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Tom Watson will give Tiger Woods every chance to prove he is fit enough to feature in next month's Ryder Cup.
The 14-time major champion has struggled to regain both form and fitness since returning to action following almost four months out after undergoing back surgery in March.
Woods withdrew from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in March after suffering back spasms, and he continued to look in pain as he missed the cut by a distance at the PGA Championship.
American Ryder Cup captain Watson will monitor Woods' situation closely over the next three weeks before announcing his three wildcard picks on September 2.
But Watson admitted he will have to rely on Woods' own assessment of his health and form, as he has not qualified for the upcoming FedExCup play-offs.
He also insisted that he will select players who are in the best form at the end of this month regardless of their position in the Ryder Cup standings.
\"It's been a pleasure over the last couple of years, and especially this last year, to be able to get to know some of the younger players out there,\" said Watson.
\"I've had a chance to get inside their heads, to be able to play golf with them and get to understand who they are as a person and create some new friendships.
\"As far as the team is concerned, the nine players who have made the team I am wonderfully happy with. I believe that each and every player has the ability to play great golf and compete at the highest level in the Ryder Cup.
\"My job as captain is to inspire them if I can, but I can tell you without hesitation that the motivation is there in each one of these players.
\"I've talked with them, I've played with them and I've been left very clear that these players are motivated to win this Ryder Cup. That's all I can ask of them.
\"As far as my three picks are concerned, over the next three weeks I'll be very focused on the play of those who are not on the team, who are close in the rankings and maybe some who are not close up in the rankings.
\"That said, the factor I look at most is the gut factor. Can that man play under pressure? Can that man hit the shots under pressure?
\"Getting to know these players I get to understand them but I also get a good understanding from outside sources as well.
\"There are a lot of people in golf who have observations about players that I will utilise in my assessment of the players. That will definitely enter into my decision on who to pick on September 2, and I will go down the rankings as far as it takes to find the 'hot guy'.
\"As far as Tiger is concerned, I will continue to speak to him over the next three weeks to monitor his situation. Obviously he hasn't been playing well, but that's been a result of his injury.
\"The most important thing is his health. I've said consistently that if he's healthy and playing well I will pick him. Right now his health is not good, and I'll just continue to monitor his situation. I'll be speaking with him and as far as his playing ability is concerned, I'll monitor that as well.
\"The major part of my decision on the three picks is how they are playing. You want players who are playing well to be on your team. I want the players who are in the best form by September 2 and they know that.\"
Watson will keep regular contact with Woods over the next month, and he admitted he is ready to trust his judgement if he insists he is ready to play at Gleneagles.
\"It will come directly from Tiger and how he assesses himself,\" Watson added. \"I can't assess his medical condition and I honestly can't assess how he is playing. It's going to have to come from Tiger himself.
\"I don't make this comment loosely, but he is Tiger Woods and he brings a lot to the team if he has the ability to play and he is healthy. I would be a fool not to consider him.\"
Watson also believes his team are fully motivated to gain revenge for their final-day meltdown in the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, when Europe staged a stunning fightback in the singles to snatch a historic victory.
But he also conceded that his team will start the contest as underdogs, and he urged his players to learn from the mistakes of Medinah.
\"You look at the European team and on paper they look stronger than the American team, but our team has got that motivation from 2012 that I'm going to lay on them,\" he said.
\"I think that they had such a big lead and they got complacent. They were going to rely on other people to win it and kind of coasted a little bit.
\"That's what can happen if you have such a big lead. You play more conservatively, you change your playing style and sometimes you back off.\"


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Front Range Climbing Company (FRCC) offers some of the best guided rock climbing in the San Diego Area. With a broad base of able, experienced and professional guides, FRCC prides itself on having an excellent customer service record, as well as having an intricate knowledge of local areas.
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Have you ever traced your family through a maze of intriguing documents and discovered politicians, land owners, socialites, and key decision makers in the community? What about family members who are both free people of color and white?
