Month: July 2022

Archaeology News for July 2022: The Impact of Climate Change on the Study of the Past.

Whether you call it Global Warming or Climate Change it’s an obvious fact that environmental conditions throughout the world are getting worse. And as the climate changes it is having an effect on almost every aspect of human life, even archaeology. Here are a couple of stories about how those changing conditions are actually helping archaeologists in their efforts to study the ancient past.

Human caused Global Warming is an undeniable fact, but could it actually be of benefit to the science of Archaeology? (Credit: Wikipedia)

One of the clearest signs of climate change is the severe and persistent droughts that are happening in many places across the globe. The dry conditions in western North America may get the most news coverage but the droughts in eastern Africa and the Middle East are every bit as brutal. As in western North America the lack of rain has led to thousands of square kilometers of arid soil, dried up riverbeds and historically low levels in lakes and reservoirs. The emptying of those rivers, lakes and reservoirs is now unveiling land that had been underwater for decades if not centuries or more and in the Middle East that land could have been the site of ancient human habitations dating back to the very beginnings of civilization.

The two rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates have supplied many civilizations of the past with the water they needed to exist in that arid part of the world. Today the Mosul Dam on the Tigris supplies Iraq with much of its water and electric power as well. Thanks to Climate Change water levels in the Mosul reservoir have dropped to the lowest amounts ever seen. (Credit: Landsat Image Gallery – NASA)

That’s exactly what happened recently at the Mosul reservoir, a part of the Tigris River system in northern Iraq. The prolonged drought has dropped water levels in the reservoir so much that an ancient city has appeared like magic along the banks. As quickly as the remains of scores of buildings were discovered back in January of 2022 a team of Kurdish and German archaeologists descended on the site to investigate and study the remains. Working swiftly the researchers gathered and documented what they could before the annual spring rains resubmerged the site.

As the water level in the Mosul reservoir has dropped an ancient Bronze Age city has risen from the waters making the archaeologists happy if not anyone else! (Credit: 9GAG)

What the archaeologists found was a large urban complex complete with defensive walls several meters high, a palace and several other large buildings dating to the late Bronze Age, ca. 1550-1350 BCE. At that time the region around the reservoir was a part of the Mittani Empire, one of the many city-state based powers that existed in Mesopotamia during the Bronze and Iron ages. The archaeologists even think that the site could be the city of Zakhiku an important center of Mittani culture that was destroyed in an earthquake around 1350 BCE.

One of the many now forgotten nations that existed in Mesopotamia, Mitanni was a great power in its day. (Credit: Weapons and Warfare)

While the archaeologists unearthed a large number of artifacts during their two-month excavation probably the most important discovery was the unearthing of ten ceramic jars containing more than 100 cuneiform tablets. Those tablets are now awaiting deciphering and who knows what information they could contain, whether it be the history of the city or just lists of stored agricultural products like grain or livestock.

Some of the Cuneiform tablets found at the city in the Mosul reservoir. Who knows what ancient secrets they will reveal when translated. (Credit: Euronews)

After two months of excavations the site was carefully protected by the archaeologists before the water level in the reservoir covered it once more. The buildings and walls were covered with tight fitting plastic sheets and held in place by a layer of gravel. These precautions will hopefully preserve the site until the next time the water level at Mosul gets low enough for further excavations to be carried out, which, thanks to climate change could be very soon.

As the annual spring rains caused water levels to rise the archaeologists covered the ancient Mitanni city in order to preserve its remains until the next time climate change induced drought brings it back to light. (Credit: ZME Science)

Not coincidentally the same thing is happening in western North America where drought has caused the water level in many large reservoirs to drop to record levels. The land that is being revealed is yielding surprising and in some cases grisly remains from the past. At lake Meade near Las Vegas for example the bodies of three individuals have been found who are thought to have been murdered and dumped in the lake back in the 1950s-60s when mobsters fought over the casinos of Nevada.

Lake Meade, the largest artificial lake in the US and source of water for tens of millions of people, is disappearing before our eyes. (Credit: Boulder City Review)

More important, if not more salacious, are the archaeological sites that have reemerged from Lake Powell, also along the Colorado River. In pre-Columbian times that region of what is now Utah was inhabited at different times by native Americans of the Pueblo, Paiute, Hopi and Navajo peoples. When the dam for Lake Powell was built it was feared that dozens if not hundreds of ancient sites had been lost forever. In fact archaeologists of that time organized a hasty survey of those sites called the Glen Canyon Project in the hopes of recording some of the remains there before they disappeared forever.

