. (Credit: Daily Mail)

O’k maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but in general we humans don’t think of evolution as something that’s still going on inside of us. Well a new study by Doctor Jaliya Kumaratilake of the University of Adelaide along with Professor Maciej Henneberg and Dr. Teghan Lucas at Flinders University has detailed an anatomic change in the bodies of a large section of the population over the last 150 years. The study, which was published in the ‘Journal of Anatomy’, concerns the arteries that supply blood to our forearms.

The Human Arterial System supplies both oxygen and food to all of the cells of our body. (Credit: ThoughtCo)

Let me back up a bit and explain. You see when our forearms first begin to develop as a fetus in our mother’s womb they are each supplied with blood by a single artery known as the median artery. As our forearms become more fully developed two other arteries grow, one on each side of the median artery known as the radial and ulnar arteries and as those arteries mature the median artery disappears, in most people.

A most mature adults the only two arteries in the forearm are the Radial and Ulnar. The Median artery has disappeared. (Credit: Pinterest)

In fact when Kumaratilake, Henneberg and Lucas examined autopsies and other records dating from the 1880s they found that back then approximately only 10% of adults still possessed their median artery. Going forward in time the researchers found that the percentage of adults who kept their median artery increased until at present over 30% of the population now has three functioning arteries in each forearm.

An increasing number of Adults however are retaining their median artery from the womb. Is this a sign a that evolution isn’t finished with us yet? (Credit: Robert Haladaj et al in the Medical Science Monitor)

That’s a significant evolutionary shift in a population for such a short period of time. According to Doctor Lucas, “If this trend continues, a majority of people will have median artery of the forearm by 2100.” Professor Henneberg meanwhile points out the benefits of having a third artery in increasing blood flow to the arm.

The median artery is actually not the only evolutionary change that medical professionals have noticed taking place in the human body. One that may surprise you is a reduction in the number of people suffering from impacted wisdom teeth.

Wisdom teeth are the last of our teeth to develop and erupt, often in our 20s. (Credit: WebMD)

Wisdom teeth, or technically third molars are the last teeth to appear in the human mouth, typically erupting somewhere during the late teens to early twenties. It is the opinion of most evolutionary biologists that our ancestors developed the third molar in order to help deal with the rougher, courser food in their diet.

A wisdom tooth that fails to develop properly can cause a great deal of trouble, and pain! (Credit: Summit Dental Center)

Whether because of a lack of space or because the third molar comes in sideways wisdom teeth often butt up against the second molar, technically known as being impacted. Such impacted molars can lead to tooth decay and cause a great deal of pain. Because of these problems third molars are often removed by oral surgery.

Over the last 50 or so years however dentists and dental hygienists have noticed a small but still noticeable decline in the number of people having wisdom teeth at all. I for one never had them. This is considered to be another sign of continuing evolution in the human body. In fact geneticists have even identified two genes, PAX9 and MSX1 that pay a role in whether or not a person develops those pesky third molars.

Our early ancestor diet was courser and needed more grinding by our teeth. That’s why they evolved wisdom teeth. (Credit: Genetic Literacy Project)

Interesting thing is, until about 300 years ago while more people may have had wisdom teeth very few suffered from them. It’s our modern diet of soft sugary foods that made wisdom teeth a problem in the first place and so it may be that natural selection is actually reacting to a problem that we ourselves have caused!

Our modern diet requires less chewing so that now wisdom teeth can become more of a problem than an asset. (Credit:Science Alert)

Time never stands still, and evolution is simply the changes that occur to living creatures as the conditions in which they live change. It’s not surprising therefore that evolution hasn’t finished with us yet!

Game Theory and its influence on economics.

Just a couple of weeks ago, 14 October, I published a post discussing the winners of the 2020 Nobel prizes in the sciences. While I covered the recipients of the physiology, physics and chemistry awards I purposefully skipped the winners of the Nobel for economics.

