I Want Mars, But Not Like This

Since Curiosity landed, the scientific community has been all kinds of excited about mankind's plan for Mars. While generally, the most reputable organisations are keeping fairly low-key about their plans and expectations beyond learning a few bits of stuff, some people got really excited.

For a while, there was a fair amount of talk about Mars One. And it did seem legitimately cool. And, while it didn't seem likely to happen immediately, it didn't seem all that far-fetched in the long run. It admitted that it was a fairly new project that still required a lot of work and it was backed some really cool people, including Nobel Prize-winning CERN scientists. Who else are you going to trust with your trips to Mars?

And then this happened.

And it broke my heart.

I won't say I had the best hopes in the world for Mars One, but I really did love the idea. I thought that if something like that could really get done, then maybe humanity was finally learning something. It would finally learn to work together, to watch how a society can work when it started over from scratch. It could teach us so much about what we're doing wrong here on Earth and make a huge difference to the way society is run.

And that's on top of all the cool stuff we'd learn about Mars.

Which would have been a lot.

And would in turn have taught us more about the universe, the solar system, our own planet. We could have made so much progress from being there. It is literally a whole other world for us to explore and learn from and utilise.

And even if Mars One didn't work out like it had hoped to, it would have at least made some kind of headway in getting us to Mars. Having a well written plan might have been enough to make a difference to what other organisations are doing about space exploration.

So I feel bad for everyone involved. I'm happy that I missed out on what looked like an incredible opportunity.

I'm aware that, given Lansdorp's response, there is room to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don't think I want to. I'm sick of putting my faith into people who claim to care about something other than profits.

And what disturbs me is that once people decide this is a scam, they'll start to gradually stop caring about the genuine ventures people want to take. All too often, people make assumptions based on one experience. Or one high-profile story. And it does damage to the enthusiasm behind legitimate enterprises. And it's going to happen now.

I'm still excited about exploring Mars - about exploring all of space. I'm still going to follow Curiosity. And Cassini. And the Voyagers. Because I enjoy learning about the universe. I think it's the most exciting thing there is. Space didn't do anything wrong.

But I'm disappointed in people. And, while that's not new, it still hurts.

Finally, A Break for the Bacon-Loving Vegetarian!

A little while ago I came across this lovely story. Featuring bacon at its centre, it inevitably caught the attention of nerds (such as myself) from across the world.

Probably the chickeniest
McNugget ever made...

Basically, some clever Dutch bunnies have developed a way of growing bacon, and other kinds of meat (but mostly importantly bacon), from stem cells. This means that a burger can be grown in a lab. It means that there is no need for a chicken to live, suffer and die horribly just to end up as whatever sliver of a McNugget actually is chicken.

Although still in its early stages, this innovation has the potential to remove the need to farm animals for food from modern civilisation because meat - and all it's lovely, protein-y, meaty goodness - can go from stem cell to plate without the bother of raising and harming any animals.

Accepting for the time being that stem cells are all very well and good (which they are), this could mean massive benefits to the world. It would mean less animal cruelty on farms and it would mean that there is a more efficient way to feed the starving millions in third world countries who are in desperate need of more nutritious food.

Plus, it would mean that pigs could be bred for cuddling instead of eating...

It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!!

And now I sort of understand why you would avoid eating them...

But I do have a question for those who choose not to indulge in the general loveliness of bacon.

Look at that. How can you resist?

The point is, if you have up until now, do you still have to?

I am genuinely curious about this, but I am not really close enough to any vegetarians or vegans to demand that they read articles and offer opinions purely for my benefit. So, Intenet; it is up to you.

Excusing those people who choose not to eat meat for medical reasons, and focussing instead on those who choose to avoid meat because they think that eating the flesh of a once-living thing is immoral, would this meat be alright to eat? Would you consider trying genetically-engineered, no-animals-harmed, test-tube-to-frying-pan bacon?

Black People Officially Cool, Says Science

So, if this...

... when compared to this...

...isn't evidence enough that white guys have absolutely no innate sense of cool, then take a look at this evidence from genuine scientists that suggests that black people actually are the coolest people in the world.

Or, at least, in America. And on Twitter.

Jacob Eisenstein and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology examined thirty million tweets sent from various places within the US between December 2009 and May 2011 and watched for the emergence of new slang terms. They team built a mathematical model that precisely explains the flow of new words between cities.

It showed that areas with large African American tended to be the ones that generated the new terms. There was no conclusive evidence about why terms spread between certain places, and they could not pinpoint one specific area that produced new language more than any other.

But the overwhelming finding was the black people generally created and shared new words and phrases that were cool more than any other demographic in the world.

So, science has finally generated some evidence for the simple fact of the matter that black people are cool.

Plus, they've got the moves...

A trip to the moon for $150 million? Bargain!

Alright, so space tourism is not exactly a new idea. In 2001, an Italian-American engineer called Dennis Tito (the dude on the right) with more money than he can spend in many many lifetimes paid $20 million for the privilege of an eight-day holiday on the International Space Station. I don’t blame him for a second – if I could do it, I totally would – but, at the moment, it is somewhat out of my price range.

But hopefully not for long. Given that by "long", I mean a couple of decades. So ... hopefully not in the semi-distant future.

Starting in 2013, Virgin Galactic, as well as three other companies arranging similar ventures, will be taking paying passengers to the very edge of space that are arranging. But Virgin Galactic offers the swankiest deal for your money. The lowest price is $95,000, so it is still some time before I can afford it, but it is predicted that it will be a hell of a lot cheaper as it becomes a more common pastime. Over nine hundred people – including Ashton Kutcher – have already reserved seats on the space flights. In a matter of years, flights to the moon will become commercially available at a starting price of $150 million.

I don’t even care. I want to go. I mean, how fucking awesome does this thing look?

Regulations will state that passengers have to be over eighteen years old and have to “consent to the risk”, which essentially means that they have to agree not to sue if they have any awkward side effects. I'm weird enough not to care that much if anything else unfortunate happened to me, and I'm already over eighteen, so that's all good. Customers will be offered a medical exam beforehand, but the companies will not apply height or weight restrictions, so fat people can do it too!

In all honesty, my favourite thing about the comparative lenience of the regulations is the thought that the stag parties of very rich young men could well be held - one day - in space. Or hen parties. Or birthday parties. Or anything. As long as you and all your guests are over eighteen. But, then again, who invites anyone under eighteen out anyway? At least, not without offering them a fake ID. I accept that they are probably a bit more strict about letting me in than your average shitty club.

The trips can take anywhere between 35 minutes and 2 hours, but Virgin Galactic will put you up for five days in accommodation, during which time you will have training and medical checks with your trip on the fourth day. You also get free entry – but no coverage for the cost of travel, which sort of sucks – to exclusive events between the time you buy your ticket and go on your flight. That means you can go to parties and presentations and air shows and test flights with all the big shots and astronauts and scientists, which is pretty awesome, and probably well worth a big chunk of the ticket price. Not to mention the fact that the waiting time between buying the ticket and actually going into space could stretch to as far as a few years, so depending on how much you take advantage of this you could get a hell of a lot of awesome nerd times out of it.

And then ... this:

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation reckons that flights available from spaceports in the US will offer suborbital flights in the next couple of years and orbital flights picking up shortly after. Within ten years, prices are expected to drop to below $50,000.

It’s not impossible…

Is Evolution Really That Difficult?

No, no it's not.

A friend of mine – an intelligent, well-read, scientifically-minded friend, I might add – was recently chatting to me about an archaeological dig which had revealed a 2-million-year-old skeleton that appeared vaguely human. The significance of the story was that it was the most complete and intact skeleton that had been recovered in all the digging-up of ancient bodies. I found it quite interesting. So did he.

Then he asked if scientists had “discovered the missing link, yet, or have they given up?”

This concerned me. Of all my friends – and I have a few – he is one of the few that I might consider about as nerdy as I am. I might have imagined that he would know the answer to this question, already, particularly as it isn’t a difficult one to answer for anyone who knows much about the current state of evolutionary science.

The fact is that scientists have had the ‘missing link’ for years. There are dozens of transitional fossils between Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Homo sapiens, the oldest being about seven million years old and the most recent being, well, us. All the different species have been found in fragments and are usually separated via the skull, particularly the brow and jaw lines. As far as I was aware, the only people who don't believe in a ‘missing link’ these days are religious morons who refuse to accept evidence when it is staring them in the face, and the poor neglected people who have been brainwashed by said religious morons into not looking at evidence. On top of that, scientists are finding new links, between links, every day. There are complete lists of them all over the internet, and there was an article about a new species of Australopithecus in New Scientist magazine just a couple of months ago. I know because I bought it (I’ve wanted a subscription for a while, but couldn’t afford it, so I bought it this time because I needed a magazine for an assignment at uni, and thought it was a perfect opportunity to indulge my nerdism). I remember it because it also had a picture of Professor Brian Cox on the front, which is always a bonus.

Alright, so the evolutionary line is still not perfect and there are still some species left to be discovered. But, so what? There is enough evidence for it that there really is no room for debate about evolution any more. Religious or not, there is no empirical evidence against evolution (the Bible doesn’t count as evidence). Quite frankly, anyone who ignores all the substantial evidence for evolution is going to get dumped in with the nutter who wrote the letter on the right.