For thousands of years the Native American peoples of the desert southwest built small cities along the fertile valley of the Colorado River. Some of this archaeological sites were submerged when the dams were built that formed Lake Meade and Lake Powell. (Credit: Grand Canyon Trust)

Turns out it wasn’t forever. Thanks to climate change and the severe drought throughout the western US about one quarter of the sites cataloged in the Glen Canyon survey have already been rediscovered and are currently being studied. The archaeologists involved in the research have been mostly astonished by how well preserved the sites are and are hopeful that this time the evidence of the past will be adequately investigated.

One of the archaeological sites recently revealed by the falling water levels of Lake Powell. Dozens of such sites have already been re-discovered and hopefully many more can also be surveyed. (Credit: KNAU)

We all have heard the old saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining”, well perhaps the reemergence of ancient human habitations once submerged in modern reservoirs may be the silver lining of climate change, but that cloud around the silver lining is awfully big and black.

Space News for July 2022: Artemis 1 has completed its Wet Dress Rehearsal and has been given clearance for a launch as early as late August or early September.

Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) for a space system is a test intended to see if the rocket and all of its auxiliary systems can be fully loaded with fuel and oxidizer and if all of the electrical systems can be powered up and readied for flight. For the Space Launch System (SLS) the WDR also includes all the systems aboard the Orion man capable space capsule. In fact the WDR includes all of the steps that take place in an actual launch countdown right up to the last few seconds before ignition, usually about T minus thirty seconds. Back in April the Space Launch System, the rocket that NASA plans on taking American astronauts back to the Moon, failed to complete its WDR several times and had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for repairs.

The Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) for the Space Launch System (SLS) with its Orion Man capable capsule. (Credit: NASA)

Those repairs were soon accomplished and once again the SLS was rolled out to Pad 39B at Kennedy for a second attempt at the WDR, which began on the 18th of June. Although there was a problem during the test with a leaky quick disconnect valve on the hydrogen intake to the rocket’s core stage the NASA engineers were able to work around the problem. The rocket itself went through the test without any difficulty and the WDR was concluded on June 20th and officially declared a success. According to the Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin, “I would say we’re in the 90th percentile.”

The WDR now completed the SLS has been rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for final preparations before launch, now scheduled of August 19th! (Credit: SciTechDaily)

So the question was, is that good enough? After all of the years waiting for the SLS to be completed and tested, after all of the schedule delays and cost overruns, is 90% on the final exam good enough?

NASA hopes so, they have given the SLS a go ahead for a late August, early September launch of the Artemis 1 mission. A tentative launch date of August 19th has been announced. Although that flight will be unmanned it will be the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972 that a man capable spacecraft will leave Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. And if Artemis 1 is successful then a manned Lunar orbiting mission can be expected to launch sometime in 2024.

Like the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 the Artemis 2 mission will be a Lunar Orbiter without a vehicle capable of landing. (Credit: eBay)

 Meanwhile there is a lot of news relating to robotic space exploration happening as well. One disappointing announcement was made on June 24 of 2022 concerning NASA’s Psyche mission to study that metal rich asteroid. Because of delays in the delivery of the spacecraft’s software and specially designed test fixtures the robotic probe will not be ready in time to launch during its August 1st though October 11th orbital window.

The Asteroid Psyche and Psyche Space Probe. Delays in software development and testing have forced a delay in the scheduled launch of Psyche, imperiling the entire mission. (Credit: SciTechDaily)

That leaves the entire mission sort of up in the air because the Psyche probe’s trajectory was planned to use a Mars fly-by as a gravity boost in order to reach the asteroid by 2026. There are possible launch windows for both 2023 and 2024 but they are far less optimal, the spacecraft would not reach Psyche until 2029 or 2030.

The Voyager 1 Space Probe got a gravity boost from the planet Jupiter on its way to Saturn. The Psyche space probe was designed to do the same thing using Mars as its booster but because of delays in the spacecraft’s launch the planet will no longer be in the the correct position for the boost. That will cause Psyche’s journey to the asteroid to be much longer. (Credit: Wikipedia)

So NASA is seriously considering the possibility of using the Psyche probe to study something else in our Solar System. The question is what, and would that actually help in making a successful mission. The problem of course is money; the entire Psyche mission was given an original budget of $985 million dollars, of which $717 million have already been spent. Can the Psyche team get the spacecraft completed and ready for a launch next year and still have enough money remaining for an eight-year long mission? Or, can they quickly find another target and get everything ready with the money remaining?

There are a lot of Asteroids out there that could be studied by the Psyche space probe. Perhaps Mars could give a gravity boost to one of them? (Credit: Wikipedia)

The Psyche mission is a part of NASA’s Discovery program, which was intended to develop programs that can accomplish real space science for less than a billion dollars. Therefore it is unlikely that any more funding will be forthcoming, the program managers at JPL will just have to make do with what they’ve got.

