Peter Cawdron's Blog, page 17

My favorite martian

No… it’s not a low-budget 60′s TV show, it’s a 99c ebook called The Martian by Andy Weir, and it’s been optioned by Fox as a possible feature-length movie.

Paulo Ribeiro put me on to this little nugget of a book.

At first, it didn’t work for me. I read the opening chapters and found it a hard slog, but once the book found its rhythm the story moved along quite nicely and with enough twists and turns to maintain a sense of intrigue.

The story revolves around Mark Watney, an astronaut on the second expedition to Mars, a mission with a 30 day stay on the planet’s surface. During a freak storm, he’s injured and left for dead by the crew as they rush to escape before high winds tip their MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle).

In reality, within the thin Martian atmosphere, even hurricane-like storms with winds of 120mph will feel like a summer breeze on Earth. There’s just so little atmospheric mass.

Most of the Martian dust is as fine as cigarette smoke or talcum powder.

For the sake of the story, though, it’s conceivable the MAV was built from lightweight, thin, sheet-metal to save on fuel (like the ascent stage on the Lunar Module), and poor design meant it acted as a sail, catching the wind. Or perhaps the MAV landed on uneven ground and the wind exasperated an already existing lean. 

If NASA used the classic large landing pads seen on Apollo, though, with legs spread out broadly to increase stability, then the real danger from the storm wouldn’t be the wind tipping the MAV, it would be grit clogging the engine lines or erosion wearing through the insulation layers and rubber seals as the craft was effectively sand blasted by the Martian hurricane.

In any regard, Mark is stranded, and here’s where the story kicks off. Alone, with no means of contacting Earth and meagre supplies, Mark’s got to figure out how he can survive for roughly three years before the next mission arrives.

Mark Watney’s first task is growing potatoes and, honestly, this had me give up on the book for several weeks. Although it’s plausible, the writing at this point is like a long-winded question from a mathematics exam for 12 year olds. Unless you have a calculator handy and are passionately interested in running the sums, it becomes a bit tedious going through so many different scenarios.

I lost interest.

Paulo loves this book, and his enthusiasm encouraged me to give it a second go, and I’m glad I did.

As tedious as those calculations/scenarios are, an astronaut in that predicament would have to be that tenacious and resourceful to survive. I’m fairly certain he’d never eat another potato in his life once back on Earth, but on Mars, he’d have to do whatever it took to stay alive.

Beyond this point, the book kicks up a gear and the interest builds as the story expands. There’s highs and lows, there’s well-worked plans and unexpected disasters, there’s contact with Earth and humorous anecdotes, and the writing keeps you wanting to learn more about this celestial Robinson Crusoe, this Martian MacGyver. By the end, I was racing through this book, not wanting the story to stop.

Author Andy Weir has a wonderful grasp on the kinds of challenges a stranded astronaut would go through and the depth of thinking NASA would apply in such a scenario, and that makes the book fascinating to read.

At a buck, you can’t go wrong with The Martian. You’ll spend twice that on the next rubbishy candy bar you buy, and how long will that last? It won’t be as enjoyable or as healthy.

Anyway, if you’d like to idle away your time exploring the Acidalia Planitia on Mars, you’ll enjoy this plausible, lighthearted ebook.

And as for the movie, I’ll be lining up for tickets on the opening night

Is there life on Mars now?

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is still in the infancy of its exploration of Gale crater, but already there’s some tell-tale signs that support the idea that Mars was radically different in past aeons.

Mt Sharp dominates the interior of Gale crater and is the focus of Curiosity’s exploration over the next few years. Pictures can be deceiving, with 18,000 feet in elevation, Mt Sharp is higher than any of the Rocky Mountains.

Mt Sharp is all the more remarkable because it has been formed as the result of geological uplift and erosion.

Look at the separation between the oldest sedimentary layers in the lower half of this image, dating back billions of years, and the uplifted/tilted and yet still parallel sedimentary layers in the younger, upper section. Younger, being a relative term here, as these layers would date back hundreds of millions to billions of years as well, and all of this is laid down before the slow process of erosion reveals what we see today.

