When I was going to school, way back in the dark ages, matter was easily defined;  it was something that had mass and occupied space.  It could be quantified.  Weighed.  Measured.  Touched (if there was enough of it, and it wasn’t too hot or cold).  It had volume.  It existed in three states until I got to college the first time, then the schools were talking plasma.  It could be changed, but it existed in the same amounts at all times.  We were pretty sure we had a handle on matter.

That old, familiar image of the atom. This one was hanging out in PhotoBucket.

We didn’t.  By the time I went through college the second time (yeah, yeah… I never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up), I had to re-take all those old undergraduate science classes because it was a whole new world.  Matter is a lot stranger, more dynamic, than originally thought.

The states of matter, the very strangeness of matter itself, works itself into thought proofs dealing with the eventual end (or not) of the universe.  A very (very) simplistic overview of the universe is that space and time exploded into being about 13.75 billion years ago in an event known popularly as “The Big Bang”.  Since the Big Bang the universe has been expanding out in all directions, and while the rate of expansion has varied, the average has shown a fairly constant rate of increase.  Finally, that the universe will eventually end in either a “Big Crunch”, or a dismal “Big Chill”.

I like Douglas Adams’ (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) hypothesis; the universe will eventually end in an event known as “The Gnab Gib”.  A “gnab gib” event is the opposite of a “big bang” event.  Of course.

Diagram of the ergosphere around a rotating black hole, where the influence on nearby matter is expressed. Image by Messer Woland, some rights reserved.

Anyway; matter.  A good example of how our perceptions of the universe have changed would be antimatter.  The ideal of “negative” matter has been kicked around since at least the 1880′s as a staple of the vortex theory of gravity.  This particular model needed a fourth dimension from which originated the negative matter.  Now we know that antimatter doesn’t originate in another dimension, but is a state of ordinary matter.

As we learn more about the universe around us, we realize that very little is “ordinary” or commonplace.  It seems as though the unusual is the “ordinary”.  We know that as the universe expands outward, the inflation is accelerating instead of slowing down, as we expected…

…you know what?  Very little is quite what we expected, when you get right down to it.  It seems we have set our expectations very low.  There is more to consider in the commonplace than first imagined.  One facet of the action of the universe, i.e. its accelerating expansion, presents us with enough mystery to keep us here for a week.  Consider that not only is the universe expanding along its “borders” (if it could be said to have such a thing), it is also expanding within itself.  Faster and faster.

Given another decade or so, what is currently science fiction may very well be commonplace.  The ideal is both frightening and exhilarating, just like everything else in the universe.

Author Marc Kaufman explores the journey scientists have taken in the search into life elsewhere in the cosmos. From deep inside gold mines in South Africa to the frozen climate of Antarctica and everywhere in between life on Earth exists.

Kaufman asks: “Doesn’t it seem unlikely that none – zero – of the trillions of planets now reasonably presumed to exist beyond our solar system have the ingredients and conditions needed to cobble together life, and the stability needed to allow life to evolve and grow more complex?”

You won’t see a movie made out of this book but it is a good read and will give you a nice overview of where the search for life and a good look at some of the challenges that search brings.  I rather enjoyed the book.

If you click the image you will go to an Amazon page where you can purchase the book if you are a mind to.  But wait, there’s more!  Sorry couldn’t resist, the review copy of the book will be the prize in the next bonus riddle so put those thinking caps on!

First Contact is a hardcover book, 224 pages and published by Simon and Schuster; First Edition April 5, 2011.

About the author Marc Kaufman

Click here to view the embedded video.

The announcement has been made and not everybody is happy.

Personally I am very pleased to see Discovery going to the Smithsonian. I’m not sure I agree with some of the other choices. I can see why Florida gets a shuttle, no problem there, I mean after all.  I do find it pretty hard to believe Houston ends up with nothing.

Seems to me there were better choices than the other the ones that were made.  Apparently I am not alone – not saying I “totally” agree with the headline.  Not saying I totally disagree with it either.

