Friday, January 31, 2014

Cave Men, Sea Monsters, Dead Scorpions, and Theoretical Physics

There's probably a bit of Neanderthal in me, since my ancestors were their neighbors: and that heritage could affect my health.
  1. Neanderthal Heritage
  2. Event Horizons, Revisited
  3. A Swarthy Swede, Sort of
  4. Scorpions, Venom, and a Repurposed Protein
  5. Funnysaurus and the Middle Triassic
Before getting into ancestry, sea monsters, theoretical physics, and dead scorpions; why thinking and learning aren't sins:

Faith and Reason

Mawkish posts, drenched with emotional appeals to faith, aren't at all uncommon. Neither, sadly, are screeds about the evils of science: or the dangers of taking religion seriously.

That's why I think my blatant faith and interest in science may need an explanation.

I'm interested in science, by the way, not "Bible science." I don't see value in struggling to fit what we've learned during the last three and a half centuries into a 17th century Calvinist's timetable.

I'm a Christian and a Catholic. My faith doesn't demand an interest in science, but it's not threatened by knowledge.

Because I'm a Catholic, I don't have to stop thinking to follow my faith.

Faith, belief in God and trusting the Almighty, comes from the Holy Spirit: but it's something I do, using my will and reason. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 154-158)

Science, methodical study of this world, is okay. That's because:
"...God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.... the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God...."
(Catechism, 159)

Living With Reality

The argument that orderly change means an orderly God cannot exist has about a 150-year head start, as I said on Google Plus a few days ago. (January 28, 2014)

Someone had mentioned the claim that bombardier beetles couldn't have survived if evolution happened. Being the sort of person I am, my answer started with other weird critters and God.

Short version: bombardier beetles exist. So do platypuses and cephalopods. I'm quite sure that they're all the result of orderly change: and that God made it happen.

That is emphatically not the same as emoting that evolution is the religion of the antichrist. (January 2, 2014)

You've probably already read that I take reality "as is." I do not expect God to conform to what folks in Mesopotamia thought several thousand years back, or to what a Calvinist bishop thought, a few centuries ago.

I think that this universe is not static. Things change. (Catechism, 302)

Because I am Christian and a Catholic, I also believe that God:
  • Exists
  • Created everything
  • Is constantly sustaining everything
  • Uses secondary causes
This is not inconsistent with my belief that God does, on rare occasions, get obviously involved. We call those incidents "miracles." (Catechism, 279-308, Glossary)

Hammers and Architects

I don't see how an immense, ordered creation can show that an infinite, orderly Creator does not exist.

I also do not see how learning about the processes by which this creation continues to exist can threaten a reasoned belief in God.

That would be as silly, I think, as studying how buildings are made and coming up with this conclusion (September 7, 2010):
  • Hammers are involved in the creation of buildings
  • Hammers are not architects
  • Hammers exist
  • Therefore there are no architects
Enough about the big-picture stuff. Now, about beetles - - -

Bombardier Beetles

These remarkable creatures can produce a boiling-hot mix of water and other chemicals in a specialized chamber at their rear end.

It's an effective defense mechanism, and as wildly improbable as the electroreceptors in the bill of a platypus, or the photoreceptors in a cephalopod's eyes.

Although I would not expect to convince a creationist that a bombardier beetle's design came about through the process we call evolution, or a born-again atheist that God sustains existence: this critter isn't as inexplicable as it seems.

Modular Design and the Bombardier Beetle's Butt

Animals in general have mechanisms inside their cells which produce chemicals used in the bombardier beetle's specialized glands. As I've said before, life is remarkably modular at the cellular level.

All insects have some of the bombardier beetle's mechanisms, and some beetles have everything except the bombardier beetle's unique defense mechanism.

We haven't found fossils which show the intermediate steps, yet: but I'm pretty sure that this critter evolved.

Insects, beetles included, have hard shells we call exoskeletons. The critters produce chemicals which, when combined, form a brownish substance that helps harden that exoskeleton. Their bodies also produce foul-smelling substances from the same sort of chemicals, storing them in small sacs below their 'skin.'

Basically, their bodies keep little stink bombs under the skin.

Living cells produce hydrogen peroxide. In the bodies of some beetles, hydrogen peroxide gets mixed with catalysts — producing heat and pressure which forces the stink bomb contents out of the beetle.

Beetles with these stink bombs have muscles that keep the bombs from leaking. In the bombardier beetle, these muscles also work a valve that controls the discharge.

The process that changed stink bombs into the bombardier beetles' pepper spray gun only happened once: far enough back for 500 species of the critters to develop, and spread to every continent except Antarctica. My guess is that eventually we'll find enough fossilized beetle parts to work out when and where it happened.

Interestingly, bombardier beetles are unique: unlike tetrapods with wings. That happened three times that we know of so far: bats, birds and pterosaurs; and that's almost another topic.

1. Neanderthal Heritage


(From Bence Viola, via ScienceDaily, used w/o permission.)
"View of the cave in Siberia where the Neanderthal was found whose DNA was analyzed in the current study."
"Neanderthals' genetic legacy: Humans inherited variants affecting disease risk, infertility, skin and hair characteristics"
Harvard Medical School, ScienceDaily (January 29, 2014)

"Remnants of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans are associated with genes affecting type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease, lupus, biliary cirrhosis and smoking behavior. They also concentrate in genes that influence skin and hair characteristics. At the same time, Neanderthal DNA is conspicuously low in regions of the X chromosome and testes-specific genes....

"...'Now that we can estimate the probability that a particular genetic variant arose from Neanderthals, we can begin to understand how that inherited DNA affects us,' said David Reich, professor of genetics at HMS and senior author of the paper. 'We may also learn more about what Neanderthals themselves were like.'