If there has ever been macroscopic life on Mars, this is where we’ll find fossil evidence for it, as the planet’s history is revealed here in a geological timeline stretching back billions of years, but what about life now? Could there be some form of life on Mars right now?

We looked at Mars today as a dry, inhospitable desert planet, something like the planet Tatooine from Star Wars, but Mars is more akin to the frozen deserts we see in countries like Chile and Canada, only drier and colder.

Mars has an absurdly low atmospheric pressure.

Temperatures on Mars can be as low as -125F (-87C) and rarely get above 32F (0C), but that’s not the worst Mars has to offer. Even if the Martian atmosphere was breathable (which it isn’t) the air pressure is only 8 millibars (6mmHg), which is what we experience on Earth at 100,000 ft (31,000M).

The average atmospheric pressure is so low on Mars that if you stood outside with a cup of cold water it would boil away in front of you even though its temperature remained near freezing.

With the surface of Mars bathed in solar radiation and toxic CO2, Mars is hostile to life, right?

Well, yes and no… Although this dessicated environment would be hostile to multicellular life, there are bacteria on Earth that consume CO2, can live in sub-zero temperatures (although not to these extremes) and can survive in such a thin atmosphere.

Autotroph is the term used for organisms (bacteria, plants, etc) that produce complex proteins, fats and carbohydrates from inorganic molecules in their environment, using either photosynthesis or chemosynthesis for energy. And we’ve found bacteria at altitudes of up to 50,000 ft (15,000M), so microbes from Earth would struggle to survive on Mars, but their task would not be impossible.

Here on Earth, we’ve found microbes thriving well below the surface of the planet.

Scientists recently retrieved bacteria three-quarters of a mile beneath the sea floor, reaching into a geological strata known as the gabbroic layer, something that’s significant not because of its depth, but because this is the last, lowest layer of the Earth’s crust before reaching the mantle.

Another microbe, Desulforudis audaxviator, was detected in water two miles beneath the earth within a South African gold mine.

Desulforudis audaxviator relies only on hydrogen and sulfide for food, derived from the breakdown of uranium and other radioactive elements. It’s an evolutionary hermit, having adapted to survive without the sun or oxygen, independent of any food chain. This remarkable microbe comprises an “ecosystem of one.”

And all this raises the stakes for the kind of life that could still flourish on Mars, albeit in dried up lava tubes or in the Hellas basin where higher local air pressures allow liquid water to exist close to or even on the surface, and temperatures can reach a respectable 60F (10C).

The Mars Sample Return mission is slated for 2018, but even with a two-stage return, the mission will only bring 500g of soil back to Earth. When you’re spending eight billion dollars for just over a pound of Martian soil you want to make sure you’re not bringing back beach sand.

In the Martian summer, it’s common to find water flowing out from crater walls. Such unstable ground would be difficult to negotiate, but a sample from here just might be worth eight billion dollars if it reveals life on Mars.

The little story that could

In 2011, Hugh Howey had just finishing a college writing course in science fiction. After submitting his final project, he wanted to let his brain “purge” and unwind and so started writing Wool.

Rather than writing to please others, or to craft something that was cliched, marketable and safe, Hugh wanted to write a story he’d personally like to read, and that’s what makes Wool so enjoyable.

Little did Hugh know when he finished that first short story just how far the story would go and where it would take him. Hugh expanded Wool into a character-driven dystopian novel where authoritarian structures are brought down by those with the courage to think for themselves.

Now, Hugh has an international best seller that’s had movie rights optioned to none other than Ridley Scott. Wool has a phenomenal 3,876 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8 stars.

Wool is the little story that could.

And the surprising thing is, in the history of science fiction, it’s often the novellas and the short stories that make it big. Consider these classics

I Am Legend
Minority Report
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner)
Ender’s Game (which like Wool was expanded into a novel)
We Can Remember it for you Wholesale (Total Recall)
Who Goes There? (The Thing)
I, Robot
Enemy Mine
Bicentennial Man
Johnny Mnemonic
A Sound Of Thunder

Like the original Wool, all of these are either short stories or novellas, there’s not a novel among them.

