Science Made Cool

New England Air Museum Space Expo Report

Yesterday we packed up our Crack Team of Girl Scouts, plus one small boy, and drove down to the New England Air Museum for their Space Expo event. It was a perfect day for a museum trip: chilly and wet.

For anyone in the region, the Air Museum is worth a trip to Bradley Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. They have a fabulous collection of aircraft, including a restored B-29, and a whole assortment of Sikorsky planes and copters. Many of the museum volunteers are retired aircraft builders, so if you go on a slow day you can hear some fascinating stories.

The Space Expo was an odd mix of events and demonstrations ranging from slickly professional to amateurishly enthusiastic. Astronaut Cady Coleman was on duty the whole day, giving several presentations about working in space, including the inevitable "how do you go to the bathroom?" explanation. Being in charge of a wiggly six-year-old I had to skip her talk, but I did manage to see the presentation on Mars colonization. It was, I must confess, somewhat dispiriting. Far too much focus on frankly bogus "benefits" of the project. (Guess what? Colonizing Mars won't help overpopulation on Earth, nor will managing an enclosed artificial ecosystem in a Mars colony help us understand Earth's vast and chaotic web of environments. Either leaving Earth is worth doing for its own sake, or it's not worth doing at all. Developing a better flavor of Tang isn't enough.)

A number of local clubs and groups had displays:  we saw a nifty indoor rocketry demonstration by a model rocket club, a simulator of the original Wright Flyer airplane (not sure what that had to do with space, but it was fun), and a display about (once again) space toilets by an engineer from one of the nearby aerospace contractors. Our six-year-old got to try on a spacesuit.

Overall, the Space Expo was fun, in a kind of sweet, community event way. There was no irony present in the building. I seriously doubt that anyone there wasn't already interested in space exploration, so I can't say that it raised much awareness or changed any minds. But we'll probably go again next year.

The Orbital Gourmet

Cooking in space seems to be all the rage right now. Astronaut Sandra Magnus has been developing techniques and recipes during a stint aboard the International Space Station. Discovery Channel News has the story.

Meanwhile India's space agency is working on developing curry for space explorers. (Spotted by David Szondy, who knows a thing or two about space food.)

Carl Zimmer on Science Journalism

The alarmingly brilliant Carl Zimmer has a long post -- an essay, really -- up at his Discover Magazine 'blog, about the current decline in science journalism, why 'bloggers can't take the place of actual journalists, and how everyone seems to notice only the worst examples of science reporting.

Goodness knows we've taken our share of swings at science reporting here. (And here, and here . . .) Mr. Zimmer makes the salutary point that we remember the bad examples and forget most of the solid reporting. And he's certainly correct that 'bloggers, no matter how dedicated and knowledgeable, still can't match the resources of a major media company, which can actually send reporters to places where stuff is happening.

However, Mr. Zimmer's essay contains its own refutation within it. If major media outlets are scaling back or eliminating their science reporting divisions, that advantage starts to disappear. When the best reporters have the same budget as pajama-wearing know-it-alls sitting in rec rooms (which is to say, zero), then everyone, professionals and amateurs alike, will be gleaning their information from personal gossip, press releases, and other people's 'blogs.

What will replace newspapers? I don't know. If I did, I'd be doing it already. My guess is that the future of science reporting lies with writers who have a broad base of contacts among researchers, substantial knowledge of their own, and enough of a following to get them support from publishers and online journals for field trips. People, in other words, like Carl Zimmer.

No Doubt, Redoubt

Unless you're living under a rock, you probably already know that Mount Redoubt, a stratovolcano located 103 miles north of Anchorage, Alaska, started to erupt on Sunday. So far, it's belched out a couple of big ash clouds: a 50,000 foot high one during the first set of eruptions on Sunday night, and a second cloud just as big late on Monday.

So, what happens next? A 9 mile tall cloud of razor-sharp bits of powdered rock doesn't just vanish into the atmosphere. The heavier particles are already coating cars and rooftops in towns near Anchorage, as you can see in this photo showing ashfall from NASA’s Earth Observatory site. But the lighter bits stay in the air longer, and it’s those bits that could be problematic.

For starters, they’re a health hazard. Inhaling glass isn’t good for man or beast. And because volcanic dust is both corrosive and conductive, it can make machinery seize up. Annoying when the machinery is on the ground, but potentially disastrous when it’s in the air, as the passengers of KLM flight 867 to Anchorage found out when Redoubt erupted a decade ago. Ash stopped all their plane’s engines as they came in for a landing, and they fell 2 miles before their pilots (thankfully) got them restarted. Which may be why your flight is late. And one of the reasons these volcanoes are so closely monitored. There are a lot of international flights over Alaska.

Martian Mud?

A while back I discussed the interesting new findings about methane in the Martian atmosphere. (For those joining us already in progress, the short version is that the amount of methane in the atmosphere of Mars periodically jumps, and nobody's sure why.)

Well, a couple of researchers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston were going over images of the Martian surface and noticed some odd-looking mounds on the northern lowlands of Mars. They look like "mud volcanoes" on Earth. Moreover, when viewed in infrared light, the mounds cool off at night as if they're sediment, not rock.

Terrestrial mud volcanoes emit large amounts of methane gas. Are the Martian mounds the source of the mysterious methane spikes? And if they are mud volcanoes, that means liquid water, the Holy Grail of astrobiology research. Are there microorganisms deep under the Martian surface? Maybe someone should go check.

Bottled EVIL!

I tend to be skeptical when professional concerned citizens release dire warnings about various consumer products. As long as the manufacturers aren't putting glass shards in the yogurt or disgruntled employees in the potted meat products, I figure it's buyer beware. You want to buy something that's bad for you, it's your money.

But. I just want to point out a unique piece of idiocy: bottled water. In places where drinking water supplies may not be safe, it's a literal lifesaver. In places like, well, most of the developed world, bottled water is incomprehensibly pointless. Nobody has a palate refined enough to detect the differences in trace elements, and they're all equally pure, so there's no difference in quality. It's just water; why does anyone buy it? (Coca-Cola produces Dasani water, and I sometimes wonder if senior Coke executives lie awake at night, thinking "People used to complain because we were selling nothing but carbonated sugar water. We took out the carbonation and the sugar, and they pay even more for it!" But I digress.)

Anyway, dropping out of rant mode, here's an interesting study of how much energy it takes to make and distribute bottled water. Short answer:  a lot. Long answer:  a whole heck of a lot.

And if you like rants, here's a much better rant on the subject, courtesy of Penn & Teller
 

It's ALIVE!

There's a long but interesting article in NewScientist about efforts underway to create artificial life. You can read the first part here and the second part here. I'll wait.

What I find interesting is how utterly dependent on existing biology this all is. They're creating "artificial life" by combining components derived ultimately from living things. It's like building a homemade clock by taking apart a bunch of clocks you got at the store and using parts from them.

I'd like to see a totally new approach based on pure chemistry and nanotechnology. Design from first principles -- pick some suitable long-chain molecule as an information-storing analog to DNA. Why a chain, even? Why not some carbon compound that forms large sheets so you can have whole "pages" of genetic information? Find ways to extract and store energy at the molecular level to power this artificial life. Maybe think "outside the box" about features of natural life: does your artificial life form have to be an enclosed cell? Does it need water as a solvent?

Such a project would be more than just cool. (It would, of course, be VERY cool.) By trying to create a living or quasi-living system without using the existing terrestrial-life toolbox, it would teach us a lot about what features of our own biology are necessary, as opposed to those which are historical accidents.

Anyone out there have a university-class chemistry lab, a dedicated corps of researchers, and a couple of billion dollars to throw at the project?

News From the New Millennium VII

I grew up in New Orleans, a city which has long been disputed territory between humans and mosquitos. At times during the 19th Century the mosquitos seemed to be winning, when yellow fever epidemics killed 41,000 people over the course of the century. Humans fought back with pesticides. I can clearly remember the diesel-oil scent of the mosquito spray trucks as they rumbled past on summer evenings, blanketing the city in pyrethum (or DDT, or whatever the heck it was).

How primitive that seems. Now Bill Gates, his henchman Nathan Myrhvold, and professional mad scientist Jordin Kare have come up with something much cooler for mosquito eradication. Lasers. They want to build drones equipped with tiny tracking systems and lasers to shoot down mosquitos. Like this, only smaller. Basically this is a James Bond villain plot -- if James Bond was an insect.

Words cannot express how much I want to have a flying robot in my house shooting mosquitos with a laser. I'd buy mosquito eggs, breed them, and fill the house with them, just to watch.

Lowell's Birthday

Today marks the 154th anniversary of the birth of Percival Lowell, a man who made his mark on the entire Solar System. Lowell was one of those Lowells from Boston -- the ones who "only spoke to Cabots" while the Cabots spoke only to God. He was rich, well-educated, and spent many years in Japan as a diplomat before retiring to study astronomy.

Lowell had read Schiaparelli's account of discovering "canali" on Mars and immediately decided to have a look for himself. Not the sort of person to piddle around with a little Astroscan on the patio, he built himself an observatory near Flagstaff and commissioned a 24-inch refracting telescope. For the next several years he spent his nights looking through it at Mars, mapping and naming the network of canals he saw covering its surface. He wrote books about Mars, speculating that it was home to advanced intelligent beings, fighting the drying and cooling of their world with huge engineering projects. His vision of Mars inspired Wells, Burroughs, and countless others.

But of course the canals turned out to be an optical illusion. Mars does have vast waterways, but they were carved by liquid water a billion years ago and today carry nothing but windblown dust. There are no Martians.

Lowell's real mark on the Solar System was the ex-planet Pluto. After satisfying his curiosity about Mars, he turned his attention to looking for a trans-Neptunian planet, whose existence was suggested by certain irregularities in Neptune's orbit. He himself didn't live to see it, but fourteen years after his death Clyde Tombaugh, working at Lowell's observatory, found a tiny moving speck on the photo plates. On what would have been Lowell's seventy-fifth birthday, Tombaugh announced his discovery. The new planet was named Pluto, in honor of the Roman god of the underworld -- but also in honor of Percival Lowell. PLuto, geddit?

So, have a glass of sake in honor of the man who discovered canals that weren't there and sponsored the discovery of a planet which isn't.

Scientists Gone Wild!

Scientists are frequently assumed to be slightly insane, but they seldom get depicted as paragons of physical courage. NewScientist tries to correct that impression with this article, about scientists who used their own vulnerable bodies as experimental subjects. (This is a technique much more commonly applied in comic books, although the results are a bit more dramatic for all concerned.)

Interestingly, the editors at NewScientist should cede priority in this topic to that other well-known scientific publication, Cracked.com, which ran a startlingly similar article back in 2008.