The Jet Propulsion Labouratory in California manages most planetary robotic missions for NASA. Being a bunch of bright guys they’ll figure something to do with the Psyche spacecraft. (Credit: Caltech International Offices)

Finally, the James Webb Space Telescope has been undergoing its instrument checkout and calibration before beginning it science mission, expected to start as early as this month. There was a moment of concern on the 8th of June when it was announced that a micrometeorite had struck Webb’s C3 mirror section. Such a collision had been expected several times during the space telescope’s ten-year mission and in fact four smaller impacts had already occurred but a collision of that size so early in the mission was surprising. Fortunately it wasn’t long before the science team managing Webb were confident that the small amount of damage caused by the micrometeorite would have no noticeable effect on the quality of Webb’s images.

Computer images of the damage caused by a micrometeorite (r) to JWST’s C3 mirror. The Left view is the system as it was designed. (Credit: Space.com)

Meanwhile the astronomical community is waiting with bated breath for those images, the quality of which according to NASA’s chief astronomer Thomas Zurbuchen nearly ‘brought him to tears’. It is anticipated that the first images from the Webb space telescope will be released on the 12th of July. Then perhaps we’ll all be agreeing with the opinion of the chief astronomer.

The first four images taken by the JWST have astronomers all over the world excited about what is to come. (Credit: Universe Today)

The Hubble Space telescope has revolutionized our view of the Universe and our place in it. I think that in the years to come the James Webb Space Telescope will accomplish much the same.

Book Review: ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ by Christopher Paolini

I don’t know about you but I’m getting pretty tired of SF novels that are really just action / adventure / war stories set in outer space. It seems to me that outer space is just too big and life in it too rare for alien civilizations to just start fighting the instant they encounter each other. That’s exactly what ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars ‘ is however, one long, very long novel of battle after battle with little rhyme or reason to it.

With all of the mystery and wonder there is waiting for us in outer space why does it seem like so many SF stories are just a lot of fighting? (Credit: CBR)

It starts out interestingly enough; Kira Navarez is an exo-biologist, a member of a team of explorers who are surveying the planet Adrasteia in a distant solar system in order to ascertain whether it would make a suitable colony for human beings. Kira is on a routine mission when she stops to investigate a strange outcropping of rock and before she realizes that it is an alien structure she is infected with an alien xenomorph, a thing that is part living and part machine.

Front cover of ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ by Christopher Paolini. (Credit: Amazon)

As her team members try to remove the xeno from her several are killed by it, including her fiancé Alan. If this part of the story kinda reminds you of the beginning of the movie ‘Alien’ get used to it. A lot of ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ will remind you of a lot of other stories.

The term Xenomorph literally means ‘alien shape’ and two of the best known are the ones from the movies ‘Alien’ (l) and Predator (r). The aliens in ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ have a lot in common with these two. (Credit: YouTube)

A military starship from Earth manages to seize Kira and put her in isolation where they begin to experiment on the xeno, and Kira. Suddenly an alien spaceship appears and the two starships immediately begin fighting. During the battle Kira manages to escape and in a space pod heads back to the nearest human colony where she expects that she will again be seized by the military.

Author of ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ is writer Christopher Paolini. (Credit: Twitter)

Instead she winds up on a broken-down half-space worthy ship called the Wallfish whose crew are a ragtag bunch of misfits. You know the type, rejects from polite society but who nevertheless have a heart of gold. It doesn’t take long to figure out that the Wallfish is just a bigger version of the Millennium Falcon crewed by a dozen different versions of Han Solo.

A rogue with a heart of gold. How many such characters have seen in movies or read about in a book and how many have you actually met in real life? (Credit: StarWars.com)

Meanwhile the aliens are now attacking humanity everywhere while Kira is forced to learn how to live with the xeno, which is a sort of skin enveloping her. As she begins to learn how to control it, a process that takes an awful lot of pages, you start to think of the thing as a kind of Iron Man suit and as the story goes on Kira gains more control over it becoming more and more powerful in the process.

In the first Iron Man film Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey jr, spends 10-15 minutes learning how to use his suit. In ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ the character Kira spends almost half the novel learning how to control her xenomorph. (Credit: The Wrap)

One thing Kira discovers is that the suit, whose name is the Soft Blade, allows her to understand the language of the aliens and she begins to put together a plan to somehow use the xeno’s power to stop the war. The aliens by the way are a sort of cross between squids and arthropods that the humans begin calling Jellies. Incidentally the Jellies did not make the Soft Blade but they want it for its power.