You see Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, both of Stanford University in California, were recognized by the Nobel committee for their work in the branch of mathematics known as Game Theory and I was planning to write a post about game theory. I decided therefore to wait and include Professors Milgrom and Wilson in this post.

The Economics prize was not actually a part of Alfred Nobel’s will but initiated by the Sveriges Riksbank in Norway in memory of Nobel. This year’s recipients are Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson. (Credit: Business Standard)

Now we all have played games in our lives, and we know that most of those games involve some degree of chance or luck, various outcomes each have there own probability of occurring.  But game theory is not probability theory, although there is certainly some overlap.

Games of chance like Roulette are certainly games but there’s a lot more to Game Theory than just the laws of Probably. (Credit: The Conversation)

As an example, in a game of poker probability theory can tell you exactly what your chances are of filling an inside straight. Game theory on the other hand will help you decide whether or not trying to fill an inside straight is a good strategy to win the game. In other words game theory is about making decisions. Not just in contests but also in everyday life by treating our interactions with each other as games that we are trying to win. The two main assumptions in game theory are that the decision makers, unsurprising known as players, are rational, that they want to maximize the benefit to them, and that they understand the game they are playing enough to make competent decisions.

Winning at Poker, like winning at life, requires more than just winning individual hands. You need to develop a long term strategy for the entire game. (Credit: Liveabout)

One of the best-known and most often discussed problems in game theory is known as The Prisoner’s Dilemma. This game is often described as having two men who have committed a crime of some sort, been captured by the police and separated. The separation is important in order to keep they two players from acting in concert.

The police have some evidence against the two prisoners but not a lot so they would like to get one of the crooks to confess and rat on his buddy. So the police separately offer each crook a deal for a light sentence if he’ll cooperate. The other crook would then get a full sentence.

The best outcome of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is if both crooks keep silent, but if your accomplish betrays you you’re screwed. So, do you trust him???? (Credit: Britannica)

If both criminals refuse to cooperate there’s a fair chance that they could both go free but there’s a 100% chance of a light sentence for betraying the other guy. And remember the prisoners are separated so they have no idea what their cohort will do. Trust is a hard thing to do if you’re afraid that the other guy could be selling you out!

This kind of situation actually crops up all the time in real life, basically anytime two people have to trust each other in order to maximize their shared gain. Whether it be some form of commerce between two individuals or anything up to two nations forming an alliance in war the prisoner’s dilemma plays a large part and history has shown that whenever things start to go wrong the most often chosen solution is to stab the other guy in the back! In fact the prisoner’s dilemma has been used to explain why so many different kinds of animal become instantly hostile when confronted by another member of their species. Yes game theory has its uses in evolutional theory too.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma has many applications in real life as well. (Credit: Pinterest)

At least betrayal is the best solution to a single prisoner’s dilemma game. You see game theory also has to consider the possibility of multiple prisoner’s dilemma games between the same two players, such as in international trade which can go on for centuries. In such circumstances it can be shown that after just a few games the benefits of trust quickly outweigh the risk.

The Most Possible case is for each Player to mix ‘Defect’ and ‘Cooperate’, sounds like normal life to me! (Credit: SlidePlayer)

Almost any sort of human interaction can be modeled as a game and therefore subject to analysis by game theory. All that is required is that the individuals involved are making rational decisions based on their knowledge of the situation.

One of the most important concepts in game theory is known as a Nash Equilibrium, named for Nobel Prize winner John Nash who was the subject of the 2001 movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’. In the prisoner’s dilemma game discussed above the Nash equilibrium is for both of the crooks to confess.

Mathematician John Nash was a pioneer in the field of Game Theory. (Credit: Scientific American)

Another easy example is sometimes known as ‘The Battle of the Sexes’ and involves a couple who are going out on a date. Now say the man wants to go to a sporting event while the woman wants to go to a concert, but since this is a date the important thing is that they go together. The Nash equilibrium in the case is that they both either attend the sporting event or the concert. As you can see game theory is really about using logic rather than branches of mathematics like calculus or trigonometry.

