We had a great time last night at a panel discussion on extrasolar planets, right here at my very own institution of Caltech, sponsored by our very own Discover magazine, and hosted by our very own Bad Astronomer. The panelists included Gibor Basri, John Johnson, Sara Seager, and Tori Hoehler. They did a great job at getting across the most important message: this is a field that has taken a tremendous leap forward in the past ten years, and is poised to make comparable strides in the years to come. A lot of the excitement right now centers on the Kepler satellite, which is on track to find hundreds of extrasolar planets. You can get an idea of recent progress from a graph of extrasolar planets discovered over the years.

From the perspective of the person on the street, planets are pretty cool — but life on other planets is what’s really cool. (Or would be, if we found it.) And frankly, it’s not even the prospect of life that gets people going; it’s the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Tori mentioned that he was slightly surprised, some years ago when there was a report (later discredited) that we had found evidence for life on meteorites from Antarctica, that people didn’t make a big deal out of it — it was exciting, but not Earth-shattering. I suspect that microbes, no matter where they’re from, aren’t going to shatter most people’s Earths; that will take some sort of greeting, friendly or otherwise.

Still, it’s amazing what has been done, and the prospects for doing more are pretty breathtaking. Here’s one idea that I find pretty clever: searching for the Red Edge. You know how plants appear to be really bright in infrared photographs? That’s because they reflect a lot of infrared light, but tend to absorb regular visible red light. In a spectrum, where we decompose the reflected light into different wavelengths, this phenomenon shows up as a sharp “edge” as you go from infrared (on the right here) to red light. The idea would be that something similar should happen even for very different kinds of life — so if you found a planet whose spectrum featured the red edge, that would be a promising place to hope for finding life.

I have no way of judging how feasible this technique really is — in particular, I’m always skeptical of claims that rely on alien forms of life resembling ours in any way. (The authors do emphasize that an extraterrestrial red edge might not be at the same wavelength as ours.) But I like it because it relies on an underlying truth of which I am quite fond — the fact that life relies on the increase of entropy. The specific wavelengths at which different kinds of life might reflect light can undoubtedly be very different from biosphere to biosphere; but what won’t change is the general idea that a planet full of life will re-radiate energy with a much higher entropy than what it absorbs. That’s the deep principle underlying the red edge; plants absorb visible light, and radiate at longer wavelengths with higher entropy. If we eventually find life on other planets, I’d personally be pleased if entropy were at the bottom of it all.

Do women spend more time in the restroom than men?

“The stereotype that women spend more time in the restroom than men was examined, with the expectation of a small magnitude difference. Method.—Men and women (N = 120, 60 each sex) were observed entering and exiting the restroom in a college library. Participants were of various ages and ethnicities. Data were collected during 4 days in 2 wk. for 1 or 2 hours at different times in the afternoon, evening, and night. The number of stalls, urinals, and sinks and proximity to convenient and discrete observation posts were similar. Time spent in the restroom was measured in seconds using the online U.S. government clock (www.time.gov) set to Eastern Standard Time at a library computer terminal. For purposes of interrater reliability, two observers timed each participant and retained the data only if the observers agreed within a margin of 2.0 sec.

Results and discussion.—An independent samples t test indicated that women (M = 178.9 sec., SD = 96.6) spent significantly more time in the restroom than did men (M = 118.4 sec., SD = 102.6; t118 = –3.33, p = .001; d = .34). The average difference was 61.5 sec. Johnson, Sholcosky, Gabello, Ragni, and Ogonosky (2003) found that women were nearly twice as likely as men to wash their hands after using a public restroom. This act of routine hygiene by itself could substantially account for the additional time women spent in the restroom in our study. Participants were not observed while inside the restroom and results are based on students in a university library. The results support the belief that small, real gender differences have been exaggerated in common lore.”

Photo: Engrish.com

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A flying frog that changes colors, a stick insect that’s a foot and a half long, and a “ninja slug” that shoots “love darts.” These are among the 120 new species discovered or described over the past three years on the lush island of Borneo–the Southeast Asia island divided between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei.

On Earth Day, the conservation group WWF released a report on some of the recent discoveries in a 54-million-acre nature preserve known as the Heart of Borneo. WWF ecologist Adam Tomasek says that on an average, three new species were found every month.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Slugs?

This colorful green and yellow slug species, named Ibycus rachelae, was discovered atop high mountains in the Malaysian section of Borneo. The slug has a tail three times the length of its head, and it wraps the tail around itself when it is resting. From the Ariophantidae family, this unusual species makes use of so-called ‘love darts’ in courtship. Made of calcium carbonate, the love dart is harpoon-like which pierces and injects a hormone into a mate, and may play a role in increasing the chances of reproduction [Guardian].

Image: Peter Koomen / WWF

There are few more dramatic examples of humanity’s careless treatment of the earth than the Aral Sea.

The Aral’s precipitous decline began in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union began using river water to irrigate the mega-farms it established on the arid steppe. As the river water flowing into the sea slowed to a trickle, the Aral began drying up.

Once a colossal geographic feature—at 26,000 square miles (67,300 square kilometers), it was the fourth largest inland water body on earth in terms of surface area—the Aral shrank to hold just one-tenth of its original volume, becoming a tragic shadow of itself [National Geographic]. Fisheries collapsed, people moved away, towns were abandoned, and the Aral became famous primarily for its ghostly landscapes, with rusting ships lying on sand dunes.