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Kakuzi Ltd. (KKZI), a Kenyan tea and fruit producer, headed for a more than one-month high after reporting profit in the year through December jumped 67 percent and a larger dividend.
The stock rose 0.6 percent to 80 shillings as of 2:21 p.m. in Nairobi, heading for its highest close since March 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Net income advanced to 648.4 million shillings ($7.8 million) and revenue increased 13 percent to 2.38 billion shillings, the company said yesterday. Kakuzi also raised its dividend to 3.75 shillings a share from 2.50 shillings.
"Fundamentally, these were very strong results," Aly Khan Satchu, chief executive officer of Nairobi-based investment company Rich Management, said in a phone interview today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi at email@example.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at email@example.com.


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Jobless rate falls to 7.8%
Lowest rate since Jan. 2009
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years and giving President Barack Obama a potential boost with the election a month away.
The rate declined from 8.1 percent because the number of people who said they were employed soared by 873,000 -- an encouraging sign for an economy that's been struggling to create enough jobs.
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More stories from Connecticut
- State honors memory of those killed on Sept. 11
- 3 still in critical shape from explosion
- Malloy issues statement on 9/11 anniversary from China
- Food stamps bilked of $1.6 million
- Woman was strangled, official says
- Episcopal priest pleads not guilty in sex abuse case
- State opposes Ganim bid to get his law license back
- Man, 45, accused of beating girl, 9
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- Mass. gay couple sues church over nixed house sale


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- Cooking Time:
- Servings: 6 - 8
- Preparation Time:
- 1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme
- 1 cup (8 ounces) raspberry yogurt
- 1 cup raspberry sherbet, softened
- 2 cups whipped topping
- 1/2 cup chopped toasted slivered almonds
- 1 graham cracker crust (9 inches)
- Additional whipped topping and almonds, optional
- Place marshmallow creme in a deep microwave-safe bowl.
- Microwave,uncovered, on high for 1 minute or until creme puffs and becomes smooth when stirred.
- Cool to room temperature, stirring several times.
- Stir in yogurt and sherbet.
- Fold in whipped topping and almonds. Pour into the crust.
- Cover and freeze for 6 hours or overnight.
- Remove from the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving.
- Garnish with whipped topping and almonds if desired.
NotesA Summer Time Delight!!!
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The Miz Appears In Funny Or Die Video, Tommy Dreamer On Why Abyss Didn't Sign With WWE, More
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter- Above is a new Funny Or Die "That's So Miz" video with WWE Superstar The Miz.
- Speaking of the WWE Intercontinental Champion, he will be doing a Q&A sponsored by Totinos on Sunday at 12 PT before SummerSlam. Fans can submit their questions with the hashtag #WWETotinosBold.
- Tommy Dreamer recently mentioned on Steve Austin's podcast that years ago when he worked in WWE talent relations, he had an agreement with current TNA star Abyss and wanted to bring him in to feud with The Undertaker. Dreamer said that Abyss got stage fright, didn't sign with WWE and ended up re-signing with TNA.
Subscribe to The Wrestling Observer by clicking here. Each issue has coverage and analysis of all the major news, plus history pieces. New subscribers can also receive free classic issues.
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text:
|Good News Translation (GNT)
|New International Version (NIV)
|39 Everything else that King Ahab did, including an account of his palace decorated with ivory and of all the cities he built, is recorded in [The History of the Kings of Israel.]
|39 As for the other events of Ahab's reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?
|Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission. (The Good News Translation - The Holy Bible Online)
|Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online)


text:
|Third Millennium Bible (TMB)
|New International Version (NIV)
|7 Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withheld bread from the hungry.
|7 You gave no water to the weary and you withheld food from the hungry,
|Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved. (Third Millennium Bible Online)
|Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online)


text:
PR by Reid VanEck - September 29, 2011
From the hot California weather at the beginning of the month to cool temperatures in the Upper Midwest, Craig Dollansky and the Big Game Treestands #7 team continue their trek towards the East Coast as they wrap up the month of September at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania this Friday and open October the next night at the same venue for the $50,000-to-win National Open.