As a writer, I find this fascinating as it dispels the myth that readers are only interested in full length novels, that if it’s not a novel it’s not worth reading. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In light of this, I’ve made my novella Trixie & Me available free on Amazon. It too is a little story chugging up the literary hill.

You are here

Have you ever been lost in a mall? Or perhaps trying to find the right stop in a subway? Or lost in some giant theme park? If you have, you’ve probably come across one of the ubiquitous “You are here” signs.

And they help, right?

If you’ve lost your way, it’s helpful to know where you are so you can figure out where you want to go.

Over the past five hundred years, science has produced a number of astonishing “You are here” signposts for humanity, documenting our position in the universe, putting life in perspective.

In the 1500s, Copernicus struggled to make sense of the confusing motion of planets moving around Earth and, in a stroke of genius, realized there was a simple solution.

Copernicus realized the problem was one of biased perception, as soon as the Sun was placed at the center of the Solar System, the orbit of the planets became roughly circular and much simpler to calculate.

It all seems rather obvious to us today, but think about how counterintuitive this notion is. Five hundred years later, we still talk about sunrise and sunset even though we know it’s Earth that rotates to form a day. Somehow, the concept of a “romantic Earth turn” is not likely to replace the term sunset any time soon.

And science has continued to redefine our view of the universe around us.

Not only does Earth spin on its axis as it orbits the Sun, but the Sun is in motion as well. Our Sun orbits the Milky Way galaxy once every 250 million years. The last time we were “here” dinosaurs were standing in your living room.

And “here” is quite a concept when you stop and consider all it took to get here.

But finding our place on the map doesn’t just stop here with time and space, science has also redefined our place in biology.

Homo sapiens are part of the phylogenetic tree of life, a beautifully intricate, interrelated web of life stemming from a common origin billions of years ago. As Charles Darwin first appreciated, Natural Selection has shaped the evolution of life on Earth, leading to our lives today.

Perhaps a close up of this particular map will help put things in perspective.

Yes, that’s you (and me), right there, sandwiched between Mus musculus and Typhlonectes natans, squished between mice and eels.

Yup, that’s correct, even at this scale we’re still struggling to zoom in close enough to see our closest relatives on the tree of life, the great apes (including chimpanzees and the like). At the top right, you might just be able to make out sagitta elegans, a species of planarian worms barely a millimetre or so in length. We’re all related, far more so than anyone before Darwin dared to imagine.

Knowing our place in both time and space, in biology and in cosmology, is humbling, and yet it also puts us in a remarkably unique position. Of all the species on Earth, only Homo sapiens has the mental accumen to appreciate the wonder of life.

In 1990, Voyager 1 took a photograph of Earth from a distance of six billion miles, or five and a half light-hours away. The original NASA photograph has 640,000 pixels in it, of which Earth comprises 0.12 of a pixel. At that distance, we’re barely a full stop. Inspired by this image, Carl Sagan wrote the following in a book called the Pale Blue Dot.

If you get lost in life, remember the astonishing position you hold in this beautiful universe.

Is Pluto a planet?

Is Pluto a planet?

My heart says yes, my head says no.

Pluto is an oddball, of that everyone can agree, but is it a planet?

At first glance, the concept of a planet seems pretty straight forward: Big round thingy swinging around a star, but there’s more to it than that, as there’s lots of stuff orbiting stars, including comets and asteroids.

Pluto’s small on the planetary scale, and therein lies the problem.

Pluto is smaller than our Moon. In fact, Pluto is smaller than several other moons in our solar system, including Titan.

In addition to this, there are several other objects in the Kuiper belt, like Eris (), that are the same size as Pluto or larger and we don’t consider these planets.

If we compare the circumference of Pluto with Neptune, Pluto is 21x smaller. If we compare the estimated mass, then Pluto is almost 8000x smaller than Neptune.

And yet comparisons are a slippery slope. If we make the same comparison between Earth and Jupiter, then Earth’s circumference is 10x smaller than our Jovian giant, while Earth’s mass is an astounding 320x smaller, so does that make Earth a dwarf planet? It’s a good question when you think about it.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) struggled with Pluto’s planetary designation for over a decade before finally relegating Pluto as a dwarf planet.

