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Atlantis, the lost Continent has been discovered once again for about the 100th time in my Life.

A group of adventurers based in the UK has announced the ‘discovery of Atlantis’ in a national park along the Southwest coast of Spain. Hey, it’s outside of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’ (Better know today as the Straights of Gibraltar) and there are some stones there that look like they were worked by humans, so it has to be Atlantis, right? The fact that the ‘adventurers’ are already trying to sell a documentary about their discovery tells you something about their concern for rigorous science.

Now everybody knows that it was the ancient Greek Philosopher Plato who described the ‘Island of Atlas’ in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias in about the year 360 BCE. According to Plato he heard about Atlantis from a Greek Politician named Solon who heard about it himself while on a trip to Egypt almost 300 years earlier. In other words even Plato just heard about Atlantis from a friend who heard it from a friend…and so on.

Atlantis as imagined by Athanasius Kircher in 1664. Notice that north is at the bottom! (Credit: PD)

Most scholars who study Plato, his writings and his times are of the opinion that he created Atlantis as an allegory of a state that grew too rich and powerful and which was destroyed by the Gods for its sin of pride. Except for commenting on Plato’s work, no other Greek or Roman writer mentions Atlantis, Aristotle doesn’t, nor does Herodotus. And none of the ancient Egyptian writings that have ever been discovered and translated ever mention anything like the ancient civilization described by Plato. Aside from Plato no writer of the ancient world, that we know of, gives us any description of Atlantis.

Despite having only hearsay evidence however Plato does give a lot of details about Atlantis. As I said above Atlantis was an island that lay in the waters beyond the Pillars of Hercules, that’s why we call it the Atlantic Ocean after all. Also, the main city of Atlantis was built in three circular rings with canals between each ring and there was an enormous ‘Temple of Poseidon in the very center. See artist’s impression below. As I also mentioned above, the Gods destroyed Atlantis because of its pride some 9,000 years before the time of Plato. Which would put Atlantis back in the time of the Neolithic or new Stone Age.

Atlantis as described by Plato (Credit: John Uebersax)

While nearly all historians and archaeologists discount the existence of Atlantis exactly as described by Plato the possibility that another ancient civilization may have inspired the story of Atlantis has often been seriously considered. Many Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cultures have been proposed as the source of Plato’s tales.

The Bronze age Minoans have often been suggested as the ‘Inspiration’ for Atlantis (Credit: PD)

In my opinion the ancient Minoan civilization that flourished on the Island of Crete and other islands in the Aegean Sea just about 1,000 years before Plato is the best bet. O’k Crete isn’t in the Atlantic but the Minoan’s did possess a vibrant, technologically advanced society which, according to Greek legend, did dominate mainland Greece before the Greek Heroic Age. Also, the Minoan civilization suffered a great devastation from the eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera, modern day Santorini, a destruction which resembles the fate Plato described for Atlantis.

The Volcano Thera on the Isle of Santorini just north of Crete. (Credit: Canadian Museum of History)

Some of the Minoan ruins destroyed by the Volcano Thera (Credit: Santorini)

Still there are those, the pseudo-scientists and psychics who search for an Atlantis exactly as if Plato had visited it and knew it as well as he knew his native Athens. Atlantis has been ‘found’ in the Americas, in the Arctic, the Antarctic. The Nazi’s put it in Germany of course. The search for Atlantis has become a cottage industry. Find some remains of human habitation in a place not normally thought of as an ancient civilization, like southwestern Spain, and you can claim you’ve found Atlantis. Then you can make money off of a book or documentary about your ‘discovery’.

Donana Park in southwestern Spain (Credit: Shutterstock)

Location of Donana Park in Spain (Credit: Inquirer.net)

When searching for Atlantis it’s always a good idea to employ (misinterpret?) the latest technology. The UK group making the latest claim did just that, searching for Atlantis in images taken by the Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellites. So the UK group will release a documentary, most of which will consist of a rehash of the ‘history’ what Plato and other people have said about Atlantis. Then a year or two from now somebody else will ‘discover Atlantis’ outside of Toledo Ohio or who knows where and the whole process will begin again.

Meanwhile, real archaeologists are making real discoveries that very few people ever get to hear about. But you will, I promise I’ll write a post about some real archaeology very soon!

Chinese Scientist Claims to have modified the DNA of Twin Human Girls. Has the age of Designer Babies Begun?

On November 26th a major and disturbing announcement was made by a Chinese scientist just two days before the start on an international meeting on Genome Editing was to begin in Hong Kong. In a series of five YouTube Videos Doctor He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen China claimed that he had used the gene editing technique known as CRISPR to alter the DNA of two human embryos which had since been born as “healthy” twin girls. According to Dr. He, “Two beautiful Chinese girls, Lulu and Nana, came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago.”

