New Earth-like Planet Found – The Guardian

Headlines Scream around the world:

New Planet May Be Able to Nurture Organisms – NYTimesA Habitable Exoplanet – for Real This Time – Wired.com

Gliese 581g: the most Earth like planet yet discovered – Telegraph

 

 Complete with Beautiful Renderings:   

 

Gliese-581 g I See Green on the Continents!

 



Gliese 581g

Mapping new territory is always exciting.  Of course, I’d love to go to an Earth-like planet with water and an atmosphere I can breathe and comfortable temperatures.  Talk about amazing!

But, a quick look at the methodology behind this discovery may sober you up in a hurry.  Without further adieu, two paragraphs from an article titled: “Doubt Cast on Existence of Habitable Alien World” from Space.com.

The planets in the Gliese 581 system were discovered using spectroscopic radial velocity measurements. Planets ‘tug’ on the star they orbit, causing it to shift in position (stars and planets actually orbit a common center of mass). By measuring the star’s movement in the sky, astronomers can figure out what sort of planets are orbiting it.

Multi-planet systems create a complicated signal, and astronomers must tease out the spectral lines to figure out what represents a planet, and what is just “noise” – shifts in the star light not caused by an orbiting planet. Astronomers have developed various ways to reduce such noise in their telescopic observations, but it still creates a level of uncertainty in detecting extrasolar planets.

The point of the article is to report on some scientist’s that are trying to confirm the discovery of Gliese 581G but are unable to confirm the calculations based on the data. 

 

I was counseled once that individuals with a strong commitment to a vocation generally considered that vocation to be the solution to many of the world’s problems. For example, a teacher thinks the world would improve if there was just more and better teaching going on.  An artist would think the same thing about art; a doctor tends to think more medicine and medical research and availability of medical treatment will solve the worlds’ problems.  So, you’d think that a scientist would have a similar viewpoint and want more people to know more about science, and maybe the ones involved in this did.  But, someone with a different viewpoint (perhaps an entertainment viewpoint) decided this would make “great copy” for the news.  A description of finely tuned readings of spectroscopic radial velocity measurements was translated into a possible life-supporting planet with water and an atmosphere. You’d think that a scientist would want more science in the world to improve the lot of mankind, but this possible discovery exploded in the news media to become a huge fantasy.  You’d think that the scientists’ would want to prevent this type of propagation of fantasy.

 

I hate cynicism, and I really don’t want to promote skepticism, but this type of yellow science journalism makes it really hard.

If horses were people….

The Compassion of The Wicked…

82nd Annual Chincoteague Pony Swim

Fascinating brochure printed by the National Park service illustrates as clearly as a parable the differences between government and private industry.  I’m sure the anonymous authors of this little brochure did not intend to create a parable about government-run health care, but that’s how it comes off.

83rd Annual Pony Swim in Chincoteague VA

Fans of “Misty of Chincoteague” already know the story of the wild horses of Assateague Island, the NPS brochure gives the background story if you don’t know it.  One detail left out is that the swim generates a lot of tourist interest as these photos seem to indicate.  Presumably there would be some tourist industry dollars generated by this interest. 

 On the Maryland side, it isn’t clear if anyone owns the horses and there certainly is nothing like the Chincoteague pony swim.

The NPS brochure illustrates the difference between “caring” about something because it has monetary value and “caring” for something because you want everything to stay the same or everything to be considered equal.  Personally, I see it as an allegory for Government run anything.  The government cannot want anything or anyone to be considered more valuable than anything or anyone else.  Justice must be blind, and everyone is endowed by their creator with inalienable rights.  However, business requires a competitive edge, after all “every skill under the sun is the result of a man striving with his neighbor.”  One of our implied freedoms is to fail, it is this freedom that creates the risk that drives innovation and economic growth. Also, this whole matter of “caring,” institutions cannot “care” about anything, only people can care. 

Now, for a comparison of the facts presented in the NPS brochure, everything below is a direct quote from the NPS brochure.

http://www.nps.gov/asis/naturescience/upload/wildhorses-%20In%20Design.pdf

Misty of Chincoteague and Pony Penning

Many visitors first learn about the Assateague horses from Marguerite Henry’s famous book Misty of Chincoteague. Written in 1947, this classic children’s tale tells the story of a young horse called “Misty” and the children who loved her. While the story is fiction, the characters (including the horses) were real.