According to the IAU, a planet is:

is in orbit around the Sun
has sufficent mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (basically a round shape)
has “cleared the neighbourhood” around its orbit

The problem with this definition is:

we’ve detected rouge planets that don’t orbit any star and yet are still decidedly planets
even Earth hasn’t cleared out its neighbourhood, with plenty of trojan asteroids loosely in orbit around our humble abode

Regardless, the IAU decided that Pluto’s inability to clear out its surroundings and its disproportionally large moon Charon, disqualified it from planethood (if there is such a term) and so Pluto was designated a dwarf planet.

Truth be told, even that category is generous, and leans more on the historical position of Pluto than it does on any of Pluto’s physical characteristics.

Pluto is a cosmic iceberg.

As best we understand Pluto’s composition at this time, Pluto doesn’t have the iron core we associate with regular planets and is probably a mixture of rock and ice.

Given its composition and its highly irregular orbit, which is tilted by 17 degrees relative to the rest of the planets and how Pluto’s orbit cuts inside the orbit of Neptune from time to time, NASA even suggested Pluto may be a “failed” dormant comet. “Failed” in that it never got close enough to the Sun for its volatiles to give it a distinct comet tail.

Had Pluto fallen into an orbit that took it into the inner solar system it would have been the most spectacular comet of all time. And being accompanied by its icy moon Charon, Pluto would have had a highly irregular coma that may have appeared to vacillate over a period of six days (being the orbital period of Charon).

Pluto might not make much of a planet, but it would have made a sensational comet had its orbit taken it closer to the sun.

If you’d like to learn more about Pluto, check out Vintage Space.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon

JJ Abrams is credited with reviving the Star Trek franchise with his reboot and has been given the reins of the new Star Wars movies.

As much as I enjoyed the action in his depiction of Star Trek, it lacked the finness of the Shatner epics. No longer are we boldly going where no one has gone before, we were retracing steps in an alternate universe. The roller-coaster is more important than the narrative.

When it comes to a Star Wars reboot or Star Wars extension or whatever it turns out to be, I hope Abrams captures the awe and essence of the original, the local boy who makes good, triumph over evil kinda story. Light sabres and space battles are not enough.

Anyway, the wind is howling, the rain is falling and I’m on my second cup of hot chocolate, so it’s time for some short science fiction movies to enjoy on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

You can find hundreds of these movies on the net. Most of them are fan fics, essentially paint-ball fantasies with no real merit beyond nice special effects. Others, though, have some finness that even the likes of JJ Abrams could learn from.

There’s some astonishing talent in the composition and production of these movies. Character tends to take a back seat, but, hey, they’re working with a very strict, compact medium so that’s no surprise.

The Gate is a little Resident Evil, but fun nonetheless. It’s a bit of a luddite, fear-the-future movie, but hey, as 1984 has taught us, that’s a good way to ensure such a future never unfolds.

The Device is awesome… be careful what you wish for.

The Hunt for Gollum is a prequel to Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and explores the backstory behind how Aragon came to be waiting for the hobbits at the Prancing Pony Inn. There’s a couple of canonical inconsistencies, and it’s tough gig filling in for Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen, but the acting and cinematography in this fan tribute are simply brilliant.

Monstrous Reviews

Reviews are a bit paradoxical for writers. Everyone wants to hear praise, but there’s learning in every review, even the one stars. And make no mistake, all books end up with one star reviews. There’s just so much diversity between readers.

Recently, Amazon has come under fire to clean up its reviews as some authors “seed” their books with fake reviews to boost sales.

I take reviews seriously, as they’re supposed to be an independent opinion on a book. I’ve given away books with a request for a review and received some honest critiques, but I’ve never paid for fake reviews.

Reviews are the lifeblood of an independent writer, as readers look to reviews to understand whether they’ll enjoy a particular book themselves. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of reviews is when readers provide their own insights based on what they’ve read.

In this regard, I’ve had some monstrous reviews of Monsters on various private blogs, Goodreads and Amazon (monstrous meaning massive, not terrible). Here’s some highlights that caught my eye, not because they flatter the book, but because they offer keen insights into the topic the book covers.