The first Aliens in ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’ are described as kind of a mixture of squids and crustaceans. Sounds icky, well its supposed to. (Credit: Vector Stock)

Before Kira can even finish formulating her plan stop the war however another alien species appears and immediately begins to attack everybody, Humans and Jellies. These newcomers are vile, ugly, half made creatures that humans call Nightmares and the Jellies call the Corrupted. I quickly began to imagine them as the army of the Dead in Game of Thrones. Again the author just seems to throw in ideas from all over the place.

Although the second set of aliens are supposed to be made up of corrupted versions of many life forms their description reminded me of the army of the dead in Game of Thrones. (Credit: Game of Thrones Wiki)

The novel goes on and on like this for more than 800 pages, battle scene after battle scene, with Kira learning how to control the Soft Blade a little better between each fight. Another annoying thing about the book is that, during every fight there’s a point where Kira thinks that the situation is hopeless, there’s simply no way out until suddenly the cavalry arrives in the nick of time, or she somehow discovers a new power that the Soft Blade has. It all gets a bit redundant after a while.

In ancient Greek Theater they would often use a hoist to just drop in a god like character who would solve everything. This is Deus ex Machina or God from a Machine. In modern drama the cavalry arriving in the nick of time or someone just coming up with a great idea out of nowhere serves the same purpose. (Credit: Quora)

And to top it all off, after fighting her way across half the galaxy the author decides to get kinda mystic at the climax as Kira uses the Soft Blade’s true powers to sort of just heal everyone. Really, the ending left me feeling like, you couldn’t have done that about 700 pages ago?

After 700 pages of blood and gore Christopher Paolini suddenly decided to get metaphysical, really???? (Credit: Audible)

Still, if you are the sort who enjoys a good laser battle with starships  firing anti-matter bombs at each other rather than a thought-provoking story you may enjoy ‘To Sleep in a Sea of Stars’. Be warned however, it is a long story with a lot of redundancy.

Scientists continue to make progress in developing technologies that can make our civilization cleaner, greener and more sustainable. So why does the environment continue to become more and more polluted?

Solar energy derived from photovoltaic cells is of course one of the technologies that environmentalists hope will replace fossil fuels as a primary source of power for human society. In order to do that solar cells need to be as efficient as possible in converting the light of the Sun into useful electricity. That’s why for decades now scientists and engineers have worked and struggled to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic materials.

With all of the ways we’ve developed to generate clean, green energy why are we still getting 90% of our energy from fossil fuels, ‘Cause it’s cheaper that why! (Credit: Greenesa)

But visible light is not the only kind of electromagnetic (EM) energy; there are others such as radio waves, X-rays and Ultraviolet radiation. One kind of EM energy that could also be gathered as a power source is infrared (IR) radiation, also just known as heat radiation. There are many sources of heat both natural; such as geothermal, and industrial, like furnaces, that could be harnessed for their energy if there were a more efficient technology available.

Infrared light is just the heat that many things in the world generate. That light is energy, energy that we could use if we develop the technology to capture it. (Credit: Herschel Space Observatory)

Now there is, for the engineers at the National Renewable Energy Labouratory (NREL) have recently tested a thermophotovoltaic cell that demonstrates a 40% efficiency at converting IR energy into electrical power. That figure is fully 8% better than the previous record of 32% and is actually better than the efficiency of conventional boilers and steam turbines that are currently the most common technology for producing electricity in fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.

IR imaging inside a power plant. That light you see is energy going to waste. Capturing that energy will by itself make power plants more efficient and help cut down on polluting emissions. (Credit: Dornier Group)

The new type of photocells are manufactured in much the same way that the better known visible photovoltaic cells are except that they possess two light absorbing layers and the entire cell is backed by a reflective layer of gold while sitting on a heat sink to prevent overheating, which decreases efficiency. The version tested is optimized to absorb heat radiation from sources at a temperature of 2,400ºC but that can be adjusted by altering the thickness of the various semi-conductor layers. Thermophotovoltaic devices also have the advantage of not having any moving parts, which both makes them longer lasting while reducing maintenance costs.

Thermophotovoltaic cell developed at MIT and NREL. With no moving parts such a cell could provide years to energy generation. (Credit: Engadget)

The team at NREL hopes that adjustments to the reflective gold layer can increase efficiency further, to perhaps as high as 50%. Nevertheless the development of thermophotovoltaic cells is one more step in our efforts to make better, more efficient use of the energy we already have, one more way of reducing the amounts of CO2 emitting fossils fuels we burn.