He Jiankui in his Lab (Credit: VOA News)

The response from the scientific community was an instantaneous and universal condemnation of Dr. He’s actions. Just two days after making this stunning announcement Dr. He spoke at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing and defended his actions but the crisis among scientists in the field of genetic research has only begun and could last for years.

The Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing (Credit: The Royal Society)

So what exactly did Dr. He do and why do so many scientists consider it to be such a violation of ethical conduct?

Well first of all, Dr. He experimented on human beings in secret, without even the knowledge of his own university and against the ethical regulations of his own country. (The Chinese government has joined in the condemnation by the way.) Second, Dr. He experimented using a gene editing technique called CRISPR that is relatively new and still being studied, in other words we still don’t know either how reliable CRISPR is or what possible side effects it may cause. Third, rather than publish his work in a peer reviewed journal so that other experts could study them and comment, or criticize, he announced his “success” in a video intended to draw in other customers for his gene editing business. (Yes! Dr. He appears to actually plan on doing this as a business!) Oh, and just to add insult to injury Dr. He’s video was released only a day after researchers at Southern University of Science and Technology, including Dr. He, had published their own recommended ethical guidelines for genetic experimentation. Guidelines that Dr. He had violated before he ever signed his name to them.

Scientifically what Dr. He did was to take a fertilized human egg cell and use the gene editing technique CRISPR to remove a section of the DNA of the fertilized egg. (SEE my posts of 5Aug2017 and 1Sept18 for more information on CRIPSR) The section of DNA Dr. He chose to remove was a gene known as CCR5. Now scientists know that CCR5 is a gene that codes for a particular protein that the HIV virus uses to enter human cells. In other words Dr. He hopes to make Lulu and Nana immune to the Aids virus by removing CCR5 but there could be two big potential problems with his plan. First, CRIPSR is sometimes known to remove more DNA than is intended so it is very possible that Lulu and Nana have also lost a very important part of their genetic makeup. Also, while CCR5 may be the weak link that HIV uses to attack us, we don’t currently know what benefits we may get from it! Either way there is a completely unknown risk that the experiment may have caused real harm to the girl’s by changing their DNA.

How the HIV Virus enters Cells to cause AIDS (Credit: MIT)

That makes Dr. He’s claim of “healthy” twin girls dubious at best. What if five years from now the girls develop childhood leukemia, or diabetes or any of a thousand other genetic disorders? Even if Dr. He’s experiment didn’t cause the disease, how would we know that and would people believe it? Could governments react to the horror of two sick little girls by eliminating funding for gene editing research if not banning it entirely?

CRISPR holds great promise for exactly the sort of outcome Dr. He is hoping for but the risk of something going wrong at our present level of knowledge simply outweighs the possible gains. Gene editing experiments like those that employ CRISPR need to be carried out a million times with fruit flies and guppies before being tried on humans.

American biologist David Baltimore at the opening of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the University of Hong Kong, on Tuesday. The Nobel Prize winner has had harsh words for a fellow scientist who claims he has gene-editing human embryo (Credit: WMOT)

Doctor He was allowed to defend his experiment at the Genome Editing Summit but his audience was in no mood to be forgiving. A closing statement signed by all of the organizers of the summit called Dr. He’s actions ‘unexpected and deeply disturbing’ due to ‘inadequate medical indication, a poorly designed study protocol, a failure to meet ethical standards for protecting the welfare of research subjects, and a lack of transparency in the development, review and conduct of the clinical procedures.’ Tough talk for a scientific announcement.

Dr. He defends his Research at the Genome Summit (Credit: BBC)

So it remains to be seen whether Dr. He’s experiment will make him famous, or infamous. The Chinese government has ordered Dr. He and his team to stop all further experiments but the gene-editing genie is out of the bottle. Only time will tell if the birth of the World’s first designer babies pushes the science of gene editing forward, or causes it to crash into a solid wall!

NASA’s Insight Lander Survives ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ and Successfully lands on the Surface on Mars.

NASA has just scored another success in its long term goal of exploring the planet Mars. The Insight space probe survived its ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ ride through the atmosphere of Mars to a successful landing at about 2:50PM EST or 1950 hours Astronomers Time (GMT) on the 26th November 2018. Unlike NASA’s best known missions to the Martian surface Insight is not a rover vehicle but instead a stationary platform for instruments which it is hoped will discover a great deal about the interior of the red planet.

Insight’s journey to Mars began back on May 5th 2018; see launch image below, and the spacecraft traveled nearly 500 million kilometers to reach its destination. Now Mars hasn’t exactly been easy on the probes we’ve sent to study it, more than half of all missions sent there have ended in failure. One of the big reasons for this is the Martian atmosphere which is too thin to bring a spacecraft to a full stop, the way we use Earth’s atmosphere, yet it is still much thicker than the Moon’s making it difficult to use rockets all the way down.

