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Well, a whole weird lot of stuff has been happening lately. The birth of a two head calf, the millions of dead fish washing ashore, thousands of dead bird falling from the sky. If there is a connection, I don’t know what it is. The experts, who are folks paid to tell the public that everything is alright, and that the sky isn’t falling, are telling us that this is all normal, has happened before, and are not things about which we should be worrying.Oh, yes, the North Pole is moving too. Now, I heard years ago that this was normal. But in the past, the North Pole didn’t move as fast as it is now.From the NBC Nightly News — “The magnetic north is moving. aviators know it has always moved but not like this. It’s just skipping along, on the move about 40 miles a year now along the polar cap toward Russia. It’s a natural, unstoppable occurrence, but because of it, some airport runways calibrated by compass are now three or four degrees off.” See the video.Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The second part of “You are Here” by Colin Ellard leaves the science behind the navigation of animals, insects, and ants and instead focuses on how we as people relate to different kinds of environments. Ellard doesn’t look to scientists for answers; instead, he quotes and references urban planners, architects, and anthropologists.   Don’t expect the second half of the book to be as interesting as the first part—it’s just not as good.   Ellard begins by discussing our relationship with personal space in our homes and introduces the term “isovist”, which is a key architectural theory for talking about space. Since he does little to explain the term and I have zero knowledge of architectural theory, I had to do a little outside research on the net to find out more about isovists. According to this abstract:    “An isovist is the set of all points visible from a given vantage point in space and with respect to an environment. The shape and size of an isovist is liable to change with position. Numerical measures are proposed that quantify some salient size and shape features.”   Despite many references to different architects and space experts and the inclusion of the term “isovist”, there’s nothing really all that ground-breaking in Ellard’s long chapter on personal space in “You are Here.” Ellard speculates that the shape of a particular space is one key factor that will hold appeal for a particular room and offers the example of someone’s memory of a nook at their grandmother’s house. He also says that large isovists, as well as those in the center, are usually the most used by people. He continues on by examining the changes in living structures from pre-historic times until the present and talks a little bit about FengS hui and its westernization form, which he calls McFengShui.   When talking about work spaces, Ellard mentions the apparent irony that some of the most beautiful buildings from the outside are the most difficult to navigate from the inside because of the “treacherous curves” in some buildings.   His chapter on people and their relationships with city spaces was much more interesting to me. Kevin Lynch, an urban planner mentioned by Ellard, believed that the best cities were composed of five imageable elements: paths, nodes, regions, boundaries, and landmarks. Lynch’s idea, as presented by Ellard, was that, “highly imageable cities are friendlier for the wayfarer.”   Another concept that Ellard introduces in the chapter on city spaces is that of “integration coefficients”, which sounds complicated, but actually relates to the number of turns it takes to get places. He doesn’t include the formula to determine the exact coefficient, but does offer a map/diagram depicting the coefficients. Obviously, the best-used spaces and streets from an urban planners point of view are those in clusters or straight lines because they encourage people to congregate. Sidewalks are also important part for urban planning.   Ellard also spends a considerable amount of time examining “Second Life”, the online virtual world that now has millions of users. Again, I found this chapter less interesting in terms of his examination of space. I did, however, find some of the little factoids about “Second Life” pretty interesting. Some “Second Life” users have blurred the line between reality and their virtual worlds and have sued each other and Linden Labs for property rights and to complain about the company’s “Code of Conduct.”     Ellard is concerned that this may be a trend in the future. However, unlike Ellard, I think that the number of “Second Life” users is a drop in the bucket compared to the populations of Europe, Asia, and North America.

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The New Zealand Defense Force has released thousands of files of UFO sightings. The files conclude that there are normal, explainable explanations for UFO’s. For example, The New Zealand Defense Force’s UFO; investigators took a look at the 1978 video of a UFO sighting and; concluded that it was either the image of Venus or of light waves. See the video and see for yourself how much sense that explanation makes.New Zealand has also released reports of alien sightings by eye-witnesses, whom tell of aliens with big shoe sizes, and tell other bizarre stories. The emphasis put on these stories is to say, in so many words, these are unbelievable tales, like it’s an joke, ya’ll. You are meant to chuckle.Governments around the world all do the “We don’t believe in no stinking UFO” dance, and the “Only morons believe in UFO” shuffle. Well, why are government so quick to dismiss UFO’s? Could it be that it is a coordinated effort? But directed by whom?Also, some people who are quick to believe in the existence of God, are even quicker to dismiss UFO’s, for the reason that they haven’t seen any credible alien sightings, why? There haven’t been any God sightings lately. While UFO’s are popping up in the skies all over the place. Could there be a plot afoot to keep the people of the world in the dark?