"In the past few years, studies by groups including Reich's have revealed that present-day people of non-African ancestry trace an average of about 2 percent of their genomes to Neanderthals...."
Remains of this particular Neanderthal were in a cave, quite a few of us lived in caves in the 'good old days,' and I've opined about "cave men" before. (December 20, 2013)

Maybe I'm a bit sensitive about the "cave man" stereotype because I'm descended from folks who lacked the good sense to stay where humanity didn't have to take shelter in caves, and that's another topic. Topics.

Folks whose ancestors stayed in Africa missed out on the Neanderthal heritage, since Neanderthals stayed in Europe and Eurasia.

Scientists have studied Neanderthal DNA at particular spots on the human genome, but this is the first time that all of our genetic code was searched for Neanderthal ancestry. Reich and the others also started looking at how our Neanderthal heritage affects us.

"Most Exciting:" What's Not There

"...Reich and colleagues -- including Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany -- analyzed genetic variants in 846 people of non-African heritage, 176 people from sub-Saharan Africa, and a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal whose high-quality genome sequence the team published in 2013.

"The most powerful information the researchers used to determine whether a gene variant came from a Neanderthal was if the variant appeared in some non-Africans and the Neanderthal but not in the sub-Saharan Africans.

"Using this and other types of information, the team found that some areas of the modern non-African human genome were rich in Neanderthal DNA, which may have been helpful for human survival, while other areas were more like "deserts" with far less Neanderthal ancestry than average.

"The barren areas were the 'most exciting' finding, said first author Sriram Sankararaman of HMS and the Broad Institute. 'It suggests the introduction of some of these Neanderthal mutations was harmful to the ancestors of non-Africans and that these mutations were later removed by the action of natural selection.'..."
(Harvard Medical School, ScienceDaily)
Two parts of today's human genome are particularly lacking in Neanderthal genes: the X chromosome, and parts involved in male fertility. The pattern suggests that many children with Neanderthal and non-Neanderthal parents may have been infertile.

That's really odd, since even the most unrelated groups today have no trouble having healthy children when we get together. Neanderthals were different from today's average human: but not that different, and they hadn't been a distinct group for more than about 500,000 years. That's a very short time, on the evolutionary scale.

Possible fertility issues aside, Neanderthals may have passed along some useful traits.

Neanderthal DNA shows up in genes affecting keratin filaments: fibrous protein that strengthens skin, hair, and nails. That may have come in handy as my ancestors moved into some of Earth's less hospitable climates.

Trying to Quit Smoking? Thank — or Blame — the Neanderthals

"...The researchers also showed that nine previously identified human genetic variants known to be associated with specific traits likely came from Neanderthals. These variants affect diseases related to immune function and also some behaviors, such as the ability to stop smoking. The team expects that more variants will be found to have Neanderthal origins...."
(Harvard Medical School, ScienceDaily)
Human behavior isn't hardwired, but some of us find particular activities easier than most: or harder. For example, folks with particular genes are more likely to get hooked on smoking. (ScienceDaily (March 27, 2013))

I noticed that this Harvard Medical School article was curiously vague about whether Neanderthal genes made it easier for folks to stop smoking: or harder. A hundred years ago I could have assumed that since the Ivy League boys weren't specific, they'd discovered that non-Africans had inherited a weakness from folks who were most sincerely not British.

I'd like to think that folks at Harvard were less tense about that sort of purity. After all, they let an African-American and a Jew graduate in the 1870s. They even allowed Catholic students, and that's yet another topic.

If Neanderthal genes make it harder to stop smoking, we may have another 'why the Neanderthals died out' explanation coming. I doubt that our cousins chain smoked themselves to extinction, but impaired ability to control bad habits could have been lethal in ice age Europe and Eurasia.

2. Event Horizons, Revisited


(From ESO/S. Gillessen/MPE/Marc Schartmann, via LiveScience.com, used w/o permission.)
"This fascinating space wallpaper shows a simulation of a gas cloud passing close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy in mid-2013."
"Black Holes Get Even Weirder with New Stephen Hawking Theory"
Tia Ghose, LiveScience (January 27, 2014)

" Black holes may be even weirder than scientists had thought, according to a new paper by famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.

"The paper, which attempts to resolve a paradox between the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics, was published Jan. 22 in the preprint journal arXiv.org, and has not gone through peer review.

"In the article, Hawking contends that the notion that even light cannot escape a black hole's gravitational pull once it passes a certain point — known as the event horizon — may not be true...."
I don't blame physicists for being a bit dubious about Steven Hawking's latest paper. They finally got used to event horizons and Hawking radiation: and now this. More to the point, Hawking's new paper introduces a new idea that needs to be carefully considered.

Hawking may be right this time, too: or not. Either way, scientists will be discussing this new wrinkle in black hole physics for quite while.

Steven Hawking is a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, by the way, which doesn't make him a Catholic. As far as I know, his beliefs are still agnostic. I'll get back to that.

The Firewall Paradox

"...Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts the existence of black holes — objects so incredibly massive and dense they pull everything nearby into themselves, and past a point known as the event horizon, not even light cannot escape them. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]

But two years ago, theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and colleagues discovered a wrinkle in the theory, dubbed the Firewall Paradox....
"
(Tia Ghose, LiveScience)
The next excerpt is long, but please bear with me. How reality works near black holes is one of today's more intriguing puzzles, and this article does a pretty good job of explaining what physicists are trying to learn.
"...The paradox relies on a thought experiment involving an astronaut drifting into a black hole. According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, the astronaut would approach the event horizon and then pass it, blissfully unaware of impending doom. That's because the astronaut would be in free fall, and should therefore feel the laws of physics the same as if he were anywhere else in the universe, Nature News reported....

"...But quantum mechanics ... dictates that black holes are not perfect cosmic vacuum cleaners. In 1974, Hawking theorized that black holes leak particles at their edges — a phenomenon known as Hawking Radiation.

