Kate Rauner's Blog, page 50

How to Explore a Planet? You Need to be Airborne! #poem #poetry #NASA #MAR2020 #drone

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NASA concept of a helicopter on Mars

Small

Autonomous

Rotorcraft,

About to leave for Mars.

No, it cannot fly through space.

It hitchhikes for the ride.

Once its rover host touches down

And backs off quite a ways

To relay commands from the Earth,

To test it makes the grade.

Can solar cells keep it charged

And keep it warm at night?

Can it rise three meters high

On a ninety second flight?

Then we’ll have a helicopter

On another world.

As thrilling

A capability

As any that I’ve heard.

Kate Rauner

It may seem like a small step, but Mars’ atmosphere is like flying 100,000 ft above Earth’s surface, about three times the height of commercial airplanes. Many outlets cover this element of the Mars 2020 mission, including

Meet ST Sanchez, Author of Fantasy and Children’s Books #author #fantasy #interview #reading

A few weeks ago I reviewed a fantasy story that I enjoyed, and that you could share with  kids too: The Portal Keeper. I’ve messaged with the author, S. T. Sanchez, from my neighboring state of Texas. Today I’ll share our exchange. Scroll down for an excerpt from her novel

Breathtaking Insight or Idle Speculation? Are we inside The Matrix? #poem #poetry #science #computer #game

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Bella Lugosi makes a fine Mad Scientist – who maybe created our simulation in the first original universe – if there was one

Extraordinary evidence

Makes extraordinary claims.

Extraordinary people

Will sometimes do the same.

A big enough memory

In a big enough machine

Perhaps could simulate

The universe I’ve seen.

Ancient Greek philosophers

Knew nothing of our chips and RAM,

Yet said that if I cannot see,

I cannot know

that

I am.

Until someone can falsify,

Propose a test to tell,

The question is philosophy,

A summer dream’s intel.

A slice of heaven, pinch of hell,

Rhapsodizing as I tell

How to ride a bit-byte swell

From deep inside my techno-well.

Logging off.

Kate Rauner

Thanks to skeptoid, one of my favorite sites. They don’t usually venture into philosophy, but when they do, it’s fun.

Behind the Scenes of a Mars Colony, Treachery Threatens Survival #sciencefiction #Mars #military #space #scifi #story #reading #review #bookreview

[image error]Cheryl Lawson’s Mars colony was established 52 years ago in story-time, which is decades into our real-life future. Placing a colony underground and genetically-modifying the humans born there made survival possible. Now, vital systems are becoming hard to maintain, they are heavily dependent on Earth, and the g-mod program is vital to ongoing support.

As the story opens, someone is drilling deep into a Martian glacier. He’s up to no good, and colonists are too worried about their spiraling maintenance problems, and (like most real people) too involved in their own relationship games to realize.

A breathtaking discovery and a dangerous system failure combine to create a race against time and a desperate fight to stay alive. Just when it seems the colony will survive, things go wildly-wrong again.

Mistakes are made, allegiances shift and lives hang in the balance. No one can be trusted as allies become enemies and the true nature of life on Mars is revealed – One wrong move, and it will be your last.

A wonderful read with a surprising relationship twist near the end. This is a fine addition to the Mars genre of scifi. I especially liked how real Mars and the colony felt. Lawson’s descriptions are fun: for example, ejecta from a crater is “a frozen splash in a bowl of tomato soup.” I also liked getting inside the characters. Each one has a generous introduction.

I scored a pre-release copy – We Are Mars is due out May 15th. So mark your calendars or better yet, pre-order today so you don’t miss out. The book is subtitled “Part One” so it ends with the hook for the next book, a hint of what’s coming.

It’s Not That I Can’t, I Don’t Need To – memory in modern times #poetry #poem #memory #moderntimes

[image error]Hearing is not listening,

Seeing’s not perceiving.

To watch is not to memorize

The data you’re receiving.

Why remember if you can

Google what you need?

A password’s all you must retain,

What’s needed to succeed.

Kate Rauner

[image error]Thanks to theatlantic.com for why I can’t remember anything. This has been happening to me ever since my first calendar watch made it impossible to recall the date. I feel so much better now – I think.

Science Studies Poetry – compare this to what you like in a poem #poem #poetry #science

[image error]What makes a poem pleasing to its readers? It’s about time science took another crack at this question.

Researchers from New York University and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics… found that vividness was the best predictor of aesthetic appeal. smithsonian

Sad or scary poems lacking vivid imagery scored worst. Perhaps the next step is to see if similar traits make a song or story pleasing.

My Own Science Challenge, how to run a genuine dowsing experiment you can do at home #research #math #citizenscience

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!8th century dowser, but the concept is older

I recently ran into this post on the Ideomotor Response, a real and captivating effect. You experience unconscious, unintentional physical movements that seem to contain knowledge beyond your own. It’s sort of neuromotor crosstalk that feels magical and has given us Ouija boards, automatic writing, and dowsing.