But now scientists report that the northern sector of the Aral is making a recovery, due to a concerted effort from the Kazakh government, the World Bank, and scientists. A dam completed in 2005 raised water levels and decreased salinity, and increased the North Aral’s span by 20 percent. Soon native plants, stifled for years by the saltwater, began to sprout, and migrating birds like pelicans, flamingos, and ducks again began to visit the Aral. Nowadays, “It’s a paradise for birds,” says Russian Academy of Sciences zoologist Nick Aladin, who has been studying the Aral since the 1970s. “It’s a place for pleasure, and it’s an enormous victory” [National Geographic]. Freshwater fish have also returned, leading to hopes of a resuscitated fishing industry. And while the South Aral remains in dire straits, researchers say the tentative revival of the North Aral gives them hope.

Another sea, another headache. Over in the Middle East, several countries are weighing a proposal that could give new life to the dwindling Dead Sea–but that may cause environmental problems of its own.

In the past century, the Dead Sea’s surface area has shrunk by almost a third. The Jordan River, which once fed the super-salty lake, has been tapped for irrigating and drinking water by Israel, Syria, and Jordan; shore-side factories that evaporate the water to extract minerals have exacerbated the problem. Without action, the Dead Sea will continue to shrink. But a proposal being evaluated by the World Bank could revive the lake with a 180-kilometre-long conduit carrying water from the Red Sea 400 metres downhill to the Dead Sea through a canal, pipeline or some combination of the two. The water’s flow would generate electricity to run a desalination plant, providing drinking water for local people [Nature News].

But environmentalists are questioning the wisdom of a so-called Red-Dead connector. Drawing vast quantities of water from the Red Sea could damage the fish and coral there, according to Friends of the Earth Middle East. Green advocates also worry that the Red Sea water will change the chemistry of the salty Dead Sea, making life harder for the sea’s salt-tolerant microorganisms and encouraging blooms of algae that thrive in less salty water. They argue that intensive water conservation programs could improve the flow of the Jordan River and render the expensive Red-Dead canal unnecessary.

Israeli geologist Ittai Gavrieli, who is studying the impacts of the proposed conduit, says the region has a tough decision to make. If nothing is done, the situation will only get worse, but a Red–Dead conduit would carry with it some real risks. The decision to stop the sea’s decline, says Gavrieli, “is a matter of choosing between bad and worse. But the question is, what is bad and what is worse?” [Nature News]

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Return of the Aral Sea offers an in-depth look at the dam that’s helping the North Aral
DISCOVER: Life in the Dead Sea explains how microbes survive in the salty water
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80beats: Saudi to Use Plentiful Resource (Sunlight) to Produce Scarce Resource (Fresh Water)

Image: NASA, showing the Aral Sea

Perhaps. Matt Stone & Trey Parker have put out a statement. I watched it online yesterday and I thought the bleeps were part of the “in joke.” I’ll spoil the episode for you by noting that it wasn’t even Muhammad in the bear a suit. Additionally I don’t get why people are that that scared, the threats were made by a group that’s very close to literally being in a basement. On the other hand, remember during the Salman Rushdie affair that translators were killed, so perhaps there’s reason that a corporation would want to stay on the safe side (one could imagine civil lawsuits if someone did get hurt against the corporation).

On final thing, the South Park episode in question depicted Moses as a dull artificial intelligence, Buddha as a cocaine junkie and Jesus as a habitual viewer of internet pornography (at least that’s Buddha’s accusation, which Jesus does not deny, rather, he minimizes its equivalence with a drug habit. I think Jesus’ logic is spot on, and am leaning toward Brit Hume’s dismissal of Buddhism on account of this interaction). There are of course Jewish,* Christian and Buddhist extremists in world. But most people judge that Jews, Christians and Buddhist are less liable to take violent action to defend the dignity of their faith than extremist Muslims. I think that’s probably a valid assessment, and I think that points to the fact that not all religions can be made equivalent in the nature and numbers of violent radicals. Why that is is a different question.

* Because Judaism is operationally coterminous with an ethnicity, at least by self-conception, I have seen some attempts to accuse those who have anti-Jewish religious views as anti-Semites. In general anti-Semites have anti-Jewish attitudes in regards to the religion, but the inverse is not always so. Some Muslims have started imitating that strategy, accusing plain anti-religious folk like Richard Dawkins of being an Islamophobe as if he is racist.

What on Earth could have created a hole like this in the roof of a house in Cartersville, Georgia?

Why, nothing. Nothing on Earth, that is. Because here’s the culprit:

Yowza. That’s a stony meteorite, and in March 2009 it came screaming down out of the sky and punched that hole! The cube is one centimeter (about a half inch) on a side, and is used for scale. What a great specimen! And it weighs in at 294 grams — more than half a pound — so it’s hefty. It must’ve been moving at quite a clip when it smacked that house, probably a couple of hundred kilometers per hour.

And if you want to see it for yourself, and live near Atlanta, now’s your chance: The Tellus Science Museum will have the rock on display — together with the roof and ceiling under it that get whacked — starting tonight at 6:00 p.m. as part of their Earth Day event.

I wonder if it’ll still be on display when Dragon*Con rolls around…

And if you’re wondering about the post title, then this might help. Given the museum’s location, it seemed appropriate.

Cupp, unsupported. S. E. Cupp, sellout, or really, really, confused. That’s how you describe an atheist who accepts evolution, and, who defends the teaching of Creationism in science classes (as a conservative I’m skeptical that she’s a down-the-line majoritarian).

The Red Bias. Red as the color of success?

Of Yeast and Men. Reviews the recent attempt to finding QTLs of small effect via “Extreme QTL Mapping.” What may be doable in yeast may be harder in men.

Claim Jumper: World’s Unhealthiest Restaurant. Is it me, or do these casual dining chains which are oriented toward value always brightly lit? And their food is always super-vivid in their coloring. Contrast with higher end steak houses.

The Apple Secrecy Machine. Secrecy wouldn’t matter if the products weren’t useful.