After competition this weekend at 'The Grove', the World of Outlaws 2011 schedule settles down as three straight Saturday events kick off October 8th at Rolling Wheels Raceway Park in New York followed by Fremont Speedway in Ohio and a return to Talladega Short Track in Alabama on the 22nd.
October's wallpaper captures a thrilled Dollansky earlier this month when 'The Crowd Pleaser' raced to his 9th victory of the World of Outlaws season at Clay County Fair Speedway. To set the wallpaper as the background on your computer simply follow this link, find the October wallpaper and click image to zoom to larger size, right click and choose 'save image as'. After the image is saved, locate it, right click, and choose 'set as desktop background'. If this process is not followed the image may be saved in a much smaller size and will be blurry on the background.
Two new onboard videos have also been uploaded! Watch footage HERE of Dollansky's most recent victory and action the following night at Deer Creek Speedway when the Elk River, Minnesota native finished fourth after battling with Kerry Madsen and Brad Sweet.
As always, stay up to date with Craig Dollansky Racing by liking us on Facebook.com/DollanskyRacing and following us on Twitter (@DollanskyRacing).
Special thanks to Robert Kocak and Erik Johnson
Craig Dollansky Racing competes on the World of Outlaws circuit, the most premier sprint car series in the world, with great sponsors in Big Game Treestands, Karavan Trailers, Aggressive Hydraulics, and Eaton's Aeroquip Performance Products. Other supporters of CDR include Snap-on, Schoenfeld Headers, Morrison Racing Engines, Maxim Chassis, Integra Shocks, Winter Rearends, Sander Engineering, Overnight Wraps, Simpson, GATR Volvo, Butler Built Seats, Wings Unlimited, QuickCar Race Products, Saldana Racing Products, FK Rod Ends, KSE Steering Gears, Astro Titanium, Ray's Autobody, Premier Powder Coating, Spectro Oil, Bob's Bike Shop, Justice Brothers Products, CarMate Trailers, and R&R Enterprises.


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"The button"- the online heart of every campaign and landing page and the final gateway to lead generation. A call to action button plays a central role in convincing visitors to take the next step and connect with us. The action we desire them to take can be anything from signing up to a mailing list, purchasing a product or…
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About: Sheer Ganor is English Community Manager at the web publishing platform, Wix.com.


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Cal 39 MK1
As a new Cal 39 owner I am looking for any info on what tank is located at the top of the keel ?
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Another drama filled episode played out last night, this after Frankie's impressive solo win in the Battle of the Block competition. Frankie left that competition knowing he was public enemy #1. His only option was to come out as Ariana Grande's brother in hopes to district from all of his lies. Frankie pulled Derrick, Cody, Caleb, and Zach into the fire room and dropped a load of truth on the boys. Their reactions were pretty mixed but they all knew what he was trying to do. He latter spilled the beans to the girls as well. Victoria seemed the most shocked but even she could tell this was a last attempt to mend bridges.
Shortly after Frankie's moment of 100% honesty we saw Zach break down in the diary room. He was heartbroken, betrayed, lied to and believed he had no hope of winning. Frankie told the boys if he won he'd be donating the money to a charity. Zach couldn't see how he could compete with that and started feeling really down. I've noticed Zach is either hot or cold. He's either high on life, making everyone hate him or a Debby downer in a 'poor me' kind of attitude.
Finally some real drama! This was exactly what the house needed, a big move! After the shocking turn of events Thursday night, everyone put their cards on the table. Alliances were out in the open and players were being thrown under the bus like crazy. The most shocking was Nicole exposing the side alliance Frankie and Christine made with Nicole and Hayden. Frankie denied it but it planted a seed of doubt in the Detonators that would go away. Zach continued to antagonize and bully Nicole and it brought her to tears. That part was really hard to watch. I know it's part of the game but I think that you can play the game without getting that nasty. Regardless it did come back to bite him in the ass later.
