Borup Fiord Pass: An introduction to how an Arctic glacier may aid in our search for life on Jupiter's moon Europa

Standing on the glacier at Borup Fiord Pass and looking down-valley (Photo: John Spear)

Borup Fiord Pass. I've said that name so many times that it almost feels like the name of a good friend. Last summer I had the opportunity to visit this remote place on the planet, far north of the northernmost cities of North America. The experience was incredible and something that I will cherish forever. My research team and I spent two weeks at Borup Fiord Pass, and when we left we brought back the samples that I'm now studying to better understand the relationships between living organisms and the chemical element sulfur.

Borup Fiord Pass is a valley in the Canadian High Arctic where yellow staining of the surface of a glacier is caused by large deposits of sulfur in its elemental form. This site gives us the opportunity to study the chemical and biological cycling of sulfur through various forms in a unique icy environment. Borup Fiord Pass also gives us a chance to study some of the biological processes we might expect to find on icy worlds with subsurface oceans, such as Jupiter's moon Europa, if life ever came to exist there.  

Europa, one of the most intriguing places in the solar system (NASA)

Watch out where those huskies go...

Borup Fiord Pass is located on Ellesmere Island, very near the North Pole, at the northern extreme of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. To get an idea of where this is, if you hold up a globe and point the North Pole directly toward yourself, then Borup Fiord Pass will be within the first 10 degrees of latitude from the center:

Looking at the world with the North Pole at the center

Benoit Beauchamp, of the University of Calgary, was the first person to see the yellow staining on the glacier at Borup.  At least, that's what I've been told. There are military flights that pass overhead quite often. I wouldn't be too surprised if one of the pilots of a military plane was flying low and happened to see some large yellow patch on the white of the ice. Maybe that pilot thought, "huh, that's interesting." Or maybe some explorer decades ago chanced upon a glacier with a yellow icing that smelled of hydrogen sulfide, but the same explorer didn't see need to note the occurrence. 

We really don't know how long this yellow staining has been happening, though we know it's been active since Benoit first noticed it during a helicopter fly-over in 1988. Once Steve Grasby, a geochemist with the Geological Survey of Canada and my collaborator, learned from Benoit about the yellow coloration on top of the glacier, he knew something special was happening and had to check it out.  

Steve Grasby sampling a sulfur deposit on one his earliest trips to Borup Fiord Pass

Steve Grasby and his earliest collaborators on the Borup Fiord Pass project published the results of their initial findings after multiple visits to the site in an article published in the journal Astrobiology in 2003. In this article they detailed some of the basic characteristics of the yellow sulfur materials and the processes causing their existence on the glacier.  

The sulfur is deposited by springs that emerge on the glacier and which carry high levels of sulfide, the most electron-rich (reduced) form of sulfur, with a formal oxidation state of -2. In considering the chemical composition of the spring fluids and the isotopes of sulfur at the site, Steve Grasby and his colleagues determined that the sulfide is likely derived from sedimentary sulfate deep in the subsurface. Sulfate is the most electron-poor (oxidized) form of sulfur (since the sulfur atom in a sulfate molecule shares it's electrons with four oxygen atoms, giving the sulfur a formal oxidation state of +6). The transition from sulfate to sulfide implies that there must be microorganisms somewhere below the glacier which are using sulfate reduction (making sulfur more electron-rich) for their metabolisms.  

After sulfur in groundwater has been processed by organisms in the subsurface, it then flows up through the glacier or along its base and emerges as springs at the surface. Many years, the springs are still quite active when researchers have arrived to investigate. Last summer, in 2014, there was no apparent spring activity, but rather an earlier spring had deposited a large sheet of sulfide-rich ice. 

Where this icing dropped over the sides of a small canyon, we called the deposit "Sulfur Falls" (see image below). Near the glacier, in the middle of the icing, was a large circular structure that we called "The Blister". This structure may be the remnant of a sulfur-rich plume which had burst its way out from the subsurface and could possibly have formed the icing.

This is me kneeling on a pile of glacial till in front of the toe of the glacier at Borup Fiord Pass.  The yellow coloration of the ice behind me is caused by the deposition of elemental sulfur at this site. (Photo: John Spear)

The sulfide-rich water and ice that forms at the surface then provides the material for the oxidation of sulfide (stripping of electrons from sulfur) to form elemental sulfur (sulfur with a formal oxidation state of 0 and which only forms bonds with other sulfur atoms).  Elemental sulfur forms one of the most beautiful minerals on Earth:

Elemental sulfur: the mineral is yellow in solid state,
turns blood red when melted, and burns a bright blue (Image: Volty)

There are a lot of scientifically intriguing questions that remain with regard to Borup Fiord Pass. For one thing, cells of a certain type of microorganism that our lab has isolated from the field site have the strange capability of forming unique biominerals when grown in gradient cultures of sulfide and oxygen. This was first reported in a paper by Damnhait Gleeson and our colleagues in the journal Geobiology in 2011. We've learned a good deal about these biominerals since that time. Specifically, Julie Cosmidis, a postdoc in our lab, is now working on characterizing these unique structures. I'm also now in the process of looking at the samples from the field to see if any of these unique structures can be found there.

Another interesting question comes from the presence of the yellow sulfur itself.  Given the chemistry of the fluid at the ice surface and the presence of oxygen from the atmosphere, the sulfur should be oxidized the whole way to sulfate, yet the yellow staining persists throughout the summer (at least until the snow begins to fall at this site). Much of my work is now focused on quantifying the different chemical forms of sulfur at Borup Fiord Pass. Expect more posts from me in the near future that details some of the various types of instruments and methods that I'm using in this endeavor.

Using the Field Microsensor Multimeter from Unisense to measure sulfide (Image: Alexis Templeton)

The Connection to Europa

There's been a lot of buzz in the press and social media lately regarding Europa. Europa is one of the four Galilean Moons of Jupiter and is definitely one of the more intriguing places in our solar system for astrobiologists. Europa bears a deep subsurface ocean, and that ocean might have been in recent communication with the surface. If life ever came about in the ocean of Europa, we might have the potential to find signs of such life near the surface of that moon. We're now working on the next spacecraft that will explore Europa.  

Europa's awesome surface textures and deep subsurface ocean are enough to scientifically justify a mission to that moon, but the possibility for life detection in materials at Europa have bolstered scientific and public support together and now it looks like we might soon see a Europa mission on its way to Jupiter. For us to better understand what signs of life we may find on Europa, it's a good idea to study life in icy environments here on Earth. Places like Lake Vostok and Blood Falls in Antarctica and Borup Fiord Pass, my field site, in the Arctic can aide in this type of research. Indeed, Borup Fiord Pass has gotten its fair share of press as a Europa analogue site. Here are articles from Wired, Space.com, Popular Science, and CBC News that report on the importance of Borup Fiord Pass in our search for life on Europa.

With Lake Vostok and other ice-covered Antarctic lakes, as well as some recent research on a drilling project to study the organisms living under the Ross Ice Shelf, we can explore ecosystems in lakes and oceans deep below icy environments. Research in these areas may highlight the techniques we'll need if we ever want to get through the ice on Europa and explore the ocean below.  However, that ice is very thick (probably at least 1 km but maybe more than 10 km in thickness), and it will take us a long time to build a spacecraft with the right technology to get down there. In the meantime, there's a lot that we have to learn about Europa's ocean and the possibility for signs of life to be found in the near-surface of the ice through an orbiter mission and our first lander mission. That's where our work at Borup Fiord Pass comes in. By studying the connection of subsurface microbial processes to the chemical and biology processes that occur where fluids make their way through the ice and to the surface, we might be able to highlight some key signs of life to look for near the Europan surface.  

I was recently at NASA's Ames Research Center for the Workshop on the Potential for Finding Life in a Europa Plume. There are a lot of us who are now trying to figure out what the best instrumentation is to send to Europa to capture signs of life.  You might have read recently about the potential discovery of water plumes coming out of Europa.  Although some of us are highly skeptical of the data in that study, if there are water plumes at Europa, they may offer even more insight into the processes that are occurring in the subsurface ocean.  Even if the plumes are not there, we still have a lot to learn with the mission that we'll be sending to Europa. If we can get data about the chemistry of the surface or, better yet, the near subsurface, then we may be able to find signs of life from the subsurface ocean.  This of course requires that fluid from the ocean has made its way through the ice and to the near surface. There's a lot of "ifs" involved, but that's part of the fun of science.

In the coming months, I'll be writing up posts that detail the importance of sulfur for astrobiology as well as the importance of Borup Fiord Pass in our exploration of Europa (and other worlds). These are important topics for me, especially since they'll be included in my Ph.D. dissertation.  Before I leave you, though, here's a sweet infographic from NASA regarding Europa, one of the most intriguing worlds in our solar system:

Senator Jim Inhofe needs better glasses: A snowball cannot refute climate science

Sen. Jim Inhofe and his poor vision (ABC News)

Senator Jim Inhofe needs better glasses.  It appears that he's having a hard time seeing past his own nose.

In an attempt to refute climate science, Inhofe took a snowball out of a bag while speaking on the Senate floor on the 26th of February, 2015, and said, "I ask the chair, you know what this is? It’s a snowball, just from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out."  Inhofe appears to be suggesting that the occurrence of snow this winter in Washington D.C. negates the wealth of evidence and scientific understanding about the human influence on global climate.  It really seems that, if anything, Inhofe's stunt is just another reason to shake our heads at the lack of vision amongst some of our politicians.

This isn't the first time that Inhofe has tried to make some statement regarding his belief that scientists have fabricated anthropogenic impacts on the global climate.  Back in 2010, Inhofe and his family built a snow fort on the lawn of the National Mall in a mockery of climate science.  They called this snow fort "Al Gore's New Home".  In fact, Inhofe has been making such statements and attempted jabs throughout his political career.  Inhofe has been the Chair for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works since 2003.  It's somewhat bewildering to think that someone who honestly believes a snowball can refute all of modern climate science can also hold the highest rank within a Senate committee which requires knowledge of the environment.  Here's a video of Bill Maher from back in 2009 where he considers climate change deniers, including Inhofe:

Maher's bashing of Inhofe is more than warranted.  To better understand the Anthropocene and the impacts of industrialization and human activities on the environment we must have scientifically literate world leaders.  Infrastructure development, coastal economies, weather-related dangers and costs, growing seasons and crop yields, and far more will all be impacted by the global climate.  Politicians like Inhofe are a threat to the future of our species and to our biosphere.  We need leaders who can see that there is more to the world than their own day-to-day experiences.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: A leader with greater vision

At least not everyone on the Senate Committee for Environment and Public Works has poor vision.  Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a politician from Rhode Island, took the Senate floor to rebut Inhofe's remarks later in that same day.  Senator Whitehouse has given many speeches on the Senate floor in support of science literacy and education with regard to the current and future effects of anthropogenic climate change.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Image: Stephen Crowley/NY Times)

Senator Whitehouse took out his iPad and brought up an image from the Earth-Now app, a free application developed by NASA to share global climate data with anyone and everyone (you can use this app to see where several of our Earth observing satellites are in their orbits and to map various physicochemical parameters such as air temperature, CO, CO2, sea surface salinity, and ozone).  Whitehouse points out that you can use this app to see the current polar vortex in the Arctic and how the cold air is being driven down to New England.  Whitehouse, highlighting the fact that these basic climate data are available from NASA, then said, "...you can believe NASA and you can believe what their satellites measure on the planet, or you can believe the Senator with the snowball."  

Indeed, Senator Whitehouse then points out four more instances in which one can side with a group or organization which supports the wealth of information from climate science or one can side with "the Senator with the snowball".  Although I usually oppose this pitting of side-vs-side on political issues (most issues are more complex than yes-or-no or red-and-blue), Senator Whitehouse is definitely a skilled speaker and gives a strong argument in support of scientific literacy from more than just the scientific viewpoint.  Here is Whitehouse's rebuttal:



Take home point from Whitehouse's rebuttal: you simply can't be scientifically literate if you agree with the Senator with the snowball.  The occurrence of snow on a winter day in Washington D.C. does not refute our knowledge of the changing climate.  2014 is now the hottest year on record, with higher average global temperatures than any previously recorded since the 1800s.  We still have the seasons and we're still going to experience hot summers and cold winters, but the general trend of warming at the global scale is still occurring.  It's hopeful to think that we at least have some politicians, like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who support a scientifically literate populace and leadership with greater vision.

Frosty the Snowman has no idea about climate science

Let's face it, Frosty the Snowman was only imbued with knowledge about winter.  Still, in his various incarnations, Frosty has always known well enough to take off before the warming temperatures destroyed him because that's how the seasons work in the regions of our planet that get snow in the winter.  

We can learn a lot from the snow.  We can measure the pH of the water composing the snow and can study the particles of dust and debris mixed into the snow to learn about the chemistry of the clouds and the atmosphere where that snow formed.  However, a snowball, in and of itself, is not a refutation of modern science, science literacy, or our combined knowledge of the human impacts to the global climate.

There's plenty of snow here in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. right now.  Maybe I'll go outside and make a snowball, without any pretensions that the weather in my backyard means that everywhere else is the same.  If you'd like a good laugh, here is some climate science denier busting by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight:




You can find 5 hilarious moments of climate denial busting, including the videos from Bill Maher and John Oliver that I posted in this blog, from Forecast the Facts at this link.



Update: 3 March 2015

Looks like I beat the Daily Show to pointing out the ridiculousness of Jim Inhofe's little snowball stunt:

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, which then carried me from the Sahara to the Amazon

Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Scientific Visualization Studio

There's a lot we can learn from Earth observing satellites.  For instance, the dust from the Sahara desert, the world's largest desert, has been found to travel through the atmosphere, making its way across the ocean and settling down to fertilize the Amazon rainforest.  That's quite a journey, and it probably seems a bit baffling to think that the material from a desert can then help to sustain all the diverse organisms that live in the world's largest rainforest.

A team of researchers have recently provided estimates of the amount of dust that makes the journey to the Amazon.  Of the 182 million tons of dust that gets lofted out of Africa, some 27.7 million tons of that same dust then finds its way to the Amazon rainforest.  The same team of researchers that made this discovery have also announced that the phosphorous within the Saharan dust fertilizes the rainforest.  Some 22,000 tons of phosphorous are estimated to rain down to the Amazon, far from their Saharan origin.  The researchers estimate that this influx of phosphorous makes up for the all the phosphorous lost to erosion.  Our world is truly dynamic.  Our fleet of Earth observing satellites have so much to teach us about our home.

Here is a fantastic video from NASA explaining these new discoveries:

For more information about this research, check out the NASA Press Release.

What can the craziest creatures on Earth teach us about the possibilities for alien life?

The flyer for my public talk this week at Fiske Planetarium

Later this evening I'll be giving a public talk at Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado Boulder!  I'm thoroughly stoked to give this talk.  We're going to take a journey to some of the worlds in our solar system and also some worlds far beyond and ask ourselves about the types of life that could come to live in such places using the only examples of life that we have to work with, the life from our own world.  During this talk, we will consider some of the craziest creatures on Earth and what they can teach us about the types of alien life that may exist out there.

This talk is part of the Above & Beyond: Cosmic Conversations series, organized by my friend, Morgan Rehnberg (find him at Cosmic Chatter).  These are public talks that are focused at creating conversations between speakers and the audience so that we can all share in the storied wonder of science, human history, and our place in the cosmos.  The Craziest Creatures on Earth will hopefully inspire those of us in the theater at Fiske Planetarium to engage in lasting conversations about how crazy and beautiful life can be, and about whether or not we're alone in this vast universe.  Here's a little overview of what we'll be talking about at Fiske Planetarium this Friday night:

A Multitude of Worlds

An artist's impression of what Kepler 22b might look like

Many of us have dreamed of alien worlds, wondering what planets orbiting other stars may be like.  We've created alien life in our science fiction and we've imagined what a visit to an alien biosphere might be like.  Over the last couple of decades, we have begun to discover only a fraction of the worlds that must exist in our universe.  Yet the only life that we've ever known is life here on our Earth, our home.  As our species continues to explore more of our solar system and to discover other planetary systems far away, it begins to feel like we are continually approaching a time when we might have an answer to the age-old question "Are we alone in the universe?"  What might alien life be like if it exists?  Would it be anything like the life we know here on Earth?

Life on Earth and the
Oddness of the Hummingbird

Life as we know it has been on Earth for at least 3.5 billion years, but probably even much longer.  Through that time, life has evolved to dynamically fit and fill nearly every ecosystem available on the the thin habitable shell and lower atmosphere of the planet.  Since the diversification of multicellular lifeforms during the Avalon and Cambrian Explosions, over 500 millions years ago, plants, animals, and fungi have developed unique body plans and forms of locomotion to better gain energy, fight, reproduce, and live.  

Sometimes an evolutionary adaptation comes along that seems bizarre relative to how we live.  Take for instance the hummingbird.  Hummingbirds are among the smallest birds on the planet, weighing fractions of a pound.  Indeed, the smallest known bird in our modern world is the Bee Hummingbird, which weighs less than a U.S. penny coin.  Hummingbirds get their name from the humming or buzzing sound that their wings make when we listen to them flying.  The hummingbirds's wings beat on average 50 times per second, but have been recorded as high as 200 times per second.  They beat their wings so fast that they can fly up to 34 mph (54 km/h) and they can fly backwards and upside-down.  But that's not the craziest thing about hummingbirds.  

The strangest thing about hummingbirds is that they have a ridiculously high metabolism.  For their little body size, they have a massive caloric intake.  Hummingbird's will eat between 3 and 8 calories each day in nectar.  3 to 8 calories sounds small relative to us, that's really only a couple of grapes worth of energy, but if we consider caloric intake vs. bodyweight, then we can see that hummingbirds eat 77 times more than us.  This is the equivalent of a human eating about 155,000 calories each day.  That's a bizarre caloric intake.  It makes the hummingbird a crazy creature in my book.  

This video discusses research on how hummingbirds maintain their metabolisms

Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania makes some gigantic cheeseburgers.  One of them, The Belly Buster, weighs just over 20 pounds and holds 25,000 calories worth in energy.  If we had the caloric intake of a hummingbird, then we would need to eat 6 of these calorie-loaded burgers and then, on top of that, we would need to wash it down with 6 800-calorie milkshakes.  And we would need to do this every single day.  That seems bizarre relative to how we understand our place in the world.  

When we consider what crazy creatures like the hummingbird can teach us about the possibilities for alien life, we have to keep in mind that not all organisms function the same way and we may one day find that alien life is wholly bizarre to us.  Maybe there are worlds out there where most organisms have hummingbird-level metabolisms.  Maybe there are worlds where vision or hearing have never evolved.  Perhaps our alien neighbors have forms of locomotion, sensory organs, and even body structures that are adapted to environments with only limited similarities to our world.  To constrain such speculations about alien life, we can take a look at some of the unique environments in our solar system and consider whether Terran organisms could survive in such places.    

Storybots jam vid about the planets of our solar system

Venusian Planets:
A Hunk, a Hunk of Burning Love

Venus is our sister planet.  It's very similar to our Earth in size and overall composition and it even has clouds, but, unlike Earth, Venus is a world completely obscured by clouds.  The thick, clouded atmosphere surrounds and blankets Venus.  That's because Venus has the densest atmosphere of any of the terrestrial planets.  However, if we strip away the cloud layer and take a look at the surface of Venus using radar imaging (from spacecraft as well as Earth-based instruments), we see a chaotic terrain on a geologically young surface.  The surface of Venus is a marred desertscape of volcanoes and plains with ridges appearing as cracks.  From orbital observations as well as from a few spacecraft that landed on the surface, we know that the surface pressure of Venus is 92 times greater than that of Earth at sea level.  Not only that, but the surface temperature of Venus is a sweltering 863 degrees Fahrenheit (735 Kelvin)!

Currently, we know of no life that could survive in the high temperature and high pressure environment on the surface of Venus, yet there are organisms on our planet that have adapted to high temperatures.  Take for instance the microorganisms living along the margins of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, U.S.A.