"Given that these particles represent a type of 'information' that can escape the event horizon, Polchinski and colleagues predicted that a fiery, energetic ring should exist just inside the event horizon — at least if quantum theory holds true.

"The firewall would incinerate the astronaut before the dense core compressed the astronaut to a tiny speck....

"...The firewall messes up the notion of smooth, unwrinkled space-time at the event horizon....

"...To resolve the paradox, Hawking's new paper proposes that there is no fixed boundary of an event horizon....

"...Rather than being fixed, these apparent horizons shift wildly with the behavior of quantum particles inside the black hole. Energy and matter trying to escape the black hole's death grip would be stuck for a time, before eventually being released...."
(Tia Ghose, LiveScience)
Polchinski's firewall, if it exists, is a very definite feature in what physicists thought was a smooth, unwrinkled tract of spacetime at the event horizon. Hawking's new paper suggests that an event horizon isn't a fixed boundary, that it shifts back and forth depending on what's happening inside the black hole.

That means that information could escape from a black hole. If the new model of black holes is accurate, we still wouldn't know much about what happens inside. A physicist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton said that it would be like trying to reconstruct a burned book from its ashes.

Belief, Science, and Free Will

Wikipedia's page on Steven Hawking says that he's agnostic, so I assume that he thinks we can't know whether or not God exists. For his sake, I hope he changes his mind, but I don't assume that his agnosticism means I can't believe what he says about physics.

That would be silly. So would claiming than my faith makes me an expert on quantum mechanics: or auto mechanics, for that matter. (August 19, 2010)

It's possible to infer God's existence from the physical world. (Catechism, 282-289) But it's also possible for someone to look at this vast and ancient cosmos and assume that God isn't there.

I've run into folks who can't or won't believe that this creation implies a Creator, and others who can't or won't believe that God works on a colossal scale.

If what we observe made us believe, whether we wanted to or not, we wouldn't have free will. God could have hardwired us to go through the motions of worship and praise, like clockwork toys: but didn't.

As it is, we're free to make up our own minds. Free will makes virtue possible, but it also allows sin: and that's yet again another topic. (May 23, 2012)

3. A Swarthy Swede, Sort of


(CSIC, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"The team was surprised by the hunter gatherer's unusual colouring"
"Hunter-gatherer European had blue eyes and dark skin"
Rebecca Morelle, BBC News (January 27, 2014)
"Scientists have shed light on what ancient Europeans looked like.

"Genetic tests reveal that a hunter-gatherer who lived 7,000 years ago had the unusual combination of dark skin and hair and blue eyes.

"It has surprised scientists, who thought that the early inhabitants of Europe were fair.

"The research, led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain, is published in the journal Nature.

"The lead author, Dr Carles Lalueza-Fox, said: 'One explanation is that the lighter skin colour evolved much later than was previously assumed.'..."
I think it's too early to say that my ancestors' melanin deficiency is a recent development. This is one individual, who lived in what's now Spain. Folks living in that part of the world today aren't as pale as your stereotype Swede, which may have more to do with events of the last thousand years than this hunter-gatherer's appearance.

"This ... was Unexpected"


(J M Vidal Encina, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"The bones of the 7,000-year-old man were discovered in a cave in Spain"
"...Two hunter-gatherer skeletons were discovered in a cave in the mountains of north-west Spain in 2006....

"...Scientists were able to extract DNA from a tooth of one of the ancient men and sequence his genome.

"The team found that the early European was most closely genetically related to people in Sweden and Finland.

"But while his eyes were blue, his genes reveal that his hair was black or brown and his skin was dark.

" 'This was a result that was unexpected,' said Dr Lalueza-Fox...."
(Rebecca Morelle, BBC News)
I've said it before: it's nice when observation confirms what scientists thought; but when new facts don't fit established theories, that's exciting.

Up to now, scientists figured that when folks moved from Africa to Europe, about 45,000 years back, they quickly paled. It made sense: Europe didn't get as much sunlight as Africa, and still doesn't; humans synthesize vitamin D in our skin; and pale skin would let us get by with less light.

It made sense, and may prove to be the best explanation.

But this individual's ancestors had almost certainly been in Europe for roughly 40,000 years, and he had dark skin. Since he's related to today's Swedes, we need to take another look at skin tone, vitamin D, and Europeans.

We can get vitamin D from our skin, or from what we eat. This individual's diet would have been mostly protein, since agriculture hadn't caught on in his part of the world yet. In principle, at least, he could have gotten enough vitamin D that way.

If that's the case, Europeans didn't lose their tan until they started growing crops: adding quite a bit of starch to their diet, at the expense of the nutrients in meat.

We'll know more, as scientists find more DNA from Europe's oldest inhabitants.

4. Scorpions, Venom, and a Repurposed Protein


(From robertpaulyoung via Flickr, Inside Science; used w/o permission.)
"How The Scorpion Got Its Venom"
Joel N. Shurkin, Inside Science News Service (January 24, 2014)

"A single mutation may account for lethal animal's toxin.

"Hundreds of millions of years ago, when the ancestors of land animals crawled out of the seas and flopped on a primordial beach they learned quickly that to survive they were going to have to develop new tools for catching prey. Venom became one of these tools.

"Scientists have found that in most cases all that is required to turn a protein vital for life into a substance that can kill is a mutation in one gene.

"A group of scientists have discovered that is true of scorpions. A team led by Shunyi Zhu of the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that a common protein used as part of the scorpion's immune system was the origin of the scorpion's venom...."
Zhu and others looked at proteins called defensins. Many plants and animals use defensins to fight bacterial infections. Changing one gene that's involved in making defensins changes the protein into a venom-ready protein.

Venom would have been good for scorpions when they re-emerged from the ocean. It looks like these critters started out on comparatively dry land. Then as now, floods happened, washing some scorpions into the sea.