Construction of the thermophotovoltaic cell. The back mirror is one of the key elements to the device’s efficiency. (Credit: EnergyPost.eu)

Of course the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is not the only massive source of pollution we humans are currently generating, there’s all of that non-degradable plastic as well. Now in many ways plastics are a miracle of modern science and have improved our lives so much, we mustn’t forget that. They are cheap, can be made in an almost infinite variety of forms, are long lasting and at least initially biologically sterile.

Plastics are wonderful, we use them is thousands of ways. And then, when we’re done with them we just throw’en away. Where’s the harm in that???? (Credit: Plasticseurope.org)

The problem with plastics is that they don’t go away; technically they don’t decay chemically, not for hundreds or thousands of years. And since we use so much of them, and we’re only recycling a small fraction of what we use, they are really starting to pile up everywhere. Also, although they don’t decay chemically they will break down mechanically into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, pieces that are getting into the biosphere, into the very flesh of plants, fish, birds, mammals and even us!

How harmful are microplastics? Well they killed this poor little fella, and how much longer before they start killing us? (Credit: Science Learning Hub)

Because of this scientists have for the last several decades been searching for better ways to recycle or break down plastic into its chemical components so that they can be reused or absorbed back into the environment. Those chemicals that can break down plastics are a special class of enzymes known as polyester-cleaving hydrolases and in 2012 an enzyme called LCC was discovered in Japan that showed some promise as a ‘plastic eater’.

The basis of all plastics is a polymer, basically just a long chain of identical molecules. Such polymers can be very stable, lasting for years if not centuries before breaking down. (Credit: Cosmos Magazine)

Now chemists at Leipzig University have found a new enzyme that has been found in tests to breakdown a common form of plastic twice as fast as LCC. The researchers, led by Dr. Christian Sonnendecker actually discovered the new enzyme, which they have named PHL7, while investigating the chemical reactions taking place in compost heap in Leipzig itself.

Dr. Christian Sonnendecker in his lab in Leipzig. (Credit: Phys.org)

In addition to breaking down plastics faster than LCC, the chemicals that remain after PHL7 has done its work are the exact same chemicals, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, from which the plastic was made in the first place, which means the chemicals can then be used to make brand new plastic, a completely closed cycle, the ultimate goal in recycling.

For billions of years life on Earth recycled everything, nothing went to waste and the only input to the cycle was energy from the Sun. We need to learn how to do the same. (Credit: Recycle Montana)

And speaking of plastics we can all do our part in trying to reduce the amount of plastics we use once and then thrown away, plastic drinking straws being one of the most obvious examples. Here in the US something like 200 million plastic straws are used every day, used once and then just tossed away. Each individual straw may seem like a very small thing, a harmless thing but 200 million a day adds up and the results are easy to see anywhere trash accumulates.

Straws may seem small and unimportant but they add up! (Credit: Vonastraws)

Also the type of plastic used for most straws is of a kind that isn’t easy to recycle, and again like all plastics it doesn’t decay in the environment. One way to solve the problem all those straws is to make them out of a material that is biodegradable, a substance that bacteria and other living things can break down and use for food, straws that can be composted and become fertilizer.

If only the plastic items we use everyday could become this after we’re done with them. (Credit: Better Homes and Gardens)

Now a new company called Loliware has done just that using seaweed as their basic material. The company, based in California’s Silicon Valley, has developed a process that takes dried seaweed and mills it down. Then, after combining it with minerals and colouring, the mixture is formed into seaweed pellets that can be used in the same machines that are used to produce ordinary plastic utensils. The look and texture of the seaweed utensils are very similar to their plastic counterparts and because much of the same equipment is used in their manufacture the cost is only slightly higher.

Straws made from seaweed! Once used they can even become fertilizer for your lawn! (Credit: Ecowatch)

So with all of the new, environmentally friendly technology being developed by so many creative scientists and engineers why does it seem as if we’re continually loosing ground in the fight to clean up our planet. Vested interests and simple inertia are the main causes. The oil industry is simply making so much money off of disposable, single use plastics that they can keep prices low, making it hard for biodegradable alternatives to gain a competitive advantage.

And with the Supreme Court now limiting the ability of the EPA to regulate the emissions of power plants it’s going to even more difficult to stop polluters from poisoning our planet. (Credit: Cleveland.com)

Inertia is even more of a problem. We’ve been doing the same things for so long and we just don’t see any reason to change, particularly change to a more expensive substitute. We humans can become so used to the things going on around us that even the massive buildup of CO2 and plastic trash throughout the world we feel is just a part of life, nothing for us to worry about. But the damage we are doing to the only planet we have is real and it’s getting worse all the time. We need for all of us to recognize the danger and if not do something to help then at least get out of the way!