At the Head of Household competition Nicole was out for blood. It was her against the house and if she didn't win she pretty much secured her place as the 3rd jury member. The competition reminded me of a trip to the optometrist. Head to head players had to read clues in the form of a snellen chart and buzz in either 'one' or 'two'. The winner from that round would face the winner from another and so on. In short Nicole and Christine were the two Heads of Household for the week! I couldn't be happier!
Wow, where to begin? As you all know last night was a double eviction, where we saw an entire weeks worth of Big Brother in 1hr. I'll start off with the first eviction of the night. Prior to the live vote the whole house was weighing out who should stay. It wasn't until Caleb brought up the fact that with Zach in the house, that's another vote they can count on. That was the only argument needed to sway the Detonators. With 6 votes to evict, the first evicted houseguest of the night and first player to go to the jury house was… Jocata! Zach lived to see another week!
Last night's episode started off with Caleb and Victoria fulfilling their 'Adam and Eve' punishment. Caleb was fitted with a skimpy leaf covered speedo and Victoria the same bikini bottom. Caleb made my jaw drop and he looked even sexier when Victoria shaved his head for the second punishment.
Christine grew concerned with Hayden and Nicole's blossoming showmance. She began to feel like a third wheel and made up a lie to try and separate the two. She told Nicole that Hayden wanted Zach to stay and that Zach said he saw Hayden and Victoria making out. Nicole immediately confronted Hayden about it but didn't believe it for a second. This put an even bigger wedge between Hayden, Nicole and Christine, she may have unintentionally put a target on her back.
As mentioned in my last post, the winners for this week's HOH comp were Donny and Nicole. It was a tiebreaker question that both guessed closest to the correct answer. Shortly after the Head of Household competition Zach said his congrats to Nicole. He offered himself up to be put on the block while trying to probe her for information. He thought by telling her to put him up, she'd do the opposite. Nicole gave him no info on possible targets or nominees.
Nicole later confided in Derrick on possible game moves and threw out the possibility of backdooring Frankie. An amazing social player and great at competitions, Frankie is slowly growing a target on his back.
Here are the nominations for the week:
Immediately following Amber's nomination Amber confronted Frankie about his decision. "You planned that, you all planned that," she stated while leaving the veto ceremony. Frankie later revealed it was Caleb that threw her under the bus. Amber confronted Caleb and he admitted his involvement in her nomination. He also told her it was a unanimous decision among the alliance that Amber should go up. She was completed blind-sided by this news. I felt so bad because she was genuinely unaware of everything going on, she was loyal and honest player but at the same time a strong competitor and a treat to everyone's game. She did try to form another girl alliance and we all know how well that worked out for Joey.
Before the live eviction Team America received a new task from America. This week's task was: to vote against the majority and publicly accuse two houseguests after the fall out. This task was an extremely risky game move, easy to complete but hard to recovery from. Donny, Derrick, and Frankie had a lot to think about before coming to a decision.
Last night's episode was surprisingly hilarious to me. From Zach's constant efforts to stir the pot and Caleb's delusional outlook on the game I was in tears. Since winning Head of Household Zach has been on a bender of bad behavior. From name calling to purposely eating food in front of the Have Nots (Christine & Nicole) he seems to get off on pushing peoples buttons. Caleb on the other hand is playing a completely different game where he thinks him and Amber are going to run off holding hands into the sun set and that he controls the house.
On a different note another houseguest received some devastating news. Derrick was called into the diary room, shortly after he returned to the living room with news that his grandfather had passed away. It was this time last week that Frankie received the exact same news. Derrick's family encouraged him to stay strong and to continue playing in the house.
I thought that the reign of Zrankie would be: a well thought out, strategic week that a big move is made. Everything but this happened on last night's episode. Zach approached Christine explaining to her it was time to earn her strips in this competition by taking one for the team and going up as a pawn. She immediately refused with the old "pawns always go home" excuse. Zach took that as Christine not being a team player and compared Christine to Jen City one of the biggest floaters in BB history.