Grand Prismatic Spring: a thermophile's oasis

The center of Grand Prismatic is a beautiful blue of burning hot water, reaching temperatures up to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.  As the water approaches the edges of the spring, it cools to temperatures that can be survivable for certain types of organisms.  The yellows, oranges, and greens at the edges of the pool are pigments within microbes that live in microbial films at the pool's edge.  These organisms are considered extremophiles, as they've come to inhabit an environment that is extreme relative to us.  We know of extremophiles that have come to life in many of the extreme environments of our planet: from places that are hot to places that are cold, places that are acidic or alkaline, and places that are super-salty or even very high in pressure.  Extremophiles have become a target for astrobiologists when it comes to understanding how life may have come to live and to thrive in various environments.  

"The Toughest Microorganism": In the Red

One of the most intriguing worlds in our solar system is our little neighbor, Mars, the 'Red Planet'.  Mars has long held the fascination of scientists and the public.  In the late 1800's, the astronomer Percival Lowell announced he had made observations of striations on Mars that he thought were canals built by an intelligent extraterrestrial species.  Lowell's speculation led to H.G. Wells' story The War of the Worlds and, in many ways, launched the early era of alien science fiction.

Mars has been our most visited neighbor.  We've sent orbiters, landers, and rovers to the Red Planet to learn more about it's geology as well as the possibilities for it to once have had life or to perhaps even currently have life.  Mars has a great volcanic mountain, Olympus Mons, which is almost 3 times taller than Mount Everest.  Mars bears one of the largest canyons in the solar system, Valles Marineris, which is a distinguishing feature when Mars is viewed from far away.  The Martian surface is a cold, dry, and dangerous place for most of life as we know it.  The surface has an average temperature of around -80 degrees Fahrenheit and there's only around 200 parts per million water vapor in the atmosphere (the Earth's atmosphere has an average of about 10,000 parts per million water vapor).  We've known for some time that the surface of Mars is bombarded by intense radiation, since Mars doesn't have the strong magnetic field or the atmosphere that Earth has to protect us from radiation.  However, we've recently learned from the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument on the Curiosity Rover that the surface of Mars has even more radiation than we had previously thought.  The first astronauts that we send to Mars will most likely have to employ shielding of various types to protect themselves from the radiation.  

Although the Martian surface will be a dangerous place for humans, there are some organisms on Earth that could easily survive the radiation on Mars' surface.  Take for instance Deinococcus radiodurans.  The Guinness Book of World Records title holder for "the world's toughest microbe", D. radiodurans is an extremophile that can withstand environments with limited nutrients and extreme dryness and, most importantly, can withstand extremely high doses of radiation.  This microbe can withstand a radiation dose over 1,000 times more than what would be lethal to a human.  It can survive in the cooling fluids of nuclear reactors.  The microbe's very name stand for "strange little berry that can withstand radiation" while some people like to call it Conan the Bacterium.  Indeed, D. radiodurans can even survive in the empty vacuum of space.  D. radiodurans would have no problems surviving a trip to Mars and even sitting on the Martian surface.

The extreme radiation resistance of D. radiodurans might even make us wonder about alien life that could survive long-term within the emptiness of space.  Perhaps there are biospheres where life has learned to launch itself out into space, like little spores traveling between worlds.  Perhaps some alien has even adapted to the space environment and become a fully space-fairing creature.  What would such a creature look like?  Perhaps it would be something like the Tin Man from Star Trek: The Next Generation or Moya from Farscape or perhaps something utterly strange.  Would such a creature be anything remotely similar to life as we know it.  Would it need to stay close to stars and planets to maintain itself?  Those are the questions that bridge between science and science fiction.  But we do have good reason to wonder about how organisms get their energy and how biospheres are built.  Much of life as we know it here on Earth is built upon the primary productivity garnered by organisms that utilize the light of the Sun for energy, but not all life on Earth requires sunlight to survive.

Life in Deepest Seas and the Curious Blobfish

My graduate advisor, Alexis Templeton, is the head of a team of researchers centered here at the University of Colorado Boulder and including members from several other institutions which have recently been awarded a grant from the NASA Astrobiology Institute to study what they are calling "Rock-Powered Life".  Their work will focus on understanding how biology on Earth has come to utilize chemical reactions between water and rocks for sustenance.  Life as we know it does not inherently require sunlight to drive primary production.  Rock-powered life may be the base of biospheres on other worlds.  Take for instance the Galilean moon Europa.

Europa (NASA)

Europa is a small moon of Jupiter that might have some big surprises in store for us.  The surface of Europa is a cracked icy shell, maybe 1 to 10 km in thickness, underlain by a deep subsurface ocean.  The ocean of Europa may be as deep as 120 km, making it one of the largest oceans in our solar system.  In fact, all of the water in the ocean of Europa is more voluminous than all of the water in all of the oceans, and rivers, and lakes of Earth!

Comparison on water on Europa vs. Earth (Kevin Hand)

Many of us now wonder if the subsurface ocean of Europa holds a subsurface ocean biosphere.  Perhaps there are hydrothermal vent systems on Europa's seafloor.  Perhaps, much like on Earth, those hydrothermal vent system have become oases of life, where rock-powered life sets the stage for the development of other organisms.  Could there be deep sea marine animals on Europa?  What would they be like.

Here's a crazy creature that might help us answer that question: the Blobfish.  These organisms inhabit deep sea environments off the coasts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.  Living where the pressure is several dozen times greater than at the surface, the Blobfish has developed a unique way to maintain its buoyancy.  While many fish use gas bladders to control their position in the water column, the Blobfish has body of gelatinous flesh that is slightly less dense than water, allowing the Blobfish to control its buoyancy in deep sea settings.  However, when the Blobfish is removed from its natural setting, the one to which it has adapted so well, and brought to the surface, its body structure changes and it basically slumps into a gelatinous mass.  This has earned the Blobfish the vote as "The World's Ugliest Animal".

The Blobfish can survive the extreme pressure of the deep sea, but it's only adapted for that environment.  When we consider what alien life may be like, we need to be sure we're considering the types of environments where life might have come to be and where life might be best adapted.  For instance, what kind of life, if any, could come to live in the environments of gas giant worlds?

Sagan's Floaters and Hunters...  and Blowfish

In Carl Sagan's television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, he discussed speculations about what types of organisms could come to thrive in the vast atmospheres of worlds like Jupiter:

Floaters and Hunters.  What might they look like?  Giant balloon organisms?  Giant floating whales?  In my mind I wonder if maybe such atmosphere-bound life might develop develops defense mechanisms like a blowfish.  Maybe the floaters are giant blowfish-like balloons that can change their position in the atmosphere by bringing in or pushing out gas, and maybe they even look something like blowfish, with spikes and other defense mechanisms adorning their bodies to keep them safe from the Hunters.

As Carl Sagan said, we can constrain our thoughts about the possibilities for extraterrestrial life through physics and chemistry, but these are truly speculations.  Until we have examples of alien life to work with, the best we can do is work to understand life on Earth and try to use what we know of life to understand which environments alien life may have come to call home.  We can look at worlds like Venus, Mars, Europa, and Jupiter and ask these questions.  We can also look further, to other worlds around stars far away.

Exoworlds and the Possibilities of Perception: The Greater Wax Moth and the Mantis Shrimp

Since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar world we've found, our conception of the number of alien worlds that exist in our universe has been radically expanded.  As of today, we have found over 1800 exoplanets and that number is always growing!  The worlds we've detected around other stars exist in only a small fraction of the space within our galaxy.  Considering the number of planets we've found thus far, it has been estimated that every star in our galaxy should have, on average, at least one world.  Of course, some may have none and some may have many, but this still leaves a great number of possible worlds and possible environments for the development of extraterrestrial life.  What might those aliens look like?  Astronomer and artist, David Aguilar of Aspen Skies has been using his artwork to propose some ideas.  He creates models of speculative alien life based on his knowledge of life here on Earth and then places those modeled aliens into digitally created worlds.  In what ways can we constrain such work, such speculations?  Perhaps we can consider something like sensory perception.

Take, for instance, the Greater Wax Moth.  This organism has the greatest range of hearing of any known organism on our planet.  Not only that, but the Greater Wax Moth has a hearing range that lies outside of the range of sounds that we humans hear.  It has alien hearing here on Earth.  It's evolved such hearing so that it can hear at frequencies up to 300,000 Hz, allowing it to "out-hear" it's natural predator, the bat.  Bats use high-frequency sounds in their echolocation.  It allows them to "see" what they hear.  The Greater Wax Moth has evolved to hear and to speak above the frequency at which bats echolocate.

An even crazier creature might be the Mantis Shrimp.  The Mantis Shrimp has the greatest perception of light and color of any known organism.  While we humans only have 3 color receptors in our eyes, Mantis Shrimp have 16!  Writing in his webcomic, The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman has said of Mantis Shrimp that their sight is like a "thermonuclear bomb of light and beauty"!  Not only do Mantis Shrimp have the greatest vision of any known organism, but they also happen to pack the hardest punch:

The Mantis Shrimp is a crazy creature.  It sees in ways that we can't comprehend and it kills using a deadly knockout punch.  Might there be alien worlds where the vision of the Mantis Shrimp is only the beginning?  Or worlds where the deadly force of the Mantis Shrimp's punch would be considered puny?

What Beings May Come?

What could organisms like the Greater Wax Moth and the Mantis Shrimp teach us about alien life?  What about the Hummingbird, extremophiles like Deinococcus radiodurans, or the Blobfish?  When there are aliens such as these living amongst us, perhaps it suggests that the possibilities for life in the universe are endless.  

I didn't even start to touch on intelligence and consciousness, robots and machine life, or even some of the myriad ways in which microbes might dominate alien biospheres, and yet there are great examples to be found in those realms as well.  The bridge between science and science fiction lies not only in imagination, but in considering what may yet come to be.

As Carl Sagan mentioned in that video from Cosmos, there is no predictive theory of biology.  Not because it doesn't exist, but because we don't yet have enough to go on to determine if there could be one.  Maybe life does follow certain rules and we will one day find that many aliens are very similar to us, or maybe life follows few rules and alien life will appear utterly and wholly alien to us.  Considering all of the crazy creatures on Earth can help us to constrain our speculations about alien life, but, until we determine if we are or are not alone in the universe, all we can do is continue to look at our one example of a biosphere and say "what might this mean?"

Automata: I Robot Meets Blade Runner

We just watched Autómata the other night on Netflix and found it to be a kick-ass dystopian story of death, acceptance, and evolution.  It was a little formulaic and we were left with a lot of questions about the world they built for the story, but it was definitely a fun watch and one that I recommend to anyone interested in dystopian tales.  Carl Franzen, reviewing Autómata for The Verge, avers that the film is "the most atmospheric sci-fi film since Blade Runner".  I can get down with that.  Autómata sets a story within some of the typical dystopian frameworks, specifically reminding the audience of the I Robot books and the film Blade Runner, but takes the story in a fun, if predictable, direction.

The film is set in 2044 in a world where solar flares have obliterated much of the life on the planet, specifically knocking off 99% of the human population.  In this world, the remnant humans have built robot workers, known as Pilgrims, to assist humanity and to also stay the encroaching desertification around the remnant population (which we are only ever shown as living in one dying city).  Unfortunately, the robots cannot save the world for humanity, and many humans become very "anti-robot".  Also, in a very Asimov-esque approach, the Pilgrims have two "unalterable" protocols: they cannot harm a life and they cannot modify themselves or other robots (very much like the "Three Laws of Robotics").  The robots are rather clunky, which is kind of a drawback for the film, but they used that to give the robots their personalities.

The story follows Juan Vaucan (played by Antonio Banderas) who works for the corporation that builds and operates the Pilgrims.  Vaucan lives in the tech-noir city with his pregnant wife and spends his days fixing problems with the Pilgrims (which appear more to be problems with people).  The city, by the way, is dark, gritty, and has large projections of dancing woman as advertisements that are projected from the tops of buildings: it's pretty much the urban future of Blade Runner after the city begins to die.  The audience is shown early that Vaucan, and just about everyone else, is dissatisfied with their dying city and their dying species (though no one really seems to want to accept it), so we are given a glum image of this human future.  

From this setting, the story really begins when a dirty cop kills a Pilgrim which is repairing itself.  This robot leads Vaucan on a chase to figure out how the robot could bypass the "unalterable" second protocol and builds a really enjoyable sci-fi story.  Here's the trailer for the film:

Spoiler Alert: If you're one of those people who believes in spoilers, then don't read what follows

The story develops as the audience learns that several robots have alterations within their programming that allow them to bypass the second protocol.  Vaucan sets out to hunt down the person responsible for the altered programming, only to learn the robots have altered the programming themselves.  We're never told how this happens, but the film basically sets out the idea that the robots themselves are evolving to a new level.  It's revealed that the two protocols were themselves developed by a robot that had been built and was observed to be advancing too fast for the humans of the corporation to control it.  The humans asked the robot to devise a scheme for controlling future robots and that's when it developed the two protocols, just before it was shut down and dismantled by the people of the corporation.  This led me to wonder about whether the advanced robot developed the two protocols knowing that they would eventually become a problem and would lead other robots to overcome them.  Perhaps the robot knew that it was in danger due to how it scared the humans and decided to give them comfort in their development of the Pilgrims while using the two protocols to provide a system for the future development of robots.  I think this open possibility is what I enjoyed the most about Autómata.

A NASA team is working on a submarine robot for deployment on Titan. Whoa!

NASA

I was just doing a quick surf through my Facebook newsfeed (probably not the best thing to do when I first get to work), when an io9 article popped up with a video recently released from a concept design team at NASA showing a robotic submarine that could be developed for exploring the seas of Titan.  Check it out:

Too cool!  Here's a Discovery News article with some more info about the concept.  Of course, it's really just a concept design and is unlikely to get funded or developed any time soon, but still the idea of transcending into the depths of the hydrocarbon seas on Titan is pretty spectacular.  Pushing our known limits in technology and spacecraft development to explore our solar system and the greater cosmos beyond is what space exploration is all about.  With it's thick, hazy atmosphere and methanological cycle, Titan beckons for us to come and learn more about what's going on there.

NASA image of Titan.  Check out that atmo.  Mmmmmm

Titan is the only world in our solar system outside of our own with lakes and seas on the surface.  Unlike our own Earth, with its hydrological cycle of water changing phases and moving about, Titan has a methanological cycle, where methane, ethane, and other hydrocarbons become the clouds, the rain, and the fluids that fill the lakes:

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Nantes/Kevin Hand; find it here

We might not see a submarine mission on Titan anytime soon, but I hope we get our asses back there 'fore long.  That beautiful, hazy world is too intriguing to leave it all on its lonesome out there 'round Saturn.

I wrote a post sometime back about one of my favorite songs by The House Band of the Universe. With fellow astrobiologist David Grinspoon at the helm, the band takes the audience on an aural and visual journey into the haze of Titan with their tune, Titan Haze:

Groove on, my friends.  And imagine the coolness of a submarine robot exploring the seas of Titan.

Update February 23rd 2015: 

I just came across a great review of this concept for a Titan submarine in an article for Space.com written by Leonard David.  Check it out here.

Quotes for Table Topics

I'm a member of See You Speak Toastmasters, a local public speaking group.  If you haven't heard of Toastmaster, you should definitely check it out.  Toastmasters is an international organization focused on building better public speakers, and, through that, our members also become better leaders as well.  Every Toastmasters club is a little different; ours is an informal, small club where we have a lot of fun working on our speaking skills together.  One of my favorite parts of Toastmasters is an impromptu public speaking game that we play called Table Topics.

Table Topics are short speeches that members and guests give during the meeting so that they can work on their off-the-cuff speaking.  I think of this game as the bread-and-butter of the Toastmasters speaking program.  We give longer prepared speeches (usually in the range of 5-12 minutes) that help us to work on our speechcrafting, but Table Topics gives us a chance to practice our speaking skills in the best way: unprepared.  Replying to questions or prompts without having had the time to prepare helps us to become better extemporaneous speakers.

I'm taking on the role of Table Topics Master tonight for one of our meetings.  I've decided to use the theme of "interpreting quotes".  I'm going to pick a few quotes and then have our members and guests interpret what those quotes mean to them.

Here's the list of quotes (from speech and writing) that I'll be selecting from for our Table Topics tonight:

"The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering."
-Bruce Lee

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
-Pablo Picasso

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
-Victor Hugo

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
-Michael Jordan

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."
-Henry Ford

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

"Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear."
-George Addair

"We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."
-Marie Curie

"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money."
-Abigail Van Buren

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
-Isaac Asimov

"It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years."
-Abraham Lincoln


We give our members and guests 1-2 minutes to answer the question or prompt for a table topics speech.  What would you say about these quotes in 1-2 minutes?

We follow our round of Table Topics at our meetings with evaluations of how we did during the meeting.  We evaluate the prepared speeches, we evaluate the timing and use of grammar for our speakers, and we have someone called the Quizmaster who's job it is to pay attention during the meeting and then evaluate the club to see if we were all paying attention.  

I highly recommend Toastmasters.  Joining Toastmasters is one of the greatest things I've done for myself in recent years.  It's improved my speaking skills but also helped me to realize that I may have it in myself to become an orator.  

2 Years of Brain Training with Lumosity - And Why I'm Not Continuing

Image taken from Lumosity's Twitter Page

Two years.  Yup, that's right: for two years now I have been using the online brain training website Lumosity as part of my daily mental exercise regimen.  

"Mental exercise regimen, you say?  What is this hubbub?"  

"Surely you've seen the articles that show that 'brain training' is a bunch of bullshit?!"

Well inquisitive friend voice that I just created for the purpose of turning your (or, uh, my) words against you, a mental exercise regimen is what you do in your life to keep your mind functioning at its best (just as physical exercise is to keep your body functioning at its best).  And I most definitely have seen some of the various articles and blogs out there that are opposed to Lumosity, though I've actually seen far more of the usual interwebs outrage porn from people on social media who like to bash Lumosity without having tried it or even having read about the potential pros, cons, and unknowns with brain training.

This post is going to give a brief summary of brain training and why I do it.  Also, I'd like to share my experience with Lumosity, and then explain why, after 2 years of using Lumosity, I am going to let me subscription come to an end.  

Image from Legendary Collegian

My Brain Will Outsmart Your Brain!

Well, maybe not.  That's not why I have a mental exercise regimen, so hopefully you're not one of those people who likes to imply that all of us who use brain training software like that of Lumosity are somehow under the assumption that we are capable of turning ourselves into hyperaware super geniuses like Bradley Cooper's character in the 2011 film Limitless (based on the novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn).  For me, mental exercise is just about keeping my mind functional as I age.  There's been a lot of history and research to support mental exercise, but there's also a lot of uncertainty as to how effective it is as well.

In this Lumosity blog post, Pam Zhang recounts a little bit of the history of brain training.  For instance, she mentions the story of Simonides and his discovery of The Method of Loci.  Simonides, so the story goes, had been at a banquet and, when he had momentarily stepped outside, the building collapsed, killing everyone inside.  Families and friends came to uncover the bodies of the fallen, but they had no idea where their beloved had died and could then be found under the rubble.  Simonides, with a quick moment of thought, realized that he could recount where each and every person had been located before the collapse.  By taking his mind on a "walk" through the building before the collapse, he could place each of the other attendees in their spot.  This method of memory recall became one of the primary memory techniques for all of the time following Simonides.  In the Rhetorica Ad Herennium, a Roman author (who was believed to have been Cicero, but now that claim has been called into question) detailed The Method of Loci and how that method could be used to build a Memory Palace, a place within your mind where you create a mental image of the thing to be remembered and you give it a location (or locus) relative to a house, palace, town, or world that you've built within your mind.  As Zhang points out, the switch from oration to long form writing as the primary means of education, record keeping, and storytelling (thanks to the printing press) caused a huge decline in the use of the old memory techniques like The Method of Loci.  There were groups here and there who continued some of the memory training traditions, including great speakers and writers.

As Pam Zhang explains in her article, the Pelman Institute, which was created by William Joseph Ennever in 1890s, saw a resurgence of brain training amongst the public.  Merging some of the old memory techniques with other mental exercises (especially that of trying to build your original awareness - your ability to be aware of yourself and your surroundings.  Might sound simple and straightforward, but if you've seen someone walking down the street who is lost in their smart phone and can't walk a straight line then you have seen a complete lack of original awareness), Ennever developed his Pelman approach to sell mental training for a fee.  By the time the system took off in the 1930s, people could pay a small fee (just under 7 British pounds, at the time) and they would be enrolled in a course where they would receive twelve mini-booklets containing exercises.  There were other booklets and tidbits released over time, but the original twelve were the basis of Ennever's system (you can now download the entire Pelman course in PDF format thanks to Sector 51).  Pelmanism was pretty much for the people of the early 1900s what sites like Lumosity are today.

Zhang's article also mentions the work of Eleanor Maguire, the Irish neuroscientist who showed that London cab drivers have a measurable redistribution of grey matter in their hippocampi that relates to their use of navigational cognition (see also this article if you're super interested).  Maguire also studied the brains and brain area activation of competitors in the World Memory Championships, and found that these competitors, when tasked with memorizing something, had an increased utilization in areas of the brain that correspond to spatial memory than did people who didn't use memorization techniques (remember the story of Simonides?).  In the 2003 article in Nature where they reports this research, Maguire and colleagues wrote:

"...We found that superior memory was not driven by exceptional intellectual ability or structural brain differences.  Rather, we found that superior memorizers used a spatial learning strategy, engaging brain regions such as the hippocampus that are critical for memory and for spatial memory in particular.  ...[research in this area] could broaden the scope for memory improvement in the general population and the memory-impaired."

Training your mind using memory techniques and brain training of various types is not necessarily about improving your intelligence (even though there are some people who think that it might be possible), but rather about improving the flexibility of your mind to best use the intelligence you already have.  By reading often and reading different kinds of material, challenging your mind with math puzzles and riddles, trying out new avenues of creativity like art and music, and partaking in a regimen of mental exercise, you can keep your mind flexible and ready to utilize all the intelligence you have.  On top of all of that, mental exercise is fun.  Playing video games or board games, attempting to build a card castle, or solving geometry puzzles can be a ridiculously awesome amount of fun.  Although I love drinking a good beer and laughing with friends (and find that to also be healthy and beneficial), I still find it beneficial to take a small amount of time out of each day to focus solely on mental exercise (and I usually do it right before I do my physical exercise).

Beautiful artwork by Allegator at Deviant Art which depicts Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes from the BBC series Sherlock.  In the series, as well as the films and the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock is a master of using the memory systems.

Ways to Exercise Your Brain

Mental training isn't just about playing games, but rather about giving yourself new challenges and constantly pushing your mind to work a little bit harder than normal.  Video games, brain training software, playing games with friends, learning and playing musical instruments, drawing and painting, doing math problems and puzzles, and various forms of meditation all count as mental exercise (when done properly and not overdone).  Also, learning about and using the various memory techniques is helpful for all areas of mental exercise.  I'm by no means the expert on this topic, but I have tried a lot of programs and such over the years so I have a good idea of what works for me.  Outside of Lumosity, here are some of my suggestions for brain training websites (most of which are free!) for anyone who wants to find things to add to their own mental exercise regimen:


Cerego

My current favorite for mental exercise is the website Cerego.  The program is based on adaptive learning to help a user improve their memorization of material that's available on the site.  Much like working with flash cards, the user can pick a set of information that will offer associations of text, images, or audio and then test their knowledge of those associations.  What's great about the site is that the learning process knows what you do well and what you need to work on and schedules your next test of the material based on what needs the most work.  There are sets including everything from famous works of art, classic books, general physics, symbols of the chemical elements, and more.  A user can create their own sets for their private use (for instance, I have one set that I use to memorize the names and faces of people across campus) and a user can also create content for public use (I now have two sets that I've made public, one for Introductory Geology and one for Geobiology).


Khan Academy

Khan Academy is awesome!  The website has all kinds of stuff you can learn, from general science to computer programming.  The part of the website I use everyday and enjoy the most is the World of Math.  Each day I can work through anything from a couple up to thirty or so math problems that range from elementary school math up to calculus and differential equations.  The content is fantastic!


Word Dynamo

This is a program that lets you challenge your vocabulary through multiple choice questions, crosswords, and more.  Word Dynamo is a great way to build your vocabulary, which can make you a better speaker and writer.


Memrise

Co-developed by Ed Cooke, a world champion of memory, Memrise is much like Cerego, where you can work through sets of associations for information and the site is built to help you work on the information that you have the hardest time with


There's more...

A few others include Code Academy, Coursera, Duolingo, Fit Brains (this one isn't free and there's not much you can do for free before they want money), and Brilliant (which I just discovered and which has a lot of great math work for those who love math).

So go out there and work on your brain, but definitely let me tell you why I think Lumosity was awesome and why I won't be using it anymore.

Image can be found here

Is Lumosity Really Worth $120 Per Year?

Short answer: 

If you have the money and you will definitely use the site at least several times each week, then 'yes'.  If you would likely spend $120 in the year on more video games or puzzle books and such, then it's definitely worth it to give Lumosity a try and skip the other stuff for a year.  But, in my opinion, Lumosity is really only good for one year.  After that, it loses its worth (and that worth is definitely already subjective; see below).  And, if you don't really have the money, then don't do it.  There are a lot of other things that you could spend $120 on.


Long Answer: 

Okay, so here's my take on Lumosity: there is definitely research out there to support brain training, but not so much as to make a strong claim that everyone will benefit from using Lumosity or that you will definitely improve your mental flexibility by using Lumosity.  Furthermore, with all of the cost-free or minimal-cost stuff that you can do to train your brain, it makes it hard to justify spending money on Lumosity.

Also, there are definitely people out there with very strong messages against using Lumosity. For instance, in this Gizmodo article titled "Lumosity's Brain Games are Bullshit", the author definitely makes her bold claim against Lumosity, but she also has some very valid points.  There is no consensus amongst scientists and researchers who study neuroscience that claims that brain training sites like Lumosity work as well as their developers like to claim (here are articles from the Guardian and from AAAS which detail some of the arguments), and there are definitely huge ranges of support or opposition from the general public (here's the Quora page for Lumosity).  

Lumosity and other brain training sites definitely sell their programs as being beneficial, for instance here's the controversial article from Lumos Labs titled "The Science Behind Lumosity" that details their proposed supportive research.  They can point to various pieces of research that appear to show the benefit of brain training, and, now that these sites have been operating for quite some time, they can point to research that shows potential benefits of using their software.  For instance, this article in Clinical Breast Cancer shows that using a computer-based mental training regimen with a program like Lumosity's may improve the quality of life of breast cancer survivors who were treated with chemotherapy by aiding in maintenance of executive functions (like working memory and attention).  When it comes down to it, there's some research out there to support the use of brain training sites like Lumosity, but not really so much that it justifies spending $120 each year on the site.  Especially since there are so many free things you can do to exercise your brain.  

I definitely won't try to sell you on using Lumosity.  I've used the site now for 2 full years and have had a great time playing the games, but I know that Lumosity is no longer worth the money for me.

Lumosity's Games

As I mentioned above, I've had a lot of fun using Lumosity.  There are a lot of awesome games that are aimed at testing your mental flexibility in different ways.  Here are some of my favorite games on Lumosity (for a full list of their games look here):


Speed Match Overdrive

This is a game where you are presented with a card that has a certain shape and color.  Once you start, that first card will be flipped and a new card will be presented.  It's up to you to decide if the new card has the same shape and color on it, if only the shape or the color are the same, or if neither are the same.  Sounds pretty simply, but to do it quickly really makes your mind work.  This game is awesome!  However, Lumosity doesn't like to include it in their normal training settings (you have to change to student or advanced settings or you have to select the game yourself).


Memory Matrix

Memory games are some of my favorite.  Memory Matrix is a game where you are presented with a grid of squares (the size of the grid depends on how well you do in the game).  At the beginning of each turn, some number of the squares (or tiles) will be highlighted momentarily and then disappear.  You job is to then remember which tiles were highlighted and click them.  This is a classic way of testing your working memory.  There are various ideas about how our memory works, but one of the most accepted is that you have an immediate memory from your senses, you then have a working memory (basically what your mind has just processed and can actively recall immediately), and then there's your long term memory.  Since around the time of the work of George Miller and onward, it's been known that on average we can only store a small number of distinct items in our working memory at any given time.  Improving your working memory is about finding ways of chunking certain bits of information together so that they make one discrete item and are thus easier to remember.  Memory Matrix is all about chunking.  You eventually get used to certain arrangements of multiple tiles that can easily be remembered together and then you get better.  At this point, I see various shapes as unique and I also let my mind make imaginary figures out certain arrangements of tiles.


Familiar Faces

This is one of my favorite games, but it's also one that Lumosity really needs to improve.  We should all know that restaurant servers get a good deal of mental training on the job by testing their short term memories (the best servers don't need to write anything down, right?!).  This game makes you the server in various restaurant settings, with a bit of bustling noise in the background, and then presents you with customers.  Your job is to remember who they (pairing names and faces) and to remember what they order before it comes out (by pairing the right meals with the right people).  The game is a lot of fun for training your working memory and your facial recognition, but it doesn't take very long to get to the highest possible scores and the game never really becomes challenging enough to make it really worthwhile. 


Lost in Migration

This is a fun one.  You're presented with a flock of birds which will be facing in a certain direction.  Your job is to quickly identify whether the center bird is facing the same direction as the flock or in a different direction.  The game becomes more challenging the faster you push yourself to answer.  It's based on the "flanker" task developed by Charles Eriksen in 1974. 


Word Bubbles and Word Bubbles Rising

I love challenging my use of language and vocabulary.  These two games are the only games on Lumosity that offer such challenges.  To do well at these games, you have to be able to develop words given only a small string of letters that start the words.  It's a lot of fun (and will make you better at games like Scrabble).  During the last two years, I contacted Lumosity twice to ask for more games that worked with vocabulary or language.  These two are still the only ones they offer.  


Chalkboard Challenge

Here's one that's a lot of fun for the math problem fans out there.  You're presented with two cards, each of which has a small expression written on it.  Your job is to decide which card's expression has the higher value, by quickly running through the arithmetic in the expression to find it's overall value.  The faster you can be at computing the numbers or, even better, at determining which will be higher without fully solving the expression, the harder it gets and the higher your score.  Since I love math problems, this is one of my favorite games on Lumosity.

My Training Record on Lumosity

Since I'm just about done with their site, I decided to take some screen shots so I can always remember how I did with their program.  Here's the overall breakdown of how I did in my training over the last two years:

As you can see, I spent a lot of time playing Lumosity's games.  I tried my best to play the five games they suggest as part of the training each morning.  I stacked up pretty well for my age group (compared to other users of the site):

And, interestingly, of all the people who listed their career types on Lumosity, my best training games were most similar to those of Mathematicians.  Other similar people also worked in Education, Computer Science, Engineering, Finance, and Scientific Research.  (BTW, I had listed my professional occupation as Education).  The most dissimilar from me were Military and Culinary Arts.

It's nice to look back over my training record with the site.  It'll be an interesting change to my daily schedule to take Lumosity out of my mental exercise regimen.

Why I'm No Longer Going to Use Lumosity

It's been a fun two years, but once my subscription comes to an end in the next couple of weeks, I'm not going to continue using Lumosity.  The time has most definitely come, and here's why:

As I mentioned above, I think it justifiable to pay the $120 for a year of Lumosity (as long as you actually use it).  It's a lot of money to pay in one shot, but if you buy two new video games in a year it'll cost about the same.  I love video games, but I like to make my brain work in lots of various ways so it's nice to cut back on video games and add in other things to keep my mind active.  Even though I find that $120 a good deal, I really think it was only good for the first year.  I've still been using Lumosity almost every day, but they are very slow at adding new content and so the site can become a bit boring pretty quickly.  The only way to keep the site challenging was to alter the training settings every week or so, that way I'd get some different games once in a while.  Even though Lumosity likes to talk about how they have over 40 games to play, they really only offer a small subset of those games for each training setting (you can still access all of the games, but it would be nice to have them all come up every now and then in the daily training).  Since there's not enough change in the site, I don't think it's worth the money anymore.  I'll spend that $120 somewhere else this year.

Finally, my suggestion for Lumosity or other sites like it (like Elevate or Fit Brains) is to change up their games far more often.  Lumosity could be a lot more fun and a lot more challenging (and far more worth the cost) if they had a better rate of product development.  Lumosity was a great idea and has made a good deal of money offering a great service, but the daily users who pay top dollar for the site deserve the product they paid for.  In the case of Lumosity, the users are paying for a brain training program that offers continual challenge and, sadly, Lumosity doesn't offer a continual challenge after the first year.  

As I bring this long post to a close, I have to say that I really enjoyed Lumosity and I hope they do well in the future.  Maybe in a few years I'll check back and see what they've got going on, but my mental exercise regimen needs variation in order to keep my mind flexible.  

So long Lumosity, and thanks for all the fish.

Rêverie by SM Craig