Source

Gamma Ray Burst 110328A as seen from the Chandra X-ray telescope from 3.8 BILLION light years. Click for the Hubble version. Chandra credit: NASA/CXC/Warwick/A.Levan et al.Hubble credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Fruchter (STScI)

Click the image for the Hubble version.   I’ve put the Chandra description below.  You can see more at both the Chandra and Hubble sites.

From the Chandra site:

The center of this image contains an extraordinary gamma-ray burst (GRB) called GRB 110328A, observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This Chandra observation confirms the association of GRB 110328A with the core of a distant galaxy and shows that it was an exceptionally long lived and luminous event compared to other GRBs.

The red cross (roll your mouse over the image above) shows the position of a faint galaxy – located about 3.8 billion light years from Earth – observed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini-North telescope on the ground. Allowing for experimental errors, the position of the galaxy is indistinguishable from that of the X-ray source, showing that the source is located close to the middle of the galaxy. This is consistent with the idea, suggested by some astronomers, that a star was torn apart by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This idea differs from the usual interpretation for a GRB, involving the production of a jet when a black hole or neutron star forms after the collapse of a massive star or a merger between two neutron stars.

Remarkably, this “tidal disruption” event may have been caught in real time, rather than detected later from analyzing archival observations. However, this X-ray source is about a hundred times brighter than previously observed tidal disruptions. One possible explanation for this very bright radiation is that debris from the disrupted star fell towards the black hole in a disk and the swirling, magnetized matter generated intense electromagnetic fields that created a powerful jet of particles. If this jet is pointed toward Earth it would boost the observed brightness of the source. This scenario has already been suggested by observers to explain the bright and variable X-ray emission observed by NASA’s Swift telescope.

This observation was part of a so-called target of opportunity, or TOO, led by Andrew Levan from the University of Warwick in the UK. A TOO allows the telescope to react quickly to unpredictable cosmic events, within 24 hours in some situations. Chandra scientists and engineers can decide to alter the scheduled observations and instead point the telescope to another target if the circumstances warrant it. This process was put into place once the discovery of GRB 110328A with Swift was announced on March 28th, 2011. The Chandra team was able to reset the telescope’s schedule to observe GRB 110328A early in the morning of Monday, April 4th for a period of just over four hours.

This is the generation we discovered that other stars have planets.  That planet systems are, in fact, common in the cosmos.  That’s been proven, it’s no longer a “theory”.  Now we’re on the hunt for Earth-like exoplanets, and of course, the discovery of life on another planet.  We’re all hoping to find Mr. Spock, but more than likely our first true discovery will be something like pond scum in our own solar system.  Yes, right here.

NASA artist rendering of Earth-like exoplanet

The Kepler Mission is specifically designed to search out Earth-like planets (along with studying the diversity of planetary systems as a whole).  We’re finding all kinds of interesting planets out there; fascinating systems, places we never expected to find planets.  Now, we’re finding planets in these places that may be able to support life as we know it.  The variety of planet types is staggering.  In our solar system alone we have rocky terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), then a handful of dwarf planets, or “plutoids”… in honor of Pluto.  We also are finding extremely interesting moons which may support life (Europa and Titan, for example).  How about life on Mars?  It’s looking good for critters in liquid water under the surface, especially at the poles.  That’s a tasty variety, just in one solar system.  There are billions out there.

Artist impression of a Carbon planet - by Lyuten, released to public domain

Okay, here are the types of exoplanets we’ve found to date:  Hot Jupiters, Hot Neptunes, Eccentric Jupiters, Pulsar planets, Goldilocks planets, Chthonian planets (they’re not sure about this one, but it’s a mess), Ocean planets, Carbon planets, Iron planets, Helium planets, and another mess called a Coreless planet.  We have Super Earths, Ocean Earths, more dwarf planets, Exiled planets of various flavors, and Silicon planets.  I think that’s it.  Exhausting, isn’t it?

