g Stars – Data from ISO, the infrared observatory of the European Space Agency, have provided the first direct evidence that shock waves generated by galaxy collisions excite the gas from which new stars will form. The result also provides important clues on how the birth of the first stars was triggered and speeded up in the early universe. See article.
g Abodes – Arizona's Jonathan Lunine presented a lecture entitled "Titan: A Personal View after Cassini's first six months in Saturn orbit" at a NASA Director's Seminar on Jan. 24. Lunine discusses the broader implications of ammonia in astrobiology. See article.
g Life – After decades of laboratory work studying how animals evolve, researchers sometimes need to put on the hip waders, pull out the fishing net and go learn how their theory compares to the real world. According to a Stanford University School of Medicine study, Mother Nature is more predictable than lab experiments suggest. See article.
g Intelligence – An international team, led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, have extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old. See article.
g Message – It has become somewhat accepted that an extrasolar contact could be interpreted as a good “artificial” signal if it arose from certain branches of mathematics. If another galactic civilization decided to reach us, they would send a beacon of bleeps akin to the digits of “pi” or only prime numbers, because they would realize that no natural process could mimic them. Renowned author and MacArthur “genius” award winner, Stephen Wolfram, argues for a new kind of science, and argues that the line between “artificial” and “natural” signals is not nearly so clear as first supposed. See article. Note: This article is from 2004.
g Cosmicus – Space shuttle Discovery, its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters have been joined together as one atop a mobile launching platform inside Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building. See article.
g Learning – A study finds grade school students are capable of providing scientists with perfectly valid aerosol data. See article.
g Imagining – Science fiction authors produce a lot of very strange critters. In the desperate dash to be different, many go way overboard to invent fantastic, outlandish species unlike anything anyone has ever seen. It’s an admirable expression of their artistic abilities, but there’s an inherent problem: they almost always lose the reader along the way. Sure, it sounds ultra-cool to have a whole herd of 80-foot quasi-limbed orb-stasis beings, but unless you draw me a picture of these things, the reader often has no idea what you’re talking about. However, if you write that your alien has four wings, 10 eyes and looks a little like a kangaroo, the reader is right there with you. Most readers need at least something familiar to draw on for their imagination, or they get lost. See article.
g Aftermath – Here’s an intriguing short story for you to look up: Frederick Pohl’s “The Day after the Day the Martians Came.” It examines racial prejudice and raises an interesting point about how we might react to one another following alien contact. Pohl’s story is anthologized in the classic “Dangerous Visions,” edited by Harlan Ellison.
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