Not only did this set Zach off but his rampage continued into the nominations ceremony where he had more than a few words for his nominees.


text: I Have Had To Be On Crutches Is Anyone Else Still On Crutches? I am back on crutches again. How many others out there are still having to get around on them? barefootshirtless 41-45, M 0 Jan 1, 2013 Me Too Your Response Please respond with authenticity, support, and respect Cancel You can join Experience Project now! Username: Password Email Birthday Gender Select Male Female Trans* Already a member? Sign In By clicking "Sign Up", you confirm that you agree to the Terms of Service of Experience Project, Inc. Login Login to respond Username: Password: Keep me logged in Not a member? Sign Up Sign Up Cancel


text:
28-17733 - 5MP Raspberry Pi Camera Board
The Raspberry Pi Camera Module is a 5 megapixel custom designed add-on for Raspberry Pi, featuring a fixed focus lens. It's capable of 2592 x 1944 pixel static images, and also supports 1080p30, 720p60 and 640x480p60/90 video. It attaches to Pi by way of one of th...
Mfr Name: Raspberry Pi
Mfr Number: 2302279
See all items in Raspberry Pi
28-18030 - Pi Noir 5MP Raspberry Pi Night Vision Camera Module
The Raspberry Pi NOIR Camera Module is a 5 megapixel camera custom designed add-on for Raspberry Pi, featuring a fixed focus lens without an IR filter. It's capable of 2592 x 1944 pixel static images, and also supports 1080p30, 720p60 and 640x480p60/90 video. It a...
Mfr Number:
21-10570 - Dual Channel Soldering Station with Iron and Tweezer
This dual channel soldering station is designed to allow for work on SMD chips and lead free soldering without alternating tools. Short distance between the handle and heating element allow for fast heat up time. These features saves both time and money for th...
Mfr Name: Tenma
Mfr Number: 21-10570
See all items in Soldering Stations
21-8230 - SMD Soldering/Desoldering Tweezers
Provides a fast, efficient method to solder and desolder surface mount devices such as chip resistors, chip capacitors,SOTs, flat pack and DIP ICs Dual highly insulated 40W ceramic heating elements insure rapid heat up and recovery Wide variety of interchangeable ...
Mfr Number: 21-8230
See all items in Desoldering Tweezers
291-510 - CR2032 Lithium Coin Cell Battery
Energizer Lithium Battery, Features: High energy, long life power source, good low and high temperature operations, recommended for calculators, cameras, memory back-up, pagers and watches
Mfr Name: Energizer
Mfr Number: CR2032
See all items in Coin Cell Batteries
28-0350 - UTE Slow Blowing 20mm x 5mm
Ampere Rating: 4
Voltage Rating: 250V
Quantity: Five per box
Mfr Name: Distributed By MCM
Mfr Number: UDL4
See all items in Mini Blade
72-9310 - 4mm Test Leads with Probe Options
A pair of red and black test leads with different probe options for connections to shrouded 4mm sockets commonly found on hand-held test equipment. A flexible cable with right angled plugs offers versatility.
Mfr Number: 72-9310
See all items in Multimeter Probes and Leads
74-5FG10A - 5MM X 20MM Miniature Glass Fast-Acting 10 Amps Fuse (5-Pack)
Rated voltage: 125V / 250VBreaking capacity: 125VAC, 10KA; 250VAC, 20A110%: 4 hour min135%: 1 hour max200%: 120 seconds max
Mfr Name: NTE Electronics
Mfr Number: 74-5FG10A-C
See all items in NTE Fuses
28-0155 - Fuse Holder
Size: 20mm x 5 mm
Rated Voltage: 250VAC
Rated Current: 10A
Screw type
Mfr Number: 28-0155
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293-115 - CR2032 Lithium Button Cell Battery
Duracell Lithium Button Cells, Used for: Watches, calculators, keyless entry remote controls, computers and other devices
Mfr Name: Duracell
Mfr Number: DL2032BPK
55-4638 - 5" Fll Range Dual Cone Speaker - 20W RMS 8ohm
Full Range Dual Cone Speaker
5" dual cone speaker is ideal for a variety of new design, replacement or upgrade applications including single driver cabinets, ceiling or in-wall speakers. The black mylar whizzer cone provides additional high frequency extension, e...