ESO impression of Carot-7b, this hot mess is believed to be a Chthonian planet

What about verified (or almost verified) Earth-like planets?  There are six scientists are looking at now:  Gliese 581e, Gliese 581g, Kepler 10b, Kepler 11f, HD 142b, and Hd 17092b.  I think Gliese 581g is the current sweetheart of the group, believed to have the highest probability of liquid water, oxygen in its atmosphere, and sitting in the Goldilocks zone of its red dwarf parent star.  I know!  Isn’t that cool?  The jury is still out as more and more information on the planet becomes available.

NASA/JPL-CalTech, these are the planets around HR8799

Scientists have been playing around with thought proofs on what type of life may have evolved on these different planets, and there are lots of interesting programs on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel.  Some have made it to YouTube, like this one, which is 90 minutes and very interesting.

One thing I’ve been interested in for years is what will happen when we discover life on another planet?  Let’s say we discover microbes on Mars tomorrow.  What will happen?  Do you think everybody will just go about their daily lives and really not think about it?  Or, let’s say my favorite astronomer Seth Shostak at SETI announces that they’ve verified a signal from an alien civilization.  Do you think that would have an impact on religion, the economy (i.e., would we suddenly put more funds into space exploration?), or the way we view our “destiny”?

Let me know what you think.

Collected things before I hop on a plane for France:

• I’m hopping on a plane for France. Spending next week at the Pope’s old palace in Avignon, conferencing with fellow cosmologists about the latest and greatest in the field. I have apparently been appointed to honorary Grand Old Man status, as I’m giving the closing talk at the conference. The title is “White smokes and Dark smokes in cosmology,” and I presume you all understand the reference. I didn’t pick the title, I swear. No live-blogging, but if I’m feeling energetic I might drop in with updates.
• I’m still thinking about the Open Science idea, haven’t forgotten. But I haven’t really homed in on an appropriate project if we were to try it out. Ideally (I think) you would have something relatively modular, where people could work on separate sub-tasks and then bring them all together. But my own kind of research really isn’t like that; it’s more like I have a single idea that works or doesn’t, and we work out the basic consequences. But still contemplating.
• Subsequent to the post about NASA giving up on LISA, more official words have come from NASA itself. (The original posts here and elsewhere were based on emails from officials to scientists.) You can read more at Steinn’s blog, or some words from project scientist Robin Stebbins at Jennifer’s Discovery News blog. As far as I can tell, NASA has indeed given up on LISA, but they’re saying that “funding for gravitational wave astrophysics is unchanged,” which is certainly great news.
• Also at Discovery, Jennifer blogs about Silent Sky, a play by Lauren Gunderson about Henrietta Swan Leavitt. Well worth checking out for you Southern Californians. Amazing what ground-breaking scientific research the women “computers” at Harvard College Observatory managed to do, essentially in their spare time.
• Sad news out of Yale: an undergraduate physics and astronomy major was killed in a machine shop accident. Thoughts go out to her family and friends.
• U.S. Federal prosecutors, clearly sitting around bored with nothing better to do, have indicted leaders of online poker sites, and attempted to shut down the sites entirely. There is some legal confusion concerning the status of online poker, stemming from a silly piece of legislation called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. It’s fairly clear that the people who wrote the bill intended to make online poker illegal, but the sites contend that they’ve found ways around the constraints, and have been operating openly for quite a while now. (I personally play at Full Tilt Poker.) Even more clear is that people should be able to play poker for money legally if they want to, and this is an absurd overreach by the government. But it might very well be the end of online poker, at least until the legislation is repealed.
• Interesting in giving a TED talk? Here’s your chance: they’re accepting auditions. Make a one-minute video that blows them away, and you might find yourself speaking in front of a global audience. Think of it as American Idol for ideas instead of voices.
• And while we’re talking about videos, the Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto has a new effort to put science videos online. Right now mostly focused on their own videos, which have an astronomy slant, but they’re planning to branch out. Worth a look.

Off to Old Europe with me, see you on the flip side.