Launch of the Insight Mars Lander 5 May 2018 (Credit: NASA)

Another reason the scientists and engineers who built Insight at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory consider the actual landing to be so nerve wracking is that they have no way of controlling Insight during those dangerous seven minutes. All that the people at Mission Control can do is watch while the spacecraft either performs each of the steps programmed into it at just the right moment, or the whole mission fails.

You see, as the spacecraft enters Mars’ atmosphere the planet is about eight light-minutes distance from Earth. That means that it takes any signal from Insight eight minutes to reach Earth and be received. So if anything does go wrong by the time Mission Control knows about it, and a correction can be sent back to Insight 16 minutes will have passed and the spacecraft will be nothing more than a hole in the Martian surface.

Breakdown of the Insight Probe during its voyage to Mars (Credit: NASA)

The sequence of events actually begins just before Insight hits the atmosphere as the spacecraft’s cruise stage and backshell are discarded. These protected the lander during its voyage from earth while providing it with power, see image above. Entering the atmosphere at about 20,000 kilometers per hour air resistance caused the spacecraft’s heat shield temperature to rise to more than 5,000 degrees Celsius. Once the craft had been slowed to about 1,500 kph a parachute was deployed and the heat shield detached.

At this point the lander’s legs deployed and its onboard radar began to measure the remaining distance to the ground. When the radar measured the distance as 600 meters Insight released its parachute and used 12 small rockets to control its descent the rest of the way.

Artists Illustration of the Landing of Insight (Credit: NASA)

Now remember, because of the time delay in a radio signal traveling from Mars to Earth by the time Mission Control had received the signal that Insight had entered the atmosphere the lander was actually already safely on the ground. Think of that; imagine yourself in Mission Control watching as the telemetry comes in. Everything looks good but your information is eight minutes late. You have no idea if anything went wrong after the signals you’re looking at were sent. You can only hope for the best!

Insight did land safely however, the landing went flawlessly and five minutes after JPL received the signal that the landing was accomplished the probe sent back its first image, see below. The image is covered with dust because of particles kicked up by the landing but you can see the Marian sky at the top along with something of the ground around the lander. Once the protective lens cover was removed the second image is much clearer, also below.

The First Image sent back to Earth by the Insight Lander (Credit: NASA)

Insight’s First Clear Picture (Credit: NASA)

So Insight is on the Martian surface, its solar panels have been deployed to provide it with power, and soon it will be ready to deploy its instruments and begin its scientific mission. See image of lander below.

That mission is to study what goes on beneath the surface of Mars and learn some of the secrets of the Martian interior. The lander’s instruments include a seismograph and a temperature probe that could drill down as far as five meters below the surface. Instruments such as these have before now only been deployed on the Earth and Moon, by the Apollo astronauts.

With the landing of the Insight probe the pace of Mars exploration seems to be gaining momentum, and not just on Mars. Here on Earth people are once again becoming excited by space travel. Whereas just a few years ago a space mission would barely get a mention on the news the Insight landing was covered live by both CNN and FOX. And there’s still more to come. On new years day of 2019 the New Horizons spacecraft, which has already visited Pluto, will pass by the Kuiper belt object Ultima Thule and mid next year astronauts will once again fly into space from America soil.

I’m sure the news media will be covering that!

Book Review: Freefall by Felix R. Savage. Earth’s Last Gambit Book 1.

‘Freefall’, a novel by author Felix R. Savage is a first contact with aliens story that has a strong dash of a Tom Clancy techno-thriller in it. Just a word of warning however before we start, Freefall is the first in a series of novels, the ‘Earth’s Last Gambit’ series so don’t expect the entire story. In fact ‘Freefall’ only covers the discovery of an alien ship which has entered our solar system and the preparations for an Earth expedition to travel to rendezvous with the aliens.

Freefall by Felix R. Savage (Credit: Good Reads)

Now whenever a science fiction author starts a novel they have to make a decision as to the time period in which the story will be set, present day, near future, far future or even the past (few SF novels are deliberately set in the past).

Author Felix R. Savage (Credit: Amazon UK)

Felix Savage decided to set ‘Freefall’ in the present day and personally I think that’s a dangerous thing to do because as the years go by your novel can quickly become simply wrong! For example in H. G. Wells’ classic ‘The War of the Worlds’ Martians invaded the Earth around the year 1900! Well of course that didn’t actually happen and the fact that every radio broadcast or movie version of the story since it was first published has had to perform a considerable updating illustrates the problem of a story becoming out of date.

Setting your novel in the near future at least gives you some breathing space. When Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey he at least knew that he’d have more than thirty years before the story becomes historically inaccurate. To be completely safe from this problem many novels are set in a distant future, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories are an excellent example.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still love both ‘War of the Worlds’ and 2001, but nevertheless I wouldn’t write a story that suffered from this problem before it evens gets published! This is exactly what happens in ‘Freefall’.