Mfr Number: XF-131-828
See all items in 5''~5 1/4'' Full Range Speakers
28-17446 - 130 Size DC Toy/Hobby Motor
These are standard '130 size' DC hobby motors. They come with a wider operating range than most toy motors: from 4.5 to 9VDC instead of 1.5-4.5V. This range makes them perfect for controlling with an Adafruit Motor Shield, or with an Arduino where you are more lik...
Mfr Name: Adafruit Industries
Mfr Number: 711
See all items in Hobby Motors
31-215 - 25V 1000ufd Radial; (h)20mm (d)12.5mm
CAPACITOR 25V 1000UFD RADIAL ELECTROLYTIC Radial Electrolytic Capacitors, Capacitance: 1000 uF, Voltage: 25 V
Mfr Name: Multicomp
Mfr Number: MCGPR25V108M10X21
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555-3147 - 31 Band Dual Channel 1/3 Octave Equalizer
Dual 31 band EQ
The Model 355 Dual 31-Band 1/3 Octave Graphic Equalizer may be used in a variety of applications such as live sound, recording studios, instrument racks, DJ sound systems and fixed equipment installations. Designed to interface into any audio syst...
Mfr Name: Applied Research Technology
Mfr Number: EQ355
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83-15181 - Eight Channel Relay Breakout Board with Optoisolator
An 8 Channel 5V DC relay breakout board. The control signal is DC 5V - 7.5V. It can control up to 10A 250VAC and 10A 30VDC loads. The main components on the board are EL817 and SRD-DV5V-SL-C
Mfr Number: EIGHT_CHANNEL_RELAY
See all items in FPGA Development Kits
Order was processed and sent right away without a hitch. Was exactly what I order and was delivered earlier than I expected.


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929 results for "cody zeller"
Cody Zeller #40 C
PPG RPG BPG FG% FT% 7.6 5.2 0.6 .448 .760 FANTASY OWN(WK+/-) AVG DRAFT 0%(0%) UDNext Game: Bucks vs. Hornets Monday 12/29 7:00 PM ET
Updates on Davis, Favors and WadeJoe Kaiser
Here's the latest fantasy-related buzz from around the NBA on Tuesday afternoon. Anthony Davis will return Tuesday against Utah after missing two games due to a chest contusion, and that's good news for just about everybody other than the Jazz an...Blog | December 16, 2014
Bad Buzz: What's Wrong With the Hornets and How They Might ...Zach Lowe
Things are not going well in Charlotte. But fans who expected a leap forward upon the return of the teal can take solace in two things: 1. The Hornets play in the East. Any roster sitting at 4-14 would be toast in the West, save for the very uniqu...Blog | December 01, 2014
Marvin Williams of Charlotte Hornets out 2 games; Cody Zeller to ...
Coach Steve Clifford says starting power forward Marvin Williams will miss the next two games with a strained left shoulder, adding to the Charlotte Hornets' injury woes.Story | Conversation | November 28, 2014
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Denver Nuggets v Charlotte HornetsDecember 22, 2014
Welcome to Reverse Fantasy BasketballJason Concepcion
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NBA: Charlotte Hornets player profilesTom Haberstroh
Check out our player scouting reports and 2014-15 projections for the Hornets.Story | Conversation | October 14, 2014
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Vonleh in for quiet rookie season?Joe Kaiser
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Hornets position battle: PFNick Borges
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Gear Review
Bear hangs?
April Pocorus
Member since
I bought this for my bear hang setup and just like Brad, I didn't even notice that it was rated for climbing. While it's pretty overkill for my bear hang, I'm happy that such a cheap little accessory now has so many uses.