Another game similar to the Battle of the Sexes is the Chicken Game. In this game mutual disagreement leads to a disaster. (Credit: Slideshare)

Now game theory is not without its problems. You’ll recall I said above one of the main assumptions is that the players are rational. Well experimental psychologists have long criticized that assumption. Another common criticism is that game theory fails to take in account the fact that some players are better at the game than others, that some of us are talented.

Babe Ruth was successful simply because he had Talent. Talent is something Game Theory has difficulty incorporating into its structure. (Credit: SB Nation)
The Hawk Dove Game successfully models the costs and benefits of both survival strategies. (Credit: Triton World)

Nevertheless game theory has become an important tool in evolutionary studies, political science and especially economics. Which brings us back to professors Milgrom and Wilson whose work in game theory involved developing methods for analyzing auctions. In particular they developed formats for certain auctions where the interest of the auctioneer is to benefit everybody, i.e. society, rather than just maximizing their own profit.

Auctions are a common technique for a buyer to receive the highest price for their commodity. (Credit: Artsy)

The auction formats developed by Milgrom and Wilson were put into practice by the US government in 1994 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auctioned off certain radio frequencies for use in the first cell phones! Unlike much of game theory the work of Milgrom and Wilson has already found considerable practical applications.

Still game theory is one of the newest branches of mathematics, and is rapidly growing. I expect that more Nobel prizes are in the future for game theory.

Campaign 2020: Science as an Issue.

Rarely throughout our nation’s history has science become an issue that could sway voters in their choice for president or other elected office. There was in fact a time, not too long ago that support for science had a wide bipartisan appeal. Oh, there were occasional debates over the total price tag for individual scientific projects but in general both Republicans and Democrats recognized the importance of scientific research both for growing our economy and for America’s standing in the world. How naïve and innocent those days now seem.

There was a time when ‘Big Science’ was one thing both parties in the US agreed upon. Science was considered a key component in both the economy and defense. (Credit: SlidePlayer)

In today’s America, whether it be evolution or environmental issues or now even how to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, science and empirical thought in general have become politicized to a degree unknown in American history. In its efforts to energize its base, and please its billionaire masters the Republican Party has gone to considerable lengths to confuse and undermine public confidence in basic scientific knowledge.

In their efforts to corner the evangelical vote republicans began to question if not try to discredit basic scientific research. (Credit: Teitter)
And in their desire to keep the fossil fuel industry funding their campaigns the republicans have turned a blind eye toward the poisoning of our planet. (Credit: Star Tribune)

The election of Donald Trump sent this ‘war on science’ into overdrive. A habitual liar by nature Trump has unquestionably spent more of his time attacking the facts that have been gathered by the governmental agencies it is his job to manage than he has attacking America’s foreign enemies.

On a number of vital issues Trump has taken Putin’s word against the work of the US intelligence agencies. (Credit: Madison.com)

Indeed Trump has interfered on numerous occasions with government scientists trying to do their jobs. Perhaps the most egregious incident came in 2019 when in a tweet Trump erroneously added Alabama to an official National Hurricane Center list of states at risk from hurricane Dorian which was approaching the US. Rather than simply admitting to having made a tiny mistake Trump insisted that he was right, going so far as to personally, and ineptly, alter and falsify an official hurricane projection map with a black sharpie marker.

Trump displays the hurricane forecast map that he himself had clumsily altered rather than admit that he had made a minor mistake. (Credit: The Guardian)

Such disdain for the truth is more than simply dishonest, it is extremely dangerous. We all know that making the right decision depends on facing the facts and accepting reality. This is true in our own private lives as it is in government. The whole purpose of government scientists and data taking bureaucrats is to provide the facts to our elected leaders. It is risky enough when those leaders choose to ignore the facts presented to them but when they attempt to portray their own prejudices as facts it is a recipe for disaster.

