Myriad

Last year, I tried playing around with Terragen hoping that I can create extrasolar terrains. Due to my limited time, I wasn't able to produce good images, or shall I say "stunning" images, capturing my imagination.

I am always a fan of planetary artists and I always love to see myriad terrains produced by these artists. Here are some of the artworks of the different planetary artists from Pandromeda. I hope someday I can also create images like these.

Irene Alora

Armands Auseklis

JBA

Ashley Parker

Robert Buttery

Other Artists

What’s With Molybdenum?

While browsing through the items of my bookmarks, I came across a very interesting, in scientific perspective, website which I saved long time ago (I cannot remember the date anymore). This website is dedicated to answer the questions of our existence, of life, of the possibility of other life forms beyond the confine of our planet, and even of our system. A small patch in the immense manifold of cyberia, this site exists to provide us bits of information, insights of different scientific papers, ideas of different scientists about a new field called Astrobiology – life in our Universe (not just within the boundaries of out planet but all through the space of our cosmos).

When I opened the site, I was intrigued by one article. This article caught my attention and commanded by eyes to read through it. It was insightful, the science of heavy metal in connection with the progress of the evolution of life here on earth. How the hell is Molybdenum connected to the delays of the evolution of complex organism, such as ourselves, here on earth?

To answer this, please read the article below from the Astrobiology website:

Missing Molybdenum
Based on an Arizona State University news release

International team of scientists discover clue to delay of life on Earth.

Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth’s ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. They have discovered that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth for nearly 2 billion years. The findings provide an important example of connections between the evolution of life and the environment of Earth.

The findings, which appear in the March 27 issue of Nature, come as no surprise to Ariel Anbar, one of the authors of the study and an associate professor at Arizona State University with joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Earth and Space Exploration. The study was led by Clint Scott, a graduate student at University of California Riverside. Scott works with Timothy Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at UCR who is a long-time collaborator of Anbar’s and also an author of the paper.







“Clint’s data are an important new piece in a puzzle we’ve been trying to solve for many years,” says Anbar. “Tim and I have suspected for a while that if the oceans at that time were oxygen deficient they should also have been deficient in molybdenum. We’ve found evidence of that deficiency before, at a couple of particular points in time. The new data are important because they confirm that those points were typical for their era.”

“Clint’s data are an important new piece in a puzzle we’ve been trying to solve for many years,” says Anbar. “Tim and I have suspected for a while that if the oceans at that time were oxygen deficient they should also have been deficient in molybdenum. We’ve found evidence of that deficiency before, at a couple of particular points in time. The new data are important because they confirm that those points were typical for their era.”

Molybdenum is of interest to Anbar and others because it is used by some bacteria to convert the element nitrogen from a gas in the atmosphere to a form useful for living things – a process known as “nitrogen fixation.” Bacteria cannot fix nitrogen efficiently when they are deprived of molybdenum. And if bacteria can’t fix nitrogen fast enough, then eukaryotes – a kind of organism that includes plants, pachyderms and people – are in trouble because eukaryotes cannot fix nitrogen themselves at all.

“If molybdenum was scarce, bacteria would have had the upper hand,” continues Anbar. “Eukaryotes depend on bacteria having an easy enough time fixing nitrogen that there’s enough to go around. So if bacteria were struggling to get enough molybdenum, there probably wouldn’t have been enough fixed nitrogen for eukaryotes to flourish.”

“These molybdenum depletions may have retarded the development of complex life such as animals for almost two billion years of Earth history,” says Lyons. “The amount of molybdenum in the ocean probably played a major role in the development of early life.”

This research was motivated by a review article published in Science in 2002 by Anbar and Andy Knoll, a colleague at Harvard University. Knoll was perplexed by the fact that eukaryotes didn’t dominate the world until around 0.7 billion years ago, even though they seemed to have evolved before 2.7 billion years ago. Together, Anbar and Knoll postulated that molybdenum deficiency was the key, arguing that the metal should have been scarce in ancient oceans because there was so little oxygen in the atmosphere in those times.

In today’s high-oxygen world, molybdenum is the most abundant transition metal in the oceans. That is because the primary source of molybdenum to the ocean is the reaction of oxygen with molybdenum-bearing minerals in rocks. So the hypotheses rode on the idea that the amount of molybdenum in the oceans should track the amount of oxygen. To test that idea, Scott, Lyons and Anbar examined rock samples from ancient seafloors by dissolving them in a cocktail of acids and analyzing the rock for molybdenum content using a mass spectrometer. Many of these analyses were carried out using state-of-the art instrumentation in the W. M. Keck Foundation Laboratory for Environmental Biogeochemistry at Arizona State University. The scientists found significant evidence for a molybdenum-depleted ocean relative to the high levels measured in modern, oxygen-rich seawater.

By studying Earth’s ancient oceans, atmosphere and biology we can test how well we understand the modern environment, according to Anbar. “Our molybdenum hypothesis was inspired by the theory that biology in the oceans today is often starved for a different metal – iron – and that the lack of iron in parts of the oceans affects the transfer of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean” he says. “The idea that metal deficiency in the oceans can affect the entire planet is very powerful. Here, we are exploring the limits of that idea by seeing if it can solve ancient puzzles. These new findings strengthen our confidence that it can.”


Currently, I am looking for the copies of these papers resulting to this insight. I believe they are worth reading and will really give me handful of ideas about how we are created.

Here are some helpful links:

1. Ariel Anbar [http://knet.asu.edu/research/?getObject=asulib:60426]
2. Molybdenum Isotope Evidence for Widespread Anoxia in Mid-Proterozoic Oceans [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;304/5667/87]

(It’s quite difficult to find free copies of their papers)

In Response to the Inclusion of 2001 Space Odyssey in “10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies”

This is a response to the article posted in Yahoo - "10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies"

In Response to the Inclusion of 2001: Space Odyssey in “10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies”

I don’t know what kind of qualifications the writer used to include 2001: Space Odyssey in this list. Science geek or not, he/she should have studied carefully the points presented to include this film in her/his list of “Most Historically Inaccurate Movies.” I guess she/he was not fascinated by the storyline of that film, or simply, she/he was bored by it. For me, 2001: Space Odyssey should not be included in this list, because of the following reasons:

1. 2001: Space Odyssey is not a historical movie, but rather a predictive science fiction tracing human evolution and projecting his story in the space age.

“According to Merriam-Webster history is defined as (1) chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes b: a treatise presenting systematically related natural phenomena c: an account of a patient's medical background d: an established record, (2) a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events, and (3) a: events that form the subject matter of a history b: events of the past c: one that is finished or done for d: previous treatment, handling, or experience (as of a metal) [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/history]. On one hand wikipedia defines history as the study of the past, focused on human activity and leading up to the present day, more exactly, history is the continuous, systematic narrative and the research of events in the past of importance to the human race, including the study of events over time and their relation to humanity, those who study History as a profession are called historians.”

Whatever dictionary you are going to consult history is all about the past, and I am wondering why the author of that article considered 2001: Space Odyssey as a historical film. Maybe because of the first part of the film exploring the early ancestors of Homo sapiens, but the reason she/he gave did not exposed the inconsistency of that kernel. She/he pointed out the 2001 events shown by the film and if this is the main reason why she/he included the said film in the list, then I guess she/he totally misinterpreted Kubrick and Clarke’s 2001: Space Odyssey. That was a very unintelligent critique of the film.

2001: Space Odyssey does not tell the past story of Homo sapiens, but rather speculates and projects the future possibility of human space age. Take note this film was released in 1968, 33 years before 2001. Would you consider this as a historical film compared to 10,000 BC?

2. 2001: Space Odyssey is not historically incorrect nor scientifically inconsistent.

How come the things that were shown in the film did not happen in 2001?

Again, as I mentioned above 2001: Space Odyssey is not a historical film but rather a predictive science fiction. Everything that would happen in 2001, as based on the film, may or may not happen in 2001. They were not a historical facts deliberately twisted to satisfy the audience. In fact much most movie-goers found 2001: Space Odyssey boring because of its strict scientific exposition. Maybe this paragraph of one of the IMBD user comments will encapsulate the whole thought of the film:

“Thankfully, those that cannot appreciate Kubrick's accomplishment are still a minority. Most viewers are able to see the intelligence and sheer virtuosity that went into the making of this epic. This is the film that put the science in "science fiction", and its depiction of space travel and mankind's future remains unsurpassed to this day. It was so far ahead of its time that humanity still hasn't caught up.” – [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/]

If you are going to ask me about the certainty of those things to happen, then I will give 100%. Maybe the time estimation was not accurate but they will surely happen in the near future. Here are several movements in the Human space age where my confidence is built.

(a) Cassini-Huygens Mission – First glimpse of Titan’s soil and other features. Exploration of Saturn and her moons.

(b) Extrasolar planets discovery.

(c) International Space station and experiments conducted in the station to further enhance the knowledge of human of space exploration.

(d) Messenger – Mercury space orbiter.

(e) Mars exploration – SPIRIT and OPPORTUNITY, Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, Phoenix Mars Lander (to explore the Polar caps of Mars), and several other exploration projects.

(f) Other future projects of ESA, NASA, JAXA and other space agencies.

These new generation explorers of space will surely materialize the human dream of space age as exposed in the film.

The time to let these things happen is not that important, what is important is the vision we can derive from it. Just because of this wrong extrapolation of time, is it valid enough to consider 2001: Space Odyssey as inaccurate? If that will be case then she/he should have included hundreds of science fiction films who had committed the same mistake.

If we are just going to base the qualification on wrong scientific facts and modeling then she/he should have included several other science fiction films such as Star Trek, Star Wars, War of the Worlds, The Day The Earth Stood Still, ET, Back To The Future and Metropolis.

3. The Art of Film-making

I am not really a professional film critique but I guess I know which film is crap and which one is not. Basing on her comments, I believe the writer is just a simple movie-goer with no critical thinking skills in film critique. New generation films need not to stick hardly on the actual historical facts. If there are inconsistencies based on the historical facts, then maybe the writers or the producers did it to provide more colors, textures and emotions in the plot of the story. He/She needs to remind herself/himself that she/he is watching a movie, a film and not a historical documentary, like the one in History Channel or Discovery Channel.

Sometimes I am also disappointed with the colors and variations added in the films, because they misinform everyone and deny everyone with the actual truth of the story line. One should be wise enough to understand the philosophy, the interpretation or the variation presented by the moviemakers or writers in the film. Perfect example is “300.” Everyone knows that this is not the actual “Battle of Thermopylea” scenes but instead an adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel reconstructing the plot of the “Battle of Thermopylea”. He/She should ask Frank Miller why he drew the warriors in leather speedos. I guess it would make sense if he/she should have written about the film “The 300 Spartans” released in 1962.

2001: Space Odyssey is a unique film, a breakthrough in filmmaking and science fiction, and it’s unfair for him/her to tag it as one of the most “inaccurate”movies. I guess she/he was just bored when she/he watched it.

There are several other points that were missed by the writer of that article. But I am not going to point them out. Those three major points are enough to prove that he/she is missing the point of her/his article. He/She was simply writing the article without in-depth understanding of films and movies, as well as some underlying facts and interpretations behind the movies (some movies have but other are totally for good-feel purpose only).

I don’t know how to put it, but it seems, for me, the article has no bearing at all. He/she handled everything irresponsibly. Maybe she/he was catching up her/his deadline without doing in-depth scrutiny of what she/he had written.

On one hand, I have the same sentiments as hers when it comes to “Apocalypto,” “The Patriot,” and “10,000 BC,” because I don’t like the Heroic or Saviour complex inserted in those films.

Microworld

I can't write much of my thoughts lately because I am busy fixing the whole course of my life. Somehow I have already acknowledged the fact that I lost so much of my precious years having side trips fun. Hopefully, if the stars will favor this year, I can get back to my track.

For the meantime, I would like to share these photos of the microworld. The world of small insects never failed to fascinate me even during my childhood days.

An exposition of the Ant's World.






A Mimosa Bee Play

Content of My Heart

For MF... Give Me All Night (by Carly Simon)



(Carly Simon/Gerard McMahon)
I have no need of half of anything
No half time, no half of a man's attention
Give me all the earth and sky
And at the same time add a new dimension
Half the truth is of no use
Give it all, give it all to me
I can stand it
I am strong that way

Give me all night
Give me the full moon
And if I can't take the whole of you
Give it to me anyway
Give me all night
'Till the last star fades
And if you can't take my heart and soul
Take it from me anyway

Don't give me fountains, I need waterfalls
And, when I cry my tears'll fill an ocean
The pain of love I'll accept it all
As long as you'll join me in that emotion
Half of lovin' is no fun
Give it all, give it all to me
I can stand it
I am strong that way

Don't leave me guessing alone
Don't walk me half the way home
You can do that tomorrow
Just give me give me all night.