Postcards from the Planet

NASA announced the crash of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite as it was being launched on February 24th. The satellite crashed into the ocean near Antarctica. Scientists worldwide are disappointed as they had been counting on obtaining the data from the satellite to help answer important questions about carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere. This was the first time that NASA has used the Taurus XL rocket to launch a satellite. Hopefully, NASA investigators will be able to find out the exact reason for the crash, so future problems can be avoided.

Another new satellite – the Japanese Gosat, which is monitoring atmospheric gases – will soon begin sending back scientific information, so researchers will have some data to work with. An additional American atmospheric research satellite, Glory, is scheduled to launch in June 2009. We hope that launch – also on a Taurus – will succeed! 

You can see video of the unsuccessful OCO launch and NASA’s description of the apparent cause here: BBC Coverage of NASA OCO Launch.

The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science is a network of museums, educators, businesses and organizations devoted to science and scientific literacy. In 2009, participants will be celebrating the importance of science, and some important science-related anniversaries, such as the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of a telescope to study the sky, the International Year of Astronomy, and the International Year of Planet Earth. For events near you, check the Year of Science website: Year of Science.

Last night just before midnight, a leap second was added to clocks worldwide! Like a leap year, the leap second is part of the continuing effort by scientists to make our clocks and astronomical time agree. Read more about why we needed an extra second in 2008: Leap Second. Happy New Year!

The McBones Foundation–the Mid-Columbia Basin Old Natural Educational Sciences–has bought a fossil excavation site in Kennewick, Washington so that high school students can collaborate with college students and professionals to excavate mammoth bones at the site.

Bax Barton, a researcher at the Burke Museum in Seattle, will be one of those professionals. He’s interested in finding out whether the mammoth was hunted in that area. He thinks perhaps climate change and habitat change led to the extinction of mammoths in North America.

For more information, check this article: Mammoth Bones Being Dug Up by Tri-Cities Students.

Have you ever thought about how robots might act towards people in the future? There are lots of different popular ideas – ranging from scary menacing robots like the Terminator to friendly cute ones like some of the Star Wars bots. Recently, plenty of people are thinking about machine intelligence, and the question of how our machines could be guaranteed to be helpful not harmful.

In this article, Six Ways To Build Robots That Do Humans No Harm, you can explore some current ideas. For more on this topic, visit the Moral Machines blog, maintained by authors Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen.

Scientists have been working for a long time on understanding the human brain. Fortunately, they’ve made a lot of progress using various imaging techniques. One problem has been how to study the human brain without hurting people — and one answer has been animal studies. Rats are popular for this — even though you might not think your brain has anything in common with a rat’s! Rats are mammals like us, and studying their brains has been very helpful for brain researchers. Now researchers are working on a 3D virtual atlas of the rat’s brain, so that scientists can put together everything they already know and guide future research. Hear about it here: New Program Maps Virtual Rat Brain In 3D : NPR.
Scientists plan to work on an atlas of the human brain as well. That will be fascinating and may lead to new insights about human biology and behavior. (But can they help me find my car keys?)

I spent the weekend in Las Vegas. I enjoy the heck out of Las Vegas, but… it really is a flaring example of profligate use of natural resources. Whenever I’m there I always see a dark vision of its potential future.

When I’m watching the amazing fountains at the Bellagio, I find myself thinking: “we’re in a desert and they’re wasting a LOT of water to evaporation.” And then I start thinking more.

I see Las Vegas a hundred years from now, the luxury hotels still standing–but deserted, empty, no water, desperate people using them as apartments, trashing one and moving to the next, the gorgeous stone floors broken. The amazing fountains are empty and dry. The Wynn’s waterfalls dry and the concrete decaying. The golf courses are sand traps and dunes.

This is the Desert Springs Preserve. A hundred years ago, this was a spring, with fresh water. It dried up–too many people taking water uphill from it–in the 1950s. The city of Las Vegas grew up around the spring, around the source of fresh water, and now it’s a preserve, protected against future development, an oasis of true desert in the urban sprawl of Las Vegas.

And a vision of the future.