"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing" - Helen Keller

Seems like it's been non-stop action these days.  Amanda will be defending her Masters thesis tomorrow!  I've been jumping around like crazy trying to review apps for the Soffen Travel Grant while reading articles in the RNA World hypothesis and preparing for next week's trip to the Mojave Desert.  Feels like regardless of how busy we are, I still feel like I'm not doing enough.  Hopefully I will have that sulfur spring up and running within the coming weeks.  I'd like to have an idea of how the spring will function before I depart to head back to Pennsylvania for xmas time.

On another note, today would be Carl Sagan's 87th birthday!  The Secular Students and Skeptic Society here at CU Boulder have put together an event for this evening in the planetarium for watching an episode of Cosmos on the dome.  I think, regardless of the work I have to do, that I will have to partake in this event!

Language

Just watched this video, a TED talk from Mark Pagel:



I found the discussion to be intriguing.

I don't necessarily agree with everything he said.  Indeed, I wonder if some anthropologists cringe and shudder when he suggests that chipanzees cannot "ape" the actions they see.  I think the fact that many of them can use a stick to get ants out of the ground in the first place is a sign of some level of sharing of ideas between individuals.  Also, it is curious to wonder if the evolution of language is a necessity for intelligent/conscious organisms to create civilizations.

I do like how the speaker links the development of language to our mental capacity for not only "aping" the acts of others, but also of sharing our acts with others.  Language is a technology.  Many people may not see it as such; they may take speaking and language for granted.  But language is a tool we developed within ourselves.

We are now developing languages in new ways.  We're building mathematical languages and computer languages which have allowed us to increase our capacity for computation, modeling, and data structuring.  Looking forward to a future where we may one day come into contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings, I have to wonder about the role language will play in our exchanges.

Will it be as simple as creating some "galactic rosetta stone" which will allow us to translate our languages together, or will the language barrier be so complex, so different, that we will feel utterly disconnected from whomever else is out there?  We use manipulations of air and our internal organs to create sound.  We can use tools, such as musical instruments and computers, to create other sounds.  This is our language.  We also have gesturing, which can very much be a part of our language.  I wonder how an intelligent extraterrestrial being may perceive our language.  Would it be common that developing biological and mechanical devices for creating vibrations in the local medium is the primary source of language?  What if E.T. phones home with something other than sound?  What if other beings have evolved a biological ability to speak through pulses in electromagnetic radiation (beyond our simple computer screens and written language; I mean a real ability to transmit and receive light signals as a form of language)?  What if other beings have language on the level of producing structure in molecules and then transmitting those molecules?  That would make "shaking hands" a whole new experience.  It is intriguing indeed to wonder what the language barrier will be between ourselves and any other intelligent organisms we may one day meet.

Just more to ponder.  

I just took a survey for a young student who is interested in astrobiology.  One of the questions was about whether or not the surveyed individual believed we were "alone" in the universe or not and why.  Here is the short answer I supplied after clicking the option for "I believe it is highly likely that we are not alone":

I'm sure most people in my profession would answer this with the traditional "waste of space" quote, but I'll try to be a little more from-the-heart with my answer.  From the years I've spent earning degrees in biology, chemistry, and now geology, as well as the time I've spent reading and thinking about myself, about our species, about our place in the universe, I have come to believe (yes, a scientist can have beliefs) that life, life as we know it and maybe even life as we don't yet know it, is extremely likely to exist in our universe outside of Earth.  With the billions upon billions of stars in our known universe, many of which we are slowly but surely learning have their own planetary systems, it is highly likely that there are other places where life may have originated and where biological evolution may have begun.  These places need not be Earth-like.  There may be a multitude of ways in which life can originate and develop.  However, that remains as well-founded speculation.  To be even more forward, there likely are many planets in our known universe which have near-the-same planetary dynamics as our Earth and which may have allowed for the origination and evolution of life as we know it.  I do not believe our Earth is rare.  I do however believe our Earth is special.  It's special because it's our home, our cradle.  One of the drivers in my growth as an astrobiologist has been is my sincere wish to understand our world better, and to maybe help humanity in understanding ourselves as we slowly begin to look out at the cosmos that lie beyond our cradle.

Cosmobiology?

When I first named this blog "A Cosmobiologist's Dream", I really had intended to use the word Astrobiologist instead. However, astrobiologist.blogspot.com had already been taken and I thought that this would be just as fitting.  

Well, it turns out that the term cosmobiologist has been used for a little bit of time to imply a certain type of astrology, something I have no interest in being too closely connected with. I have been considering changing the name of this blog and the URL, but I think that would be giving too much credence to those zany astrologers out there. No, I think I'll keep this term and use it the way I think it should be used. If others wish to use it in an astrological (pseudoscientific) sense, than that's their prerogative, but the term appears as though it should be scientific and so I will use it as a scientific term.

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it."  ~John Steinbeck


Good night world!

The Thing

We're about to head off to the theater to see the new film "The Thing"!  This is supposed to be a prequel to the 1982 film (The Thing, directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell).  The new film looks pretty sweet:

Back to work...

I leave on Tuesday for Switzerland.  We'll be using the Swiss Light Source (http://www.psi.ch/sls/) to do some sulfur XANES (x-ray absorption near edge structure) spectroscopy.  I'm totally stoked to see if the thin sections I have will produce good data (and, more importantly, what those data will show us).

Should be an awesome trip, but before we leave I need to get all of my work for my classes finished.  That means this exam for planetary surfaces and my homework for cosmochemistry need to be finished today.  Ugh.  Good thing I can watch old sci-fi movies and do these assignments at the same time.

Parenthood as an American Excuse for Apathy

I had a rather funny exchange with a friend on Facebook yesterday.  Have a look:

Nicholas Ison

I just got a psp and 2 new god of war games it is a good day

 ·  · Share · 16 hours ago via mobile · 

• • 
    

    Ryan-Nikki Wissler psp sucks...buy an xbox bitch!!! GO IRISH!
    

    16 hours ago · 
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    Graham Lau I just ran a 5k in 20.5 minutes. Almost broke 6 minutes on the first mile. Priorities.
    
    "Look at your thumbs. They're way too well defined. That is a powerful index of incompatibility!"
    

    15 hours ago · 
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    Ryan-Nikki Wissler well there mr lau.....IF i was able to run or had the free time that u do to run MAYBE....i would. my prioritie is beign home at night after working all to be with my sons while my wife goes to school at night. me playing xbox is a way to take out aggresion and have some kind of a social life. SO in conclusion....you and your big words can go fly a kite!!!
    

    15 hours ago · 
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    Graham Lau Dude, I was trying to pick on Nick. Don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm pretty busy myself. I'm traveling to Switzerland next week to do some xray spectroscopy on a particle accelerator, so I've been prepping samples non stop. That on top of my graduate classes, reading books, and trying to move forward in my research so that I can get my Ph.D. before I turn 35... Sometimes we get busy. But that's no excuse for letting our physical and mental abilities fade. I play XBOX, too. I find it to be a good way to keep my mental abilities sharp. But I still read, write, exercise, go out, and spend many hours in my lab (and still find time to sleep). Here's a fun idea, play XBOX for about an hour to relieve your stress and then play some physical games with your kids. They can get strong while you keep yourself in shape.
    

    14 hours ago · 
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    Mark as Spam

    Steph Ison Ladies ladies it will be ok lol
    

    11 hours ago · 

I consider Ryan to be a friend, and I'm sure he loves his children, but I have no sympathy for his excuse for his lack of exercise.  For all of the people I've met in my life who've used their children as an excuse for not exercising or challenging themselves, I have known just about as many who have children and yet make the time to keep themselves healthy and strong.  Indeed, it generally seems that the parents who manage to maintain enough discipline to devote time to their children while finding time to exercise their bodies and minds tend to have children who learn to do the same.

One common theme I've seen amongst some parents in America is the attitude that parenting is so 'hard' that it excuses any negative attitudes, lacking health, or failures on the part of the parent.  That to me is the equivalent of not accepting the consequences of the decision to have children.  Apathy cannot be excused through children.  Indeed, that attitude just creates more apathetic children who then turn into apathetic parents themselves one day.  Break the cycle.  Get off the couch.  Take the kids for a walk, read a book with them, teach them how to do cartwheels, etc.  Children live what they learn.     

Toastmasters Competent Communicator Project 4

Tonight I will be giving a prepared speech for my Toastmasters group (See You Speak).  I was reading through the requirements for the speech I will be giving.  It is project number 4 from the TM Competent Communicator manual.  While reading through it, I was perturbed to see a short section on jargon.  Now, when it comes to jargon, I do think we all need to be aware of our audiences when we speak, write, or express ourselves.  If we want to be understood we have to communicate in ways that the people we wish to reach can understand.  That said, I think that some words that are considered jargon, have less to do with being characterized as being specific to a certain field of study or aspect of life and culture, but have more to do with the fact that they are not easy words to learn and that most people never get far enough in their own education to use those words with confidence.  For instance, in the manual the authors suggest replacing "conceptualize" with "imagine", "finalize" with "finish", and "implement" with "begin" or "use".  WTF?!  I disagree completely.  I think we should feel free to use words that are a little harder and are a little more specific.  Yes, some audience members may not feel exactly comfortable with using a certain term themselves, but a good speaker should be able to convey the word (and what it is expressing) within the context of their speech anyway.  I will not limit myself to words that are 'easy'.  Screw that.

When a person dies, what becomes of their digital self?

I logged into my Facebook yesterday, and was surprised.  Beyond the huge news that Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and leader in the modern tech revolution, had died at the age of 56, I also found news that a Facebook friend, who went by the digital name Ginger Snaps (real-world name: Melissa Hayes), had also died (the SUV she was driving crashed into an abandoned home, killing her and her cousin in the passenger seat).

Ginger Snaps' death surprised me in a weird way.  I am quite comfortable with death and loss (living without religion makes death far easier to deal with).  The reason I was surprised was because I felt myself unsure of whether or not the person I knew was really gone yet.  Let me explain:

In our modern world, with our social networking accounts and projections of ourdigitalselves through the internet, the person we project is not necessarily the same person we are in our real lives.  Melissa dies yesterday.  Her physical self is no longer extant.  But, much as we are preserved after our deaths through the memories of others and the impacts we've made in the world, her Facebook account still exists and her digital self is still there; silent, but there.  There are now many people posting their condolences and such on her FB wall.  It makes it seem like her account is still somewhat active.  I'm sure over the next few days and beyond, that traffic to her account will slow down to a trickle and then stop.  And her digital self will slowly fade as well.  But the account will remain active unless someone comes along and deactivates it.  Without someone to put an end to our digital selves after our physical deaths, then I suppose that digital self will remain, like a shadow.

Makes me wonder about where we're going.  The future is always far more exciting and surprising than what we ever thought possible.  Most people who lived in America in the early 1900's C.E. could never have guessed that we would have digital computers and internet with social groups which would allow for us to create digital selves.  There are always dreamers.  The sci-fi writers, the speculators, the scientists...  But our thoughts about what will come are usually only small tips of the icebergs that wait in the distance.