In fact the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic is an excellent example of what can happen when a government replaces facts with lies and reality with delusion. The false statements that Donald Trump has made about Cov-19 are well documented. From “like a miracle it will just go away,” to “we’re turning a corner” it’s just been one lie after another. All while more than 220,000 Americans have died.

Trump’s only actual efforts concerning Covid-19 have been to lie and lie and lie. (Credit: CNN.com)

Now we face the distinct possibility that Donald Trump may overrule the Food And Drug administration’s scientists and release a vaccine before it has completed testing. The consequences of such a bulldozing of scientific and medical norms could destroy all trust in the safety and efficacy of, not only of any vaccine for Covid-19 but for vaccines in general.

Trump’s push to get a Covid-19 vaccine has many people concerned that important safety procedures will be bypassed. (Credit: ABC News)

I had only just begun to compose this post when the news broke of President Donald Trump’s own diagnosis for Covid-19. The irony of how Trump, who had downplayed, denied, ignored and even told boldfaced lies about the pandemic’s deadly spread throughout the US has become a victim of his own reckless and irresponsibility behavior is certainly historic. It certainly says a great deal about how Trump always places his own personal desires above, not just the health and welfare of others but literally above everything else including his own health.

Despite having contracted Covid-19 himself Trump continues to hold massive rallies that risk the health of everyone and anyone who attends. (Credit: The DesMoines Register)

And the consequences of that irresponsibility to not only Trump himself but to his supporters are becoming clear as every hour another campaign official, senior White House advisor or GOP member of Congress tests positive for Covid-19. Add to that the question of whether Trump knew that he was positive when he attended fundraisers in Minnesota and New Jersey, potentially putting the health of those he came in contact with at risk and the President’s reckless behavior verges on the criminal. All of this demonstrates exactly how dangerous Donald Trump’s arrogant ignorance and determination to force his will onto the facts presented to him by scientists, doctors and other experts is to the future of our country.

The attitude of Joe Biden, the democratic candidate for President, to science and basic knowledge in general serves as a stark contrast to that of Donald Trump. Throughout his years in congress the former Vice-President had always shown the greatest respect for scientific fact and the opinions of experts. Whether it be the dangers of pollution and climate change or the attempted interference in our elections by foreign powers Biden has always sought for and based his decisions on the best evidence available from those whose job it is to gather that evidence. A Biden administration will be one that at the very least tries to do the right thing to solve the problems of this country instead of simply lying its way through those problems.

Joe Biden’s responsible behavior, such as wearing a mask to slow the spread of Covid-19, stands in stark contrast to his rival’s dangerous nature. (Credit: Forbes)

During all of those years in congress Biden has been at the forefront of the fight for stricter environmental rules to control all forms of pollution. Then, as Vice-President under Barack Obama, Biden worked on many sustainable energy projects and other ‘green’ initiatives. As President Biden can be expected to continue the work of trying to clean up the environment as well as simply returning science to its proper place as a guide toward the future of our nation.

As Vice-President Joe Biden took the lead in efforts to solve environmental problems, especially Climate Change. (Credit: Joe Biden for President)

The choice this year is so clear, so indisputable that scientific organizations and publications who have for many years strictly avoided taking any sides in any political debate have in this election decided that they cannot remain silent. Scientific American magazine, which had never in its 175-year history endorsed a political candidate, has endorsed Joe Biden for President, accusing Donald Trump of dismissing science. At the same time the 208-year-old New England Journal of Medicine recently published its first ever editorial dealing with politics referring to the Trump Administration’s response to Covid-19 as “Dangerously Incompetent” and calling for voters to remove him from office. The fact that these two apolitical institutes should reverse centuries of tradition in order to voice their opposition to another four years of Donald Trump is telling.

