The Earth Is Alive
From AstroBiology Magazine:
The Earth is alive, asserts a new scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects — for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA — are animate, that is, alive.
Erik Andrulis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of life on Earth and in the Universe but also the structure and function of existing cells and biospheres.
In addition to resolving long-standing paradoxes and puzzles in chemistry and biology, Andrulis’ theory unifies quantum and celestial mechanics. His unorthodox solution to this quintessential problem in physics differs from mainstream approaches, like string theory, as it is simple, non-mathematical, and experimentally and experientially verifiable.
The basic idea of…
Presenting Earth 2.0
Is this where humankind will be living in a couple millenia? In a solar system 600 light years away spins the newly-spotted Kebler 22-b, a rocky planet with oceans covering two-thirds of its surface, and balmy temperatures approximating 70 degrees. The Herald Sun reports on the greatest hope for a replacement Earth:
A newly discovered planet about 600 light years from our little rock has scientists around the world in a spin, with many heralding it as the best chance yet of containing alien life.
The find, announced early last week by NASA, was uncovered by the US space agency’s Kepler spacecraft, launched on a planet-hunting mission in 2009.
The planet, Kepler-22b, is 2.4 times bigger than Earth, orbits a star slightly smaller than our sun and has an average temperature of 22C. It is also closer to its sun-like star, giving it a “year” of 290 days.
What makes this discovery so exciting is…
We Have to Clean Up Outer Space Now in Order to Safely Launch New Spacecraft
Via the BBC:
Scientists in the US have warned NASA that the amount of so-called space junk orbiting Earth is at tipping point. A report by the National Research Council says the debris could cause fatal leaks in spaceships or destroy valuable satellites.
It calls for international regulations to limit the junk and more research into the possible use of launching large magnetic nets or giant umbrellas. The debris includes clouds of minuscule fragments, old boosters and satellites.
Some computer models show the amount of orbital rubbish “has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures,” the research council said in a statement on Thursday.
Number Of Species On Earth Estimated At 8.7 Million
Ever wonder how many species are sharing this Earth? Apparently it’s 8.7 million, give or take a few. This takes into account the few thousand plant or marine species we haven’t discovered yet or documented. Via Physorg:
That is a new, estimated total number of species on Earth — the most precise calculation ever offered — with 6.5 million species found on land and 2.2 million (about 25 percent of the total) dwelling in the ocean depths.
Announced today by Census of Marine Life scientists, the figure is based on an innovative, validated analytical technique that dramatically narrows the range of previous estimates. Until now, the number of species on Earth was said to fall somewhere between 3 million and 100 million.
Furthermore, the study, published today by PLoS Biology, says a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and…
Planet Earth Has A Stalker
Michael Reilly reports in the New Scientist:
An asteroid 300 metres in diameter is stalking the Earth. Hiding in the pre-dawn twilight, it has marched in lockstep with our planet for years, all but invisible to our telescopes.
The rock is Earth’s first confirmed Trojan, which can orbit the sun in either of two gravitational wells along the same orbital path as our planet. From the sun’s point of view, these wells lie 60 degrees ahead of and behind the Earth, at Lagrange points where gravitational forces between the sun and the Earth balance out.
Trojans are common — Jupiter alone boasts about 5000, and Neptune and Mars each have their own smaller collections. But finding Earth’s has proven difficult, because the Lagrange points lie towards the sun in the sky. Astronomers must look for the objects just before the sun rises or after it sets, and until now the glare of this…
This is Planet Earth’s Impact So Far in the Universe
Look for the tiny blue dot for our impact. Adam Grossman writes about “The Tiny Humanity Bubble” on jackadamblog:
Mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now — since the days of Marconi.
That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.
But how big is this, really, compared to the size of the Galaxy in which we live (which is, itself, just one of countless billions of galaxies in the observable universe)?
Asteroid Travels Close To Earth Today
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Sometimes asteroids come very close to home, about every six years. The latest asteroid to come closer to Earth than our own satellites appears today. Via Space.com:
An asteroid the size of a tour bus will fly past Earth today (June 27) so closely it will be beneath some of the planet’s satellites.
The rock, named asteroid 2011 MD will zoom by just 7,500 miles (12,000 km) above the planet, making a sharp turn forced by Earth’s gravity before winging off into space again. The flyby will occur at about 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).