‘Freefall’ begins with the final mission of the space shuttle Atlantis in 2011. During the mission Atlantis suffers a collision with apiece of space debris and is so badly damaged that it is unable to land back on Earth. Thanks to the heroism of the pilot however, the shuttle succeeds in reaching the International Space Station so that the crew can be rescued. The shuttle itself however plunges uncontrolled back into Earth’s atmosphere and is destroyed.

Well of course that didn’t happen, the shuttle Atlantis is now a museum exhibit sitting safely at the Kennedy Space Center. But in a sense does historical inaccuracy really matter in a SF novel? Well, I guess you’ll have to decide that for yourself. Once again however, I wouldn’t write a story that I knew would be obsolete before anyone had read it!

The Shuttle Atlantis safely at the Kennedy Space Center (Credit: Wikipedia)

One more little criticism. Since ‘Freefall’ is set in today’s world author Felix Savage decided that allowed him to do a lot of what I call ‘Product Placement’. It seems that every page has one or two references to modern culture, everything from Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to Jimi Hendrix to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Of course it is true that such details can often help an author make their story seem more real but too many can make it feel campy, make it feel as if the author is trying too hard, which can be as bad as not giving enough detail.

All of which is a shame because ‘Freefall’ is an exciting story. It definitely has a bit of the ‘Can’t put it down’ quality to it. Seriously I am looking forward to reading the second installment ‘Lifeboat’ in order to learn something about the aliens. By the way ‘Lifeboat’ is followed by ‘Shiplord’ and the series ends with ‘Killshot’.

Lifeboat by Felix R. Savage Cover (Credit: Amazon)

I’ll be sure to tell you all about it when I do!

Advanced new design of Photoelectric Cell converts 85% of Sunlight into Electricity.

We’re all familiar with Photoelectric or Solar Cells, those shiny black squares or rectangles that produce electricity whenever light falls on them. Many portable electronic devices such as radios, calculators and even traffic signals get their power from solar cells while if you cover the roof of a home or building with them they can provide most of the power that building uses. And let’s not forget all of the satellites in outer space that are powered by solar arrays, not to mention the International Space Station itself.

This Home must have a low Electric Bill with all of those Solar Cells on the Roof (Credit: New Atlas)

Solar Cells Power the Hubble Space Telescope (Credit: Astronomy Now)

The history of photoelectricity actually goes back to some of the earliest experiments with electricity. In 1873 Willoughby Smith described ‘The Effect of light on Selenium during the Passage of an Electric Current’ while in 1883 Charles Fritts built a solid-state photovoltaic cell by coating the semiconductor selenium with gold to act as the + terminals.

It was Albert Einstein who figured out what was going on. Light, Einstein realized, was made up of subatomic particles and like all particles they had some momentum to them. This momentum could knock electrons away from their atoms and start them moving in an electric current. This is the theory for which he actually won his Nobel Prize.

The Photoelectric Effect (Credit: Pinterest)

Starting around the 1960s people began to realize that the world’s oil supply wasn’t going to last forever and besides burning oil was causing all kinds of pollution that were damaging the Earth. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get our power directly from sunlight by means of photoelectric cells?

Problem, or rather a trio of problems quickly became apparent. The first is that, while the power in all of the sunlight falling on Earth is tremendous it’s also rather spread out so you have to cover a large area with solar cells to get appreciable amounts of power. The second problem compounds the first because solar cells aren’t very efficient. Only 10-15% of the energy of the light was converted into electricity, meaning you needed to cover an even bigger area to get the power you needed. Finally the third problem was simply price, in the 1960s photoelectric cells were very expensive to manufacture, mainly because no one had ever tried to produce them in large quantities.

It was the third problem that was solved first. Looking at the chart below you can see how the price of solar cells, per watt of power produced had dropped from $76 dollars in 1977 to about $3 dollars in 2010. Much of this reduction in price came about from improvements in the semi-conductor industry in general. You may not know it but solar cells are manufactured with much the same equipment and in much the same way as the silicon chips running your computer as you read this! So the reductions in the price of integrated circuits over the last 40 years has helped to reduce the price of solar cells at the same time.

The Price of Solar Cells
in Dollars per Watt of Output Power (Credit: Wikipedia)

There has also been considerable improvement in efficiency over the last 45 years. Starting with efficiencies below 10% in 1975 new materials and new construction techniques have enabled researchers to make steady, incremental increases in efficiency until now efficiencies close to 50% are possible. The chart below, which details this progress is complicated but worth trying to understand.

The Improvements in Solar Cell Efficiency (Credit: Wikipedia)

Some new developments may improve the situation even more because a group of materials scientists have announced the development of a solar cell that converts 85% of the light that falls on it into electricity. The team is led by Professor Hiroaki Misawa of the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University and has produced a solar cell that consists of a sandwich of materials 30 nanometers thick. See diagram below.

