The Known Universe

The American Museum

of Natural History has produced a new film The Known Universe that is a companion piece to a current exhibit called Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, currently at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. The film, embedded above, is a sort of universal fly-over, that begins at the Himalayas, and ends with the Big Bang's "afterglow." It's all data-driven, too, based on the four-dimensional Digital Universe Atlas, maintained by astrophysicists at The Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History.

Watch Repair in Micro Gravity

This video of a watch repair in micro gravity gives a good demonstration of just what sort of things are possible in terms of delicate engineering work in or on a space station.

Andre Koblin: Flight Patterns

Aaron Koblin is a

graduate student at UCLA, working in the field of data visualization; taking raw data, usually numeric, and using the data to create visual displays. Some of these, like the video linked below showing air traffic data for a single day, are stunning pieces of art. You can read an interview with Koblin here, and see his personal site here.

Visualizing the Decline of Empires

This visualization is based on the research for Pedro M Cruz's master thesis. He's interested in using scientific and statistical number-crunching and then displaying the data in visual ways that straddle the very thin line between art and science.

In this case, the data behind the visualization is the evolution of the four leading maritime empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—the British, Spanish, Portuguese, and French navies. Most of the historic data regarding dates of historic events is from Wikipedia; this is thus, more a proof of concept than a demonstration of scholarly data utilization.

3 Arguments Against Evolution and How To Refute Them

One of the most common debates between scientifically-minded individuals and the (willfully or circumstantially) uneducated is over the reality of evolution as an active system. Many individuals who don't accept the existence of natural selection and adaptation come armed with certain arguments above and beyond a simple refusal to believe. The following are three of the most common attacks on the concept along with a way to quickly and easily refute them with facts and logic.

1. The Missing Link Has Never Been Found

Concerning the evolution of the hominid genus, many detractors fall back against the fallacious concept of "The Missing Link". They state that the scientific community has yet to produce a fossil of a biological ancestor that bridges the gap between ape and human. The core of this argument is a deep misunderstanding of evolutionary history and a very outdated concept that hasn't been relevant for decades. The counter-argument here is the fact that humans didn't "evolve from apes", but that apes and humans, being primates, had a common biological ancestor from which both gradually evolved. We will never find a "missing link" because the process of evolution is slow and a given species doesn't manifest discreetly in the fossil record.

 

2. The "Tornado Through a Junkyard" Analogy

Easily the most absurd argument against evolution is the analogy that it is like a tornado going through a junkyard and somehow assembling a working airplane. The implication in this idea is that the sheer complexity of life as we know it is far too nuanced to have come about by a random process. This points to a fundamental misunderstanding of natural selection. To refute this argument, it needs to be approached in chunks. First, primitive life was not in a "junkyard" where all the constituent pieces of a complex organism already existed. Rather, each component of each organism on the planet developed gradually in response to environmental pressures. Evolution is not a massive, chaotic process like a tornado, but a very slow system of actions and reactions. It is indeed absurd to imagine a complicated, multicellular entity manifesting out the primordial soup, but it is only reasonable to imagine that same entity developing in bits and pieces over the course of millions of years.

 

3. Carbon Dating is Unreliable

When detractors of evolution want to attack the massive time scale necessary for the process to occur, they usually go after the limited reach of carbon dating. Using the science of radiocarbon analysis, the age of a given organic object can be determined up to approximately 60,000 years, which is hardly enough time for any significant evolutionary developments to occur. For the dating of fossils that are likely millions of years old, carbon dating is indeed useless. The mistake detractors make is the assumption that there are no other dating methods available. Processes like Uranium-Lead dating can stretch back hundreds of millions of years, while geological studies can determine relative ages by identifying clear layers in the Earth's crust. Such dating methods have existed for decades and are constantly being refined.

 

It is important to understand that it is a social responsibility of science-minded individuals to educate those around them when the opportunity arises. Armed with clear, concise facts, the reality of concepts like evolution can be properly defended.

The Chi'Bagoda Project: Bambitat for Humanity

The Chi'Bagoda Project: Bambitat for Humanity has recently been granted financial backing from The Farm, a world renowned high tech hippie commune in Summertown, TN. Both Chi'Bagoda and The Farm are fanatical and emphatical about the value and wide range uses of bamboo. Joshua Doolittle, the mastermind behind The Chi'Bagoda Project has been making headlines for this wild green-eyed enthusiasm for building innovate bamboo structures, touting their strength and sustainability, for green building. Bamboo has the tensile strength of steel and vastly improves the ground it grows in. Read more about Doolittle's bamboo genius because starting now, his innovative ideas are quickly going to be showing up in the communities, communes, and the private building projects across the globe.