There is no risk of an impact, NASA scientists said. The space rock, estimated to be between 29 to 98 feet (9 to 30 meters) wide, is likely too small to survive a plunge through our atmosphere anyway. An asteroid this size, if it were mostly stony, would break apart and burn up before hitting the surface. Iron-heavy…
Guide To The End Of The World, From 5000 B.C. Into The Future
Pick A Year handily compiles, in timeline form, all end of days prognostications of note, for your doom-and-gloom needs:
The END has been with us for a very long, time and extends well into the future. Need I say that prophesy has, so far, failed? And that this is true as much for ’scientific’ prophesy (see 1962, 1975, 1976, 1989, 1992, 2002, 2005, 2008) as for the cultish kind?
______________________________________________________________
Astronomers Begin Search For Alien Signals From 86 Earth-Like Planets
Via Space.com:
A new survey is under way to search for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life, but this one has a twist: Instead of listening for alien signals from anywhere in the sky, scientists are aiming radio telescopes at the alien planets most likely to be like our own Earth.
The new search, which began last week, is scanning 86 alien worlds for radio signals that could suggest the presence of an advanced civilization. The extrasolar planets are thought to be the most Earth-like of the 1,235 candidate planets discovered so far by NASA’s prolific Kepler space observatory.
“We’ve picked out the planets with nice temperatures — between zero and 100 degrees Celsius [32 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit] — because they are a lot more likely to harbor life,” said physicist Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.
This new SETI search is not part of the SETI Institute, which has long…
Supercontinents of Planet Earth: 650 Million Years in Under 2 Minutes (Video)
Alasdair Wilkins on io9.com has a great post about the past and future of our planet’s continents. Definitely worth a read:
Earth’s continents are constantly changing, moving and rearranging themselves over millions of years — affecting Earth’s climate and biology. Every few hundred million years, the continents combine to create massive, world-spanning supercontinents.
Here’s the past and future of Earth’s supercontinets.
The Relationship Between Oil, Earth and Humanity
Oil has been the topic of discussion in American news since the 1920s, but have circumstances really changed? With the Deep Horizon spill in 2010 causing unprecedented pollution, the leak in the Alaskan pipeline and the new energy deal between China and Scotland, we are witnessing an increasing struggle for fossil fuel resources and a constant search for new energy sources. An excerpt from disinformation’s The Little Earth Book by James Bruges gives us a retrospective look of how the oil situation of today was seen 6 years ago.
The Future of Oil: Who’s Fooling Whom? – and Why?
Draw a line five miles long to represent the millions of years during which solar energy has been captured and laid down in the earth’s crust in the form of coal, gas and oil. Then put a blip in it. That blip represents the time we have taken to extract and use this embodied energy. We are…
Earth’s Precession Changes Zodiac Signs: Are You Now An Ophiuchus?
The interwebs have been going crazy with a supposed change to the zodiac that has added a new sign called Ophiuchus and changed all the other signs’ dates.
It’s world-changing (well if you believe in this sort of thing : ) If you’d like to read what’s really going on here behind the hubbub and learn a bit about astronomy not astrology, Charlie Jane Anders over at io9.com has an excellent post:
What on Earth is going on? And why does everybody suddenly have to work with a new version of the completely meaningless zodiac?
It seems to have started with this article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune last weekend, in which one astronomer made some statements about the zodiac. Parke Kunkle is on the board of directors of the Minnesota Planetarium Society and teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Kunkle told the Star-Tribune the Earth’s relation to the sun had changed since the Babylonians first created…
22% of Plants Facing Extinction
Author: Ryan Kitko (CC)
The Earth could lose more than one fifth of all known plants — forever! Story from the Guardian:
One in five of the world’s plant species – the basis of all life on earth – are at risk of extinction, according to a landmark study published today.
At first glance, the 20% figure looks far better than the previous official estimate of almost three-quarters, but the announcement is being greeted with deep concern.
The previous estimate that 70% of plants were either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable was based on what scientists universally acknowledged were studies heavily biased towards species already thought to be under threat.
Today the first ever comprehensive assessment of plants, from giant tropical rainforests to the rarest of delicate orchids, concludes the real figure is at least 22%. It could well be higher because hundreds of species being discovered by scientists each year are likely to be…
Humanity and Beyond
Stacie Adams writes on Smirking Chimp:
A week or two ago the internets were ablaze with the news that not only did famed physicist Stephen Hawking appear to believe in the existence of life on other planets, but he was also of the mind that we should avoid them at all costs, because in his opinion they would be of the face sucking, giant lizard variety.
Many expressed dismay at his sentiment, but it’s really not that fantastic. Hawking’s theory is that if the universe is infinite, it would make sense mathematically for there to be other life forms in existence at various stages of development. His second point really isn’t that bold either. Why do we, in our limited knowledge, assume that advancement entails humanity?
Look at our species. As we advance, are we becoming more or less humane? And look at our history. We happen upon a new land, and what…
Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says
Alex Morales writes on Bloomberg:
The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.
Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”
The changes can be modeled, though they’re difficult to physically detect given their small size, Gross said. Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may…
Try to Find New Island on a Map: You Can’t, Even Though People Have Lived There for 43,500 Years…
Sounds to me like where Lost takes place. Fascinating story from Annalee Newitz on io9.com:
You can’t find New Island on most maps of the Indian Ocean because its location was a secret for most of the twentieth century. But now one man has chronicled the long, strange history of its ancient inhabitants.
The ruins you see here come from a group known locally as the “Old People,” who probably started living on the island 43,500 years ago. In the modern age, the island was discovered in the late eighteenth century by two convict ships that crashed there on the way to Australia. One of those ships was filled with hundreds of female convicts, who eventually founded their own civilization on the island, based on sexual equality and paganism. Today the island is a bustling place, full of trains and welcoming visitors.
Unfortunately, you can only visit via a website created from the imagination…
Scientists Plan Man-Made Earthquakes To Combat Global Warming
The Telegraph reports on a geoengineering project by climate change scientists to block the sun by simulating volcanic eruptions:
A global plan to put man-made particles into the atmosphere to deflect the Sun’s heat would rapidly lower global temperatures until cuts in carbon dioxide emissions took effect, they argued.
They acknowledged concerns about geoengineering but said multi-national experiments should begin soon before it is too late to reverse climate change or in case a rogue state carried out separate measures.
The environmental scientists, David Keith of the University of Calgary in Canada, Edward Parson of the University of Michigan and Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University, were writing an editorial in the journal, Nature.
They called for governments to establish a multimillion-pound fund for research into the simulated volcanoes and other solar-radiation management techniques for shielding the Earth against sunlight.
“The idea of deliberately manipulating Earth’s energy balance to offset human-driven climate change strikes many as…
Hunt For Earth’s ‘Twin Planet’ Takes Leap Forward
The Telegraph reports that scientists are on the brink of discovering the first Earth-like planet outside the solar system:
Professor Michel Mayor, the scientist who led the team that identified the first extrasolar planet in 1995, believes a planet similar in size and composition to Earth will soon be found.
Prof Mayor, of Geneva University, said that the prospect of finding a planet habitable for humans had come a step closer through rapid technological advances allowing observation of planets outside the solar system.
Addressing a Royal Society conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme, he said: “The search for twins of Earth is motivated by the ultimate prospect of finding sites with favourable conditions for the development of life.
“We’ve entered a new phase in this search.”More than 400 extroplanets have been discovered over the past 15 years, he added.
However, it is doubtful that any of these could…
Are Earth’s Oceans Made Of Extraterrestrial Material?
From Science Daily:
Contrary to preconceived notions, the atmosphere and the oceans were perhaps not formed from vapors emitted during intense volcanism at the dawning of our planet. Francis Albarède of the Laboratoire des Sciences de la Terre (CNRS / ENS Lyon / Université Claude Bernard) suggests that water was not part of the Earth’s initial inventory but stems from the turbulence caused in the outer Solar System by giant planets. Ice-covered asteroids thus reached the Earth around one hundred million years after the birth of the planets.
The Earth’s water could therefore be extraterrestrial, have arrived late in its accretion history, and its presence could have facilitated plate tectonics even before life appeared. The conclusions of the study carried out by Albarède feature in an article published on the 29 October 2009 in the journal Nature.
Space agencies have got the message: wherever there is life there has to be water. Around…
