Author: m1k3y

DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office head Geoffrey Ling on Exoskeleton Tech and their new Exo Planetary Studies research

Excerpt from June 11, 2015 Nature podcast where Sara Readron interviews DARPA’s current Biological Technologies Office about Exoskeleton Tech and their new Exo Planetary Studies research Full podcast link: http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/in…x-2015-06-11.html Further Nature story on DARPA BiT The Pentagon’s gamble on brain implants, bionic limbs and combat exoskeletons [www.nature.com/news/the-pentagon…skeletons-1.17726] DARPA Biological Technologies Office [www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/bto] yes DARPA […]

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“If you want to make your fiction universal, go small.”

Science fiction shows are traditionally about the gimmick or the gadget and tend to be emotionally cool to the touch. We thought, “We’re going to have these big, huge action moments, so, we need to have the quieter, more human moments to say what this is all about.” You can’t always relate to the big action things, but you can relate to small moments. I worked with James Cameron, a few years ago, on a remake of Forbidden Planet, which is still sitting at Warner Bros., and he said one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard about science fiction. He said, “I thought science fiction was about familiar characters in unfamiliar settings. It took me ten years to realize that was wrong. It’s about relationships and not settings.” Terminator 2 was a father-son relationship, even though it’s not. Aliens was a mother-daughter relationship, even though it’s not. You don’t buy into huge car chases or sensates or interstellar warfare, but you can buy into a loving relationship or a father-son relationship, and you can buy into the small humor. If you want to make your fiction universal, go small. That’s the best way to do it.

From J. Michael Straczynski Talks Collaborating with The Wachowskis on SENSE8
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How comets paint swirls on the Moon

Swirls2

At first glance, the swirls do not appear to be related to large impact craters or any other topography. ‘They simply look as if someone had finger-painted the surface,’ Schultz said. ‘There has been an intense debate about what causes these features.’

In the 1970s, scientists discovered that many of the swirls were associated with anomalies of the moon’s crustal magnetic field. That revelation led to one hypothesis for how the swirls may have formed. Rocks below the surface in those spots might contain remanent magnetism from early in the moon’s history, when its magnetic field was much stronger than it is now. It had been proposed that those strong, locally trapped magnetic fields deflect the onslaught of the solar wind, which was thought to slowly darken the moon’s surface. The swirls would remain brighter than the surrounding soil because of those magnetic shields.

But Schultz had a different idea for how the swirls may form – one that has its roots in watching the lunar modules land on the moon during the Apollo program.

‘You could see that the whole area around the lunar modules was smooth and bright because of the gas from the engines scoured the surface,’ Schultz said. ‘That was part of what got me started thinking comet impacts could cause the swirls.’

Comets carry their own gaseous atmosphere called a coma. Schultz thought that when small comets slam into the moon’s surface – as they occasionally do – the coma may scour away loose soil from the surface, not unlike the gas from the lunar modules. That scouring may produce the bright swirls.

Schultz first published a paper outlining the idea in the journal Nature in 1980. That paper focused on how the scouring of the delicate upper layer of lunar soils could produce brightness consistent with the swirls. The structure of the grains in the upper layer (termed the ‘fairy castle structure’ because of the way grains stick together) scatters the sun’s rays, causing a dimmer and darker appearance. When this structure is stripped away, the remaining smoothed surface would be brighter than unaffected areas, especially when the sun’s rays strike it at certain angles. For Reiner Gamma on the lunar nearside, those areas appear brightest during the crescent moon just before sunrise.

As computer simulations of impact dynamics have gotten better, Schultz and Bruck-Syal decided it might be time to take a second look at whether comet impacts could produce that kind of scouring. Their new simulations showed that the impact of a comet coma plus its icy core would indeed have the effect of blowing away the smallest grains that sit atop the lunar soil. The simulations showed that the scoured area would stretch for perhaps thousands of kilometers from the impact point, consistent with the swirling streaks that extend across the moon’s surface. Eddies and vortices created by the gaseous impact would explain the swirls’ twisty, sinuous appearance.

The comet impact hypothesis could also explain the presence of magnetic anomalies near the swirls. The simulations showed that a comet impact would melt some of the tiny particles near the surface. When small, iron-rich particles are melted and then cooled, they record the presence of any magnetic field that may be present at the time. ‘Comets carry with them a magnetic field created by streaming charged particles that interact with the solar wind,’ Schultz said. ‘As the gas collides with the lunar surface, the cometary magnetic field becomes amplified and recorded in the small particles when they cool.’

Taken together, the results offer a more complete picture of how the swirls form, the researchers say.