Albert Bates, the widely known permaculturalist and head honcho at The Farm's cutting edge Eco-village Training Center (EVT) is to be applauded for the many ways in which he continues to contribute to the thinking minds of the United States and progresses the paradigm shift of our age. Thousands of evolved individuals pass through the hallows of The Farm's Eco-Village Training Center every year, partly due to the infamous beatnik lore of The Farm and its founder, Stephen Gaskin- but, mostly because Albert Bates and the other members of the EVT co-op are taking consistent, wide-sweeping steps to educate and include America within the grassy green arms of the earth loving and sustainability concepts taught there.

Solar workshops, midwifery training, permaculture certification, biodynamics, Natural Building Apprenticeships, organic gardening and the site of international events like the BioRegional Congress, Gaia University, and Post Petroleum Survival guidance are pouring out of The Farm's ears. The 300 or so residents of The Farm support themselves through various cottage industries including Booya Cacao, a fair-trade artisan chocolate business, publishing, natural building, soy products, tie-dye, web design, foreign language translation, and a great number of other home based businesses. They are intelligent, delightful people and their home is incredibly beautiful, wide open fields brimming with tall grass, wildflowers and horses, blueberry patches, orchards, ponds, and over 1,000 acres of conserved land. It is truly a life altering experience to spend time at The Farm while taking a class or serving in an apprenticeship.

The Chi'Bagoda Project is joining a long list of pre-existing charities sponsored by The Farm and its residents. The financial bucks and physical backs of the residents at The Farm all go into serving the local community, the country and the yes, the entire world. Many of their projects are international. They give speeches at the U.N., they help children in Africa and they help entire towns in Tennessee. Having Doolittle and his bamboo structures onboard, will be a huge compliment to natural building on The Farm and abroad, bolstering their efforts and ability to create easy to construct, durable, green housing for folks.

Do yourself a favor and check out both The Farm and The Chi'Bagoda Project. Consider going to Summertown, TN and taking a few classes. From personal experience, I can tell you it is not something you will ever regret and you are sure to leave with amazing memories to treasure for the rest of your life, as well as increase your value not only as a human being and your ability to operate with ease- you are also likely to increase your value as an employee or business owner. Take a look around and you will begin to realize, if you haven't already, that folks with urban planning, sustainable business, permaculture or like certifications are in high demand. You will find your self worth and net work exponentially increased by completing one of the many offered programs at The Farm.

Once there, you will likely meet the charismatic Joshua Doolittle who will no doubt tell you how to build a house out of bamboo.... among many other interesting things. :) Don't think twice! You owe yourself this experience! Go check it out!

 

Suing the Energy Industry for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Have you heard of climate change refugees?

In essence, it’s the idea that people are displaced by environmental disasters that are in part caused by climate change and global warming. It’s a concept that is gaining steam around the world, especially to look at the millions who are moving in Africa due to increased drought or torrential rain, those in the Pacific moving because of flooding and tsunamis, and those who live on low-lying atolls and islands who are forced to move as their islands become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels.

Photo Credit: Houstonian/ Dan Blazen

But was Hurricane Katrina created or exacerbated by climate change? Can those who were forced to move claim to be climate change refugees? The U.S. doesn’t typically like to admit having refugees anywhere- those who were forced to Houston by Hurricane Katrina looked pretty similar to what happens in other countries and shows up in our newspapers as photos of a refugee camp. But few would have called Katrina a climate change disaster- for years the focus has been on the slow government response and the racism involved in relief (or lack of) efforts. So why is this back in the news?

A group of Mississippi landowners are suing 30 major oil, coal and electric companies in a lawsuit claiming that they created pollutants that have contributed to rising sea levels that contributed to the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

I’m sure this is viewed by some as ridiculous and unfounded, but in some ways it could be a landmark legal decision. The basic assertion, that oil and energy companies are responsible for the emissions that their production and products create, points a definitive finger at the fossil fuel energy industry. If this were successful as a lawsuit, it would mean that the companies are tagged with the guilt. I imagine they will go to significant lengths to make sure that doesn’t happen.

The U.S. Supreme Court already ruled in 2007 that the EPA violated the law by not forcing energy companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions- look now for this case to make it to the Supreme Court- it could be some of the most landmark rulings of our time. If it is ruled to be breaking the law to not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that would effectively change the way that Congress HAS to create the next round of legislation and the way our country is fundamentally governed.

Can the court mandate that we reduce greenhouse gasses? I think the EPA decision was based on their charge to protect the environment- and since greenhouse gasses harm the environment they are in trouble for not getting people to reduce them. Tough times for the EPA- I’m sure they would have found no support from the Bush Administration for any kind of climate change focused action.

"Thus the court recognized . . . that injuries may be fairly traceable to actions that contribute to, rather than solely or materially cause, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming," wrote Judge James Dennis of New Orleans in the 5th Circuit Court Opinion.

I like the idea of holding the energy companies accountable for greenhouse gas emissions and their true cost to the environment- but what about each of us, who continue to purchase the products even though we know they harm the environment? Will we be suing each other?

Watching Space

Watching the skies is just part of the day, and night for some people. I am one of them. The first thing I do every morning is go outside and look up at the sky. The last thing I do before going to bed, each night, is to watch the sky for awhile. Sometimes, I even lay in bed and just look up through the window until it is morning. When I am not outside looking at the sky, often with a camera in my hand, I check in with my favorite websites to catch up on space weather and the new photos of sky watchers around the world.

The sky is always changing, revealing itself in glimpses. I think that is why I find it so fascinating. Space is a mystery we will never stop discovering and its interaction with our earth's atmosphere create some of the most spectacular sights we will ever witness.

These are some of my favorite websites. I've been checking in with them for the last several years and everytime I go there, I am amazed at all the activity happening in space.

My number one favorite website, Space Weather, has an incredible video up on its homepage right now that I highly recommend. It was taken by enthusiastic skywatcher and photograher, Laurent Lavendar in Bretagne, France showing Venus, Saturn, and the Moon rising together over a local marina. It is extremely romantic.....

Space Weather keeps you up to date on solar wind, activity on the face of the sun, asteroids, comets, and all the movement happening in space. And believe me, there is more movement than you would ever expect! This is the weather station site for space, updated daily and globally.

Space.com is a more polished site that provides information on NASA missions, satellite images, links to telescope stores, videos, and overall takes a non-specialized approach to space news. Space.com is the CNN of space, you get everything. Currently, on their site is a clip of U2 calling the astronauts in space and a plethora of interesting videos, including scientists monitoring potentially hazardous asteroids heading in our direction.

And of course, we have the old standby at NASA.gov which, is obviously full of brilliant information. Catch up on space station news and find satellite and probe pictures here first. NASA.gov is where the most cutting edge and current space mission info can be found. NASA.gov is definitely space mission-centric but, also provide a wealth of information on the solar systems, galaxies, asteroids, star clusters, and anything else space related- you just have to do a little clicking around. Naturally, their deep space photos are first-rate. 

Right now, they are reminding us that Oct. 11-17th is Earth Science week and have provided a series of six short videos on the chosen topic of "Understanding Climate." The six NASA videos complete a series called "Tides of Change," which all focus on the ocean-climate connection. Each video features a specific component of the connection, such as marine life or the water cycle.

While catching up on space news this past week, I was just blown away but, all that is happening. The new technology and photos are really making space less of a mystery and more of a place. I was reading about NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft has made it possible for scientists to construct the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system and its location in the Milky Way galaxy and so I decided I would try to comprehend a lightyear. Like, truly understand how far that is. I was never great at math, so the long equations were meaningless to me. I found some comparisons in this graph that finally made me understand. Hope you enjoy!

Factor (ly) Value Item
10-9 40.4 × 10?9 ly Reflected sunlight from the Moon's surface takes 1.2–1.3 seconds to travel the distance to the Earth's surface. (The surface of the moon is roughly 376,300 kilometres from the surface of the Earth, on average. 376,300 km ÷ 300,000 km/s (roughly the speed of light) ? 1.25 seconds)
10-6 15.8 × 10?6 ly One astronomical unit (the distance from the Sun to the Earth). It takes approximately 499 seconds (8.32 minutes) for light to travel this distance.[16]
10-3 3.2 × 10?3 ly The most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was about 14 light-hours away from Earth as of 9 March 2007 (2007 -03-09)[update]. It took that space probe 30 years to cover that distance,[17] and will take over 18,000 years to reach one light-year at the same speed.
100 1.6 × 100 ly The Oort cloud is approximately two light-years in diameter. Its inner boundary is speculated to be at 50,000 AU, with its outer edge at 100,000 AU
2.0 × 100 ly Maximum extent of the Sun's gravitational dominance (hill sphere/roche sphere, 125,000 AU). Beyond this is true interstellar space.
4.22 × 100 ly The nearest known star (other than the Sun), Proxima Centauri, is about 4.22 light-years away.[18][19]
103 26 × 103 ly The center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 26 kilolight-years away.[20][21]
100 × 103 ly The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across.
106 2.5 × 106 ly The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 megalight-years away.
3.14 × 106 ly The Triangulum Galaxy (M33), at 3.14 megalight-years away, is the most distant object visible to the naked eye.
59 × 106 ly The nearest large galaxy cluster, the Virgo Cluster, is about 59 megalight-years away.
150 × 106 – 250 × 106 ly The Great Attractor lies at a distance of somewhere between 150 and 250 megalight-years (the latter being the most recent estimate).
109 1.2 × 109 ly The Sloan Great Wall (not to be confused with the Great Wall) has been measured to be approximately one gigalight-year distant.
46.5 × 109 ly The comoving distance from the Earth to the edge of the visible universe is about 46.5 gigalight-years in any direction; this is the comoving radius of the observable universe. This is larger than the age of the universe dictated by the cosmic background radiation; see size of the universe: misconceptions for why this is possible.

 

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