 The story takes place during a traditional Chincoteague festival called “Pony Penning”. On the last Wednesday of July, the Virginia herd of horses is rounded up and swum from Assateague Island to nearby Chincoteage [sic – this misspelling of Chincoteague is in the NPS brochure] Island. On the following day most of the young foals are auctioned off.

 Proceeds from the sale benefit the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, which is responsible for the care and management of the Virginia herd.

 Virginia’s privately owned horses are kept separated from Maryland’s wild horses by a fence that runs across the Maryland/Virginia state line. Maryland’s horses are not rounded up or sold at auction.

 Q. Do they receive veterinary care?

VIRGINIA

Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department provides some veterinary care.

MARYLAND

Action may be taken to end the suffering of a gravely ill, seriously injured, or dying horse, no measures are taken to prolong the lives of Maryland’s wild horses.

Q. How is the population controlled?

VIRGINIA

Virginia’s privately owned herd produces 60-90 foals every year.  Most of the foals are sold at the annual auction, which keeps the number of horses at or below the 150 adults allowed by the grazing permit.

MARYLAND

Researchers working in conjunction with the NPS developed a non-hormonal , non-invasive vaccine to prevent pregnancy.  This vaccine is delivered by a dart to the hindquarters of selected mares each spring.  This vaccine has successfully lowered the birth rate of Maryland’s horses to fewer than 10 foals per year.

IN SUMMARY:

In Virginia the horse herd is managed by selling off most of the young which earns dollars.  Thanks to a creative book the herd performs a pony swim which draws tourist dollars to also support the town.  The herd is cared for like the valuable investment it is.  In Maryland the herd is “free” but the government uses birth control to enforce a zero growth policy and the health plan is only euthanizing and only for those suffering.

Inspired by a true-story! Read for yourself and find the reference here:

http://www.rd.com/clean-jokes-and-laughs/meet-the-madmen-of-pranks/article175964.html

And hilarity ensues...

Another attempt.

An Actual Mikulski Quote!

Great Portraits:

Mr Heidelbergensis

 

and

An unhappy Mr Floresiensis

 

Plus

A happy Mr Ergaster

And finally, my good buddy and distant relative (per current DNA science)…..Mr Neanderthal….

My very happy good buddy... Mr Neanderthal

 

You guessed it. Recent renderings based on all these “prehuman” skulls.  Of course, I see living people that look like these good gentlemen on a regular basis.  And, DNA researchers are claiming modern humans have “Neanderthal” DNA “markers” in their DNA.  Of course, the obvious question is: “If we have Neanderthal DNA in us, then what makes that DNA distinctly Neanderthal?”  I mean, it means we’re the same, not different.  Which is the first thing I think when I see these amazing renderings!

Once again life is too complicated to understand.

Deep science in this article.  The scientists are attempting to understand photosynthesis.  In my high school biology class we studied several things in detail.  I remember distinctly three subject matters that I was interested in: Kidneys’, muscles, and photosynthesis.  In each one, as we studied them in deeper detail, we ended with “somehow” they worked.  Essentially, the science of the day admitted that they didn’t have a clue as to how muscles expanded or contracted, how the kidney performed reverse osmosis (or something like that) or how photosynthesis could function.  From this article I’d say they’ve made some real progress in the photosynthesis study.  I don’t really understand it very well, but it sounds like there’s some quantum mechanics going on that’s really amazing scientists’.  And to think some people believe a life process this complex started in some muddy/salty water!

Here’s the headline, link, and a few choice paragraphs:

Untangling the Quantum Entanglement Behind Photosynthesis

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Untangling_the_Quantum_Entanglement_Behind_Photosynthesis_999.html

Green plants and certain bacteria are able to transfer the energy harvested from sunlight through a network of light harvesting pigment-protein complexes and into reaction centers with nearly 100-percent efficiency.

Speed is the key – the transfer of the solar energy takes place so fast that little energy is wasted as heat. In 2007, Fleming and his research group reported the first direct evidence that this essentially instantaneous energy transfer was made possible by a remarkably long-lived, wavelike electronic quantum coherence.

Using electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond (millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale, Fleming and his group discovered the existence of “quantum beating” signals, coherent electronic oscillations in both donor and acceptor molecules.

An X-Ray photograph that demonstrates Quantum Entanglement... you can google it if you want to read up on it...

These oscillations are generated by the excitation energy from captured solar photons, like the waves formed when stones are tossed into a pond. The wavelike quality of the oscillations enables them to simultaneously sample all the potential energy transfer pathways in the photosynthetic system and choose the most efficient.