“An experimental study was undertaken to assess the phenomenon of male preference for blondes. In the first study, 360 Polish men ages 18 to 46 years were asked to assess the attractiveness of the presented stimuli using a 9-point scale. Stimuli were 9 different pictures of the same women whose ages (about 20, 30, and 40 years old) and hair colors (blonde, brown, and brunette) were manipulated. Pictures of blonde-haired women were generally rated as younger than the others. The attractiveness ratings of female faces changed with age and hair color. Still, only the 30-yr.-old woman with blonde hair was rated as significantly more attractive than those with brown or brunette hair. In a second study (the analysis of 500 Internet advertisements) mature women dyed their hair blonde more frequently. These results are analyzed with regard to the evolutionarily formed male preference for younger females.”

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Photo: flickr/rockmixer

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Likely area of language origin, in white, based on:
A) phonemes found in individual languages and
B) phoneme diversity averaged across language families

What’s the News: Southern Africa may be the birthplace of human language, according a new study published yesterday in Science. The study further suggests that language may have arisen only once, with one ancestral language giving rise to all modern tongues, an idea linguists have long debated. This finding parallels the human migrations out of Africa supported by genetic and fossil evidence.

How the Heck:

The study’s author, evolutionary psychologist Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, looked at 504 modern languages from around the world.
He then tallied the phonemes—the distinct sounds of consonants, vowels and tones—that make up each language. Languages vary widely in how many phonemes they have: Some of the Khoisan languages in Africa (widely known for their click sounds) have more than a hundred phonemes, while languages spoken in many Pacific islands have far ...

Dr. Daniel MacArthur at Genomes Unzipped:

23andMe announced yesterday that it will now be releasing information on Alzheimer’s disease risk markers in the APOE gene to customers who purchased their recently upgraded v3 test. The APOE markers are famously associated with a major increase in risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s, with individuals carrying two copies of the ?4 version of the gene being around 15 times more likely than average to develop the disease. Customers who have been tested on the v3 platform will be able to able to access their APOE status after “unlocking” it; customers on earlier versions of the test will need to upgrade to get access. You can see screenshots of the unlocking and results pages here.

I don’t put much weight on 23andMe’s disease risk estimates since I have a relatively large pedigree, and my four grandparents all made it at least to age 75 (one made it to 100, and two to 80+), so I have some sense of my odds of late onset diseases. But, I will admit I was still a little anxious when “unlocking” my results for this locus. This is a classic “tail risk” event which hooks into all the ...

You know what you don’t get enough of? Hearing me blather on about astronomy and skepticism on a Sunday. So you’re in luck: I’ll be doing two interviews on Sunday:

1) At 6:00 p.m. Eastern (US) time (22:00 UT) I’ll be on Star Talk Radio with my old pal and all around cool dude Neil deGrasse Tyson, and my new pal, comedian and all around cool chick Leighann Lord (we’re the three on the left of that pic with producers Helen Matsos and Leslie Mullen on the right) . We’ll be dissecting the science in science fiction movies and basically having a good time with it. You can listen to the show when it airs, but keep in mind we pre-recorded it when I was in NYC last week for NECSS.

What I will do, though, is listen along when it airs Sunday, and then I’ll be on Twitter making dumb jokes and snarky comments as usual. So join me there and I’ll answer your questions if I can.

2) I’ll be on the Think Atheist radio/podcast at ...

1) First, a post from the past:

Researchers traced word rules across more than 3,000 languages.

What’s the News: Noam Chomsky, look out: If language has any universal grammar, it’s hiding really well, conclude the authors of a recent Nature study. The idea that all human languages share some underlying structure, regardless of where or when they evolved, an influential idea that nonetheless has drawn some controversy since Chomsky popularized it in the 1950s. One part of natural-grammar theory is the idea that certain word order rules (whether the verb or the noun goes first and whether a preposition goes before or after a noun, for example) will always associate together, regardless of which language they occur in.

But when cognitive scientists and a biologist teamed up to see whether there were shared patterns in word order across four large language families, they found almost none. A common cultural background, they found, was the best predictor for how a language orders words.

How the Heck:

Applying biology techniques to linguistics, the team built an evolutionary tree of word order. They treated word order as a trait, just as biologists might treat eye color or hair color.
They looked to ...