[Monsters is] a devolved dystopian novel that doubles up as a love letter to literacy and knowledge. After a near miss with a comet has some catastrophic events, including a drastic increase in size of many of the planet’s fauna, Earth is plunged back into the dark ages. Books, science and knowledge are shunned, and literate people are tortured and killed as examples to others. Yet some struggle to learn…

One of the things we take for granted is our ability to read and educate ourselves… I really loved the premise of this novel, and how in this post apocalypse world, knowledge and reading is likened to witchcraft

To fear and disdain science is one of the worst mistakes that a society, any society, could make.  The only reason that we are who we are as a species is that we have used our intelligence to understand the universe around us and to devise ways to survive despite our inherent physical weaknesses.  Compared to many other organisms on this earth of ours, we are not very big, very fast, or even moderately strong.  We do not have sharp fangs or strong claws.  Nonetheless, we have tamed the planet; heck, we have gone to space, we have walked on the Moon!  And again, the only reason why we have been able to do so is through science and technology.

… the theme for this book …  is really how much would we lose if we as a civilization lost the ability to read and how would our lives be affected through the generations… [I] hated to see [the book] end. If I had to be in this world I would surely take the risks that the characters do to get their hands on books, because I too am a reader.

More than just a book about post apocalyptic societies and the rise of nature to overcome man, Monsters is about the power of knowledge… the discovery of knowledge not only scares those in power, but it can bring down a dictator.

[Reading is] a secret liberty … an individual freedom, an artistic expression … reading is a relatively modern phenomenon and, throughout history, reading has usually only been reserved for the privileged.  [Cawdron] touches on the terror of things we take for granted, like basic medical treatment, and it makes you think about what we have now … there’s a ton of room for a great sequel or a smart prequel as apes take over the … oh, sorry, wrong franchise

To everyone that’s provided their thoughts on any of my novels, from one star through to five, thanks for taking the time to read and review.

You can find Monsters on Amazon

Getting to Mars

Getting to Mars is, quite literally, going to be a case of turning science fiction into science fact.

I thought you’d enjoy looking at one of the suggestions under consideration by NASA for a craft capable of taken humanity to Mars and beyond.

The Nautilus is a true space ship in that, like the International Space Station, it will be built on Earth but assembled into its final form in space. And, like the space station, it can never come back to Earth in one piece. If it ever enters the depths of our atmosphere it will do so in a fiery ball.

Also, like the space station, the Nautilus relies heavily on solar power.

The first things most people notice when looking at the Nautilus is the inflatable side modules, effectively quadrupling the internal usable space within the craft.

Bigelow Aerospace has already demonstrated the effectiveness of inflatable habitats in space, and with the outer skin able to seal itself in the event of a micro-asteroid breach, NASA are looking to trial these on the International Space Station.

The donut-shaped ring in the midsection is an ingenious idea that’s been around since the 50s in science fiction but one that has never been put into practice in orbit. It’s a spinning, revolving torus that gives the illusion of gravity.

Have you ever seen one of those small, hand-pushed roundabouts in a child’s playground? My kids love them. My kids cheer as I spin them faster and faster, and the conservation of angular momentum gives them the illusion of an outward force, seemingly pushing them to the edge of the roundabout.

In the same way, the spinning torus on the Nautilus will give the sensation of gravity to astronauts. The weightlessness experienced by astronauts in constant free-fall is a serious problem for any mission to Mars.

In space, bone density drops at an alarming rate, giving a forty year old the bone density of a 70-80 year old inside of a year. Muscles atrophy and waste away, which has serious implications for the heart. Bodily fluids redistribute causing havoc for the sinuses, and sleep patterns are disrupted. Space is a tough environment. At least 50% of astronauts end up with space sickness for the first couple of days (similar to sea sickness), so simulating gravity could bring some very real benefits to prolonged space exploration.

The proposal before NASA is to spend just over two years developing a centrifuge torus add-on for the International Space Station to test this concept in a low-earth orbit.

Partial gravity of the torus

Revolutions per minute
30 foot diameter
40 foot diameter


4
0.08
0.11


6
0.18
0.25


8
0.33
0.44


10
0.51
0.69

It may not sound like much, but even at four revolutions per minute, this minuscule simulated gravity would be enough to keen a sleeping astronaut comfortably in one spot. At eight revolutions, the torus would have a similar gravitational “feel” to the Lunar surface, while ten revolutions gets up to half what we experience on Earth.