Living in water would have allowed scorpions to grow larger, for the same reasons that whales are bigger than elephants.

More than you probably want to know about dead scorpions:

Shrinking Scorpions and Evolution

"...Scientists think that scorpions originated on land and were eventually swept into the ocean, evolved during the time they spent there and then reemerged, perhaps 400 million years ago.

" 'I guess the emergence of toxins from defensins is a consequence of adaptation of scorpions to their decreased size that increases difficulty in capturing prey when they emerged from the seas,' Zhu said. They were larger in the water but had to shrink physically over the course of their evolution on dry land, and it became harder to kill and catch some prey. So they developed venom...."
Not that Silurian scorpions decided that they'd start producing venom. Those with venom lived longer and had more little scorpions than those without. That's the idea, anyway.

I see no problem with the idea that change happens; that natural processes happen in an orderly, knowable way: and that God has the patience and power to work on a cosmic scale.

For me, that makes more sense than believing that ancient Mesopotamians knew everything; or that evidence of mountain building and erosion, from the Hadean eon to the Holocene epoch, is a sort of intellectual booby trap.

I might as well try to believe that God looks like the dude on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Michelangelo Buonarroti's Creation of Adam fresco, detail
(From Michelangelo Buonarroti, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission)

5. Funnysaurus and the Middle Triassic


(Brian Choo, via LiveScience.com, used w/o permission.)
"This is an artist's impression of a shallow reef in the latest Middle Triassic of China. The newly discovered Fuyuansaurus acutirostris was similar to another protorosaur, Tanystropheus longobardicus (long-necked reptile in the center). © Brian Choo, 2013"
"Fuyuansaurus acutirostris: Long-Snouted Protorosaur Discovered in China"
Sergio Prostak, Sci-News.com (January 16, 2014)

"Paleontologists from the National Museums Scotland, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, have described a new genus and species of aquatic reptile that lived in the middle Triassic seas (247-235 million years ago) of the eastern Tethys Ocean.

"Protorosaurs were a diverse group of predatory reptiles that flourished from the latest Permian to the early Late Triassic in what are now Asia, Europe and North America.

They were characterized by their long necks and elongated neck vertebrae. The most bizarre of these reptiles was the long-necked Tanystropheus longobardicus, which had a neck up to 3 m
[eters] long.

Unusual among protorosaurs, the newly discovered reptile, Fuyuansaurus acutirostris, had a very elongate snout....
"
There's nothing particularly funny about "Fuyuansaurus acutirostris" but I keep hearing it as "funnysaurus" in my mind's ear.

Another funny thing: we talk about the "mind's eye," but not the mind's ear or nose; or tongue, now that I think about it: and that's still another topic.

There haven't been living protorosaurs for more than 200,000,000 years. Fuyuansaurus acutirostris' needle-like teeth tell us that the critters probably ate fish or crustaceans, which helps paleontologists fit them into the Triassic food chain.

Related posts:

Sunday, January 26, 2014

"When Fishermen Fish"

Readings for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany:

Third Sunday after Epiphany 2014

By Deacon Lawrence N. Kaas
January 26, 2014

This past week, as is my custom, I was out at Tutti-Frutti for lunch and of course you get to know the guys and gals and so, I said to one of the men, what was in his plans. He said I'm going fishing, the heat is turned up in fish-house and It's nice and warm I can't wait to go fishing.

So I'm back in my nice warm house and am preparing to write this homily. Wouldn't you know that one of the homily helps I picked up was titled When Fishermen Fish.

The details of the story are of a dad and his son who invite another young man to go fishing early in the spring, they could hardly wait.

So they load up the camper and head for the lake, it's nighttime by the time they arrive and so they set up and climb in the sleeping bags for the night. The next morning the weather is miserable, the wind is blowing, the lake is choppy, they can't go fishing.

But they brought along Monopoly and a Reader's Digest and spent the day, in the camper, even telling a few jokes.

That night again they crammed themselves into sleeping bags dreaming of fishing and once again when they wake in the morning they hear sleet hitting the top of the camper, so once again they must spend the day in the camper playing Monopoly, reading Reader's Digest and telling a few jokes.

The next day it was even colder and they could not go fishing, having dreamed of spending the day out on the lake in the sunshine and warmth of the sun, was all dashed. So they go home irritable and grumpy.

The dad learned an important lesson, that it was not so much about fishing, but about people. He says later, when those who are called the fish don't fish, they fight.

This is important for those of us who are members of a church to realize that when we don't fish, we fight. We may give lip service to bringing people into the family of Christ but like many churches we give up fishing long ago and are willing to accept the way things are, when fishermen don't fish, problems arise.

By this time all of you know the story of Jesus calling his disciples, Peter, James, John and how that they were all Fishermen. And how Jesus promised that they would be fishers of men. But their call is hardly in place when the mother of Zebedee's son, James and John, came to Jesus and asking a favor for her sons, and so wouldn't you know the argument begins who was to be the greatest. When fishermen don't fish, it is true, they fight.

Another story in the early days of the backcountry around 1770: there was a minister named of Charles from the Church of England. Assigned to the countryside of North and South Carolina. His first experience of preaching was rather crude and dramatic because the opposition brought all their dogs. He counted 57 of them.

So when he tried to preach all the dogs were howling and barking and fighting with each other, finally he had to give up and go home, only one dog followed him. Later in the day he sends this one dog back to its home with a message, maybe, he can do some good for you.

It's also true that when fishermen don't fish, they run away.

You recall the story of Simon Peter in the courtyard when Jesus is being interrogated and he is approached by a woman who seemed to know him, but he denied it. Sometime later someone else seemed to recognize him as a Galilean but he denied knowing Christ, three times this happened. Then he remembers what Jesus said, "before the cock crows" -- . For when fishermen don't fish they run away.

Another story of a little girl, her name was Twila and her mother was Winnifred.

They lived across the street from the First Baptist Church. An outreach from the church cause them to be a part of their effort to become a member and asked to be baptized.

Well apparently in that church it just doesn't happen. There has to be a consensus of the congregation before one can be brought into the congregation by baptism.Three times they were rejected and finally Dr. Williamson stood up and said he would like to talk with anyone who wanted to be part of a church who would welcome individuals like Twila and Winnifred. 300 people stood with him and so they founded a new church.

43 years later that's church is still going under strong leadership. For you see Twila and Winnifred were of color.

When fishermen don't fish they fight and when fishermen don't fish, they run away. And when fishermen don't fish, they forget.

Remembering to the story of Jesus' appearance to His disciples by the Sea of Galilee, it happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas also known as Didymus, Nathaniel from the from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and the other disciples were gathered together.

Peter said I'm going fishing and they said we'll go with you so they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Why did they catch nothing? I suppose you could say they caught nothing, simply, because that is not what and where they were supposed to be.

Jesus wanted to make them fishers of men and they were still content to fish for fish?

Of course we all know very well that fishing for people is harder than fishing for fish. We are all called to go fishing, even though a nice warm fish houses is inviting, and heaven forbid, that I should criticize anyone who finds comfort and peace in a nice warm fish house.

But, please keep in mind when fishermen don't fish, they fight. When fishermen don't fish, they run away. When fisherman don't fish, problems arise. When fishermen don't fish, they forget.

Someone said that there is a thin line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot. Maybe it's time we risk looking like an idiot for Christ sake. Let us get back to our primary task reaching out to and ministering to people.

Let us all go fishing.

So you all be Good, be Holy, preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words.

'Thank you' to Deacon Kaas, for letting me post his reflection here.

More reflections:
Related posts:

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Internet as "a Gift From God"


(Lars Jenssen, via Wired, used w/o permission.)
(A frame from "Flight Patterns:" 24 hours of airplane tracking data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration.)

Television and the telephone were destroying civilization when I was in high school. Teens didn't communicate any more, overwrought experts said. They'd spend hours a day, talking on the telephone: when they weren't watching television.

These day's it's texting and the Internet, but the attitude is the same.

Fear and Phaedrus

Fear of newfangled technology is nothing new. Plato wrote Phaedrus, one of his dialogues, about two dozen centuries back. In Phaedrus, Socrates warns an Athenian aristocrat that widespread use of writing could mean the end of civilization as he knew it.

Socrates was right. (Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (August 23, 2009))

I haven't learned to memorize poems and lists the way Socrates probably did. In that sense, I don't have the sort of understanding that the Greek philosopher possessed.

On the other hand, I can read about what Socrates said because Plato wrote that dialog. Despite Socrates' warning, ancient Greeks started using the information storage and retrieval technology we call writing.

Nuggets of Wisdom, Mountains of Gibberish

In large part because writing caught on, I've got access to several thousand years of accumulated wisdom. I've also learned how to separate nuggets of wisdom from mountains of gibberish. Just as spoken words don't necessarily express truth and beauty, preserving ideas in writing doesn't guarantee their value.

Like any other tool, folks can use writing to help or hurt others. That doesn't make writing good or bad. It's how we use it. The same goes for all science and technology. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2292-2294)

Living with Information

The Pope said something on Friday about how we use Information Age technology. Some of what he said sounds like the same old attitude toward newfangled ideas:
"...The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. The variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests...."
("Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter," Pope Francis (January 24, 2014))
I don't feel overwhelmed by the flood of information that's available today. The Internet finally made it possible for me to get at resources fast enough to satisfy my thirst for knowledge.

Not everybody feels that way. My son recently told me that I'm the only person he knows who learns just for the sake of learning.

Pope Francis isn't imitating Socrates, though:
"...In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another ... The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God...."
("Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter," Pope Francis (January 24, 2014))

Doing Good: or Not

Getting back to what Pope Francis said, I could exceed my "capacity for reflection and judgment," or join the folks who "barricade themselves behind sources ... which only confirm their own wishes or ideas...."

That would be a bad idea. For one thing, I have to be a good citizen. (Catechism, 2238-2243)

That won't happen if all I read is what the 'correct' people write. In a way, I prefer contemporary hostility toward Catholicism to clueless acceptance, and that's almost another topic. (November 18, 2010)

Like any other tool, folks can use social media to do good: or not.
"...The world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us. We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind.

While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement....
"
("Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter," Pope Francis (January 24, 2014))
I think the principle behind netiquette is in that last sentence: "...communication is ultimately a human rather than a technological achievement...." Remembering, or learning, that folks on the other end of a connection are "real" people is a start. My opinion.

"...We are all Human Beings, Children of God..."

"...People only express themselves fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted...."

"...Communication is really about realizing that we are all human beings, children of God...."
("Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter," Pope Francis (January 24, 2014))
As I've said before, the basic rules are simple but not easy: Love God, love your neighbor, and see everyone as our neighbor. (Matthew 5:43-44, 22:36-40, Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-30; Catechism, 1825)

And that's another topic.


(Lars Jenssen, via Wired, used w/o permission.)
("Dandelion," interactive art from the Decode exhibition.)

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Friday, January 24, 2014

Ceres, a Comet, and Venusian Water

Water on Ceres is a scientific curiosity today. That could change in just a few decades.
  1. Water on Ceres
  2. Rosetta Wakes Up
  3. Venus: Old Data, New Analysis

Remembering Barsoom


(From Tom Ruen, Eugene Antoniadi, Lowell Hess, Roy A. Gallant, HST; via NASA; used w/o permission.)

We knew that Mars had an atmosphere, but not much water, when I was in high school. It was remotely possible that plants of some sort lived there, since astronomers has seen dark areas change shape and color with Martian seasons. Some thought Venus might support life, too, but we knew even less about that planet.

In November of 1964 Mariner 4 sent back photos of Mars. It looked a lot like the moon. No canals, no Barsoomian cities. Just craters.


(From NASA, used w/o permission.)

About two years earlier, Mariner 2 had gone past Venus. Scans showed that the planet was hot: about 900° Fahrenheit.

We kept sending robotic explorers to these planets anyway.

Mars almost certainly never produced Percival Lowell's imagined civilization, but we've found ice just under the surface, what's left of rivers, and — maybe — an ancient seabed. Venus may have water, too: locked deep in the planet's mantle.

Curiosity and Being Human

I knew someone who said that the sun goes around Earth, because it says so in the Bible. I've read Joshua 10:12-13 too, but my faith isn't dependent on pre-Copernican cosmology.1

As a Catholic, I'm expected to read the Bible. But I don't consult Sacred Scripture when my computer acts up: and that's another topic. (January 14, 2011)

Being curious about this wonder-filled universe is okay. So is using what we've learned to help each other. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2292-2296)

But no matter how curious we are, or how much we want to help someone, we're not allowed to help one person by hurting another. That's where ethics comes in. (Catechism, 1753)


(image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Humanity's Job Description

We're made "in the image of God." (Genesis 1:26)

Genesis 1:28 outlines part of our job description:
"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.' "
(Genesus 1:28)
We don't own the universe. It's not ours to rip apart if we like. We're stewards, given the responsibility of maintaining and developing resources for each other, and for future generations. (Catechism, 2415-2418)

Science and Technology: Learning the Right Lesson

I don't see how we can do our job without learning as much as we can, and developing technology to apply that knowledge.

Thanks in part to appalling mistakes made at the industrial revolution's height, fashionable belief in Progress with a capital "P" has been replaced with fashionable antipathy toward science and technology. Both are silly, in my considered opinion.

Cleaning up the mess left by folks in the 19th and early 20th centuries will take generations: but the problem wasn't science and technology. It was short-sighted, greedy use of these tools.

We can do better, and are learning to do so.

More of my take on science, technology, and stewardship:

1. Water on Ceres


(From IMCCE-Observatoire de Paris/CNRS/Y.Gominet, B. Carry; via Space.com; used w/o permission.)
"An artist's impression of water outgassing from two sources on the dwarf planet Ceres, which is also the largest asteroid in the solar system."
"Water Found on Dwarf Planet Ceres, May Erupt from Ice Volcanoes"
Tanya Lewis, Space.com (January 22, 2014)

"Astronomers have discovered direct evidence of water on the dwarf planet Ceres in the form of vapor plumes erupting into space, possibly from volcano-like ice geysers on its surface.

"Using European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, scientists detected water vapor escaping from two regions on Ceres, a dwarf planet that is also the largest asteroid in the solar system. The water is likely erupting from icy volcanoes or sublimation of ice into clouds of vapor.

" 'This is the first clear-cut detection of water on Ceres and in the asteroid belt in general,' said Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain, leader of the study detailed today (Jan. 22) in the journal Nature...."
Ceres was an asteroid in my youth, now it's a dwarf planet. Ceres didn't change: we've learned more about the Solar system, relabeling some places in the process.

The ESA's discovery isn't a surprise, it's a welcome confirmation that there's water in Ceres: possibly chemically bonded to its soil or rocks, maybe as a subterranean ocean. (Apathetic Lemming of the North (March 5, 2009))

Maybe that should be subcererian ocean. I still feel odd, writing about geology of Mars, and that's yet another topic.

Finding water on Ceres is important, at least for folks studying how the dwarf planet formed. Küppers says that water on Ceres supports the idea that the orbit of planets changed quite a bit in the early Solar system. It also may explain why Ceres and Vesta are so different.

Water vapor transports heat quite effectively. Water boiling off Ceres may have cooled that dwarf planet down so rapidly that it didn't have time to lose its water and end up like Vesta. Make that water sublimating off Ceres.

Right now, finding water on Ceres is close to being pure science: an answer to a question which expands the archive of humanity's knowledge, but is of little practical value.

A few decades from now, water in Ceres might make the dwarf planet economically important, as coal made south Wales important from around 1800 to the late 1900s.

Not that I think we'll have a 22nd century water miners' strike.

2. Rosetta Wakes Up


(From ESA, used w/o permission.)
"Team cheering at ESOC after successful signal is received from Rosetta."
"Rosetta comet-chaser phones home"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (January 20, 2014)

"Rosetta, Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft, has woken from its slumber.

"A signal confirming its alert status was received by controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, at 18:17 GMT. Rosetta has spent the past 31 months in hibernation to conserve power as it arced beyond the orbit of Jupiter on a path that should take it to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August.

"Engineers will now finesse the probe's trajectory and prepare its instruments for the daring encounter.

"One of the highlights of the mission will be the attempt to put a small robotic lander, Philae, on the surface of the 4.5km-wide comet. This will occur in November...."
Maybe "will occur in November" means "is expected to occur in November" in British English. I'm sure that ESA is doing a good job, and hope that Philae lands in November of this year. But accidents happen.

Comets don't have the reputation for failed missions that Mars does: but we haven't sent as many robots to comets. The score so far: Mars, 21 successful missions out of 51 attempts; comets, 14 successful from 19 attempts.

Destination: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko


(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)

Rosetta is headed for 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a comet that crossed the orbit of Jupiter recently and is headed inwards.

The comet's orbit changed in 1959 when Jupiter and the comet came close enough for 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to get pulled into its current path.

It's the sort of gravity assist used by Voyager spacecraft, in reverse. Someone worked out the math around 1918. We didn't have spaceships then, and that's still another topic.

Rosetta's lander will use its Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer and other instruments to analyze 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's surface. Other sensors in the orbiter will map and scan the comet: assuming that all goes well.

We've learned that material in at least some comets formed in water, which couldn't have happened if the "dirty snowball" theories were correct. As I've said before, it's nice when research confirms a theory or hypothesis: and exciting when it doesn't.

Thar's Water in Them Thar Comets

I'm interested in comets partly because they're made of valuable elements like carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. We don't see ads telling us to invest in nitrogen and oxygen because these elements are as common as the air we breathe: literally.

I don't think we'll see a space age replay of the big gold rushes, with oxygen taking the place of gold: but volatile substances will be very valuable.

Our robotic spacecraft get along without air, food, and water. We can't.

Lunar expeditions, or near-earth-orbit installations like the International Space Station, carry supplies or rely on regular cargo runs from Earth. That won't work as we move farther out.

Living off the land, or ISRU as NASA calls it, may be the only practical option for explorers. For settlers, it's the only option, period. I'll get back to that.

More about comets and ESA's Rosetta mission:

3. Venus: Old Data, New Analysis


(From USSR/NASA National Space Science Data Center, via LiveScience, used w/o permission.)
"Thirty-year-old Data Offers New View Of Venus"
Jessica Orwig, ISNS, via LiveScience (January 18, 2014)

"In 2010, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbiter observed that twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen atoms were escaping from Venus into space. This was the first evidence that Venus might once have harbored puddles, pools and even lakes of liquid water on its surface. Now, a new study suggests that Venus could be storing some amount of intact water molecules within its mantle.

"To determine this, Justin Filiberto, a geologist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, compared what geologists know about the composition of rocks on the surface of Venus with rock formation processes here on Earth. His results, which appeared in the December issue of the journal ICARUS, suggest that some types of rocks on Venus could only have formed in the presence of water and carbon dioxide...."
The Soviet Union launched a half-dozen missions to Venus between 1981 and 1984. Three were particularly successful.

Venera 13 collected and analyzed soil samples, and sent back a color picture of the Venusian surface. The lander sent back data for 127 minutes before going silent. Venera 14 lasted 57 minutes on the surface. Vega 2's lander lasted 56 minutes.

That's doing pretty well, considering the environment. Air pressure was 94 times Earth's, the temperature nearly 869 87 °F: 465 °C.

Other robot spaceships landed on Venus, including some sent by NASA. BBC Says that Venera 13, 14, and Vega 2 sent back the most comprehensive reports of what's in the soil of Venus.

An Assayer's Report, or Venus Revisited

"Most comprehensive" isn't "complete." For example, we know how much titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide was in the samples: but not how much sodium.

We do have detailed data about similar rocks on Earth. Filiberto says that Venera 14 and Vega 2 samples contained crystal structures similar to basalts on Earth: the sort formed in the upper mantel, where there's a little water and not as much pressure as deeper in our planet.

Venera 13's landed on a bit of high ground called Phoebe Regio. Samples taken there resemble rocks formed deeper in Earth's mantle, from magma rich in carbon. Occam's Razor suggests that the Venusian rocks formed deep within Venus.

Pioneer Over Venus


(From NASA Ames Research Center, U.S Geological Survey and Massachusetts Institute of Technology; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)

NASA's Pioneer Venus 1 orbiter could "see" the Venusian surface with radar. NASA, Ames Research Center, the USGS, and MIT made the topographic map up there from Pioneer's data.

Under the clouds, Venus looks a little like Earth. There's even a sort of continent near the north pole. We're learning that Venus has 'earthquakes,' and almost certainly volcanic eruptions. There's tectonic activity: but not plate tectonics. That may or may not have something to do with the astonishingly high temperatures and thick atmosphere of Venus.

Under the Clouds of Venus


(From NASA Ames Research Center, U.S Geological Survey and Massachusetts Institute of Technology; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)

I made a globe of Venus by wrapping another topographic map around a sphere. Then I decided to have a little fun.

Terraforming, changing another planet's environment into something suitable for our sort of life, is a fairly new word. On the other hand, folks changing the landscape to suit their needs is nothing new. (October 11, 2013)

My guess is that we'll "terraform" other planets a few acres at a time, as needed to support explorers or settlers: probably starting with Mars.

Venus 2.0

Venus is a much closer match to Earth than Mars: except for temperatures hotter than Mercury's, sulfuric acid rain in the upper atmosphere, and air pressure about 94 times what we're used to. On top of that, a day and a year on Venus take very roughly the same amount of time.

Maybe humanity won't ever get around to terraforming Venus. It would be a huge project.

Even after tapping water locked in the Venusian mantle, converting the atmosphere into something that's non-toxic, and probably speeding the planets rotation up to something like Earth's - - - you get the picture.

If we do decide that making Venus into something resembling the tropical wonderland imagined by artists like Frank R. Paul, it still won't have dinosaurs, munchkin villages, and bipedal amphibious flying squirrels.

Or maybe it will. We've already made glow-in-the dark pigs and cats. I can imagine someone deciding that Venus 2.0 would be more inviting if we stocked it with graceful pterosaurs: or maybe those things are enormous herons.

As long as we don't hurt people in the process, I don't see an ethical problem with terraforming Venus. (October 25, 2013)

Customizing critters for the new environment adds another layer of ethical concerns: but I don't see a problem there, either. Not in the basic idea. (November 22, 2013)



A thousand or so years from now, maybe we'll have the technology and economic need for a terraformed Venus.

It might resemble my second globe: after we've cooled the planet off, converted the carbon dioxide/nitrogen atmosphere to the oxygen/nitrogen mix we use, added prodigious quantities of water, and kick-started ground cover growth near the coastlines. My guess is that the process will take centuries, probably more.

Looking at snow cover on the highest land, I suspect there's going to be a lively debate between folks who want a tropic paradise and winter sports enthusiasts. And that's yet again another topic.

More about Venus:
Related posts:

1 I know the popular version of Galileo Galilei's run-in with the Catholic Church. (October 26, 2009)

I also know that he was a member of the Vatican science academy before his abrasive personality struck sparks on Reformation-era politics.

My native culture's tale of a noble scientist attacked by ignorant papists is only slightly more accurate than that of George Washington tossing a silver dollar across the Potomac. That sort of discrepancy between fact and folklore helped me become a Catholic, and that's — you guessed it — another topic.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

St. Peter's Square: Tradition, Antiquity, and the Pope's Sundial

The Catholic Church is about two millennia old. (Matthew 16:18)

The Church has a reputation for being old-fashioned, outdated, and generally obsolete. I don't see it that way, although we don't keep up with the latest fads.

Some things we can't change, like the Decalog. The Pope and the Magisterium have considerable authority: but they don't outrank God. Not even close. (October 19, 2011)

Vatican II, Real and Imagined

I've run into Catholics who seem to believe that the Church should be exactly the way it was in the 'good old days:' 1950, give or take a decade. Rose-colored memory is a wonderful thing, and that's another topic.

They're usually upset about wackadoo version of Vatican II committed in too many parishes.

That's understandable. Cockeyed "reforms" done "in the spirit of Vatican II," had about as much to do with the II Vatican Council as the Three Stooges' "Disorder in the Court" had to do with America's Constitution.

Maybe lurid stories sold more papers. I don't know. The reality isn't nearly as titillating:
I've ranted about science, religion, and clueless reporting before. (May 24, 2013)

Ancient, Not Old-Fashioned

The Catholic Church is old, ancient. But we're not old-fashioned.

Folks can be very fond of their culture's traditions, habits and customs passed along generation to generation. I like some traditions, but realize that "we've always done it this way" doesn't necessarily mean "this makes sense." (August 20, 2012)

Catholics have developed quite a few traditions over the last two millennia, which isn't quite the same as our Tradition.

What the Church means by Tradition, with a capital "T," is not clinging to antique habits:
"TRADITION: The living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession in the Church. Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (75-82). The theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions of the local churches both contain and can be distinguished from this apostolic Tradition (83)."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary) [with links added]
Bottom line? "Tradition" isn't "torpor," "authoritative" isn't "autocratic," and what's new isn't necessarily bad. Neither is what's old.

St. Peter's Square: Antiquity and a Repurposed Obelisk


(From François Malan, via Wikimedia commons, used w/o permission.)

That's St. Peter's Square, a huge public area in Vatican City: world capital of the Catholic Church. I speak American English, so I call it the Vatican, or the Holy See.

Either way, it's where the Pope's church and offices have been since before the current iteration of Western civilization started.

The building with columns and a dome is St. Peter's Basilica., the Pope's church.1 There's been a church there for nearly 17 centuries, and the site's been important to Christians for about two thousand years.

Some of what you see is ancient. The column is an obelisk from the Fifth dynasty of Egypt. One Roman emperor moved it to Alexandria, another had it shipped to Rome, and it's been there ever since.

St. Peter's Square is fairly new. Domenico Fontana had the obelisk moved to the square in 1568, and over the next century or so a succession of architects designed and re-designed St. Peter's Square.

The Pope's Sundial, or Getting a Grip

Someone converted the obelisk into a titanic sundial in 1817 by setting paving stones in an arc around it. Now the obelisk's shadow touches a stone at noon, each time the sun enters another sign of the zodiac.

Many folks have sundials that mark the passage of hours. The Pope's marks the passage of months.

By now, a Maria Monk wannabe has probably written a book about the 'superstitious' Catholic Church: based on that arc of stones, the zodiac, and unfounded assumptions.

I'm pretty sure that some of the billion-plus living Catholics are superstitious. We're not perfect people.

We're also not allowed to be superstitious, or dabble in any sort of divination, including astrology. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2110-2111, 2116)

There's nothing in the rules that says we can't have fun, though. Moving on.

Controversial Architecture, Then and Now


(From Lalupa, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

The Saint Apollinaris church is more than a dozen centuries old, but what you see in front is fairly new. Pope Benedict XIV commissioned a renovation project in 1742. The facade is a mix of ancient, 16th century, and baroque styles.

That sort of mix-and-match design gives some folks fits, but I like it. Saint Apollinaris isn't in Vatican City, but it's close: about a mile east of Vatican City.

Back in the 16th century, folks in Italy were enthusiastically copying architectural styles used by ancient Greeks and Romans.

In sharp contrast to that sort of "civilized" architecture, folks in northern Europe were designing gothic churches and cathedrals. It's easy to forget that at the time, "gothic" meant barbaric.

A half-millennia later, places of worship built in the Gothic or Greco-Roman style are what many folks think of as "real" churches.

I strongly suspect that a thousand years from now, someone's going to be fussing about the newfangled parish church, built in a new style: not at all like the good, decent, glass-and-steel churches we've "always" built.

Crystal Cathedral, Anaheim/Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau
(Adapted from Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau, used w/o permission)

My parish church is a basilica, by the way: the same ancient style as St. Peters, but nowhere near as big or fancy. I like it: but I also like Gothic cathedrals, baroque architecture, the design of Himeji Castle, and that's yet another topic.

Related posts:

1 Oops. A tip of the hat to Alex Scrivener, for catching an error in this post. I had, incorrectly, said that St. Peter's Basilica is a cathedral. It's not.

St. Peter's Basilica is Vatican City's most famous church, and the traditional (lower case "t") site of some major celebrations.

It is not, however, a cathedral. The Diocese of Rome's cathedral church is St. John Lateran: that's where the Pope's ecclesiastical seat is.

Sorry about the mix-up. While writing this post, I was focused on the architecture and history of St. Peter's: not its function in the church.

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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.