View More Details on Omega Pacific Lite D Straightgate Carabiner


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That goal has now been effectively reached. The IAEA report last week confirms that Iran cut its stock of medium enriched uranium by three-quarters. It has completely diluted half its stock down to low enriched uranium, and it has converted half of the remaining amount into reactor fuel, all ahead of schedule. It would be extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming to reverse these processes.
In short, Netanyahu's bomb has been drained. His red line has been implemented. Even if Iran were to break the deal today, it would take it many months to make enough uranium for one bomb, and the world would see them doing it. Nor is there any indication that Iran is about to break off negotiations. In fact, the prospect that negotiators can work out a final agreement "now may be better than 50-50," said David Petraeus, former CIA director and former U.S. Central Command commander, "which is not something we would have said even a few weeks ago, much less months ago." According to Think Progress, Petraeus said at a talk at Harvard University, "I'm actually starting to believe that an agreement is possible and it could be that it's possible before this particular six-month deadline expires," referring to the target of concluding an agreement by July 20.
More potentially encouraging news came with comments on April 19 by a senior Iranian official that the negotiators had "virtually resolved" the issue of Iran's production of plutonium, another material that can be used in a nuclear bomb. Iran appears ready to redesign its controversial Arak research reactor in such a way that it could still produce radioactive isotopes for medical and other purposes, but not significant quantities of plutonium.
Scientists Frank von Hippel, Alexander Glaser, and Zia Mian just last month published alternative designs that could assure that Iran could not quickly make plutonium for a bomb from the reactor. It may be that Iran has now agreed to such plans. Details on this and other technical issues will be worked out when experts from the seven negotiating states meet in New York on May 5.
This progress, though, does not appear to satisfy some. Sen. Robert Menendez criticized Secretary of State John Kerry at a Senate hearing last week for seeking a final agreement that "only" ensured that it would take Iran at least six to 12 months to make the material for one bomb—even though that is much more that Netanyahu seemed to hope for two years ago. Some Israeli officials have moved their red line, too, now calling for the complete elimination of Iran's nuclear program and not just its monitored confinement. Israeli Minister of Intelligence Yeval Steinitz called anything short of a razing of all Iranian nuclear facilities, "unacceptable" and "a surrender."
In reality, it is hard to see any practical alternative to a negotiated deal. Failure of the talks, particularly if the U.S. was seen to be at fault, would lead to an unraveling of the sanctions. The U.S. and Israel would be faced with an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program that could lead to either an Iranian nuclear bomb or a major war in the Middle East.
For these reasons, consensus is growing among experts that, as a recent RAND conference framed it, U.S. policymakers must start preparing for "the days after a deal." RAND analysts Dalia Dassa Kaye and Jeffrey Martini conclude in a new study, "While a final nuclear deal with Iran is not likely to be enthusiastically embraced by key U.S. partners such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, our analysis suggests that both countries are likely to adapt to the new reality of a deal rather than actively attempt to derail it."
Sometimes, you just have to take "yes" for an answer.
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- Exoplanet Astrology: Your Guide to the New Planets
- The world's foremost exoplanet astrologer provides guidance for your life based on the new planets!
- That Tingling Feeling
- Sometimes the universe can make us feel very small, but this feeling can make us very big.
- Throwing Paradigms to the Wind of Climate Change [Guest Post by Daniil Bachkirov]
- Is it time to dispose of the 'paradigm'?
- Dead Stars Reveal Mysteries of Planet Formation [Guest Post by David Wilson]
- The remnants of stars can tell us a surprising amount about how planets are made.
- The Future of Life Detection on Mars: We Come in Peace, But Carry Lasers! [Guest Post by Samantha Rolfe]
- Looking for biomarkers on Mars using Raman Spectroscopy.
- East Anglia's Giant Purple Blob [Guest Post by Luke Surl]
- The causes and consequences of usually high levels of air pollution over the east of England that triggered a panic in the media.
- The Null Hypothesis: When Do We Declare a Barren World? [Guest Post by Euan Monaghan]
- How far should we go to find life on other planets?
- