Friday, November 29, 2013

Scorpions, Acid Rain, and the Great Dying

About than nine tenths of Earth's life died a quarter of a billion years ago. Scientists still aren't sure what happened, but they're learning.
  1. A Scorpion's Mark in the Sands of Time
  2. Acid Rain and the Great Dying
  3. Sudden Death, Permian Style
Not everything died, of course. Scorpions survived, along with almost a third of critters with backbones that lived on land. Cockroaches might have, but they wouldn't show up for another hundred million years or so. I'll get back to them.


(Victor Leshyk, via Brown University press release, used w/o permission.)

Prophets of Doom

Being a prophet of doom has perks.

Consistently finding the fly in the ointment; the missing nail that dooms horse, rider, and kingdom; or the sliver cloud's dark lining; may earn you a reputation for serious thinking. Or folks may get tired of listening to you. But there always seems to be a fresh audience, eager to be scared out of their wits.

Maybe that's why so many folks keep predicting the coming Apocalypse, environmental catastrophes, and economic collapse.

I like cute animals and clean air: and, being Catholic, must be concerned about social justice. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1928-1942)

That's real social justice, not the screwball politics of the last few decades, and that's another topic.

The Coming Ice Age, Global Warming, and All That

It's been quite a while since folks worried about the coming ice age. Global warming was fashionable for quite a while, although I gather that it's now called climate change.

I don't doubt that Earth's climate is changing. That's been happening for the last four and a half billion years. Apparently now we're supposed to believe that climate shouldn't change, and it's our fault that it does.

Manure, Killer Fog, Smog, ...

There's an element of truth to the notion that humans are to blame for change. From about 1760 to 1820, we used increasingly effective machinery to raise crops and make everything from cloth to furniture.

By 1883, we had a steam engine that worked as hard as 10,000 horses. We had also learned that burning coal on an industrial scale has unhealthy side effects. We improved the technology and adjusted how we live, so London isn't shrouded in a killer fog today.

About fifty years back, we learned pretty much the same thing about gasoline.

You don't hear so much about smog these days. We still drive cars here in America, but we also started controlling what sort of stuff the things produce.

The lesson to learn isn't that machinery is bad. If Londoners hadn't stopped using horses, the city would have been about nine feet deep in manure by 1900, and that's not quite another topic.

Over the last million years, we've learned how to safely use fire, sharp sticks, string, iron, and electricity. There's no evidence that we're stupider now than when we began: so I figure that we'll keep learning.

Humans: Doing Our Job

God is large and in charge.

That idea is more elegantly framed in Sacred Scripture:
"Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done."
(Psalms 115:3)

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the decision of the LORD that endures."
(Proverbs 19:21)
That doesn't mean that we can sit back and let the Almighty do all the work. We've got a job, and it's a big one:
"God blessed them, saying: 'Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.' "
(Genesis 1:28)
This is not the old Victorian-era notion that nature is something for us to plunder. Our job is a bit more like that of a steward or foreman. We don't own this place.

The world belongs to God. Our responsibility is taking care of it, making improvements, and passing it along to future generations. (Catechism, 339, 2292-2296, 2415-2418)

I've been over this before:

1. A Scorpion's Mark in the Sands of Time


(From Discovery News, via FoxNews.com, used w/o permission.)
"Photo of the rock with the imprint of what is believed to be a scorpion. (New Mexico Museum of Natural History)"
"World's oldest scorpion found"
Larry O'Hanlon, Discover News, via FoxNews.com (November 27, 2013)

"It may not look like much, but together with other tracks in the 280 million-year-old rocks of Prehistoric Trackways National Monument in southern New Mexico, this vague form has been identified as the one and only fossil impression of a scorpion body ever found. The scorpion rested here for a time, then scurried off, and the imprint of its body eventually turned to stone.

"The age of the trace fossil, as body impressions and tracks are called, takes scorpions way back to the early Permian. That confirms that scorpions have survived a lot of gigantic mass extinction events between then and now. What's more, seeing how the carbon dioxide levels in the Permian atmosphere were probably three times what they are today on Earth, it's not likely anthropogenic climate change will stop these hardy arthropods either.

" 'We gave it the name Alacranichnus, which means scorpion trace (alacran is Spanish for scorpion and ichnos is Greek for trace),' said Spencer Lucas, curator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science...."
"Anthropogenic climate change" means changes in Earth's climate that happened since about 1800. It's been called the coming ice age and global warming in the decades since my youth, and the more popular current term is simply "climate change." The fashionable assumption is that humans are to blame.

I think it's possible that carbon dioxide from 19th century factories, methane from belching cows, and Los Angeles smog affected Earth's climate.

But I also think it's possible that Earth's climate has changed during the last two centuries because Earth's climate has been changing for about 4,500,000,000 years: give or take a few hundred million.

It would be very odd, if this planet suddenly stopped changing.

Durability and Change

The scorpion that made that mark, some 280,000,000 years back, was not the earliest known critter of that sort.

Other species of scorpions may have been among the first animals on land, about 350,000,000 years ago, and the first scorpions lived in Earth's oceans 430,000,000 or so years before we developed spears and steam engines.

Today's scorpions don't look quite like the original models, but they haven't changed all that much. Cockroaches are comparative newcomers that didn't show up until about 100,000,000 years ago, and rats have only been around for about 54,000,000 years.

We've been using fire for only 1,000,000 years, more or less, so we don't have much of a track record yet. I strongly suspect that we're nearly as durable as rats, cockroaches, and scorpions.

'All of the above' manage to live in a wide range of environments, and three are notoriously indiscriminate about what they'll eat. Scorpions are strictly meat-eaters, which may or may not be significant.

