The Cassini spacecraft detected warmth, water and organic chemicals, the basic ingredients for life on Saturn’s small moon, Enceladus, reinforcing scientists’ believe that our solar system has favorable conditions appropriate for living organisms to develop. full story

Shocking!

Amazing!

This solar system may actually have life in it!

I hear there is this place called Earth that they should check out.

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America is in jail or prison, according to a new report released Thursday. The report by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project said 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008, which is one out of every 99.1 adults. That's more than any other country in the world. ... One in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, according to recent U.S. Department of Justice data, which also shows that men are about 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than females. However, the data shows, the female population is expanding at a faster pace. ... The report said the United States leads the world in incarcerations, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. full story

That last part is the most telling. The United States has more people behind bars than China. Not just more people per capita, more people period. It's beyond shameful how many people in the "Land of the Free" aren't free.

The USSR launched Sputnik 50 years ago today, starting the space age.

Poll #1065940
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

In the next 50 years, humans will...

6 of the 10 most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record (in terms of central pressure) have occurred withing the last 10 years, with 5 of those occurring in the last 4 years.

1 Hurricane Wilma, 882 mbar — 2005 2 Hurricane Gilbert, 888 mbar — 1988 3 Labor Day Hurricane, 892 mbar — 1935 4 Hurricane Rita, 895 mbar — 2005 5 Hurricane Allen, 899 mbar — 1980 6 Hurricane Katrina, 902 mbar — 2005 7 Hurricane Camille, 905 mbar — 1969 8 Hurricane Mitch, 905 mbar — 1998 9 Hurricane Dean, 906 mbar — 2007 10 Hurricane Ivan, 910 mbar — 2004

This represents a clear and significant uptick in the strength of the strongest storms. Global warming is not just a problem the future will have to deal with, it is currently happening on a destructive and deadly scale.

Just for fun, I decided to look at the edits made from the United States Department of state using wikiscanner. I only looked at a fraction of the over 2,500 edits, but here are the ones I thought were interesting:

Laura Bush thinks Condi would be a great president

We're being invaded by Mexicans!!

"...the World Bank is one of the most highly-regarded financial institutions in the world..."

Tiawan is a pseudostate

"The statements about events in 2007 are clearly written by a Russian."

State Department predicts what issues will be contentious at the next Intergovernmental Conference of the European Union

The Department of State knows a lot about science and technology in China.

Somewhere in the world, humans can marry non-human animals

Delete – Who said the 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal? No one said that

Delete – You can't say that the U.S. officials should have know that Bin Laden would turn his attention to the west after the Soviets were out of the way

Delete – Text on the United States Interests Section in Havana

Delete – A large chunk of the Missouri United States Senate election, 2006 article

Delete – Part of the discussion on the Agent Orange talk page

purpleglitter and I watched the House of Sand (Casa de Areia) last night. Fernanda Montenegro is one of those actors that can speak volumes without moving her lips, a face that says more than words can.

A simply amazing movie. The move has an intensity so subtle and built up so steadily and skillfully that it simply envelops you and takes you on a journey to a place so far away that it seems like another world, yet still very much of this Earth. It is a pocket, a bubble of time, and the stories the lie there. If I still maintained my "100 movies everyone should see" list, this would likely be in the top 10.

Sol, lifebringer and lightgiver, our star, the one which holds us tight and keeps at bay the outer darkness. Sol, thank you. Your winds dance in our sky and your breath allows our existence. There is nothing more powerful, nothing greater, nothing more brilliant or amazing in this system than Sol. While there may be bigger things out there, that effect our existence here and now than does Sol. While today we may look to Sol, truly everyday is Sol's day, for without Sol there are no days.

Gliese 581c brings up the tidal lock issue: if Gliese 581c is tidally locked to Gliese 581 then one side of the planet would be scorched while the other would be frozen, rendering the planet uninhabitable for water-dependant life. Most of the planets detected so far (including Gliese 581c) have been only detected through indirect measurements of their mass, we no nothing of the structure of that mass. It is possible at least some of these are double planets. Though perhaps unlikely — if Gliese 581c is a double planet, both planets might be tidally lock to each other instead of the star similar to the situation in Asimov's Nemesis, allowing for liquid water and possibly water-dependant life.

The possibility of life on Gliese 581c brings up something that has been a bit of a minor mental obsession of mine: life that has evolved vision is likely to evolve vision keyed to the spectra of light it most often encounters. Life evolving around a red dwarf would not likely see the same spectra of light we see. Blue would be of little use and their visual range would probably be shifted into the infrared. Something printed red-on-white or blue-on-black in our eyes might simply look like a blank page to such a life form and their chosen inks may be only visible in the near-infrared and be invisible to us. Perceptual differences such as that would serve to further complicate communications with intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is easy to assume our perception of light and sound and smell and feel is the default, because within humanity we consider anything outside of that default a disorder. Our bias is sample bias, and other intelligent life in the universe is likely to perceive things in vastly different ways than we can even imagine.

For each statement, please indicate how much you agree or disagree.
-5 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree

Poll #960552
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Honesty is always the best policy.

Pluto is a planet.

Snow is a good and wonderful thing.

Black jelly beans are the best.

The world will be a better place in 50 years than it is today.

I've been thinking about the Hexagon of Saturn ever since I read about it on apod this morning. It looks almost solid in the time lapse movie. It seems the wind shear should rip such a fine shape to shreds on Saturn, but it has been there for over 20 years. The thing is huge, 3 earths wide. While there is a good chance that a natural explanation for this will be found (polygons have been know to appear in the eye walls of Earth hurricanes as well as in rapidly spinning buckets of water), it is still fantastic enough to spark my imagination in ways the "face" on Mars never did.

If humanity is worth saving, it needs to get off this planet. Being limited one world makes humanity vulnerable to global-scale disasters, wars, and diseases. Humans could be wiped out by simple bad luck or by their own doing. The only way to ensure long-term survival is to inhabit more than one world.

However, that still leaves the question "Is humanity is worth saving?".

Poll #922561
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Is humanity worth saving?

I talked to my sister (ellynx) last night. Apparently Maddie has been very interested in the Baiji for about a year now, and even has a book on them. She's been very worried about them going extinct. My sister is going to have to find a way to tell her six year old daughter that they are most likely gone.

Maddie has told me about her worry that many of the ocean species that she wants to study will be gone. At six you want to tell her she's wrong, but she's right and she knows it. She's a smart kid. I wonder just how many more animals won't she have a chance see? How many more will be gone in just the next few years, especially as global warming kicks into an even higher gear? The world is changing very rapidly.

Poll #889521
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

On a world populated and run by humans, is world peace possible?