The 85% Efficient Photoelectrode (Credit: Hiroaki Misawa)

Starting with a substrate of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) on which is placed a layer of gold film. Next comes a layer of the semiconductor Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) and finally a smattering of gold nano-particles are placed on top. What happens is that light passes through the smattering of gold nano-particles; the TiO2 absorbs some while the full layer of gold reflects the rest back into the TiO2 which absorbs some more! The light continues to bounce back and forth with some more getting absorbed in each reflection.

The question right now is, can these new solar cells be produced cheaply enough, in large enough quantities. Maybe, or maybe other scientists will discover other arrangements of materials that produce the same efficiency. In either case we are getting closer to the goal of directly using the power of the Sun to produce the electricity our civilization becomes more dependent on every day.

Two Stories from the World of Physics.

Back on August the 17th of last year, 2017, the LIGO and Virgo gravity wave observatories not only succeeded in detecting an enormously powerful astronomical event but for the first time they were able to locate the position of the event in Earth’s sky so that other instruments, optical and radio telescopes could observe it as well. I talked about this combination of observations in my post of 22 October 2017 entitled “The Gravity Waves of 17Aug17 become the most Thoroughly Studied Astronomical Event Ever!”

Since then astronomers and astrophysicists have had a year to try and make sense of their observations and a new paper by Maurice van Putten of Sejong University in South Korea and Massimo Della Valle of Inst. Astrofisica de Andalucia in Grenada Spain has provided an almost milli-second by milli-second account of what happened. The event, which had been given the designation GW170817 (for Gravity Wave of 17 August 2017) was first detected by the gravity wave observatories as a powerful ‘chirp’ of ascending frequency as shown in the graph below.

Plot of the Measured Gravity Waves of GW170817 (Credit: Putten and Valle)

Later examination of the data found the ascending note, beneath and to the right of the upward pointing arrow, was immediately followed by a softer descending note, beneath and to the left of the downward pointing arrow. Then, just 1.7 seconds after the peak of the gravity wave the Fermi-Gamma Ray Burst satellite detected a sudden spike in gamma particles, see graph below.

The Gamma Ray Burst Detected by the Fermi Satellite (Credit: Putten and Valle)

The Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope (Credit: Youtube)

By their detailed analysis of the data Doctors van Putter and Valle have concluded that GW170817 was the merger of two massive neutron stars that did not form a black hole as was originally thought. The descending note is the clincher for this, after all if nothing can escape a black hole then how did that descending frequency gravity wave pattern get out? Astronomers believe that the now combined neutron star could still collapse further and become a black hole. In that case LIGO and Virgo may detect further gravity waves coming from there.

Perhaps the best part of the event of 17Aug17 is that since this is the first time we’ve been able to combine the data from many different observations that means we’re probably going to get better with practice. No one knows what we’ll learn from future events but I know that I can’t wait to find out!

Our second story involves the initial plans for a next generation ‘Atom Smasher’ that will be four times the size, and more than four times as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and we may actually get two of them. It was several weeks ago that the scientists at CERN submitted their initial proposal to the European Union for a 100 km in circumference ‘Future Circular Collider’ to replace the LHC. Just this week however, the Chinese government has announced its plans to build an identically sized particle accelerator in their country.

In recent years China has been spending a lot of money on scientific research but this is the first attempt by the People’s Republic to take the lead in high-energy physics. Unlike the collider at CERN, which smashes protons into protons traveling in the opposite direction, the Chinese propose a Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) in which electrons will smash into anti-electrons. Both of the proposed accelerators would produce Higgs particles by the millions allowing a much more precise measurement of their properties.

Proposed Layout of China’s CEPC (Credit: CERN)

There are implications to the Chinese collider beyond physics however. The international physics community has for years been concerned about China’s human rights record including the way thousands of ordinary Chinese citizens have been forced out of their homes in order to make room for large scale project like the CEPC. There has also been concern about recent political developments in China such as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s removal of term limits, which will allow him to remain in power indefinitely. So the question is: How far should the International Scientific community go in cooperating with the People’s Republic?

China’s President Xi Jinping has extended his country’s power and influence but at the cost of Human Rights (Credit: PD)

That’s a question that’s going to be a lot harder to answer than most physics problems!

TV Show Review: Mars, Season 2 on the National Geographic Channel.

Last night, 12 November 2018, the second season of the series ‘Mars’ premiered on the National Geographic Channel. Produced by the Academy Award winning team of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer ‘Mars’ is a combination fictional story of the initial colonization of Mars interspersed with comments by real life experts, it is a docudrama in the terminology of Hollywood.

Mars Season Two on the National Geographic Channel (Credit: National Geographic)

The experts range from scientists such as Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to space age industrialists like Elon Musk to science fiction writers like Kim Stanley Robinson. The comments from these experts serve to illustrate aspects of the story, in other words provide a little technical background to the action in the story.

In season one of Mars (See my posts of 15 Nov 2016 and 20 Dec 2016) the crew of the spaceship Daedalus succeed in making mankind’s first landing on the planet, although not without the loss of the spaceship’s commander. The voyage and first attempt at colonization is funded and supported by the ‘International Mars Science Foundation’ or IMSF. Despite several setbacks the crew of the Daedalus establish a base and other colonists join them on the red planet. A disaster that kills several of the astronauts almost causes the end of the mission but the discovery of life on Mars convinces the IMSF leadership to keep the colony going.

The Daedalus Spacecraft from Season One of ‘Mars’ (Credit: GeekWire)

Season two begins five years later, when the base / colony, now named Olympus Town has grown in size to a population of over two hundred. In the opening an entirely new group of colonists arrive seemingly without warning. The new colonists are not scientists or explorers like the astronauts sent by the IMSF. Instead they are mining engineers and workers sent by a private corporation called Lukrum. The two groups get off to a rocky start even before the Lukrum spaceship lands as debris from its heat shield nearly lands on Olympus town.

Olympus Town’s Spaceport (Credit: National Geographic)

Things quickly escalate when the manager of the mining group, Kurt Hurrelle played by actor Jeff Hephner, informs the commander of Olympus Town, Hana Seung played by actress Jihea, that since his mission did not include the equipment needed to produce water and electrical power her people are going to have to provide these supplies to his people. The big wigs back on Earth eventually work out a compromise where the Lukrum team will provide Olympus Town with the minerals it needs for its terraforming mission in exchange for water and power. Nevertheless it’s pretty obvious that conflicts between the scientists and miners are going to be a major theme in this second season.

Olympus Town Commander Hana Seung (second from right) Goes to meet the new Neighbors. (Credit: National Geographic)

To be honest ‘Mars’ really isn’t a great science fiction story. That’s because the need to tie the drama to each of the difficulties in colonizing Mars, as explained by the panel of experts, makes each episode little more than a moral lesson. (The Grasshopper and the Ant anyone!) In particular, in the first episode the private enterprise astronauts are such jerks that their helmets ought to be painted black like the hats of the bad guys in an old western.

The Lukrum Team led by Kurt Hurrelle (The one in the center scratching his chin)(Credit: National Geographic)

Still, ‘Mars’ is thoughtful science fiction and in a world of super heroes and Jedi knights that’s a rare treat. So I’ll keep watching ‘Mars’, and I’ll keep hoping that mature, thought provoking science fiction will become a more common phenomenon in our culture.

Back From the Field Night at The Academy of Natural Sciences.

Last night, 8November2018, I was privileged as a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences here in Philadelphia to attend their annual ‘Back From the Field’ night where the Academy’s scientists present an overview of their research accomplishments during the past year. The whole affair is informal however with scientists and members mingling together while discussing the scientific results. (See my post of 4February2017 for more about the Academy)

Logo of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (Credit: ANSP)

Since the Academy resides here in Philadelphia it’s not surprising that many of its scientists concentrate their work in an around the Delaware River valley, studying the health of our local environment and all of the species of life that call it home. At least an equal number however are world travelers, visiting lands as diverse as Cuba, the Philippines, Mongolia and even Antarctica.

The gathering was held in the Academy’s hall of dinosaurs which displays, along with other dino specimens, the bones of Hadrosaurus foulkii, the first dinosaur skeleton discovered in the western hemisphere. While many of the specimens on display last night were even older than the dinosaurs just as many were of species living today.

The First Dinosaur Skeleton Discovered in the USA, Hadrosaurus foulkii at the Academy (Credit: ANSP)

Doctor Dane Ward of Drexel University’s Department of Biodiversity even brought a special treat with him. You see Dr. Ward spent several months over the summer studying a species of small, sting less honeybee found only in Cuba. According to Dr. Ward the honey produced by this Cuban bee is far superior to that of the common European honeybee.

Dr. Ward gave a sample of this honey to the bartender so that he could make a mixed drink unknown out side of Cuba called the Canchanchara. Needless to say I had to give the canchanchara a try and it certainly was quite tasty.

Made with Honey from Cuban Bees the Canchanchara is quite tasty (Credit: Cubatrotter)

The amount of scientific research being carried out by these scientists was too large for me to give more than a brief mention here. There was a team of ichthyologists, scientists who study fish, who are using aerial drones to obtain a census of sea lamprey nests along the banks of the Delaware River. Then there was the team of entomologists; they study insects, who had discovered several new species of grasshopper.

The Sea Lamprey is an ancient, jawless fish that comes into Rivers to Spawn (credit: Holyoke Gas & Electric)

Still another team was studying snails in the Philippines. This research could prove to be very import because remember the Philippines are hundreds of islands. The distribution of snails across all of these islands is very complex with some species of snail inhabiting only a single island while another species can be spread across a dozen or more. The work of trying to work out that puzzle may tell us a great deal about exactly how the forces of evolution split single populations into separate species.

As you can see there was plenty of worth while science to sample but I don’t think that I’ll be surprising any of my regular readers if I tell you that I spent most of my time talking to the paleontologists. Both Doctors Ted Daeschler of Drexel University and Jason Downs of Delaware Valley University are doing their research on fishes of the Devonian. Dr. Downs has been searching for specimens in the cold northern reaches of Canada and has discovered two new species of ancient fish.

Bothriolepis rex is a new species of Ancient Fish discovered by Dr. Downs (Credit: Wikipedia)

Funny thing is though, that area in Canada was originally surveyed for fossils by a team that was co-lead by Dr. Daeschler, in fact it’s the same area where Dr. Daeschler discovered Tiktaalik, a ‘missing link’ between fish and land vertebrates. Dr. Daeschler may no longer be working in Canada but he must like cold weather because in three weeks time he’s headed for the Antarctic to conduct a more thorough survey of some Devonian outcrops he discovered just last year.

Tiktaalik, the ‘Missing Link’ between Fish and Land Vertebrates (Credit: NPR)

I hope that the things I’ve been discussing have served to whet your appetite for learning more about science. I know that here in Philadelphia I have access to a large number of different centers of science but every large city has its own science museums. O’k so maybe you don’t live in a large city, well many national wildlife refuges or state parks will have a nature center and the people who are working there to help save many threatened species would love to tell you all about it.

Learning about science, about how science is done and who are the people doing it is important for anyone who wants to be an informed citizen but more than that it just fun. That’s right, as far as I’m concerned learning about something new is just about the best time a person can have. What don’t you give it a try? I leave you today with a link to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, take at look at what they have to offer!

https://www.ansp.org/

The Healing Power of Plants or can You Grow Medicine in your Garden.

Medicinal herbs, home remedies and grandmothers making their special tea, there have always been people trying to use plants to treat diseases. Now it is true that some of our most valuable medicines were first found in plants, just as it is true that some of our most dangerous drugs come from plants. Humans have been experimenting with plants for at least tens of thousands of years and we are actually studying them more today than ever in our history.

Today I’m going to talk about just a few of the plants that have, for good or ill given us some of the medicines and drugs we are most familiar with. I’ll start with one of the best-known painkillers, one that nearly all of us have in our medicine cabinet.

Have you ever seen someone chewing on the bark of a willow tree? That may sound strange to us today but there are historical records of people doing just that going all the way back to Mesopotamia, and the Greek physician Hippocrates discussed the ability of willow back to relieve pain in the fifth century BCE. The secret is in the sap of the willow, which contains salicylic acid, the precursor to common aspirin. In addition to its most common usage as a painkiller aspirin has also been helpful as a blood thinner for patients with either arthritis or heart disease. Aspirin however can cause upset stomachs and internal bleeding in some people.

The Bark of the Willow has been used for millennia for its Medicinal Value (Credit: YouTube)

Ginger is another plant with medicinal use. For centuries people have taken it to relieve the symptoms of nausea and motion sickness. Recent studies have indicated that ginger may even be effective in fighting the nausea caused by pregnancy and chemotherapy.

Ginger Root if known for settling an upset stomach! (Credit: Woodland Essence)

The leaves of the plant Feverfew have often been used to treat high fevers and new studies have show that the plant is also useful in the treatment of migraines and arthritis. Just how effective is still a subject of debate however.

Feverfew is know for Relieving Headaches (Credit: Fair Dinkum Seeds)

Several other common plants have been said for centuries to possess medicinal value but modern research has either failed to either verify the claims or found the healing effect to be minimal. Garlic is one such plant, said by many to lower both blood pressure and cholesterol recent studies by the FDA indicate that the effect to be exaggerated.

Garlic may help to Lower Blood pressure and Cholesterol (Credit: Pulse)

The extracts of the Aloe Vera plant are used by many people for soothing burns and rashes as well as a cosmetic moisturizer. All scientific studies however show little or no actual improvement in skin condition.

The Sap of the Aloe Vera plant is considered by many to sooth Skin Irritation (Credit: Good Housekeeping)

Now of course there are also plants whose effects are so powerful that trying to grow them is illegal in most countries. I’m talking about those plants that produce narcotic and hallucinogenic drugs, plants like marijuana and the poppy. The dried latex of the poppy plant is the narcotic opium that is then used as a base of another two opiates, morphine and heroin. All of these drugs are highly addictive and have ruined millions of lives over the centuries. Nevertheless the drug morphine is still the painkiller of choice by emergency medical practitioners in crisis situations ranging from car crashes to battlefield wounds. So even if opiates are either illegal or at least strictly controlled, for better or worse they are a part of our world.

The Poppy plant whose latex produces Opium and other Drugs (Credit: The Conversation)

So, are you thinking that maybe you could improve your health by growing the right plants in your backyard? Well there are many people who do but before you start digging you should know that every legal herb I’ve talked about is available in pill form in your local health food or drug store so you don’t have to get your hands dirty if you want to take them.

In the years to come scientists will continue to study the many different chemicals that are available. Hopefully they’ll find new drugs that can improve our lives and health.

