Author: admin

Scientists around the world are hard at work doing research on removing CO2from our Atmosphere.

The evidence is mounting that the millions of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses that we’re pouring into the Earth’s atmosphere is causing an ever increasing amount of damage to the environment in which we all live. Of course if we’re going to avert the worst consequences of our behaviour the first thing we’re going to have to do is reduce those CO2 emissions as much as possible. The Paris climate accords are the promises that the nations of the World have made to cut back on CO2 but so far few nations are keeping those promises even as the problem grows worse every day.

Can anybody seriously believe that all this crap isn’t destroying our planet somehow! (Credit: NPR)

Let’s be honest, politics being what it is the World’s governments aren’t going to really enforce any CO2 cutbacks until they are forced to by some real disasters occurring, and even then their response will be slow. By the time humanity does finally does start reducing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere there will already be so much up there that the harmful effects on the environment will only continue unless we start taking some of it out.

Worldwide CO2 emissions. (Credit: NRDC)

We need proven, efficient, large scale and most importantly cheap methods for removing CO2 from the air. Because the need is so great you can probably guess that there are many scientists hard at work all over the world on that very problem. Today I’d like to discuss the efforts of just a few.

A lot of the research is taking place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by Ph.D. candidate Sahag Voskian and his graduate advisor Professor T. Alan Hatton. Together the pair have developed a technique that closely resembles an ordinary battery in construction and application. The device consists of a stack of electrodes that are coated with a chemical compound known as polyanthraquinone that is composed of carbon nanotubes.

It is while the “battery” is being charged that the carbon nanotubes will grab CO2 from an air stream blown across them. Then, as the battery is discharged the CO2 is released by the nanotubes. So what you need is two batteries working in tandem to make the whole system work. One battery will absorb the CO2 as it is being charged, the other does the charging, releasing its CO2 not back into the air but into a containment vessel. Once the two batteries are charged / discharged they can then be flipped, starting the process all over again.

The CO2 removal ‘battery’ developed at MIT. CO2 enters the left side of the lower battery and is captured as that battery is charged. Then as the upper battery is discharged it releases the CO2, upper battery. (Credit: CNet)

Now the cycle is not 100% efficient, and more energy is usually needed to produce the air flow. Nevertheless Voskian and Hatton estimate that the operating costs will be rather small. Right now the most expensive part of the whole proposition would probably be the carbon nanotubes, which are in fact quite costly to produce. However in large-scale production the costs could come down considerably and remember the carbon nanotubes can be used over and over again so you only have to pay for them once. We’ll just have to wait a see if Voskian and Hatton do have a viable solution for removing some of the CO2 already in our Atmosphere.

Artists impression of a large scale CO2 removal system. (Credit: MIT News)

Other scientists are taking a more natural approach, developing what they call an ‘artificial leaf’. Led by engineering professor Yimin Wu of the University of Waterloo the team also contains scientists from the California State University, Northridge, and the City University of Hong Kong along with the Argonne National Labouratory in Illinois.

With such an impressive team you’d expect some impressive results and what Professor Wu’s team seems to have delivered.  According to Wu. “We call it an artificial leaf because it mimics real leaves and the process of photosynthesis. A leaf produces glucose and oxygen. We produce methanol and oxygen.”

Instead of Chlorophyll the artificial leaf uses a chemical compound called cuprous oxide (Cu2O), which is ground into a powder and mixed into water. When CO2 is blown into the water the cuprous oxide serves as a catalysis separating the carbon and oxygen, releasing the oxygen and producing methanol. The methanol can then be collected and used as a fuel.

The Artificial Leaf in action. (Credit: The Independent)

One drawback to the artificial leaf is that, unlike the MIT battery, it requires a high concentration of CO2 in order to work efficiently. This would restrict the usage of the artificial leaf to such places as power plant smoke stacks and car exhausts but once the carbon is collected it is already in a useful form.

There’s still more work to be done. Professor Wu and his team now want to increase the methanol yield while packaging the reaction in a more commercial form, one ready to be used in the fight against the greenhouse gasses causing climate change.

But you know, the artificial leaf got me thinking about the one technology that we could all be using right now to take some of the CO2 out of the air we breath. Real leaves, as in those on real trees. There are now a number of local and world wide organizations promoting the planting of trees as something anyone can do to help fight climate change. In urban locations the trees have the added advantages that they can absorb water during heavy rainfalls to help reduce flooding while even helping to cool entire cities by providing shade instead of just getting hot like concrete and asphalt. So if you want to do you part to help fight greenhouse gasses just take a look around your yard or block. Do you see any places where a nice tree could go?

Here’s something we can all do right now to help reduce CO2 in the air! (Credit: Armenian National Committee of America)

Book Review: ‘What a Fish Knows’ by Jonathan Balcombe. Plus, some of my pictures of the transit of Mercury.

Fishes are not only the oldest class of vertebrate animals they are the most diverse having some 30,000 known species. That’s about as many species as all of the amphibians, reptiles, bird and mammals put together. They are also, according to author Jonathan Balcombe, the least understood, not only by the general public but by professional biologists as well.

Cover of ‘What a Fish Knows’ by Jonathan Balcombe. (Credit: Amazon.com)

Mister Balcombe certainly knows his fish. As the Director of Animal Sentience at the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy Mister Balcombe is an unabashed supporter of the rights of all animals, especially fish. That’s not an easy job considering that we humans annually kill around a estimated 2 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, fish. Many of these fish we don’t even eat. A large fraction of those billions of fish are simply ground up to be used as food for the animals we grow, both land animals and the stock of the rapidly growing fish farming industry.

Human beings annually kill an estimated 2 Trillion Fish! (Credit: ESA Business Applications)

Even so there is still a large fraction of commercially captured fish that are completely unwanted. Caught by nets or hooks they are brought on board ships and usually left to die before they are thrown back in the water. These fish, along with dolphins, squid, crustaceans and coral, even seabirds are known in the fishing industry as bycatch. Of no value commercially they die simply because we consider it too much trouble to do anything to avoid killing them.

Just a few of the statistics of the damage we cause unintentionally to marine life! (Credit: ReefCl)
This poor sea turtle is going to die simply because it was unlucky enough to get caught in one of our nets. (Credit: University of Miami)

The sheer brutality of the way we use fish is one of the arguments Mister Balcombe employs in order to get we, his readers to care about our finny fellow creatures. Balcombe’s other technique is to simply teach us something about fish, the idea being that the more we know about someone or something the more likely we are to treat them as a fellow creature, even if they do have fins instead of legs.

So most of ‘What a Fish Knows’ consists of a thorough review of what we know about fish, their anatomy, their sensory view of the world, their intelligence, social behavior and parenting skills. Using the results of almost two hundred peer reviewed research papers about fish Mister Balcombe entertains us as much as teaches us about what a fish does know. Oh, and if you didn’t know that fish have intelligence, or social behavior or parenting skills you really should read this book.

Mouth brooding fish will literally defend their young by hiding them in their mouth! (Credit: The Fisheries Blog)

As I said earlier Mister Balcombe is an advocate for the rights of fish but I must say that with seven billion hungry human beings on this planet, many of whom need more protein in their diet, there’s a limit to how far we can go with the ethical treatment of animals. The most important thing in my opinion is to begin using fish in a sustainable fashion. Many of the species of fish we most enjoy eating are being driven to extinction by commercial overfishing.

That’s why I’m a big advocate for fish farming, even though I do recognize such problems as pollution caused by fish farms. At the same time we can certainly do something to reduce the sheer waste of life we cause with bycatch. Another horrible practice is the catching of sharks in order to cut off their fins for shark fin soup, and then tossing the still living animal back into the water to die in agony.

Many fish farms are along the coastal areas of the world. (Credit: WordPress.com)
Other fish farms are well inland. (Credit: Cherokee,NC)

Life implies death, and even if we didn’t eat fish they would still end up being eaten by something. But we consider ourselves to be a bit above the moral plane of ‘nature, red in tooth and claw’. To justify our high opinion of ourselves we must do more to treat our fellow creatures more humanely.  

Postscript: Well Monday was the transit of Mercury, did you get to see it. The clouds here in Philadelphia held off for about the first half of the transit, long enough for me to get a few good pictures of this celestial event. See below.

The transit of Mercury on 11 November 2019. The planet is only a tiny dot compared to the immensity of our Sun. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)
Even in closeup the planet still seems tiny! (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

I know my images can’t compare with those you can easily find at NASA or other websites, but I think they’re better ’cause I took’em!

Paleontology News for October 2019.

There have been some important fossil discoveries lately that span nearly the entire time period of multi-cellular life on Earth. I think I’ll start with the earliest and work my way forward in time.

We usually think of complex social behavior as being a recent development in the history of life. After all we have the most complex societies of any species and we’re one of the youngest of Earth’s creatures, right?

Humans have been social as long as we’ve been Human. (Credit: History.com)

Well it is worth remembering that some insects like ants have been living together in complex hives for around 200 million years and we now know that many species of dinosaurs traveled in herds for protection. So obviously some forms of social behavior predate human beings by quite a long time.

However some animals have been social a lot longer than we have. (Credit: Phys.org)

Now a new series of fossils from Morocco is providing evidence that social behavior existed as far back as the lower Ordovician period, about 480 million years ago. The fossils shown a large number of individuals of the trilobite species Ampyx priscus arranged in a line with the front end of their bodies all pointing in the same direction. The clear indication is that these creatures were moving together in a very orderly line, a behavior requiring considerable neural and sensory ability.

Trilobites of the species A pricus moving together in a line 480 MYA. (Credit: The New York Times)

The reason why these trilobites were moving together in a line will probably never be known for certain but the fact is that arthropod species like spiny lobsters, ants and even caterpillars are known to behave in a very similar fashion today. These trilobites provide another example of how old doesn’t necessarily imply simple or primitive. 

One of the critical events in the history of life on this planet has to be the moment when the first vertebrate animal, a fish, climbed out of the water and gingerly set foot on the land. All land dwelling bony animals, all amphibians, reptiles, including the dinosaurs, birds and mammals, including you and I are beholden to that ancient creature.

An artists illustration of what the first vertebrate to step onto land may have looked like. (Credit: Phys.org)

So it’s not surprising that paleontologists are keenly interested in learning as much as they can about those early land vertebrates. The recent discovery of a new species of tetrapod, that is a four-limbed animal, gives an insight into what kind of creature may have been the first to make that historic step. Discovered in the Sosnogorsk formation along the banks of the Izhma River in the former Soviet Republic of Komi the animal has been dated to about 372 million years ago during the Devonian Period.

Artists impression of the recently discovered Terapod from the Komi Republic. (Credit: Daily Mail)

Named Parmastega aelidae the animal is a strange mixture of both fish and land animal characteristics. For example the placement of its eyes on the top of a flat skull clearly indicates an animal that is watching what is going on above the waterline. At the same time however the animal’s shoulder girdle is made of partially cartilaginous bones, making those bones too weak to be able to support a land animal. So P aelidae may have been a water animal whose prey lived out of the water. A modern example would be a crocodile and indeed the long snout filled with sharp teeth of P aelidae strongly resembles that of a crocodile.

A comparison of the skull of the terapod (r) to that of a modern crocodile (l). (Credit: Daily Mail)
A fossil jawbone of the terapod showing numerous sharp teeth. (Credit: Phys.org)

The discovery of such fossils as P aelidae gives us further knowledge in our quest to understand how our ancestors evolved to become the dominant kind of life on land.

Another critical moment in the history of life on Earth surely came after the asteroid collision that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75% of all species of life. The questions of how quickly did life recover from that disaster, and what kind of animals became dominant now that the dinosaurs were gone are key to our understanding the natural world today? Paleontologists know that in order to answer these questions they need to find fossil sites from the time immediately after the asteroid strike.

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs landed in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico forming a crater 300 km wide. (Credit: Research.utexas.edu)

Just such a fossil site was recently discovered by paleontologists Tyler Lyson and Ian Miller of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science just outside the nearby city of Colorado Springs. The location, known as Corral Bluff is yielding a treasure trove of fossils from a time less than a million years after the asteroid strike. The finds include over 1,000 mammal fossils from 16 different species along with reptiles, birds and 6,000 plant fossils. The most important finds discovered by the researchers consisted of dozens of delicate mammalian skulls.

Doctors Lyson (r) and Miller (l) searching for mammal fossils at Corral Bluff. (Credit: KPBS)

While the fossils are still being studied a few conclusions can be reached. During the reign of the dinosaurs mammals remained small, rare and nocturnal creatures no larger than a squirrel, about one kilogram maximum. The fossils obtained from Corral Bluff however show that is less than a million after the dinosaurs were gone mammals had already greatly increased in both size and number with one of the species discovered estimated as having a mass more than 50 kg.

Artists impression of one of the little mammals that repopulated the world after the extinction of the dinosaurs. (Credit: USA Today)
Some of the mammal fossils found at Corral Bluff. (Credit: Reuters)

The fossils from Corral Bluffs give witness to how quickly the mammals were evolving to fill up the ecological niches left vacant by the extinction of the dinosaurs. At the same time the paleontologists are making other discoveries as well, among them the remains of the earliest known legume, a pea plant that might very well have provided high protein food for some of the growing population of mammals.

The history of life on Earth is both long and complex but paleontologists don’t mind that at all. It just mean that there are many more fascinating discoveries waiting to be made.

Did social inequality begin during the Bronze Age? New results from archeology in Germany may point toward an answer.

“All animals are equal,” George Orwell declared in his novel ‘Animal Farm, “But some animals are more equal than others!”

Is Social inequality a necessary condition of having a society? (Credit: George Orwell)

The question of when and how did social inequality arise in human populations has been asked ever since we humans began to live in large societies. Now let me be clear here, I’m talking about social inequality, the kind of inequality where a small but recognizable portion of a human population dominates and forces obedience from the greater part of their society for periods of time longer than a single human lifespan.

We can see the beginnings of this inequality in the social behavior of our closest relatives. In a troop of chimpanzees or gorillas the alpha male and his close companions push the rest of the group around establishing a easily recognizable pecking order. However it is rare for that dominance to be passed directly to the son of the alpha male. Strength, not pedigree is the key to being on top in such primitive societies.

Amongst our primate relatives the Alpha Male maintains his position through violence and intimidation. (Credit: The Conscious Resistance)

The opinion of most anthropologists is that long term social inequality requires material wealth. Objects such as tools or pottery but most importantly weapons that an alpha male can pass on to his son(s) giving them an advantage over the other members of their tribe. Eventually the ability to pass on the ownership of flocks of domesticated animals or land itself will bring with it the establishment of actual economic classes, rich and poor.

Now Stone Age societies are known to have possessed a degree of material wealth in the form of stone and bone tools and in later periods even pottery. However stone tools and pottery break quite easily and are of little permanent value.

Stone Age Tools can vary greatly and be quite useful. However they usually don’t last very long requiring constant replacement. (Credit: Peter Ghiringhelli)

Metal makes all the difference. Metal tools can last for many years with care and a metal weapon will not only keep its edge far longer than a stone one but can even be resharpened when it does become dull! The long-term value of metal objects appears to have been a real game changer in the evolution of human civilization.

Bronze Age Weapons can last for decades and be passed down father to son helping to concentrate power within a family or clan. (Credit: Monaghan County Council)

Therefore, the argument from anthropologists goes, the first evidence for the development of social inequality should be found in the Bronze ages. The question is therefore; does the evidence of the archeological record support that argument?

There is a wealth of data from the Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean that seems to confirm this hypothesis. The pharoses of Egypt were treated as god-kings who could command tens of thousands of commoners to build their massive pyramid tombs while the Hittite and Mycenaean Greek Kings lived in enormous palaces surrounded by the common folk who laboured for them.

But what about the rest of the world, is there any evidence for the rise of social inequality in the rest of Bronze Age Europe for example?  It’s that question that makes the recent study of the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze age site in the Lech Valley in Germany so interesting.