If you’ve never tried dowsing, give it a shot. It’s one of those remarkably compelling experiences that only science can sort out.

As I had a chance to see for myself.

Out here in rural New Mexico a lot of well drillers use, or at least offer, dowsing. I live on thick layers of ancient limestone and dolomite, crisscrossed with volcanic intrusions and alluvial deposits. Water is usually deep and not found in the lovely, predictable aquifer layers that favor much of North America. We see a lot of expensive dry holes.

Superstitions thrive when you seek an outcome that is very important but heavily influenced by chance. Whether winning a ball game or drilling a well, it’s hard to avoid developing a belief in lucky socks or dowsing. The ideomotor sensations are compelling – dowsers are honest people.

One of my neighbors was convinced he could detect water with dowsing rods. He was as curious as I was to find out if dowsing could be proven. We worked out a test protocol, and agreed that 5 or more “Hits” would be good evidence.

I added my procedure under the More Tag below – feel free to use it if you’d like.

Here are our results:

My neighbor got 2 hits, well within chance and below his expectation. He’s a bit mystified (indeed, one experiment needs to be replicated) but it was fun to be able to run an experiment ourselves.

Test of Dowsing for a Half-Liter Bottle of Water

Staff:

Set-up crew (one person to set up and one to record results)

Dowser

Observer to record dowsing results

Retreat Areas: Both the Set-up Crew and Dowser & Observer must have nearby areas where they are isolated from each other and the equipment.

Equipment:

Half-liter bottle of water

6 empty yellow plastic cat litter buckets, numbered 1 thru 6 (nest pairs of buckets together if necessary to ensure they are opaque)

Piece of plywood to provide a flat surface

Die

Set-up sheet – paper with rows numbered 1 thru 10

Results sheet – paper with rows numbered 1 thru 10

Dowsing rods

Phones

Set Up will be outdoors:

Dowse a candidate area to find a place free of interference – we used about 80 feet by 10 feet.

Dowser may select the area in advance but will confirm it is acceptable before starting the test.

Set out the buckets, upside down, with 10 feet between.

With all personnel present, place the bottle under one bucket.

Perform a non-blinded set-up trial:

Dowse to be sure the bottle registers and empty buckets do not. Move the bottle to each bucket and repeat to be sure everything is working.

Lay the plywood down in the Setup Crew’s retreat area and set out the die.

Test:

Dowser & Observer retreat to their area.
First set-up person rolls die and moves bottle to under the corresponding bucket. Avoid leaving clues – walk along all the buckets and touch each one. Second person records the location of the bottle and observes to be sure the number rolled on the die is the number of the bucket where thebottle was placed. Retreat out of sight. Call dowser to begin.
Dowser selects a bucket without touching any bucket.
Observer records number of the Dowser’s selected bucket.
Dowser and Observer retreat, call to Set-up Crew for next trial.
Repeat until 10 trials are recorded.

Repeat the non-blinded set-up trial:

Dowse for the bottle under a bucket known to the dowser to confirm bottle registers and empty buckets do not register – to make sure everything is still working.

Analysis:

Place set-up and results sheets side by side. Place a check for each “Hit” on the results sheet. A “Hit” is defined as an exact match (selecting a bucket adjacent to the correct bucket is a “Miss.”)

The test will be analyzed as a binomial experiment, with 10 independent trials, each resulting in a Hit or Miss. The probability of a Hit by chance is 1 in 6 or 17%. Microsoft Excel function BINOMDIS provides the probability of obtaining various numbers of Hits by chance(presented below.)

We agreed in advance that five or more hits would be an impressive demonstration of dowsing.

If you guess you have:

16% chance of getting zero hits
32% chance of getting exactly one hit
29% chance of getting exactly two hits
15% chance of getting exactly three hits
5% chance of getting exactly four hits
1% chance of getting exactly five hits
And less than 1% chance of getting more than five hits

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Silurian Hypothesis – Industrial Civilization Long Before Us #science #poem #poetry #research #paleontology #civilization

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Silurians found by Doctor Who. Promotional material to illustrate the subject in question is fair use, or so says Wikipedia.

Deep within our history,

Four hundred million years ago,

One of the greatest dyings cleared

The Earth for them to grow.

Boney fish with moving jaws

Dodged scorpions in the shallow seas,

Hardly social it would seem,

Yet something walked the land near these.

Calcium

carbonate,

Abundant layers, weirdly thick,

In sandstones

do imply

Industry spewed pollution slicks.

Suggestion of dead ocean zones,

Through turbation

sediments,

Imply farming on

a scale vast.

That’s civilization evidence.