Scientists in general try to keep their political views private but this election has forced the scientific community to come out in strong support for Joe Biden. (Credit: Daily Mail)

One recent episode illustrates very succinctly the difference between Trump’s and Biden’s attitudes toward science. At a rally in Nevada on the 18th of October Donald Trump actually accused his rival of ‘Listening to the Scientists”. The democratic nominee quickly replied with the one word answer of “Yes!!”

Donald Trump in the act of accusing Joe Biden of ‘Listening to Scientists’. (Credit: Snopes.com)

The word science is just Latin for knowledge, truth. The question in this election is simply this, is the United States to be governed by a man who at least respects the truth, or by someone to whom lying is a lifelong habit?

Space News for October 2020.

There’s quite a wide variety of news items happening that deal with space to talk about this month. Both manned and unmanned programs are involved. I think I’ll start with the news of Earth’s second Moon. You heard me right, Earth’s second Moon.

Our planet has only one large Moon which we have christened ‘The Moon’! (Credit: The Fayetteville Observer)

Over the last decade or so astronomers have been finding quite a few space rocks, very small asteroids orbiting the Sun in an orbit that brings them close to that of our Earth’s. These objects are collectively known as ‘Near Earth Objects’ or NEOs and some may actually pose a threat of striking the Earth in the coming decades.

In 2018 the small space rock 2018 VP1 came close to our Earth twice! 2018 VP1 is classified as a Near Earth Object or NEO. (Credit: Orlando Sentinel)

It’s also possible that on occasion one of these space rocks may get captured by the Earth’s gravitational field and become a ‘mini-Moon’, at least for a few months or years. This happened back in 2006 and 2007 when the NEO named 2006 RH120 was briefly captured and again from 2018 to 2020 with 2020 CD3.

Now it looks as if Earth is about to gain another mini-Moon for a while as the object 2020 SO is on an incoming trajectory. Between now and next March 2020 SO will make two loops around the Earth before heading back out into interplanetary space. Click on the link following to be taken to YouTube video of 2020 SO’s orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxPYh1s8KB4

And 2020 SO appears to be an oddball for yet another reason. You see 2020 SO’s orbit around the Sun is the closest match to Earth’s of any object yet discovered and that made astronomers suspicious. Checking the object’s orbit backward in time they think they’ve figured out just what 2020 SO really is.

It seems that 2020 SO is probably man made! NASA now believes that 2020 SO is actually the Centaur stage of the rocket that sent the Lunar lander Surveyor 2 to the Moon back in September 1966. If true that would mean that 2020 SO has been just floating around out there for more than 50 years.

An upper stage Centaur booster about to be loaded onto an Atlas rocket. The Centaur is a commonly used booster for sending space probes beyond Earth Orbit. (Credit: Spaceflight Now)
The Surveyor 3 space probe on the Moon’s surface as photographed by the crew of Apollo 12. Surveyor 2 crash landed on the Moon but it’s Centaur booster went past the Moon into interplanetary space. (Credit: NASA)

It makes sense if you think about it. By now humanity has sent close to a hundred space vehicles beyond Earth orbit into interplanetary space. Every one of those vehicles had to be accelerated to escape velocity by means of a booster rocket and those boosters didn’t just vanish after they had completed their task. They’re all still on an orbit around the Sun that occasionally intersects that of Earth’s.

The largest of these boosters would be the nine S-IVB stages that sent the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. They’re all still out there and now it seems that one of them is coming home for a brief stopover. As astronomers get better at keeping track of NEOs I daresay that we’ll be seeing a lot more visits from our long lost offspring.

The S-VIB stage of Apollo 8 photographed by Apollo 8 between the Earth and Moon. There are 9 such rocket stages floating somewhere near our Earth! (Credit: CollectSpace)

In other news, aerospace giant Boeing has suffered another problem in its efforts to launch the corporation’s Starliner commercial crew vehicle. After last year’s Unmanned Test Flight (UTF) of Starliner that was plagued by numerous software problems Boeing has been working full blast to correct the issues so that a second UTF can been carried out before this year is over, something that looks ever more doubtful. Even if a successful UTF can be accomplished this year the first Crewed Test Flight (CTF) in NASA terminology of Starliner will come no earlier that the middle of 2021.

Boeing’s Starliner manned space capsule has yet to carry anyone. Maybe next year. (Credit: Wikipedia)

And now it’s been announced that that first manned mission will have to be with a new commander. Christopher Ferguson, the commander of the final flight of the space shuttle, had been assigned as CTF commander back in August of 2018. Now however the veteran astronaut is stepping down from the mission in order to spend more time with his family.

Veteran Astronaut was scheduled to be mission commander of the first manned flight of Starliner, technically the Crewed Test Flight (CTF). Now however he has stepped back from his assignment for personal reasons. (Credit: SoundCloud)

Starliner’s new commander will be NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore. Meanwhile Ferguson, who is an executive at Boeing, will remain involved with the program but such a major change in personnel is just one more complication for Starliner.

Meanwhile Boeing’s competitor Space X is also having a few difficulties of its own. An October 2nd unmanned launch of a Space X Falcon 9 rocket was halted just 2 seconds before liftoff because of what has been described as an anomalous rise in pressure in one of the nine Marlin engine’s turbomachinery gas generator.

Static test firing of a Space X Merlin rocket engine. A recent Space X launch was aborted two seconds before launch due to excessive pressure in an engine’s gas generator. (Credit: Wikipedia)

That scrubbed flight has prompted NASA to delay the next Space X manned mission to the ISS, previously scheduled for the 31st of October. That mission, officially designated as Crew-1 Mission because it is actually the first mission in Space X’s contract to deliver NASA astronauts to the ISS, has now been officially pushed back to early to mid November. The extra time is to allow Space X to carry out a through investigation into what happened in the Oct 2nd launch attempt.

The crew of Space X’s Crew Mission 1 flight training for their mission. (Credit: NASA Blogs)

Hopefully Space X will quickly identify the cause of the problem so that NASA’s commercial crew program can finally get unto some kind of a regular schedule. The whole idea of having two commercial carriers was so that if one had a small problem, like Space X’s engine issue, the other could take up the slack. Because of Boeing’s major and continuing difficulties however even small problems at Space X can become major headaches.

Finally, we do have one scheduled space event to look forward to during the rest of this month. On October 20th the Osiris-REX space probe, which has been in orbit around the asteroid Bennu for almost two years will descend down to the rocky surface in an attempt to collect a sample of the asteroid’s material.

Artists impression of Osiris-REX reaching out to grab a little piece of the asteroid Bennu. (Credit: FIS Technology)

This will be the first of potentially three touchdown sampling attempts, each landing lasting for no more than 5-10 seconds. During the few seconds of contact Osiris-REX’s robotic arm will reach out and suck in as much as 50-60 grams of dust and other material. The material collected will then be stored in a nitrogen bottle. Since Osiris-REX has three such bottles there can be a maximum of three collecting attempts.

The site chosen for Osiris-REX to make its first attempt is a small crater named Nightingale which was chosen because, based on observations over the last two years the material there is considered to be ‘fresh’, that is uncontaminated by the solar wind. At the same time there is a small area, only the size of two or three parking spots that is flat and boulder free for the landing.

A silhouette of Osiris-REX against its chosen landing area on Bennu. Not a lot of room to maneuver. (Credit: Kids News)

And Osiris-REX will have to carry out the landing all on its own because at a distance of about 330 million kilometers the time it takes a radio signal to go from the probe to ground control is about 18.5 minutes. That time delay means that any last minute adjustments to Osiris-REX’s course will have to be made by the probe itself.

Osiris-REX is scheduled to leave the asteroid Bennu next March to begin a return journey that will bring its collected samples back to Earth on September 24, 2023.

P.S. Since I wrote this post Osiris-REX has successfully carried out its first touch down and NASA’s scientists are now trying to evaluate how much material was gathered.