Here’s an artist’s impression of the ISS centrifuge demo. Note that the torus is also partially constructed out of inflatable materials.

If this project goes ahead, it will give NASA the opportunity to evaluate the viability of a similar torus on a manned/womanned  mission to Mars.

In particular, NASA is keen to understand the impact of changing exposure between weightlessness and simulated, partial gravity, looking to understand the physical as well as psychological impact. There are implications for the vascular system, ocular (sight), skeletal and muscular as well as excretory systems (no astronaut would complain about partial gravity when going #1 or #2). One possible downside, though, is scientists expect the transition in and out of the rotating torus may lead to vomiting.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Nautilus design is something the observant reader may have already picked up on in the first image: there’s no engine.

What good is a space ship without an engine?

Actually, this is ingenious. Engines are big. Fuel is massive, that is to say, it takes a lot of fuel to carry fuel. The Nautilus uses a modular engine design, meaning the engine is just another module like those inflatable pods on the side of the craft. The initial configuration of inflatable modules has three pods, but the fuselage could easily be extended to include six, nine, twelve, etc, without adding that much mass proportionally, and the fuel cylinders and engines work much the same way.

The engine is modular, attaching to a plate at the rear of the space craft.

Rather than building the engine into the space craft, NASA can simply bolt on whichever engine is suitable for a particular mission. And in some cases, that may be no engine at all, as in a second space station or small engine when waiting at a gravitationally neutral Lagrange point, like the one between Earth and the Moon.

On some missions, an ion engine might be appropriate, on others a traditional rocket, but, more to the point, this modular design means a mission to Mars can send its return engine and fuel on ahead of itself at a slower pace, saving fuel on the outbound journey.

Using a design like the Nautilus to go to Mars would give our intrepid martian explorers their own space station in orbit while they explore the surface.

The Nautilus is a step in the right direction for developing a spaceship capable of travelling to Mars and beyond. For those that are interested, I’ve attached a presentation that goes into the design in more detail.

Here’s an example of a configuration that could be used on a mission to Mars.

The debate is complex

Question: What do the following items have in common?

Refrigerators
Microwave ovens
In-vitro fertilisation
Vaccinations
Washing hands before treating patients
Genetically modified foods

Answer: They were all once feared.

Fridges: Before the advent of the now-banned CFCs a leaking fridge could kill. To this day, people fear silly things about fridges, like the “dangers” of something as harmless as banana skins turning brown. Refrigeration has saved countless otherwise unsuspecting lives from the very real danger of fatal food poisoning.

Microwaves: Microwave ovens, cellphones and WiFi all use electromagnetic radiation and so have been subject to irrational fears about causing cancer.

Fear, of itself, is not a bad thing as fear is often a catalyst for self-preservation. Stand too close to a snake or the edge of a building and you’ll probably experience a little fear. Move a little closer and your mind will demand you move back, but that’s healthy as another step forward could be disastrous.

When fears become irrational, though, they are extremely damaging. It’s OK to have concerns about a technology like microwave ovens or cellphones or genetically modified foods or whatever, the key is to seek unbiased scientific research to see if that concern is warranted or not.

In the case of the radiation from microwave ovens, cellphones and WiFi there has been considerable research and the findings are unambiguous, they’re perfectly safe.

In-vitro fertilisation: When IVF came out in the 1970s, critics said it was “unnatural,” which is interesting as this position is based on the overly simplistic assumption is that “natural” is always good, therefore “unnatural” is bad. There’s a slight problem with this idea, though, as there’s plenty of “natural” substances that can kill you; cyanide, botulism, the vast majority of mushrooms, etc.

And once you realize how little, real “natural” food there is in the world (ie, food that hasn’t been modified by mankind through selective breeding), you see through this myth quite quickly. Certainly, there is a distinction between processed and unprocessed foods that generally correlates to how healthy foods are, but the term “natural” should be used with caution as it is often misleading.