2. Acid Rain and the Great Dying


(From MIT News Office, used w/o permission.)
"A possible cause of the end-Permian mass extinction: Lemon juice?"
Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office (November 25, 2013)

"MIT researchers find that rain as acidic as lemon juice may have contributed to massive die-offs on land 252 million years ago.

"Rain as acidic as undiluted lemon juice may have played a part in killing off plants and organisms around the world during the most severe mass extinction in Earth's history.

"About 252 million years ago, the end of the Permian period brought about a worldwide collapse known as the Great Dying, during which a vast majority of species went extinct.

"The cause of such a massive extinction is a matter of scientific debate, centering on several potential causes, including an asteroid collision, similar to what likely killed off the dinosaurs 186 million years later; a gradual, global loss of oxygen in the oceans; and a cascade of environmental events triggered by massive volcanic eruptions in a region known today as the Siberian Traps.

"Now scientists at MIT and elsewhere have simulated this last possibility, creating global climate models of scenarios in which repeated bursts of volcanism spew gases, including sulfur, into the atmosphere. From their simulations, they found that sulfur emissions were significant enough to create widespread acid rain throughout the Northern Hemisphere, with pH levels reaching 2 — as acidic as undiluted lemon juice. They say such acidity may have been sufficient to disfigure plants and stunt their growth, contributing to their ultimate extinction...."
I like undiluted lemon juice as a beverage, which may be a bit unusual, but many folks like it with their salads. It's tasty, nutritious, and can sting like — well, like lemon juice on a paper cut.

Acid rain enjoyed a sort of popularity a few years ago, as a dreadful environmental threat. It's produced by some industrial processes, volcanoes, and dimethylsulfide (DMS) from coccolithophores, a kind of plankton; some salt marsh fungi; and some yeasts used in home-brewed beer.

We could, in principle, abolish all industry and stop brewing beer: but DMS and "acid rain" will be around as long as Earth has plankton, fungi, yeast, or volcanoes.

Coincidence and Uncertainty


(Erik Klemetti, via Wired Science, used w/o permission.)

The Siberian Traps formed during a million years of massive volcanic activity. What's left of them today cover an area roughly the size of western Europe between today's Ural and Cherskiy mountains, and may have been twice that size before 250,000,000 years of erosion happened.

The eruptions started when the Wilkes Land anomaly and mass concentration formed. Maybe it's a coincidence that a million years of intense volcanism started then, maybe not. Most of Wilkes Land is buried under the Antarctic ice cap, which makes collecting evidence difficult.

I wouldn't be surprised if we learn that an asteroid hit Wilkes Land a quarter of a billion years back, sending shock waves through the planet. If one of Earth's biggest volcanic events 'just happened' to start on at impact's antipodal point, that's a whacking great coincidence. Something like that happened on Mercury, and that's yet another topic.

We've known about the Siberian Traps and Great Dying for years. What makes this "news" is that MIT scientists think the Permian mass extinction only took about 20,000 years.

That's what the next item is about, partly.

3. Sudden Death, Permian Style


(From unknown source, via Daily Galaxy/MIT/Science.org, used w/o permission.)
Large volcanic eruptions in Siberia, 250,000,000 years later.
" 'The Great Dying' --MIT Insights into the Most Severe Mass Extinction in Earth's History"
Daily Galaxy via MIT and Science.org (blog) (November 24, 2013)

"It was the greatest extinction event of all time (at least by Earth standards): Since the first organisms appeared on Earth approximately 3.8 billion years ago, life on the planet has had some close calls. In the last 500 million years, Earth has undergone five mass extinctions, including the event 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. And while most scientists agree that a giant asteroid was responsible for that extinction, there's much less consensus on what caused an even more devastating extinction, the end-Permian extinction, that occurred 252.2 million years ago, decimating 90 percent of marine and terrestrial species, from snails and small crustaceans to early forms of lizards and amphibians. 'The Great Dying,' as it's now known, was the most severe mass extinction in Earth's history, and is probably the closest life has come to being completely extinguished. Possible causes include immense volcanic eruptions, rapid depletion of oxygen in the oceans, and — an unlikely option — an asteroid collision.

"While the causes of this global catastrophe are unknown, an MIT-led team of researchers established in 2011 that the end-Permian extinction was extremely rapid, triggering massive die-outs both in the oceans and on land in less than 20,000 years — the blink of an eye in geologic time. The MIT team also found that this time period coincides with a massive buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which likely triggered the simultaneous collapse of species in the oceans and on land...."
An asteroid impact may be "an unlikely option" in the Daily Galaxy/MIT/Science.org writer's opinion, but the last I checked it was still being considered by at least some scientists.

We don't seem to know exactly what set off the Siberian Traps eruptions. Something big hitting at exactly the right, or wrong, time and place might have at least helped trigger them. Then again, maybe not.

MIT scientists found that carbon dioxide levels before the Great Dying rose a little less quickly then they have since we started burning fossil fuels on industrial scales. This increase went on for tens of thousands of years at the end of the Permian, and may have had something to do with the mass extinction.

We've been burning fossil fuels for about one tenth as long. I'm rather dubious that we'll be using the same energy source in the year 12013 or 22013. For one thing, we'll probably run out of coal and oil long before then.

Still, if we keep killing buffalo and eroding mountainsides and cutting down forests the way folks did in the 1800s - - - come to think of it, we stopped doing all that rather early in the 1900s, and that's almost a hundred years back now.

I'm as concerned about Earth as anyone else. I live here, and want my kids to have a decent place to call home. But I've become weary of fascinating research being shackled to conventional hand-wringing about the crisis du jure.

Science and Sherlock Holmes

On a happier note, since it looks like it only took about 20,000 years for the worst of the end-of-Permian mass extinction to run its course, whatever caused it had to work fast. That narrows the field for theories explaining Earth's biggest mass extinction: considerably.