Authored by Alissa Mittnik and Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History along with Philipp Stockhammer from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich, the study makes extensive use of the latest archaeological techniques, radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis and isotope analysis of tooth enamel along with more traditional methods.

The Bronze Age sites in the Lech valley consist of several large homesteads, numerous smaller farms and critically, several cemeteries. Those cemeteries yielded the remains of 104 individuals that were radiocarbon dated to a period between 2800 and 1300 BCE, spanning the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age.

The excavation of a Bronze Age grave in the Lech Valley of Germany. (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

The presence of a wide assortment of grave goods in some of the graves allowed the identification of upper class versus lower class individuals according to criteria employed since the beginning of archeology. For example the presence of bronze daggers or axes in a male grave, or metal jewelry in a female grave would indicate a member of the warrior elite while few or no grave goods is indicative of a servant or serf.

Some of the Bronze tools and weapons unearthed in Germany. (Credit: K. Massy)

Once a set of remains had been classified as to its social status DNA extracted from teeth or bone was used to determine their family relations. The researchers discovered that the upper class warrior individuals had no family relationships at all to those of the lower class. At the same time they were able to establish father to son sequences within the upper class that could last as long as five generations. Also, isotope analysis of chemicals extracted from the tooth enamel of both the high-class males and all lower class individuals showed that they were all native to the Lech valley.

A finely made Bronze Age dagger. (Credit: K. Massy)

The surprise of the study however turned out to be the examinations of the high-class female remains. Genetically the high-class women showed no relationship to either the high class or lower class men! In addition when the tooth enamel of the high-class women was chemically examined it was found that they were foreign born, some coming from as far away as modern Czechoslovakia, more than 500 kilometers away. The implication is that these women were brought to the Lech valley to be wives for the high-class men while the daughters of the high class were sent elsewhere to marry.

High class women also had elaborate grave goods buried with them. Here is a decorative pin found in the grave of one foreign woman. Credit: K. Massy)

This cultural tradition of aristocratic families sending their daughters to marry into families at great distances is believed to have served two purposes. First it prevented inbreeding within the upper class while at the same time it helped to establish cultural and even trading links with other communities. While such nuptial customs are well established for the late Bronze and through the Iron Age into the Roman period this study provides the first comprehensive support for the existence of these traditions at the very beginning of the Bronze Age.

One Artists impression of life in Bronze Age Germany. (Credit: Philipp Stockhammer)

With every new excavation, with every new technique developed to examine the finds unearthed the science of Archaeology is discovering more and more about the beginnings of human civilization. This includes the story of when and how human social classes first developed.

Skywatch Alert: Transit of Mercury on the 11th of November 2019! (CAUTION, never look directly into the Sun without protective eyewear!!!)

Two years ago in August of 2017 the United States was treated to the amazing celestial event of a total eclipse of the Sun that traveled across the nation from Oregon to South Carolina. (See my post of 24Aug2017) Of course everybody knows that a Solar eclipse only happens because the Moon can pass in front of the Sun blocking out its light.

One of the pictures I took during the Eclipse of August 2017. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

  The Moon isn’t the only astronomical body that can pass in front of the Sun however. The two inner planets Mercury and Venus can also cross between the Sun and our planet. But because they are so much further from the Earth than our Moon is they only cover up a very small portion of the Sun’s disk, so small you’d never know that it was happening unless you purposely look for it.

Also because Venus and Mercury are further away than our Moon transits occur less frequently than eclipses. While a Solar eclipse happens somewhere on Earth almost every year there will only be 14 transits of Mercury and only two transits of Venus this entire century. The transits of Venus are already past by the way, the next one is in December of 2117! And because the two planets are further away they appear to move more slowly across the face of the Sun, taking hours to complete a transit instead of the four minutes of total eclipse I got to see in 2017.

Some of the astronomical details of the November 11th transit of Mercury. (Credit: F. Espenak)

I’ve been fortunate enough to see both kinds of transit, a transit of Venus back on the 8th of June in 2004 and a transit of Mercury on the 9th of May 2016. I had not yet bought a Solar telescope back in 2004 so I have no pictures of the Venus transit but I had all my equipment ready in 2016 so even though the day was pretty cloudy I did manage to get a few pictures. (See image below)

Picture of transit of Mercury I took in June 2016. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

As with a Solar eclipse whether or not you are able to see a transit depends on whether the Sun is out, in other words is it daylight where you live while the transit is happening. The map below shows how much of the transit will be visible in your location.

The November 2019 transit of Mercury will only be see in certain parts of the World. The map above indicates where! (Credit: F. Espenak)

Once again I’m going to be lucky because the eastern US gets to see the entire event, as does the whole of South America. For the middle part of North America and the west coast however the transit will already be happening as the Sun rises in your location. For Europe and most of Africa the opposite is true, you will be able see the beginning of the transit in the late afternoon but the Sun will set before the event is over. Asia and Australia I’m afraid you’re out of luck this time around but the entire transit is going to be live streamed so check out the link below. https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2019/10/16/the-11-november-2019-mercury-transit-online-observing-session/

If you are going to try to see something of the Mercury transit yourself PLEASE DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN WITHOUT EYE PROTECTION!! Only a fool without a bit of common sense looks directly at the Sun without eye protection. As evidence of that fact the image below shows Donald Trump watching the 2017 Solar eclipse without eye protection.

Donald Trump foolishly watching the Solar Eclipse of August 2017 without eye protection. (Credit: Washington Post)

If you happen to still have your eclipse glasses from 2017 they will protect your eyes although Mercury will only appear as a tiny dot on the Sun’s disk. If you have lost your glasses or if you’d like a better view of the transit remember once again that the event will be live streamed. Now all I need is some good weather, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The best way to view a transit or eclipse is through a specially made ‘Solar Telescope’ like this one. (Credit: Coronado / Meade Instruments)

Movie Review: The Current War.

There’s a new movie that’s just been released that is not getting the attention it deserves as far as I’m concerned. It’s called ‘The Current War’ and it dramatizes the often bitter but completely non-violent struggle between Thomas Edison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and George Westinghouse, played by Michael Shannon. These two titans of the industrial age struggled over which of them would be the first to provide the new technology of electric power to our nation. This contest was between more than two of the most famous industrialists in our history it was a fight between which kind of electricity, Direct Current (DC) or Alternating Current (AC) would be produced and delivered to millions of customers.

Poster for ‘The Current War’. (Credit: Flickering Myth)

You see Edison had succeeded in electrifying a square kilometer of lower Manhattan using the simpler DC. This was the establishment of the first ever electrical power utility and is a large part of Edison’s reputation as an inventor and industrialist. Because of that success Edison became convinced that simpler just made sense.

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Tom Edison. (Credit: History versus Hollywood)
Michael Shannon plays George Westinghouse. (Credit: History versus Hollywood)

But DC had its drawbacks; the primary one being that it is very difficult to change one DC voltage to another. This meant that Edison could not use dangerous high voltage power lines to transit his power over great distances and then feed lower, safer voltages into people’s home. Because of this limitation Edison needed to build a power plant almost every kilometer, a very costly proposition.

AC traveled much better. An AC power plant could send high voltage power hundreds of kilometers and then use a device called a transformer to lower the voltage down to a safe level in which it could be delivered into a customer’s home. The drawback for AC was that, although motors using DC was simple to build, AC motors were so complicated that no one had managed to invent one. George Westinghouse was convinced however that AC’s advantages made it the superior system and that sooner or later someone would invent an AC motor.

High Voltage Power Lines sending electricity thousands of kilometers is only possible with AC (Credit: T&D World)

‘The Current War’ illustrates all of the engineering back and forth while at the same time showing us something of the personalities of the individuals involved. Both Edison and Westinghouse begin as men of honour. Edison for example steadfastly refuses to invent or work on weapons of war of any kind. As for George Westinghouse, throughout the contest his admiration for Edison is evident, his desire to work together is show on several occasions. However each man is determined to see his system win triggering a battle of technology.

DC Motors are simple and easy to build but are not very efficient. (Credit: Core Electronics)
AC Motors are more complicated but offer greater power and efficiency. (Credit: IndiaMart)

Now ‘The Current War’ is not without problems of its own as a movie. There is one sequence in particular that comes to mind. Several times during the story George Westinghouse has a flashback to an incident that occurred to him during the Civil War. Its not until almost the end of the movie that we find out everything that happened and while the incident does reveal something of Westinghouse’s personality by that time it’s of little interest and the movie would have been better to have eliminated the whole affair.

Then there’s Nikola Tesla, the brilliant Serbian born electrical engineer who finally succeeded in developing an AC motor that actually worked better than any DC motor. It was Tesla’s inventions that allowed Westinghouse and AC to finally prevail. However while in the movie Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult, appears from nearly the beginning he has little influence on the action until nearly the end. Because of this the character of Tesla distracts from the drama more than enhances it.

Nikola Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult, is an important figure in the development of electrical power but is not well integrated into ‘The Current War’. (Credit: Time)

Still I heartily recommend ‘The Current War’, if only because it shows how the ‘wars’ that humanity actually wins are those about ideas not gold or territory or dominance. You’d better see it fast however, it’s not doing well at the box office and could disappear soon. Just goes to show how a movie about ideas, about the things that made our modern world a better place to live gets lost amongst all of the explosions and fistfights and good guy, bad guy mentality that makes up all of the Hollywood blockbusters.

Underwater Habitats, what Happened to the Dream of Humans Living in the Oceans?

During all of the celebrations leading up to the 50th anniversary of man’s first landing on the Moon this year I was reminded of another field of scientific exploration that made a lot of news in the 1960s but which has sort of disappeared since then. I’m talking about the idea of people living and working under the oceans and seas of our world, about the possibility of even building underwater cities to colonize the continental shelves that surround the continental landmasses of the Earth.

Underwater cities are the suff of science fiction but in the 1960s people many people thought they would become reality in the near future. (Credit: IMDB)

You think that sounds like science fiction, well wasn’t space travel back then! In fact during the early 1960s the two exploratory efforts of outer space and inner space moved forward in a kind of parallel path. In fact in 1961, the same year as the flights of Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard, US Navy diver Robert Stėnuit became the first aquanaut to spend more than 24 hours at a depth of 60m in the ‘Man in the Sea’ project.

The underwater habitat in which Robert Setnuit spent 24 hours at 60m depth. (Credit: Diving Almanac)

 To compliment the space race between the US and Russia there was even an ‘Undersea Race’ between the US and France. That’s right France, in the person of Jacques-Yves Cousteau the developer of the Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or SCUBA gear. So many of my generation fondly remember Cousteau both from his articles in the National Geographic magazine along with his TV show filmed aboard his ship the Calypso so I’ll talk about his Continental Shelf or ‘Conshelf’ project first.

Oceanographer Jacques Yeves Cousteau invented the SCUBA driver gear and used his profits to spend his life exploring the oceans. (Credit: Totally History)

Cousteau’s program began with Conshelf I in 1962 with two men spending a week at a depth of 10m in the waters off the French city of Marseille. The Conshelf I habitat was a simple pressurized cylinder with an egress hatch that allowed the two man crew to work outside in the water for a minimum of five hours a day. See image below of Conshelf I being readied for installation.

The design of Conshelf 1 was simplicity itself. (Credit: National Geographic)

Then in 1963 Conshelf II was much more ambitious, with two occupied structures and even an underwater garage for a small two-man sub. The larger habitat, see image below, was a starfish shaped base where six men lived and worked for a month. Near the starfish was the round garage for the sub. There was also a smaller two-man cabin at a depth of 25m. The second image shows the basic setup of the entire Conshelf II project.

Conshelf 2 was a multi structure project allowing a half a dozen men to live underwater for a month. (Credit: National Geographic)
The two main structures of Conshelf 2 being readied for placement on the ocean floor. On the right is the starfish living quarters while on the left is the domed garage for the two man sub. (Credit: The Cousteau Society)
Sketch of the interior of the inhabited module in Conshelf 2. (Credit: Cousteau Society)

Conshelf III was Cousteau’s final, most ambitious attempt at living in the depths of the sea. In 1965 six men lived inside a spherical shaped pressure vessel at a depth of over 100m for three weeks. See image below. One of the ways in which Conshelf III was more difficult was that, whereas Conshelf I and II and received power and supplies from the surface Conshelf III was mostly self-sufficient, with few ties to the surface.

Conshelf 3 Being lower into the Ocean. (Credit: Medium)
Sketch of the Interior of Conshelf 3. (Credit: Medium)

Originally Cousteau had planned on continuing the Conshelf project with two more underwater habitats but Conshelf III was to be the French oceanographer’s last project for living on the ocean’s floor. In his three Conshelf experiments Cousteau demonstrated man’s ability to live and perform useful work while living inside the ocean.

Meanwhile the US Navy was conducting a program of its own in underwater habitation under the project name Sealab. The man in charge of Sealab was Dr. George F. Bond, a modest country doctor from North Carolina who had been drafted during the Korean War and quickly became the head of the Navy’s Medical Research Laboratory. Under Dr. Bond the laboratory led the way in studies of breathable gas mixtures that could allow humans to work for longer periods of time at greater depths underwater.

Doctor George F. Bond was the head of the U.S. Navy’s Sealab underwater program. (Credit: Researchgate)

The Navy’s goals in the Sealab program were slightly different that those of the French. The Navy was more interested in perfecting the techniques of deep diving while at the same time studying the psychological and physiological effects of isolation at great depth.

Sealab One, see image below, was placed at a depth of 58m off the coast of Bermuda in 1964. The plan was for four men to live inside the Sealab module for three weeks but due to an approaching storm the mission was cancelled after only 11 days.

Like Conshelf 1, Sealab 1 was a simple cylinder. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Sealab Two, see image below, took place the following year in 1965 and was much more successful. Placed off the coast of California at a depth of 62m it was manned by three separate teams of divers. Each team of nine men spent 15 days in the habitat but one of the team members, Mercury Astronaut Scott Carpenter spent a record 30 days in the lab. Another interesting aspect of Sealab Two is that a bottlenose dolphin named Tuffy who was an experimental animal with the US Navy Marine Mammal Program assisted the human team members in their work.

Sealab 2 on a dock waiting to be taken out to sea. (Credit: Medium)
Sketch of the interior of Sealab 2. (Credit: www.history.navy.mil)

Sealab Three, which was lowered into 185m of water off San Clemente Island California, followed in 1969 using a refurbished Sealab Two habitat. Five teams of nine divers were planned for the program but the greater depth of Sealab Three caused problems from the very beginning. These problems in fact led to the death of aquanaut Berry L. Cannon when his rebreather failed to remove the carbon dioxide from his exhalation.

It’s obvious that with the Conshelf and Sealab programs considerable progress was being made in learning how to live and work on the seafloor during the 60s. So what happened? Why haven’t we gone further? Shouldn’t there be cities, or at least towns on the seafloor by now?

The reasons for why undersea habitats didn’t progress any further are pretty much the same as the reasons for why human exploration of space has also slowed to a snail’s pace. One reason is robots. Just as robotic space probes have explored every planet in our solar system more cheaply and safely than humans can, so undersea robots are doing many of the jobs it was once thought humans would do. Then of course there’s the difficulty of money. Big science, whether in space or under the sea, just doesn’t get funded the way it once did.

Underwater Robots are doing many of the jobs it was thought that men would have to do. (Credit: Business Insider)

However both of those reasons are just symptoms of the real reason, a lack of interest by the general population. There was a time when moving into space or into the oceans was considered a logical next step. We had explored and settled all of the land areas of the Earth so it was just natural that we would move on to explore the sea and sky. That kind of logic just isn’t popular anymore. Maybe it will become so once more. I hope so because the idea of living under the sea, like living in space was a lot more fun than the endless bickering we seem to waste all of our time on nowadays.

Space News for October 2019.

This month I’m going to use my monthly space news post for an update on NASA’s commercial crew program. You’ll recall that this is the space agency’s plan to hire private companies to launch America’s astronauts into Low Earth Orbit (LOE). NASA has been anxiously waiting for Space X and its competitor Boeing to begin taking America’s astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) so that it no longer has to pay the Russians $80 million dollars for a seat on their Soyuz spacecraft. The first manned missions of the Space X Dragon and Boeing Starliner capsules were supposed to have begun in early 2018 so the whole program is already more than a year behind schedule and there is still no firm date for an actual manned mission. 

The Space X Crew Dragon made an unmanned flight to the ISS in March. (Credit: The Verge)
Boeing’s Starliner capsule has yet to reach orbit but it has completed its in flight abort test. (Credit: Space News)

You may recall that back in March of this year Space X successfully launched an unmanned Dragon capsule that was able to dock at the International Space Station (ISS). This was a planned Orbital Flight Test or OFT. (See my post of 6March 2019) At the time there was hope that the Hawthorn California company would soon become the first private entity to perform a manned space mission, possibly as early as August. After all the Dragon Capsule had only one more test to complete in order for NASA to completely certify it as ready for crewed flight.

That test was a launch pad abort test where the capsule’s solid fuel rockets would be fired. Those are the rockets designed to yank the capsule away from its booster rocket in the event of any problem that could endanger the crew. Well on April 20th something went wrong with the solid fuel rockets and the capsule was nearly destroyed. (See my post of 3August 2019) Needless to say the planned manned mission was postponed and still has not been rescheduled.

The Space X dragon capsule before and after the ‘anomaly’. (Credit: America Space)

Of course Space X immediately began an investigation into the ‘anomaly’ that quickly led to a faulty valve as being the cause. Since then there have been six months of engineering effort on the Dragon capsule so that this week a redesigned Dragon capsule has arrived at Cape Canaveral ready to conduct the in flight abort testing. That test is now being scheduled for sometime after the 23rd of November.

The redesigned Space X Dragon capsule being readied for its in flight abort test. (Credit: The New York Times)

So perhaps Space X is back on track to begin launching astronauts into orbit. Meanwhile Boeing has successfully completed its in flight abort testing and is preparing for an unmanned flight of its Starliner capsule after which it will be certified to begin manned missions.

For a time it appeared as if Boeing had little chance of beating Space X in their commercial space race but the recent problems of the Dragon capsule have given the Starliner the opportunity to catch up. With the completion of its in flight abort test Boeing is now ready to attempt its remaining to tests, the pad abort and OFT which have been given tentative dates of the 2nd of November and the 17th of December. Assuming Starliner passes both these tests a manned mission to the ISS could come in early 2020.

It is hoped that Boeing’s Starliner will make its first, unmanned test launch before the end of the year. (Credit: YouTube)

So it seems as if the race between Space X and Boeing to launch the first commercial space manned space flight could go down to the wire. And both those two companies might be hearing footsteps behind them because there’s a third company preparing to begin commercial space launches as well. Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser isn’t an updated space capsule like the Dragon and Starliner; instead it’s an updated version of the space shuttle.

A mock up of the completed Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser space plane. (Credit: Geekwire)

The main body of the Dream Chaser, which was manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corporation, has arrived at Sierra Nevada’s main plant for completion. Officials at Sierra Nevada are confident that the Dream Chaser will make it maiden, unmanned resupply mission to the ISS sometime in 2021.

The Dream Chaser main body has been delivered to Sierra Nevada Corp for integration into the completed spacecraft. (Credit: Parabolic Arc)

The main body that was delivered measures some 10 meters long by 5 wide and 2 high and can carry 6,000 kilos of supplies. The main body is composed of the most advanced high-temperature composite material. Once the first Dream Chaser is ready a Vulcan Centaur rocket will launch it on its maiden flight. Despite many delays and frustrations the time is now approaching when American astronauts will once again launch into space from American soil. It can’t come soon enough for me.

Paraplegic man walks with the aid of a thought controlled Exo-Skeleton.

I’ve written several posts about the rapid advances that have been made recently in the field of robotic prosthesis for people who have either lost a limb or the use of their limbs. See posts of 14Aug2019, 23Feb2019, 17Feb2018 and 29Apl2017. I must admit however that the latest breakthrough has me simply stunned; a man who had lost all control of his four limbs has been able to walk again using a robotic exo-skeleton controlled by only his thoughts, and a highly advanced computer interface.

A Quadriplegic man has succeeded in walking using an exo-skeleton controlled by his thoughts. (Credit: The Independent)

The research is taking place in France at Clinatec, the University of Grenoble’s Center for Biomedical Research. The test subject, a 28-year-old man named Thibault, is paralyzed from the shoulder down due to a severing of his spinal column in a 12-meter fall from a balcony.

In order to read his thoughts a sensory device was implanted in each hemisphere of his skull between the skin and his brain. The two sensory discs were each 5 cm in diameter and contained 64 separate sensors. The electronic ‘brain waves’ generated by the sensorimotor cortex of the brain are captured by these sensors and fed into a computer. The computer then uses an algorithm to translate the brain impulses into commands for movements of the mechanical exo-skeleton.

Electronic sensors were implanted in Thibault’s skull, one for each hemisphere. (Credit: Clinatec Endowment Fund / AFP)

Needless to say it’s not really all that simple. In fact it took two years of trial and error in order for both Thibault to learn how to frame his thoughts correctly and to teach the computer algorithm to correctly translate those thoughts into the desired motion commands. Much of this practice was actually carried out in virtual reality with Thibault and the computer moving computer generated images of limbs.

A computer algorithm translated Thibault’s brain waves into commands for the Exo-Skeleton. (Credit: Clinatec Endowment Fund)
For Simplicity and safety the testing and training of controlling the exo-skeleton was performed in virtual reality. (Credit: SHRM)

Once the researchers were confident enough they placed Thibault into the actual 65 kg exo-skeleton and studied him while he successfully walked a total of 145 meters. Since the researchers expected balance to be an issue the exo-skeleton was connected to a ceiling mounted harness that provided stability but all of the movements of the exo-skeleton were controlled by Thibault’s thoughts.

According to Professor Stephan Chabardes, author of the study and a neurosurgeon at the University’s hospital, “Our findings could move us a step closer to helping tetraplegic patients to drive computers using brain signals alone, perhaps starting with driving wheelchairs using brain activity instead of joysticks and progressing to developing an exo-skeleton for increased mobility.”

Research is continuing, the scientists hope that soon Thibault will be able to walk in the exo-skeleton without the ceiling harness in the next phase of the program. Also, three other patients have been recruited for further trials. Although the system is certainly not ready for general use the researchers hope that in time improvements will allow the exo-skeleton to become commercially available.

Before long the development of exo-skeletons may soon rival those imagined in Sci-Fi movies. (Credit: DudeWantThat)

The development of the Grenoble exo-skeleton is another step in the direction of a Human Machine Interface (HMI) that will allow humans to both control and receive information from advanced mechanical and computer systems. Someday a fully functioning HMI might blur the line ourselves and our creations. 

Book Review “The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’ by Brandon Q. Morris.

It seems more and more as if Science Fiction is becoming dominated by the writing and publishing of series, trilogies in particular, as opposed to stand-alone novels. One of the latest of these series is by new author Brandon Q. Morris and concerns an expedition to the planet Saturn in order to investigate the possibility of life on its moon Enceladus.

Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus has jets of water streaming out of its south polar region. This means there must be some large body of liquid water beneath the ice covering. Could that liquid water support life??? (Credit: Spaceflight Insider)

One problem that arises with these series is that it can be quite easy to pick up the second or third story in the series and start reading without realizing that you’re starting in the middle of the story. I did that when I bought ‘The Titan Probe’. Two pages in and I recognized my error, put the book down and ordered ‘The Enceladus Mission’. Because of that mistake on my part however this book review will be a two for one, reviewing both “The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’.

Cover of ‘The Enceladus Mission’ by Brandon Q. Morris (Credit: Amazon.com)
Cover of ‘The Titan Probe’ by Brandon Q. Morris (Credit: Amazon.com)

‘The Enceladus Probe’ begins as the unmanned space probe ELF discovers clear evidence not just of organic compounds around Saturn’s moon but “the digestive byproducts of your space rat.” In other words the probe has found unmistakable evidence of life. The acronym ELF by the way stands for Enceladus Life Finder and is an actual proposed NASA mission to that moon of Saturn.

Brandon Morris uses a lot of acronyms in both ‘The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’ and for the most part I think that’s a good thing. This style of hard sci-fi has benefited from the success of Andy Weir’s ‘The Martian’ and appears to be growing more popular, witness the current movie ‘Ad Astra’.

Saturn’s moon Titan possesses a thicker atmosphere than Earth’s but if there is life on Titan it would be very different than life on Earth. (Credit: NASA)

In hard sci-fi novels hardware that already exists, is currently under development or at least is based on known science is employed as much as possible in illustrating the story. Personally I hope this trend toward hard sci-fi will continue. Of course it is possible to overdo the techno jargon, I mean is it really better to talk about an EMU, which means Extravehicular Mobility Unit, instead of just saying spacesuit!

Getting back to the story, now that there is clear evidence of life on Enceladus the nations of the world combine their resources to put together a manned mission to “catch the little critter itself.” So begins the voyage of the ILSE spacecraft, ILSE standing for International Life Search Expedition no less.

The idea of the world’s space nations getting together is another common theme of hard sci-fi novels. In ‘The Martian’ for example a Chinese rocket is needed to resupply the Hermes spaceship as it goes to rescue Mark Watney who’s stranded on Mars. I guess the authors of these stories like to imagine how much more we could achieve in space if only we worked together.

The moral of the original ‘Star Trek’ Series was that by working together humanity could go on to explore the Universe! (Credit: Paramount)

Also like ‘The Martian’ in both ‘The Enceladus Mission’ and “The Titan Probe’ the crew of the ILSE face several technical problems with equipment during their mission that require all of their ingenuity and determination to overcome. Once again this is a plot device that can be overused but Brandon Morris does a good job of making each predicament seem different from the others.

One plot device that was lacking in ‘The Martian’ but which Morris includes in both ‘The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’ is intelligent aliens. Now back in the ‘golden age’ of sci-fi, the days of H. G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury, Martians and Venusians were more common than interstellar aliens. But when the early space probes of the 1960s found Mars to be a cold desert and Venus to be an acidic furnace the aliens in sci-fi stories became exclusively interstellar. I have to say that it was nice to see a story with intelligent aliens who are native to our solar system for a change.

Back before we knew that Mars was a cold dry desert even Bugs Bunny got to meet a Martian! (Credit: Warner Brothers)

So there you have a good idea of the sort of story you’ll find in both ‘The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’. If you’re a fan of hard sci-fi, if you liked ‘The Martian’ I think that you’ll enjoy both novels. By the way there is a third installment in the voyage of the ILSE, ‘The Io Encounter’ which I just received. I’ll tell you about it later.