From Crashing comets may explain mysterious lunar swirls

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In Babylonia the return of the spirits of the dead was greatly dreaded. Ishtar once uttered the terrible threat: “I will cause the dead to rise; they will then eat and live. The dead will be more numerous than the living.” When a foreign country was invaded, it was a common custom to break open the tombs and scatter the bones they contained. Probably it was believed, when such acts of vandalism were committed, that the offended spirits would plague their kinsfolk. Ghosts always haunted the homes they once lived in, and were as malignant as demons. It is significant to find in this connection that the bodies of enemies who were slain in battle were not given decent burial, but mutilated and left for birds and beasts of prey to devour.

The demons that plagued the dead might also attack the living. A fragmentary narrative, which used to be referred to as the “Cuthean Legend of Creation”,[262] and has been shown by Mr. L.W. King to have no connection with the struggle between Merodach and the dragon,[263] deals with a war waged by an ancient king against a horde of evil spirits, led by “the lord of heights, lord of the Anunaki (earth spirits)”. Some of the supernatural warriors had bodies like birds; others had “raven faces”, and all had been “suckled by Tiamat”.

For three years the king sent out great armies to attack the demons, but “none returned alive”. Then he decided to go forth himself to save his country from destruction. So he prepared for the conflict, and took the precaution of performing elaborate and therefore costly religious rites so as to secure the co-operation of the gods. His expedition was successful, for he routed the supernatural army. On his return home, he recorded his great victory on tablets which were placed in the shrine of Nergal at Cuthah.

This myth may be an echo of Nergal’s raid against Eresh-ki-gal. Or, being associated with Cuthah, it may have been composed to encourage burial in that city’s sacred cemetery, which had been cleared by the famous old king of the evil demons which tormented the dead and made seasonal attacks against the living.

MYTHS OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
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Some worry too much about asteroid impacts, which are among the natural risks that are best understood and easiest to quantify. Moreover, it will soon be possible to reduce that risk by deflecting the path of asteroids heading for the earth. That’s why I support the B612 Sentinel project.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-co-founder-of-an-apocalypse-think-tank/
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Oil reservoirs, formed over millions of years as carbon-rich sediments are compressed and cooked, are scattered like islands across Earth’s subsurface. Like other deep biosphere habitats, we know they harbor life, but we aren’t really sure how or when life got there.

“There’s a hypothesis that these bacteria were buried, then continued to live on in complete isolation,” study author Olga Zhaxybayeva told me.

To test that hypothesis, the team of researchers, hailing from Dartmouth College, the University of Alberta, and the University of Oslo, analyzed 11 genomes of the heat-loving bacterium Thermotoga. The bacteria was taken from oil reservoirs in the North Sea and Japan, and marine sites near the Kuril Islands, Italy and the Azores. They compared their results with publicly available Thermotoga genomes from North America and Australia.

Their analysis revealed a complex evolutionary history between the different genomes, suggesting rampant gene swapping across far-flung communities. And since the oil beds themselves are ancient, this genetic exchange has probably been going on for millions of years.

How microbes half a world apart actually exchange genetic material isn’t totally clear. Some bacteria are genetic scavengers, sucking up stray DNA willy-nilly. Others use microscopic tubes to pass genes back and forth in a weird bacterial version of sex. And viruses—which cut and paste DNA among surface-dwellers’ genomes all the time—might also shape the genetic landscape of the deep biosphere.

“The answer is probably that it happens in a variety of ways,” Zhaxybayeva told me. “But it’s really surprising to see how much it’s happening. It’s clear that these organisms are not nearly as isolated as we once thought.”

The author’s findings may also shed light on the nature of life on early Earth. Zhaxybayeva, who has been mapping Thermotoga’s lineage for over a decade, says the organism has deep roots in the tree of life.

“This lineage is perhaps one of the most ancient that exists today,” Zhaxybayeva said. “The fact that it’s anaerobic, and likes hot environments, fits with our understanding of where life on Earth first evolved.”

Thermotoga’s penchant for gene swapping may indicate a once-widespread adaptation for life in hydrothermal vents, where high heat and acid have no trouble shredding DNA apart.

“As temperatures rise, organisms accrue more DNA damage. One way to potentially repair their genome is to actually recombine it— to patch their genomes with similar DNA,” Zhaxybayeva said.

Top-notch DNA repair machinery may be life’s most precious survival tool. Who knows, maybe it’s Earth’s most ardent gene-swappers that could actually survive the long, dark, radiation-filled trip to another world.

Earth’s Deep Oil Reserves Are Teeming With Ancient Life | Motherboard
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