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From  CNet — “A microbe GFAJ-1 grown on arsenic — . The microbe is the first known life to have a DNA structure different than all other known life forms. NASA scientists have discovered an entirely new form of life that shares no biological building blocks with anything currently known on Earth, the agency said.”NASA finds a new life form — a new kind of life existing on earth in a lake in California. This discovery leads to all kinds of questions. Such as: How did it get there? Is it native to earth, or was it put there by an extraterrestrial visitor? A meteor? Or something else?The discovery of this different kind of a life, bacteria that can use arsenic, should be an eye-opener, a head opening event. Well, it is. It’s a very big deal.Life is formed as a result of physical and chemical reactions, and when the resources are available. To support life? Or when life finds a way to exist?This new life form, did it evolve on earth because of the chemicals in the lake? Are there other forms of life to be found on earth, in space and beyond?There are so many questions. And –Though this was an earth found find, it leads to speculation that isn’t so far fetch, that there are probably other forms of life else where, and out there in other parts of the universe,Implications of new lifeVisit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In a big news conference today, NASA announced that researchers had “taught” bacteria to survive on arsenic instead of the phosphate it usually eats.  Researchers had long theorized that there could be bacteria which use arsenic instead of phosphorus.   Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon presented a paper with her prediction in 2006.
She decided to start looking for them in an arsenic-rich environment, which is how the floor of California’s Mono Lake came to be dredged for samples.  She then gradually removed phosphorus from their little tanks and added more arsenic, and eventually GFAJ-1 was living solely on arsenic.Aside from being an interesting party trick, NASA wants you to know that your carbon-centrism simply will not stand in the progressive future where the Horta is a valid life form.  We have long taken it as a truism that life requires certain parameters in order to evolve.  Among other things, the “big six” elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus.  But it turns out that most of these parameters are wrong, or at least outdated.  If life can survive and even thrive in the ecosystem surrounding an oceanic volcanic vent, then how can we possibly rule out the potential for life on other planets?The fact that this bacteria can eat arsenic also invalidates a lot of the tests we use to detect life, and hospitable climates.  We haven’t historically gone looking for arsenic as a precursor to life, but clearly now we ought to.  And a lot of other elements, beside.  Which elements should we be hunting for, exactly?  Well, that is the question.  We used to hunt for the Big Six, but now it looks like there’s a Big Seventh.  Is there a Big Eighth, or a Big Ninth?  At this point, that seems very probable.Phosphorus is what our cells use to make DNA.  But the bacteria GFAJ-1 uses arsenic instead.  If something so weird can be living right here under our noses on Earth, then who’s to say what’s living on Mars?  Or more likely on Europa?Although the big story on GFAJ-1 today is all about the hunt for extraterrestrial life, surely some of the long-term discussion will be about pollution control.  If you can grow a bacteria that eats arsenic, they would certainly be handy in some of our planet’s arsenic contamination sites.  Arsenic pollution is a huge problem in groundwater across the world.  If GFAJ-1 can help out, then it will truly become our alien savior!
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/NASA

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MARS NEEDS PEOPLE.”Mars Needs People,” sound like a movie title, a B- move, grindhouse style. The net is buzzing since NASA let out the call that Mars needs volunteers for a one-way trip– one way to save money — and preferably, wealthy volunteers, with the cash to pay their own way, are wanted. Since the NASA call, some have joined in the game of suggesting whom to send to Mars, which wealthy dude or gal the planet earth can do without. The list is long. I won’t linger on it. Sixty and fifty and seventy years old; eccentric billionaires, who is going to miss them?Anyway, Keith Olbermann had a go at the one way ticket to Mars call. He began, with the observation — “The subject of getting to mars has been subsidiary to the assumption that anyone on mars would try to get here first, to you know, kill us and eat us. This was reinforced by the fact the first six attempts to send unmanned probes there failed utterly. Two American ships never got out of earth’s orbit, three Russian ships never got off the ground. a third disintegrated in the atmosphere. The fourth got to mars and kept right on going …”Oh my! See the video.Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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A recent spate of UFO sightings has featured blue lights, flying in any number of patterns, configurations, and speed.  Problem being: these are the work of hoaxers across the country.The recent availability of lightweight LED light strips has allowed pranksters with remote controlled aircraft to mimic UFO sightings with remarkable skill.  Metafilter user smoothvirus put together an excellent post about this pranking, and its consequences.If you are a devoted fan of the late lamented show MonsterQuest, you have already seen these light strips in action in several episodes.  For example, in the “Ohio Grassman” episode, a local RC helicopter enthusiast is enlisted to help with the hunt.  The team attaches a FLIR thermal camera to the belly of the RC helicopter.  The pilot meanwhile attaches a set of lightweight LED strips to the helicopter itself, so that he can monitor its orientation when it is in flight in the darkness.Of course, this is just the latest and most technologically advanced in a long line of UFO hoaxes.  When I was but a wee lass growing up in Alaska, one week the city of Anchorage was treated to a nighttime display of floating multicolored lights which seemed to drift silently through the night sky.The culprit turned out to be a thin sheet of plywood, with a black plastic garbage bag attached at the edges to serve as a balloon.  Inside, the prankster had attached several cans of Sterno.  Sterno both gives off heat and emits a flame which is colored oddly.  The heat lifted the whole works into the sky, hot air balloon-style, and the light of the Sterno did the rest.In January of 2009, a group of pranksters staged a UFO hoax over Morristown, N.J. simply by attaching flares to helium balloons with five feet of fishing line.And of course there are the “actual mistake” category of UFO sightings.  I myself once thought I had spotted some amazing UFO activity once, when I was staying at a relative’s vacation home on Whidbey Island here in Washington.  I watched, rooted to the spot, as a series of lights flashed in a slow pattern across the water.  After several minutes a commercial airliner passed over my head and eventually joined the other lights, which turned out to be the runway of Sea-Tac Airport, as viewed through a few gaps in a distant line of hills.In fact, the easy availability and use of RC flying vehicles plus the cheap and ready LED light strips, should mean that any low-flying light source can be automatically dismissed as a hoax.  Particularly in an area with a known concentration of observers, like a city, town, suburb, or popular park.All of which isn’t to dismiss all UFO reports as hoaxes, of course.  For example, reports of a dark triangular craft flying overhead in the remote Southwest desert eventually proved to be sightings of stealth aircraft being tested by the US military.  But certainly, anyone observing supposed UFO footage should exercise extreme skepticism.  And if you see a UFO composed of blue lights, you’re almost certainly seeing one of these LED hoaxes.Photo credit: Flickr/pommesschranke