Part of solving mysteries, fictional and otherwise, can be showing that some explanations cannot be true:
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
(Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of the Four")
Related posts:

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Thanksgiving 2013: Musing on Two Turkeys and Being Alive

I wrote a longer Thanksgiving Day post last year, but don't have much new to say this time around.


(From Apathetic Lemming of the North (2012))

There's a slightly-larger version of that cartoon in my Apathetic Lemming of the North blog. It doesn't have a profound message: apart from the notion that it's okay to laugh now and then, or at least smile.

I've got quite a bit to smile about. I'm alive, which is arguably better than the alternative, and in reasonably good health. A nasty infection will probably be cleared up in a month or so, and I won't be driving anywhere this weekend: nowhere out of town, that is.

My family is "better than I deserve," as the fellow says: but I don't mind. At all.

One more thing: Advent starts this Sunday. Now that's something to be thankful about.

Somewhat-related posts:

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Poetry, Sin, and Getting a Grip


(Detail of an engraving by Gustave Doré; an illustration for "The Divine Comedy, 'Inferno,' " Dante Alighieri. Caption: Canto I., lines 1, 2.; Trans. Henry Francis Cary. Used w/o permission.)
"In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray."

Sin isn't all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll: the '70s song; or the occasionally-lethal lifestyle of (some) rock stars.

Sin can involve misusing human sexuality or drugs, but enjoying rock and roll doesn't even make the list. Not for Catholics, anyway.

Maybe you've known an excessively uptight Catholic, who sincerely believes that God frowns on new music. Some of the billion or so living Catholics have odd notions: but that's not what the Church teaches.

Getting a Grip About Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll

Folks who got their theological training from movies like "Ten Nights in a Barroom," "Daring Daughters" and "Reefer Madness" might assume that misusing sex and alcohol are the second-worst offenses against God Almighty: with smoking marijuana leading the list.

That's not how it works.

"Sin," Catholic style, is anything that hurts my relationship with God:
"SIN: An offense against God as well as a fault against reason, truth, and right conscience. Sin is a deliberate thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the eternal law of God. In judging the gravity of sin, it is customary to distinguish between mortal and venial sins (1849, 1853, 1854)."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary)
Music, by the way, is important. Enforcing individual preferences isn't. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1156-1158)

Going to Hell: A Guided Tour

Dante Alighieri's epic poem has been popular off and on since the 14th century. Quite a few folks translated it into English: with varying degrees of success.

Any sort of translation is challenging, at best, and I think it's arguable that poetry can't be translated. The best anyone can do is read a poem in its original language; thoroughly understand the ideas, emotions, cultural references, word play, sounds, and rhythms of the original; and make a similar poem in another language. My opinion, and I'm getting off-topic.

I've read that Dante got charged with heresy, because his accuser had no perceptible understanding of poetry. His accuser assumed that the 'Wood of Suicides,' where folks who killed themselves grew as trees, was a denial of Catholic teaching. Seen as poetic imagery, it's a one of the more vivid illustration of how we're supposed to be "body and soul," even if we don't like it. More topics. (Catechism, 362-368)

Dante's Poetic Geography

In the first part of "The Divine Comedy," Virgil gives Dante a guided tour of Hell. The poet's Infernal geography is colorful, symbolic, and imaginative.

It's not "official" Church teaching, but Dante clearly understood what the Catholic Church has been saying.

I don't have to believe that Hell is a terraced funnel: but Dante's descending circles are an effective way to visualize the seriousness of various sorts of sin.

"The Divine Comedy" is enormous. This is an extremely sketchy overview of Dante's Inferno, from top to bottom:
  • Passive sin
    • First Circle (Limbo)
      • Pleasant surroundings
        • The unbaptized
        • Virtuous pagans
    • Second Circle (Lust)
      • Wind storm
        • Those who let emotions overrule reason
    • Third Circle (Gluttony)
      • Icy rain
        • The self-indulgence
    • Fourth Circle (Greed)
      • Perpetual shoving match between
        • Hoarders
        • Wasters
    • Fifth Circle (Wrath)
      • Stygian marsh
        • Endless fighting above the surface
        • Perpetual sullenness below the surface
      • City of Dis
        • Access to the lower circles
  • Active sin
    (Deliberate, knowing evil)
    • Sixth Circle (Heresy)
      • flaming tombs
        • Willful refusal to believe
          (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 465, 2089)
    • Seventh Circle (Violence)
        • Outer ring
          • A river of boiling blood and fire for those who unjustly hurt
            • People
            • Property
        • Middle ring
          • A forest of folks who killed themselves
          • Profligates chased by dogs
        • Inner ring
          • A desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky
            • The violent against
              • God
              • Nature
    • Eighth Circle (Fraud)
      • 10 variously-unpleasant Malebolge ("Evil Pockets") for
        • Panderers and seducers
        • Flatterers
        • Those guilty of simony
        • Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets
        • Corrupt politicians
        • Hypocrites
        • Thieves
        • Fraudulent advisers or evil counselors
        • Sowers of discord
        • Falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors)
    • Ninth Circle (Treachery)
      • Traitors in ice
        • Round 1, CaĂ¯na
          • Traitors to kindred
        • Round 2, Antenora
          • Traitors to political entities
        • Round 3 is named Ptolomaea
          • Traitors to their guests
        • Round 4, Judecca (Named after Judas Iscariot)
          • Traitors to their lords and benefactors

Sin and Staying Sane


(Gustave Doré, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
Harpies in the Forest of Suicides, Gustave Doré.

I don't think ignoring sin is a good idea, but neither is obsessing over whether or not I've unwittingly committed some trivial offense.

Despite a long tradition of folks who mistake "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" for the Gospel, we're not supposed to live in morbid fear.

"Fear of the Lord," a reasoned appreciation that God is large and in charge, is one thing. Scaring ourselves silly is something else. (Deuteronomy 6:13-14; Catechism, 2084) (December 16, 2011)

Reason, Truth, and Love

Sin is an offense of reason, truth, right conscience, and God. Any sin is a bad idea, but venial ones merely wound charity. Mortal sin kills charity. It requires both knowledge that an action is wrong, and complete consent to the wrong action.

Ignorance is a mitigating factor: but natural law, like gravity, works whether we believe in it or not. (Catechism, 1849, 1850-1864), 1951-1960)

Finally what the Church has been telling us for two millennia and counting: we're supposed to love God, love our neighbor; and see everyone as our neighbor. (Matthew 5:43-44; Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:28-31 Luke 10:25-30)

Background:
Related posts:

Friday, November 22, 2013

Spears, Dogs, and Artificial Organisms

We've depended on "artificial" organisms for millennia. What's new is how we make them.
  1. Synthetic Biology, 21st Century Style
  2. Dogs, DNA, and New Data
  3. Very Old Spears and Slightly Old News

Intelligence and Assumptions

We have increasingly objective intelligence tests, but it's easy to be very subjective about who's smart and who's not. Maybe you've run into this attitude:
  • I am brilliant
  • You work very hard
  • He makes lucky guesses
Ever since we started learning that people didn't always look the way we do now, some folks assumed that people who look like contemporary Europeans are smart, and those who don't - aren't.

As for "cavemen," Africans, and the Irish: regarding them as human at all was a step up.

Our brains have gotten quite a bit bigger over the last million years, and folks living today are probably smarter than our very distant ancestors. If we're not, all that extra space for neural circuitry was a huge waste of time and resources.

I think it's important to remember, though, that the folks who learned to use fire without killing themselves, developed string, and turned sharp sticks into effective hunting tools couldn't have been all that stupid.

If anything, the size of our brains sets the bar higher for how much we can improve today's tech.

Knowledge, Tools, and Decisions

Learning about the world and making tools is part of being human. Over the generations, we learn more, and develop new sorts of tools. It's what we're designed to do.

Whether we use our knowledge and tools to help or hurt other folks depends on decisions each of us make. 'Because I can' doesn't excuse bad behavior. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 356-358, 373, 2293-2296)

Maize, Fire, and Getting a Grip

Some technology is so old that it seems "natural:" like cooking fires, string, and maize. We may never know who first wove plant or animal fibers into the all-purpose material we call string. It may or may not predate our habit of cooking over an open fire.

More recently, we started modifying organisms. That's "recently" in a paleontological sense.

About 10,000 years ago, someone turned a wild grass, probably something like teosinte, into maize. On the other hand, maybe the wild grass 'just happened' to start growing unusually large kernels.

Since folks in prehistoric Mesoamerica are as human as I am, I vote for maize being an early example of genetic engineering. When folks who share my hereditary melanin deficiency reached Mesoamerica, they thought maize looked useful: and modified it some more. We're still at it, which upsets a few folks and feeds millions.

Getting a Grip About Laban's Sheep

That some folks understand genetics better than others is nothing new.

I'm pretty sure that Laban, son of Nahor, wouldn't have agreed to Jacob's suggested wages if he'd known more about sheep. (Genesis 30:31-34)

Today, most Americans probably don't fear the evil eye, but a remarkable number of us are scared silly of genetically modified organisms. Sure, we're developing some new technology: but people have been using 'synthetic' organisms like chickens and macaroni wheat for a very long time.

I think technology, old or new, can be dangerous: if folks aren't careful. But we've learned how to live with fire, maize, and telephones. I think we'll keep learning.

More of my take on tech:

1. Synthetic Biology, 21st Century Style


(J. Craig Venter Institute, via LiveScience, used w/o permission.)
"Researchers transplanted the genomes of Mycoplasma capricolum bacterium into Mycoplasma mycoides bacterium in 2007. They later accomplished the same trick with a synthetic genome in 2010."
(LiveScience)
"Incredible Tech: How to Engineer Life in the Lab"
Tanya Lewis, Incredible Technology, LiveScience (November 18, 2013)

"The year was 2003, the place MIT. A handful of engineers, computer scientists and a molecular biologist convened, intent on answering a simple question: What if biology were faster, cheaper and more predictable to engineer?

"The molecular biologist was Pamela Silver, of Harvard Medical School. Along with biological engineers Drew Endy and Randy Rettberg, then at MIT, Silver taught an elective course in which students built cellular circuits using genetic parts, just as one might build a computer chip out of transistors. The approach would form the foundation of the field known as synthetic biology....

"...Thanks largely to increases in speed and reductions in cost, DNA tech can now create standardized genetic parts that can be combined inside simple cells such as bacteria or yeast...."
This article discusses applied genetics more clearly and less flamboyantly than many I've read. It's a refreshing change of pace from the sort of SCIENTISTS CREATE LIFE!!!! headlines of decades past.

However, without minimizing the importance of what folks at the J. Craig Venter Institute and other places are doing: that last paragraph is a trifle misleading.

Yes, we've recently been able to work directly with genetic information encoded inside individual cells. This is a remarkable achievement: and, I think, one that is a basically good idea.

In the movies, a "synthetic organism" might terrorize Tokyo, pollute Portland, or generally make a nuisance of itself until being killed in a confrontation with excessive collateral damage.

In reality, one synthetic organism detects arsenic and releases chemicals that neutralize the toxin. Another, Berkeley's Bactoblood, pinch-hits for blood. I see these functions as threats to 'business as usual,' but I don't have a problem with that.

Electronics Techs have Breadboards; Now Biotechs have Chassis Organisms, Almost

A team of biologists headed by Craig Venter made the first synthetic cell from parts they got from assorted bacteria and yeast. That was about three years ago.

Today, we're closer to having working models of a minimal organism that can serve as a sort of organic breadboard for biotechs, or biological technologists, or BTs, or whatever we'll call the folks. My native language has words that didn't exist when I grew up, which makes it easier for us to talk about tech that used to be 'science fiction.'

I love it, but my fascination with language and ideas is probably stronger than my interest in tech and science. And that's another topic.

The reason we "can now create standardized genetic parts" is that the parts were essentially modular to begin with. The cells in my body use the same basic 'machinery' as cells in dogs, geraniums, and matsutake.

This knowledge doesn't bother me, but even if it did: — God decided to design life that way, and my opinion won't change reality.

2. Dogs, DNA, and New Data

"DNA hint of European origin for dogs"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (November 14, 2013)

"The results of a DNA study suggest that dogs were domesticated in Europe.

"No-one doubts that 'man's best friend' is an evolutionary off-shoot of the grey wolf, but scientists have long argued over the precise timing and location for their emergence.

"The new research, based on a genetic analysis of ancient and modern dog and wolf samples, points to a European origin at least 18,000 years ago.

"Olaf Thalmann and colleagues report the investigation in Science magazine.

"It adds a further layer of complexity to the story...."
Maybe nobody at BBC News doubts that today's dogs descended from wolves: but the last I heard, some folks were still having conniptions over anything involving evolution; and I suspect that some scientists may still be hedging their bets about wolves, dogs, and origins.

That said, Jonathan Amos does a pretty good job of discussing a complicated topic. My opinion.

Where dogs came from, how old the first ones are, and how they've developed, is very hard to sort out. People and dogs have lived together for since long before written records. When we move we're likely to take our dogs with us. After more than ten thousand years, that's a lot of travel.

Getting back to dogs, finding DNA from one particular sort of dog in local dogs shows that at folks with that sort of dog were there. And, as I said, we move around. A lot.

One more complication: dogs and wolves still get along well enough to produce the occasional litter of wolf-dogs and dog-wolves. I've wondered if calling wolves and dogs two different species really makes sense, and that's yet another topic.

Looking at Dogs

Scientists have been studying dog DNA for several years, and figured that today's dogs all come from wolves that started living with humans. That was about 15,000 or so years back; probably in the Middle East or maybe East Asia.

So far, so good. Folks lived in the Middle East and East Asia 15,000 years back, and they had dogs. Or wolves. Or dogs that looked a lot like wolves, or wolves that acted a lot like dogs - - - seriously, as anyone looked at German Shepherds and gray wolves and not noticed a few similarities?

As Jonathan Amos wrote:
"...The problem with these claims is that palaeontologists have found fossils of distinctly dog-looking animals that are 30,000 years old or more...."
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)
That's a rather large problem.

Ancient Wolves: 'Gone to the Dogs'

"...Dr Thalmann, from Finland's University of Turku, and his team, have had another go at trying to sort through the conflicting DNA evidence.

"They compared genetic sequences from a wide range of ancient animals - both dogs and wolves - with material taken from living canines - again, from both dogs and wolves.

"This analysis reveals modern dogs to be most closely related to ancient European wolves or dogs - not to any of the wolf groups from outside Europe, nor even to modern European wolves (suggesting the link is with old European wolves that are now extinct). And because the dog remains used in the research are dated to be more than 18,000 years old, it indicates a timing for domestication that is much older than some researchers have previously argued.

"If correct, it means dogs started to diverge from wolf populations when humans had yet to settle into fixed, agricultural communities and were still hunting and gathering...."
(Jonathan Amos, BBC News)
If wolves were people, they might think that the ones we started working with have 'gone to the dogs.' I gather that today's dogs are not as smart as wolves: and, given half a chance, will be slavishly devoted to humans who don't actively abuse them. That's one reason I like cats a bit better, and that's still another topic.

My guess is that we've got a great deal more to learn about our dogs: and everything else in this wonder-filled universe.

Folks with dogs having a longer history, or prehistory, than we thought doesn't surprise me at all. Dogs can be wonderful hunting assistants, so folks who depended on hunting for their food having dogs makes sense.

Folks who don't look British, or American, or whatever, being smart doesn't surprise me, either, and that's part of the next topic.

3. Very Old Spears and Slightly Old News


(PLOS ONE, via FoxNews.com, used w/o permission.)
"A sample of Gademotta pointed artifacts exhibiting micro- and macrofracture features indicative of projectile weaponry."
(Yonatan Sahle and others, via PLOS ONE)
"Stone-tipped spears predate existence of humans by 85,000 years"
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News via FoxNews.com (November 14, 2013)

"Remains of the world's oldest known stone-tipped throwing spears, described in a new paper, and so ancient that they actually predate the earliest known fossils for our species by 85,000 years.

"There are a few possible implications, and both are mind-blowing. The first is that our species could be much older than previously thought, which would forever change the existing human family tree.

"The second, and more likely at this point, is that a predecessor species to ours was extremely crafty and clever, making sophisticated tools long before Homo sapiens emerged.

"Homo heidelbergensis, aka Heidelberg Man, lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia from at least 600,000 years ago. He clearly got around, and many think this species was the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens in Africa and Neanderthals in Europe and Asia...."
I'll get back to the recently-published research by Yonatan Sahle and others, which this article should have been focusing on: my opinion. The research is important, and probably significant: but nowhere near as potentially "mind blowing" as this sort of coverage suggests.

For example, we've known that the Schöningen spears are more than a third of a million years old since 1997. That's when radiocarbon dating confirmed their age. Folks made and used them roughly 380,000 to 400,000 ago.

What we've learned so far about our family's history is that 380,000 years back we simply didn't look British. The Neanderthal and current highbrow model probably didn't show up until maybe 200,000 years before we invented writing, pocket watches, and the Internet.

Being Human

Jennifer Viegas defines "our species" as Homo Sapiens. That's accurate enough, although as I said before: I'm not convinced that "species" have sharply-defined limits. Not outside useful lists like the one Linnaeus developed.

If "our species" is limited to folks who look a great deal like people living in some part of the world today, these tools were made by folks who 'weren't human.'

I'll agree that folks who don't look like me can be "crafty and clever," but I'd probably express the idea differently. About a half-century back, when America was getting around to several long-overdue reforms, some of us noticed that 'Americans' often described 'foreigners' in regrettable ways.

For example, the new family in town might include someone who was "sly," not like the "shrewd" American next door.

I'm part Irish, myself, and so am a bit biased about bias. I wouldn't be here if a "smooth-talking" young Irishman hadn't won the heart of a decent American girl, a few generations back.

Now, back to those old spear points.

Spears, Shoulders, and Speculation


(Yonatan Sahle, W. Karl Hutchings, David R. Braun, Judith C. Sealy, Leah E. Morgan, Agazi Negash, Balemwal Atnafu, via PLOS ONE, used w/o permission.)
"A sample of Gademotta pointed artifacts exhibiting micro- and macrofracture features indicative of projectile weaponry."
(Yonatan Sahle and others, via PLOS ONE)
"Earliest Stone-Tipped Projectiles from the Ethiopian Rift Date to >279,000 Years Ago "
Yonatan Sahle, W. Karl Hutchings, David R. Braun, Judith C. Sealy, Leah E. Morgan, Agazi Negash, Balemwal Atnafu, PLOS ONE (November 13, 2013)

"Abstract

"Projectile weapons (i.e. those delivered from a distance) enhanced prehistoric hunting efficiency by enabling higher impact delivery and hunting of a broader range of animals while reducing confrontations with dangerous prey species. Projectiles therefore provided a significant advantage over thrusting spears. Composite projectile technologies are considered indicative of complex behavior and pivotal to the successful spread of Homo sapiens. Direct evidence for such projectiles is thus far unknown from >80,000 years ago. Data from velocity-dependent microfracture features, diagnostic damage patterns, and artifact shape reported here indicate that pointed stone artifacts from Ethiopia were used as projectile weapons (in the form of hafted javelin tips) as early as >279,000 years ago. In combination with the existing archaeological, fossil and genetic evidence, these data isolate eastern Africa as a source of modern cultures and biology...."
I don't recommend this article, unless you enjoy long paragraphs and technical text. I'm not sure why academics write that way.

Until we started relying on the agricultural technology, about a dozen millennia back, folks ate what they caught or gathered. Harvesting the edible parts of plants is easier with tools, but using our hands and teeth works, too. Hunting without tools is possible: but our built-in equipment isn't designed for that.

That's probably why we invented spears. These more-or-less sophisticated pointed sticks can be thrown, or pushed into a target. When you're hunting for the day's meat, you're more likely to come back with enough if you don't have to run up to critters with a spear.

We're faster than critters like sloths and banana slugs, but even someone who is "swift as a deer" - isn't: and I'm drifting off-topic. Again. The point is that throwing a spear doesn't require a hunter to run down the day's meat: or sneak right up to it. We don't move as quietly as cats: more topics.

For a while, scientists assumed that spears designed and used for throwing were developed by humans: Homo Sapiens. Being able to throw a spear takes shoulders pretty close to the current model: but the design for that part of our chassis is about 2,000,000 years old. The neural circuits needed for throwing accurately may be even older, but proving that might be difficult. (July 5, 2013)

Tools, Africa, and a Changing Universe

There will be discussion of what Yonatan Sahle and others found, and the conclusions they published: probably quite a bit. My guess is that we'll keep learning that tools were developed earlier than previous research suggested.

Happily, paleontologists and anthropologists seem to have gotten over the notion that folks who aren't European aren't very smart: and that folks from Africa are "degenerate and feeble-minded."

I won't argue that folks have always been pretty much just like we are today. We've tracked some changes in the last few centuries. All the evidence we've found says that we've changed quite a bit in the last few dozen millennia: and even more since our earliest generations.

I'm okay with that. This is a changing universe, and it'd be odd if we didn't change, too.

Background:
I've got more to say about dealing with:

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Serenity, Snoring, and Sacred Scriptures

I heard snoring behind me in the Adoration Chapel a few weeks back.

It wasn't me. I haven't fallen asleep there yet, as far as I know, although I've come close. It's a tranquil, serene, soothing place with soft light and a gently murmuring air system. (July 14, 2013)


The Adoration Chapel, Sauk Centre, Minnesota. November 13, 2013.

The Host in that monstrance is the room's focal point, of course: and the reason I go there for an hour each week. I'm hanging out with my Lord, sort of. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1178, 1418, 2691)

I've gotten into the habit of reading one of the Bibles they keep in the Adoration chapel. For one thing, it helps me stay awake. It's also a good way to make sure that I dip into Sacred Scriptures regularly.

Related posts:

Friday, November 15, 2013

Old Water, Older Fossils, and Extraterrestrial Etiquette

Bacteria-infested water can be a nuisance or a health hazard. When it's from two miles underground, it can be exciting evidence from the dawn of life on Earth. I'm fascinated by that sort of thing. Your experience may vary.
  1. Craters, Lakes, and Life
  2. MISS: Signs of Ancient Life
  3. Interstellar Diplomacy and Ignoring Strict Guidelines
  4. Really Old Water

Space Aliens

One of the news items I picked for this week shows what some "experts" say about how we should deal with extraterrestrial intelligence. Some of what they said makes sense: although it's a little hard to see how anyone can be an expert on space aliens.

Tabloid headlines of earlier decades notwithstanding, we still don't know if there's life of any sort beyond Earth: let alone intelligent life.

That hasn't stopped storytellers from weaving yarns, though.

Space aliens in the movies have been invaders; infiltrators; saviors; and, like, real groovy:
If we meet neighbors who aren't human, but who share our mix of free will and material form, I'm pretty sure that some folks will be upset. Others may expect the space aliens to solve all our problems, and someone's likely to see if they'll buy the Brooklyn bridge.

Being Human

I don't think that we're alone, or that we're not. Right now, we don't know. What we're learning about the billions of planets in this galaxy suggests that we're probably not the only creatures with a body and soul. On the other hand, if we share this universe with other people: I suspect that they're not quite like us.

People with the insatiable desire to see what's 'over the next hill' would, it seems to me, have found us a long time ago.

If we're not alone, our neighbors probably 'aren't human' in more ways than one. IF they were, we'd probably be selling souvenirs to tourists from the stars, struggling to win our planet back, or explaining why "football" isn't the same game on all continents.

I hope we find folks who, like us, share characteristics of both living creatures and angels. It would be an opportunity to learn what parts of "human nature" come from being human: and what comes with being - people.

More about being human, from a Catholic perspective: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 362-368, 1703.

Hate: Not an Option

Even if space aliens were the most gentle, friendly, innocuous folks imaginable: I'm sure that some of the billions of human people would hate them. I've written about original sin, hate, tolerance, and being Catholic before. Bottom line, we're not allowed to hate anybody. (September 11, 2012; July 11, 2012; December 9, 2010)

Right now, the Church says that humanity is "a unity" because we're all related. (Catechism, 360)

I do not think that implies that folks who aren't human - 'aren't human:' not in the sense that we'd be allowed to mistreat them. That simply doesn't fit with what we're told about social justice, and that's another topic. (Catechism, 1928-1942)

Rules, Neighbors, Stewardship

The rules are simple:
We're also supposed to trust God: and plan ahead. (Catechism, 227, 2115)

One more thing, before I get started on big craters, old microbes, and space aliens.

Our job description includes "subduing" nature. That's not the same as strip-mining the land and poisoning Earth's oceans. We're supposed to remember that we're stewards. (Catechism, 373, 1880, 2432, 2415, 2432)

1. Craters, Lakes, and Life


(Don Davis/CORBIS, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"A new study says impacts may be deadly at first, but their craters can later provide a habitat for life."
"Alien Life May Thrive in Impact Craters"
Amanda Doyle, Astrobiology Magazine, via Space.com (November 13, 2013)

"An asteroid or comet smashing into the surface of a planet can spell doom for living creatures, but if the impact isn't large enough to completely decimate a planet's inhabitants, then the crater can ultimately provide a habitat for life. That's the finding of a new study reported at the European Planetary Science Congress in September by Iain Gilmour of the Open University in the United Kingdom.

"If an ice- or water-rich area is the victim of an impact, the combination of heat and groundwater will create what is known as a hydrothermal system. In addition, many complex organic compounds, which could be precursor molecules for life, are created at high temperatures such as those generated by a collision. This combination could create the ingredients needed for life as we know it, making impact-induced habitats a potential candidate for the birthplace of life on Earth.

"For a habitat within a crater to remain 'home sweet home,' there must be a constant supply of water and nutrients. The lifetime of the hydrothermal system is also crucial, as the heat from the impact will eventually fade away into its surroundings...."
Three near-simultaneous impacts 65,000,000 years back probably helped dinosaurs die out. (September 29, 2013)

That's "near simultaneous" from a geological perspective. Something hit what's now the Ukraine, forming Boltysh Crater, about a thousand years or so before the 'big one' near the edge of today's YucatĂ¡n Peninsula. That makes the Ukraine crater a good model for learning how fast impact craters cool off on Earth.

Looks like Boltysh Crater took between 30,000 and 40,000 years to cool off, but a similar crater in Canada, the Haughton impact crater, only took 5,000 years. The obvious difference is that Boltysh Crater filled with water almost immediately (geologically); while the one in Canada didn't become a lake until millions of years after it formed.

As Gilmour pointed out, 30,000 to 40,000 years isn't much time: not compared to how long life's been around here on Earth. For incoming meteors and comets to keep habitats going on a cold but icy world, a whole lot of impacts would have to happen: often, and near enough to let critters migrate from a cooling habitat to newer ones.

Even so, studying impact sites and how they affect life should help us learn more about how life started here: and maybe show us where to look for life on other worlds.

2. MISS: Signs of Ancient Life


(Nora Noffke/Carnegie Institute, via FoxNews.com, used w/o permission.)
"A rock surface displaying polygonal oscillation cracks in the 3.48 billion years old Dresser Formation, Pilbara region, Western Australia.
(Nora Noffke/Carnegie Institute)
"
"Evidence of 3.5-billion-year-old bacterial ecosystems may be earliest sign of life on Earth"
FoxNews.com (November 13, 2013)

"Scientists have discovered what may be the earliest sign of life on Earth. Remains of nearly 3.5-billion-year-old bacteria has been found in north-west Australia.

"Evidence of the never-before-seen bacteria was found in sedimentary rocks in the remote Pilbara region, home to the world's oldest rock formations.

" 'There was plenty of life from the 3.4 and 3.43 billion-year-old mark - this is pushing it further back,' researcher David Wacey, from the University of Western Australia told The Telegraph.

"While there are no cells from the microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS) to be studied under the microscope, scientists observed the marks left behind created by large clusters of microbes...."
This is a big deal in several ways: it's the earliest MISS found so far, by about 300,000,000 years; and the fossils help show what sort of conditions the bacteria lived in. What we learn about the Pilbara fossils should help guide Mars rovers, that are looking for similar structures.

More:

3. Interstellar Diplomacy and Ignoring Strict Guidelines


(Columbia Pictures. via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"Extraterrestrial Etiquette: How Should Humanity Interact with Alien Life?"
Miriam Kramer, Space.com (October 23, 2013)

"Humanity should start thinking about how to interact with alien species long before coming into contact with extraterrestrial life, experts say.

"Coming up with a strict set of guidelines that govern the way people on future interstellar space missions study and interact with aliens is imperative before anyone blasts off to a distant world, according to attendees at Starship Congress in August.

"While a 'prime directive' - the rule that prevented Star Fleet officers from interfering with the business of alien life-forms on TV's 'Star Trek' - might be a little extreme, such a rule could help govern interactions between aliens and humans...."
Project Icarus founder Kelvin Long says that if we run into other folks in the universe, it'll be a big event. That, I'll agree with. He also said it:
"...'...will need to be managed with great care and to ensure our culture and their culture remains intact and not disrupted by this new knowledge'...."
(Kelvin Long, via Space.com)
It's quite possible that Long sees a need to 'manage' contact between humanity and people who aren't human. I'm not sure what he thinks being "disrupted" means. If he sees any significant change as a disruption, there's no way that 'first contact' wouldn't disrupt the myriad cultures and subcultures we have: short of ignoring our neighbors.

More opinions from the article:
  • Armen Papazian, CEO of the International Space Development Hub
    • Either we trust that this is
      • A beautiful universe, an incredible cosmos
      • An amazing landscape
    • Or we will
      • "Utilize" it
      • "Export our scarcity economics"
  • Icarus Interstellar
    • President Richard Obousy
      • Settling on other planets may not be
          Necessary
      • Desirable
    • Designer James Benford
      • Humans
        • Are curious
        • "Like to explore"
        • Won't leave other people alone
      • Dealing with other cultures
        • Is complex
        • Requires research
  • Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop's Les Johnson
    • Before interacting directly
      • Learn as much as possible
    • Learn all you can learn before risking any kind of direct interaction
    • Leave anything that's alive alone
    • Don't bring samples back
      • We might contaminated our ecosystem
Some ideas from the panel, like trying not to hurt other folks, make sense. Others sound like the currently-fashionable fears of environmental disasters and capitalistic imperialistic warmonger America, projected on the stars.

Opinions and Control Freaks

I'm dubious about opinions that reduce complex situations to simple 'either-or' options, and that's another yet topic.

Opinions about space aliens often are like a Rorschach test. They tell more about the person than what we can expect from extraterrestrial intelligence:
This one, I'll take with a pinch of salt:
"...'It wasn't just guns, disease and steel, it was the shock of finding out that you're not even No. 1, you're not even No. 3, Benford said. 'That is a thing to really worry about.'..."
(Icarus Interstellar designer's James Benford, via Space.com)
Learning that humanity has neighbors who are bigger, smarter, or richer than we are wouldn't "shock" me: provided that they aren't actively hostile. Being Catholic, I realize that humans are as far down the ladder of creation as it gets, for conscious creatures. If anything, it'd be nice to have some company at our end, other than critters like ravens, ragweed, and rocks. (March 28, 2012)

Finally, this refreshing expression of good sense:
"...'A vibrant interstellar civilization will be essentially ungovernable, and that observing such guidelines will be strictly left up to each and every first contact team to obey or not obey at their discretion,' Johnson said. 'When someone is several light-years from home and they've encountered something they never encountered before, they're going to be making the decisions regardless of what the guiding moral principles might have been when they left home.'..."
(Miriam Kramer, Space.com)
Control freaks won't like the idea that 'experts' back home can't regulate everything: but it works for me.

4. Really Old Water


(B. Sherwood Lollar et al., via LiveScience, used w/o permission.)
"A scientists takes a sample of water from a mine deep underground in Ontario, Canada. The water turned out to be 2.6 billion years old, the oldest known water on Earth."
"Oldest Water on Earth Found Deep Underground"
Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet, LiveScience (May 15, 2013)

"A pocket of water some 2.6 billion years old - the most ancient pocket of water known by far, older even than the dawn of multicellular life - has now been discovered in a mine 2 miles below the Earth's surface.

"The finding, announced in the May 16 issue of the journal Nature, raises the tantalizing possibility that ancient life might be found deep underground not only within Earth, but in similar oases that may exist on Mars, the scientists who studied the water said.

"Geoscientist Barbara Sherwood Lollar at the University of Toronto and her colleagues have investigated deep mines across the world since the 1980s. Water can flow into fractures in rocks and become isolated deep in the crust for many years, serving as a time capsule of what their environments were like at the time they were sealed off...."
They found this water in copper and zinc mines near Timmins, Ontario. It's much saltier than seawater, with dissolved chemicals: like water around hydrothermal vents at the ocean's floor. I remember when scientists were finding so many critters living in 'uninhabitable' places that they came up with a new word: extremophile. It's possible that life started around hydrothermal vents, not tidal pools.

Either way, we've learned that life can flourish in places where we can't: and apparently can survive for a very long time in isolated pockets. Provided that it 'took root,' we might find some sort of life buried deep in Mars: or elsewhere.

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Marian Apparition: Champion, Wisconsin

Background:Posts in this blog: In the news:

What's That Doing in a Nice Catholic Blog?

From time to time, a service that I use will display links to - odd - services and retailers.

I block a few of the more obvious dubious advertisers.

For example: psychic anything, numerology, mediums, and related practices are on the no-no list for Catholics. It has to do with the Church's stand on divination. I try to block those ads.

Sometime regrettable advertisements get through, anyway.

Bottom line? What that service displays reflects the local culture's norms, - not Catholic teaching.