Not to mention oddly high

Concentrations to be found

Of antimony, lead, and chrome,

Rare earths, and gold within the ground.

Sudden population booms

Of crinoids and certain trilobites,

Indicator species these,

Increased to

impressive heights.

Shape of lipids well preserved

In geo-chemistry,

Not mono-chiral indicates

They were made

synthetically.

Until the late Devonian,

When life in deep oceans died,

Anoxia that changed the seas

Sent glaciers south to crush their lives.

No, there are no real facts

Silurians

once industrialized,

But to think of traces

they could have left

May help us search the starry skies.

by Kate Rauner

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Silurian fossils, but, no, that’s not a Silurian coin. It’s just there to indicate size.

Thanks to theatlantic for their story on this study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology: could we tell if an advanced civilization existed on Earth long before humans, even before mammals?

Such conjecture may help us ponder extraterrestrials. As the authors say, “While much idle speculation and late night chatter has been devoted to this question, we are unaware of previous serious treatments of the problem of detectability of prior terrestrial industrial civilizations in the geologic past.” Download the pdf for yourself.

Poetry of Fire and Firefighters #poem #poetry #inspiration #firefighter

[image error]I found a wonderful site, a firefighter and paramedic writing poems about his experiences. Here are topics you may have never thought of, “telling stories that rarely get told.”

For those who dream of being firefighters,

For those who struggle to tell of their day,

For those who don’t understand,

For those who remember,

For those who can’t forget

Check it out.

How do firefighters tell their stories?  Not often and often not in a way that civilians understand.  Our fraternity has few books written about it, few TV shows true to the profession, and few movies that capture the nature of what we do.   The “Heart of Fire” is a project I’m creating to tell the stories that rarely get told.    I know it may seem odd, but after years of trying to capture,  with words, the experience of being  a firefighter, its only in verse form    that I’ve come close.HowHow do firefighters tell their stories?  Not often and often not in a way that civilians understand.  Our fraternity has few books written about it, few TV shows true to the profession, and few movies that capture the nature of what we do.   The “Heart of Fire” is a project I’m creating to tell the stories that rarely get told.    I know it may seem odd, but after years of trying to capture,  with words, the experience of being  a firefighter, its only in verse form    that I’ve come close. do firefighters tell their stories?  Not often and often not in a way that civilians understand.  Our fraternity has few books written about it, few TV shows true to the profession, and few movies that capture the nature of what we do.   The “Heart of Fire” is a project I’m creating to tell the stories that rarely get told.    I know it may seem odd, but after years of trying to capture,  with words, the experience of being  a firefighter, its only in verse form    that I’ve come close.

Archeology Takes Courage, Obsession Helps, in this fascinating tale of an ancient lost city #archeology #science #adventure #discovery #history

[image error]I usually post short science news pieces, but it’s a shame to miss the story behind science. The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story offers a fascinating tale of discovery.

Since the first Europeans set foot in the Americas, they chased rumors of “lost” cities of gold. The first third of his book, Douglas Preston recounts the adventures of an amazing group of, generally, con-artists claiming to have found the Monkey God City in an inaccessible jungle – and would rich donors just give them more money to prove it. These characters make for fun reading.

But there are real ruins in Honduras, and the Monkey God City legend is a conglomeration of real places. Space age technology and changing politics in Honduras enabled a scientific team to take up the search. Deadly snakes, deadly insects, drug cartels, dense jungle, and sucking mud all provide a thrilling backdrop to the expedition.

Scientists must be brave sometimes, and it helps to hire ex-military survival experts.

Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Read about the history of the Americas. Read about their discovery – as exciting as any tale spun by one of those early con-artists.

By the middle of the book I thought the story was done, but there’s more coming. Preston recounts what is known today of the first contacts between Americans and Europeans. I have read before that European diseases spread ahead of the Spanish, but had no grasp of the magnitude of the disaster. Current studies indicate that about 90% of the Native Americans were killed, most before they ever saw a European.

Those deaths tie into the aftermath of Preston’s Honduran trip. An horrid disease spread by sand flies infected many of his group.

This disease is worthy of a scifi horror movie – it can eat your face away, right into the bones. They required care by federal government infectious disease experts, and even the latest treatments can only put the disease into remission. There’s irony in comparing the modern and historical experiences.

Danger has not stopped the research in Honduras. The team has returned and expanded. Watch the news for more about this ancient Honduran civilization. And in the meantime, read this book.

What others are saying

With 4.4 stars and over 1400 reviews on Amazon, the book deserves its place as #1 in its Archeology category. Some reviewers didn’t want to read about the history, or modern Honduran politics, or other topics that surround the Lost City itself. Others thought the technologies used to discover the city were covered in too much detail.

If all you want is the archeology, the book may be too long for you. But if you enjoy the gem of a Lost City placed in a magnificent setting, this is for you.