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Tomorrow is scheduled to begin Wednesday afternoon, with the launch of NASA’s Discovery space shuttle, with a new kind of astronaut on board, a robonaut, on a journey into space with six human crewmates. In the future, it could well be six robonauts to one human crew member, or all robonaut crews.Item from the Associated Press — “Space is about to get its first humanoid from planet Earth. Robonaut 2 – affectionately known as R2 – is hitching a one-way ride to the International Space Station this week aboard the final flight of space shuttle Discovery.”Well, it makes perfectly good sense. Send a robot into space. This humanoid robot, price tag, according to NASA, $2.5 million, is the first of, hoped to be, many that will / “could take over space station cleaning duties; spend hours outside in the extreme heat and cold, patiently holding tools for spacewalking astronauts; and handle emergencies like toxic leaks or fires. Robonaut’s descendants could even scout out asteroids, Mars and other worlds in the decades ahead, paving the way for humans.”The R2 Robonaut is only a humanoid “from the waist up. It measures 3 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 330 pounds. Each arm is 2 feet 8 inches long. The legs are still in the works.”The introduction of humanoid robots into space travel is an important step into the future.

    

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One way or the other NASA wants to get back into space, so what are the brains at NASA planning? NASA is planning one-way tickets to Mars for volunteers. 2030 launch date ahead.I say: What?NASA say: Humans could be sent to the red planet on an one-way ticket as part of the NASA master plan to permanently colonize Mars and then other planets?One way?! Those are the kind of tickets one buys for people one don’t like. An one-way ticket to Mars sounds like a horrible idea. Living, well existing, and working, well, sitting around inside a box with tubes attached to you, measuring your vital signs, while robots scoot around doing stuff, and when your time comes, dying,– dying is dying, but so far from home, and on another planet at that, far away from ones love ones? Being sent far away from everyone folks know sound like what happened to the unwanted Brits who were sent off to Australia?!Australia wasn’t another planet, but way back then, when the Brits unloaded their surplus, unwanted and prison population, Australia might as well have been on an alien planet. Few folks who got sent there ever returned.What can anybody possibly do on Mars?Okay, NASA says it has found water on Mars, and possible signs of life. But my opinion is that the Martian vistas look not to inviting for a walk around a crater. One can’t walk around without taking ones own oxygen, and how relaxing could that be? Taking ones own oxygen and walking around all the time in a space suit? And who knows what is really on Mars? There is no proof that there are not Martians. NASA pictures show that water once flowed freely on the terrain. So NASA hypes the trip as a chance to explore, boldly, were life forms may have walked boldly before? Who is to say, those life forms aren’t taking a long vacation in hibernation? And if earth humans show up, the  space ships are going to hit the fan? 2030, huh? If I’m still here, NASA can count me out.

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The pay-off from the space program, and from space science programs, and from all manner of telescopes, are the space photos, that in Stars War speak, are of a galaxy from “long ago and far, far, away.”World scientists have released on to the Internet and to the world, images from 13,l billion years ago — Images of an ancient galaxy, the oldest and the most distant object in the universe, known to human observers. See the video.Why is this worth mentioning? Why are these images so wonderful and good to see?Borrowing a word from Mr. Spock, the images are “fascinating.”Why?Because for what they reveal, and more important, for what they imply, which is mind expanding.;Our science is pulling back the curtains, removing the veils of ignorance and superstition, and showing us without a doubt what a wondrous universe this truly is. Some are saying the existence of a 13.1 billion old galaxy challenges religion and undermines people’s faith. As knowledge grows religion evolves. I know that knowledge challenges stagnant beliefs. I don’t think that it undermines creation.