Space News for November 2018.

This month we’ll talk about four of NASA’s interplanetary probes. We’ll say goodbye to two of the probes as they run out of fuel and scientists here on Earth lose the ability to control them. Another two probes however, are just beginning their work of exploration and hopefully in the next few years we’ll be taking more about the discoveries they’ve made.

We’ll start with the Kepler space telescope, see image below and check out my post of 28April2018. Launched back in March of 2009 the mission of Kepler was to continuously observe hundreds of thousands of stars searching for small, rhythmic changes in their brightness that could be caused by planets passing in front of them.

The Kepler Space Telescope (Credit: NASA)

During its eleven years of service Kepler observed over half a million stars and is credited with the preliminary detection of 2,662 planets outside of our solar system. Kepler was only designed to detect such exo-planets as they’re called, larger, more precise Earth based telescopes would then carry on the work of learning about these alien worlds.

In order to avoid having the Earth interfere in its observations Kepler was placed into an orbit around the Sun known as an Earth trailing orbit some 130 million kilometers from Earth. Without fuel to maintain its proper orbit and orientation Kepler would be unable to perform its mission.

That fuel has now run out and on October 30 of 2018 NASA announced officially that communication with the Kepler space telescope has been lost and the mission has ended. Still, thanks to the Kepler space telescope astronomers now have 2,662 completely unknown worlds to study!

Another very important space probe has suffered the same fate. The Dawn mission to the two largest objects in the asteroid belt was both the first interplanetary vehicle to orbit two different bodies, not counting Earth, and the first probe to employ an ion rocket as its main propulsion.

The Dawn spacecraft first traveled to the asteroid Vesta, the second largest but heaviest asteroid. Astronomers believed that Vesta was composed primarily of iron and nickel and might have become of core of a planet had not the enormous gravity of the planet Jupiter kept that planet from ever forming. Vesta did indeed turn out to be a very heavy, metal rich asteroid proving the astronomers correct.

After orbiting Vesta for more than a year and completing its survey the Dawn probe then did something no other probe had ever done. It fired up its ion engines again, left obit around Vesta and traveled to the asteroid Ceres, the largest of the asteroids. The image below shows the Dawn Spacecraft with Vesta, upper right, and Ceres, lower middle.

Dawn with Vesta and Ceres (Credit: SoSialPolitik)

Now ion rockets don’t give you a lot of push, but they give a small push for a very long time. Whereas chemical rockets can use up all of their fuel within minutes an ion rocket can keep firing for years. Dawn was the first interplanetary probe to make full use of all the extra push possible from an ion rocket firing its engines for more than 50,000 hours.

So Dawn became the first probe to orbit and study two different bodies in our solar system orbiting Ceres and Vesta more than 3,000 times.

Like Kepler however even Dawn’s ion rockets eventually used up the last of their fuel and the Dawn spacecraft can no longer keep solar panels pointed toward the Sun, its antenna pointed toward Earth. According to NASA Dawn missed its regular radio check in on both 31October and 1Nov and the mission is presumed to have ended.

Once again however the Dawn probe has provided astronomers with a wealth of data to analyze. Dawn isn’t finished making discoveries.

The end of two of its premier missions however doesn’t mean that NASA is running out of space probes, far from it. Two probes launched over the past two years are approaching their targets and the data should soon start pouring in!

The OSIRIS-Rex probe has been traveling for the past two years toward a rendezvous with the small near Earth asteroid Bennu (See my post of 6January2018). OSIRIS-Rex should reach its destination within a month and recently took a high-resolution image of its target, see image below. Once at Bennu, which is too small to actually orbit, the OSIRIS-Rex will land and collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface to return to Earth. The sample is expected to arrive back here on Earth in 2023 but with all of the probe’s other instruments there’s no doubt that we’ll be learning a lot about Bennu much sooner than that!

Latest Image (3Nov) of Asteroid Bennu taken by OSIRIS-Rex (Credit: Astronomy Magazine)

Another NASA spacecraft that is well on its way to its target is the Parker Solar Probe which just this past week on 29October became the closest man made object to our Sun (See my posts of 7June2017, 6January2018 and 5September2018). At the distance of 42.73 million kilometers Parker broke the record previously held by the joint German-American Helios-2 probe.

The Parker probe is going to get much closer however. During its six year mission to study the Sun Parker is expected to come as close as 6.9 million kilometers. The Parker probe will study the Sun in an effort to learn more about how the energy the Sun produces by hydrogen fusion in its core moves upward to the Sun’s surface. Parker will also study how the Sun generates its powerful magnetic field. The image below shows the planned trajectory of the Parker probe. Presently the spacecraft is just past ‘First Perihelion’.

Planned Trajectory of Parker Solar Probe (Credit: JPL, NASA)

If you’d like to learn more about any of the four interplanetary probes we’ve talked about click on one of the links below to be taken to the official NASA site for that mission!

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html

https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe