Jumping

 

Life at Jezero Crater

As for any consensus among scientists that signs of past or present life have been seen by Perseverance, once again, don't wait for a slam dunk observation.

Depiction shows Jezero Crater — the landing locale of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover — as it might have appeared billions of years ago when it was perhaps a life-sustaining lake. An inlet and outlet are also visible on either side of the lake. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Since its wheels-down landing in February of last year, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has been busily at work, on the prowl steering itself across the Jezero Crater landscape.


A key duty of the robot is to search for signs of ancient microbial life. The Mars machinery is industriously gathering up samples of Martian rock and soil that could help tease out an answer concerning the past habitability of the Red Planet.


Perseverance is on a roll, a collectible outing to stash core samples in sealed tubes that are to eventually find their way to Earth via the Mars Sample Return program.

But how tough is it to spot and sample potential past life on Mars? Perhaps the rover already has? Then there's the question of whether we need the samples back on Earth to find signs of past life, or can Perseverance, on-location, detect past or even present life with its suite of instruments?


Above all, just how hard might it be to have a consensus among scientists that, yes, signs of life, be it past or present has been observed by the rover? What's a slam dunk finding look like?  READ MORE...

Ninja Master

 

You Only Live Once

Only living once is a Christian philosophy in that all other lives will be lived in heaven or hell...  if either one of them actually exists...  which is doubtful...  however, the human race does have a creator, it is just not the creator that is spoken about in The Bible.

There is a poem that my mother liked that addressed this subject of only living once...

I burn my candle at both ends

it may not last the night

but ah my friends

and woe my foes

it gives a pretty light...  Edna St. Vincent Millay

For those of us who are in our 60s, 70s, & 80s and who have lived life as if we only had one life to live, we tend to regret that decision later in life because the means do not justify the ends...  and we hate looking back, saying I wished that I had not of done that...  but, it is always too late when one looks back...

So, what does YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE mean?

It means appreciate the life that you have been given and be thankful every day that you have been given that life...

And, believe me you can appreciate life without drugs and/or alcohol to take the edge off...

• the beauty of a sunset
• the beauty of a sunrise
• the mesmerizing quality of oceans waves coming into the shoreline
• the flight of seagulls
• the majesty of an eagle in flight
• the playfulness of a kitten
• a mother feeding her baby
• the colors of fall leaves
• the smell of magnolia flower

Instead, we think we need money and more money and even more money...  and, we use this money to purchase large homes, expensive vehicles, expensive clothes, go to expensive restaurants, and take expensive vacations...  and, in so doing, we too are only living once...  and, making the most of it...  how pitiful are we?  Rhetorical question...

With that attitude we

NEVER HAVE ENOUGH MONEY

NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME

Gambling With Our Money

Countries that have adopted and enacted socialist ideas and policies to various degrees, and have seen success in improving their societies by doing so, are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

So...  one cannot say that Socialism is bad for a country because the evidence above would contradict  that statement.

However, let's look at these countries and ask a couple of questions:

1. Do any of the countries have great militaries?
2. Do any of the countries have great economies?
3. Do any of these countries have great technology?
4. Are any of these countries exploring outer space?
5. Do any of the countries help other countries with their wars and/or natural disasters?
6. Are any of the countries Global Leaders?
7. Do any of these countries have the same freedoms as the US has?
8. Do any of these countries have the quality of life that the US has?

We must understand that life has tradeoffs and in this case, socialistic countries do no have the resources or the financial support to become super powers...  and, it is this super power status that puts the US in a position to lead the world.

We claim that we can have both providing our wealthy Americans are willing to pay their fair share in taxes...  BUT THEY ARE NOT...  and have their money sheltered in tax free accounts off shore...  typically in the Grand Caymans.

If going GREEN weakens our economy to the point that China becomes a greater economic and military power, we will regret that decisions for generations...  many of these democratic progressives do not think that will happen...  but they are assuming that the money will be there from taxes...

This is a huge gamble...  and, could be a huge mistake...

Disco Kittens

sc

 

Understanding Color Perception

A new study corrects an important error in the 3D mathematical space developed by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others, and used by scientists and industry for more than 100 years to describe how your eye distinguishes one color from another. 

The research has the potential to boost scientific data visualizations, improve TVs and recalibrate the textile and paint industries.

"The assumed shape of color space requires a paradigm shift," said Roxana Bujack, a computer scientist with a background in mathematics who creates scientific visualizations at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Bujack is lead author of the paper by a Los Alamos team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the mathematics of color perception.

"Our research shows that the current mathematical model of how the eye perceives color differences is incorrect. That model was suggested by Bernhard Riemann and developed by Hermann von Helmholtz and Erwin Schrödinger—all giants in mathematics and physics—and proving one of them wrong is pretty much the dream of a scientist," said Bujack.

Modeling human color perception enables automation of image processing, computer graphics and visualization tasks.

"Our original idea was to develop algorithms to automatically improve color maps for data visualization, to make them easier to understand and interpret," Bujack said. 

So the team was surprised when they discovered they were the first to determine that the longstanding application of Riemannian geometry, which allows generalizing straight lines to curved surfaces, didn't work.  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Superconductors That Transform Technology

Could let computers work at warp speed, save energy, and even make trains fly?

Scientists have used DNA to overcome a nearly insurmountable obstacle to engineering materials that will revolutionize electronics. Published in the journal Science on July 28, the work was performed by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators.

One possible outcome of these engineered materials could be superconductors, which have zero electrical resistance, allowing electrons to flow unimpeded. That means that, unlike current means of electrical transmission, they don’t lose energy and don’t create heat. 

Development of a superconductor that could be used widely at normal pressures and room temperature – instead of at extremely high or low temperatures, as is now possible – could lead to many technological wonders. These include hyper-fast computers, shrinking the size of electronic devices, allowing high-speed trains to float on magnets and slash energy use, and many more.

One such superconductor was first proposed by Stanford physicist William A. Little more than 50 years ago. Scientists have spent decades trying to make it work. However, even after validating the feasibility of his idea, they were left with a challenge that appeared impossible to overcome. Until now.

Edward H. Egelman, PhD, of UVA’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, has been a leader in the field of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and he and Leticia Beltran, a graduate student in his lab, used cryo-EM imaging for this seemingly impossible project. “It demonstrates,” he said, “that the cryo-EM technique has great potential in materials research.”  READ MORE...

Jumping Dog

 

End of Manual Transmissions

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out. My wife can’t drive my car, which limits our transit options. And when I’m at the wheel, I can’t hold a cold, delicious slushie in one hand, at least not safely. 

But despite the inconvenience, I love a manual transmission. I love the feeling that I am operating my car, not just driving it. That’s why I’ve driven stick shifts for the past 20 years.

That streak may soon be over. When it comes time to replace my current car, I probably won’t be able to get another like it. In 2000, more than 15 percent of new and used cars sold by the auto retailer CarMax came with stick shifts; by 2020, that figure had dropped to 2.4 percent. Among the hundreds of new car models for sale in the United States this year, only about 30 can be purchased with a manual transmission. 

Electric cars, which now account for more than 5 percent of car sales, don’t even have gearboxes. There are rumors that Mercedes-Benz plans to retire manuals entirely by the end of next year, all around the world, in a decision driven partly by electrification; 

Volkswagen is said to be dropping its own by 2030, and other brands are sure to follow. Stick shifts have long been a niche market in the U.S. Soon they’ll be extinct.We can’t say we weren’t warned. For years, the stick’s decline has been publicly lamented. 

Car and Driver ran a “Save the Manuals” campaign in 2010, insisting that drivers who “learned to operate the entire car” would enjoy driving more and do it better. A #SaveTheManual hashtag followed. Shifting gears yourself isn’t just a source of pleasure, its advocates have said, or a way to hone your driving. 

A manual car is also less likely to be stolen if fewer people know how to drive it. It’s cheaper to buy (or at least it used to be), and it once had lower operation and maintenance costs. 

You can push-start a manual if the battery dies, so you’re less likely to get stuck somewhere; and you can use the stick more easily for engine braking, which can reduce wear and make descending hills easier and safer.  READ MORE...

Fish School

 

Age of Problems

 

Yesterday, I saw my physical therapist for my left hip area because my Orthopedic surgeon thinks I may have bursitis...  my first visit to the therapist confirmed the bursitis diagnosis and for two days, I had heat, massage, and a couple of exercises.  But, yesterday, the therapist discovered that my left hip area and leg were not moving properly so he performed stretching movements that were not as pleasant as the other stuff that was done to me...  in fact, it HURT...  and, I don't hurt easily.

He told me that I probably walked when I should not have walked...  when I was limping and my leg compensated by tightening up...  and then the tightening up allowed bursitis to enter...  viola...  therapy.

I feel like a car that is 10 years old and when one part of the motor is fixed or replaced another part craps out on you...

So, back problems lead to hip problems that will probably lead to knee problems that will cause shoulder problems to develop because I am walking with a cane.

What is interesting here is that my Orthopedic NP sent me for one day of therapy only but the way she wrote the prescription, it was up to the therapist as to how long the therapy should last...  and insurance is good with that...  go figure?

We Encorage Death

Once you reach a certain age, you are very much cognizant of people you know dying... and while death is not a very pleasant subject about which to talk, it is nonetheless something that happens to all of us at some point in time during our lifetimes...

Some of us believe in an afterlife and that afterlife is going to take place in this marvelous place called heaven while others believe that when you are dead you are dead and there is nothing else that happens to you outside of decaying in your coffin.

Whoever created us, gave us anywhere from 80 to 100 years of life in a world of eternity.  So why just live 100 years...  why not live 500 years or 1000 years...  especially since there is no end to life in general?

and, while we are on that subject of life, why do we think that we are the only lifeforms in the universe...  with all the billions of galaxies and solar systems, there has got to be other forms of life...  otherwise what was the frigging point of creating the universe?

So death is rather confusing in that we may not really die at all...  we may just leave one body and go into another body somewhere else in the universe...  or we may float into space and become part of cosmic consciousness.

But since death is inevitable, I cannot imagine why so many people encourage it with alcohol consumption, illegal drugs, smoking, and engaging in dangerous hobbies...  death is going to come soon enough so why encourage it?

Man & Big Fish

 

Object Found on Mars

Scientists were left puzzled when a weird “spaghetti-like” object was spotted on Mars by the Perseverance rover. It sparked a lot of debate online and a number of experts came up with their own explanations about the “alien” material found on July 12. 

However, NASA has released an official statement about the object, and they said that it was actually a part of the rover itself.

According to the official briefing by the US space agency, the Dacron netting got detached from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) gear when the rover landed on the planet in February 2021.

“This particular piece of netting appears to have undergone significant unravelling/shredding, suggesting that it was subjected to strong forces,” the blog published by NASA stated.

It also said that Dacron is “a synthetic fiber embedded with resin often used in high performance sail cloth, but in the case of Perseverance was likely a part of a thermal protection blanket”.

This is not the first time that a debris from the rover was found on Mars. Earlier, parts of the EDL were found around the site where Perseverance landed, and the Ingenuity helicopter also pictured a protective shell and its parachute near a collection of rocks on the Mars surface.  READ MORE...

Winter Biking

 

Webb Telescope Shatters Records

The very first results from the James Webb Space Telescope seem to indicate that massive, luminous galaxies had already formed within the first 250 million years after the Big Bang. If confirmed, this would seriously challenge current cosmological thinking. For now, however, that’s still a big “if.”

Shortly after NASA published Webb’s first batch of scientific data, the astronomical preprint server arXiv was flooded with papers claiming the detection of galaxies that are so remote that their light took some 13.5 billion years to reach us. Many of these appear to be more massive than the standard cosmological model that describes the universe’s composition and evolution.

“It worries me slightly that we find these monsters in the first few images,” says cosmologist Richard Ellis (University College London).

Young, massive stars in newborn galaxies emit vast amounts of energetic ultraviolet radiation. As this light moves through expanding space for billions of years, the wavelengths stretch (redshift) all the way into the infrared – radiation that Webb’s instruments are sensitive to.

It takes careful spectroscopic measurements – either by Webb’s spectrometers or by the ground-based ALMA observatory that operates at even longer wavelengths – to precisely determine the redshifts, which tells you how far out into space — and thus how far back in time — you’re looking. But there’s a quick (albeit less reliable) workaround that gives a rough idea.

Neutral hydrogen atoms in intergalactic space absorb ultraviolet radiation at wavelengths shorter than 91.2 nanometers. For remote objects, this threshold also redshifts to longer wavelengths, into the infrared for the most distant galaxies. 

Since Webb’s near-infrared camera NIRCam takes measurements through a large number of filters, each covering a different wavelength band, a galaxy may be visible in some channels but not in others. The wavelength band in which the galaxy disappears roughly indicates its redshift, and the corresponding look-back time.  READ MORE...

Inside Cockpit

 

Link Between Cancer Drivers

An unexpected relationship between two of the most frequent cancer-causing factors might lead to more effective drugs.

According to a recent study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two of the most common genetic changes that result in cancerous cells, which were previously believed to be distinct and controlled by different cellular signals, are really working together.

To treat cancer, researchers have so far concentrated on developing medications that either inhibit one or the other. Treatments that work better could result from an understanding of their cooperative effects.

Cells manufacture a protein called p53, which functions within the cell nucleus to react to stress, but mutations in the gene that makes p53 are the most common genetic abnormalities in cancer. Runaway cell proliferation in cancer is also often linked to mutations that activate a cell’s surface-located pathway called PI3K/Akt.

Cellular signaling pathways allow cells to accomplish important communications tasks that maintain healthy cell functions. The process is a bit like sending mail, which requires a specific series of steps and appropriate stamps and marks on the envelope to deliver a letter to the correct address.  READ MORE...