When it comes to IVF, critics feared children produced by this “unnatural” means would have horrible birth defects, higher rates of cancer as well as other diseases, and that they would die young. IVF, we were told, would destroy the family as the unit of society. To this day, the Roman Catholic church still considers IVF “morally unacceptable,” which says far more about the Roman Catholic church than it does about IVF.

Vaccinations: Vaccines are wonderful Essentially, vaccines provide target practice for your immune system. By providing weakened or dead forms of a particular microbe, toxin or its proteins the body’s own immune system is taught how to defeat a deadly pathogen before being exposed to the potentially crippling or fatal microbe in the wild.

UNICEF estimates that vaccines save nine million lives every year. Even diseases like measles, that seem petty from our Western perspective, kill over a million children each year. These deaths are entirely preventable through the widespread adoption of vaccination.

Parents that don’t inoculate their children against these insidious diseases make that choice for sincere but misguided reasons.

Fear has been described as False Evidence Appearing Real, and nowhere could that be any more true than in the case of a parent’s fear of vaccines.

Worse still, Muslim extremists recently murdered aid-workers providing life-saving polio vaccinations to children in Pakistan. Stupidity like this is enough to make you wonder which century you’re living in, as such irrational behaviour should have disappeared with the Dark Ages.

Washing hands: As for washing hands, how could that be controversial?

Who could object to such a simple act of hygiene being conducted by doctors and nurses? Well, pretty much the entire medical profession of Europe in the mid 1800s!

When Dr Semmelweis first proposed that disease was spread within hospitals by unclean hands he was ridiculed by the medical establishment. Even after he demonstrated the value of washing hands in slightly-chlorinated water and accurately recorded a massive drop in death rates within his wards, the idea of hand washing was still belittled as unscientific.

Semmelweis came to his conclusion in Europe more than a decade before the American Civil War where 65% of casualties died from infection (primarily due to poor hygiene in field hospitals). More Americans died in the Civil War than in all other wars combined, and yet most of those deaths could have been prevented with the simplest of hygienic measures had the message of Semmelweis been heeded.

Call me paranoid, but hospital hygiene is still a major concern today. The US Dept of Health and Human Services considers hospital infections in the top 10 killers in the US, with upwards of a hundred thousand needless deaths per year. The availability of hand sanitizers in patient rooms/wards should reverse this trend, but recent stats are hard to find.

Anyway, as you can see, the debate is over.

The debate is over in terms of washing hands. The debate is over when it comes to refrigerators, microwaves, vaccinations and IVF. And yet, that’s not the whole story.

Science demands transparency. Science demands honesty. When it comes to science, neither you nor I have the luxury of picking and choosing the results we want.

Yes, the debate is over, but only at the level of general acceptance. When it comes to vaccines and IVF, or even microwaves and fridges, good science continues to examine the evidence. After all, that’s what led to the ban on CFCs that, for half a century, seemed like such a good idea. CFCs were a great idea for mankind, but not for the environment as they damaged the ozone layer, and science exposed that. The same is true when it comes to developing new vaccines or new treatments in IVF. Each of these needs to be tested, but the overall concept is sound.

And so, on one hand, the debate is over. On the other, it’s just beginning. If you like, the subject has changed. Instead of looking to validate these concepts, the debate has shifted to efficacy. 

When it comes to genetically modified foods, the debate about the validity of the concept is also over. But that doesn’t mean blind acceptance of GMO, this debate has shifted to one of efficacy and implementation.

Earlier this month, I posted the transcript of a speech by Mark Lynas called “The debate is over,” taking the title from his comments, but really the title should have been “The debate is complex, but proceeding well.”

There’s a danger in over-simplistic statements, and yet there is a need to move beyond the question of accepting GMO to how it can be regulated properly and used in the best interests of not only humanity but nature itself.

Good science is about examining the evidence objectively and without bias. Sounds easy, but more often than not the toughest part of science is found in removing the human element.

One helpful tool in this regard is meta-analysis, that is, the analysis of the scientific analysis of a concept. In other words, watching the watchmen, policing the police.

A recent meta-analysis of breast cancer trials exposed a worrying bias toward whitewashing results.

1/3 of the breast cancer trials under examination did not show a statistically significant outcome for the treatment under investigation but still reported as positive based on secondary benefits, ie. The therapy didn’t increase longevity but patients had less side-effects than those undergoing standard treatments 
2/3 of trials reported adverse side-effects but under-reported the extent of these side-effects when the treatment was deemed effective
Over half of the papers focused on other, less important aspects of the trial so as to appear to have a positive outcome

It’s tempting to hear something like this and think the results were massaged because of funding concerns, but the analysis showed this trend occurred for trials conducted by academic institutions and the medical industry.

In those with outcomes that were either negative or did not show a statistically significant benefit, spin was used frequently to influence positively the interpretation of the results

No one likes to fail or look bad. And yet in science null outcomes are entirely acceptable and should be applauded.  You can learn as much by observing what doesn’t work as you can by tracking what does, but spin obscures reality, and that’s never good for science.

As these were phase III clinical trials, researches must have felt compelled to find “something” to justify why the trial had advanced through phases I & II, but they should have had the courage to stop the bandwagon.

Meta-analysis is an exciting field of research. In essence it looks for trends and patterns in how scientists report their results, looking for inconsistencies and human biases that obscure the real outcome.

Naomi Oreskes’ book Merchants of Doubt is a landmark work in this regard, revealing how a handful of dissenting scientists fraudulently undermined the science of climate change, instilling doubt rather than debate.

Oreskes’ meta-analysis revealed disturbing patterns of circular references, things like the Heritage Foundation would cite the Competitive Enterprise Institute who quoted the Marshall Institute, only all three organisations had the same founders and, on close examination, the Marshall Institute was found to be citing the Heritage Foundation to start with, bringing the illusion full circle.

Honesty and transparency are not optional in science.

When it comes to genetically modified foods there’s a need for good science to prevail. Commercial considerations must be secondary to the interests of the planet as a whole, but this is promising technology.

They say, fire is a good servant, a lousy master, and the same is true of genetic engineering. I’d like to see meta-analysis conducted on GMO research, but I’m not afraid of genetic modifications, as we’ve been modifying the genes within our foods for thousands of years.

Perhaps Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s response to a question about GMO is the best answer of all.

Dawn mission to the asteroid belt

In 2007, NASA launched the Dawn mission to explore Ceres and then Vesta in the asteroid belt.

Dawn won’t arrive at Ceres until 2015, but when it does it will have the opportunity to examine a proto-planet, that is a planetary body in its infancy. The asteroid belt, which is located between Mars and Jupiter, is thought to be the remains of the initial disc that formed the planets within our solar system billions of years ago. Ordinarily, these asteroids would have slowly accumulated into a planet like Mars, Earth or Venus, but the thinking is that Jupiter’s gravitational presence has kept this from happening by drawing off most of the mass, and this gives us a glimpse into the remote past, the opportunity to understand more about how our own planet once formed.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this mission, though, is the use of an ion propulsion engine.

Hold a single sheet of printer paper in your hand and feel the minuscule sense of weight pressing down on your fingertips. It’s hard to imagine how an engine producing this little force against a spacecraft could ever be considered viable, but the ion engine is not only viable, it has set the speed record for interplanetary spacecraft.

Ion engines may sound like some exotic, futuristic alternative to the chemical rockets we’re so familiar with, but the concept was first experimented with in 1916, during the First World War. On Earth, ion engines are little more than a novelty. In space, where they can operate without wind resistance, they are the undisputed champions of travel, but you have to be patient.

Like a bank account earning interest over fifty years, the law of compounding effects allows the ion engine to slowly but surely continue gathering momentum and reach astonishing speeds.

It took Dawn four days to accelerate to 60 miles per hour, but over six years, that constant steady push, never more than the weight of paper in your hand, has resulted in an accumulated acceleration of 9,600mph. The craft’s total change in velocity since it left Earth is over 38,000 miles per hour, and, what’s more, it’s done this using less fuel than you find in most semi-trucks. Dawn uses xenon, not diesel, but it’s only carrying roughly 115 gallons (937 pounds to be precise).

So think about the Dawn mission the next time you see a semi driving by or pick up some paper from the printer. Small efficient engines can go a long way.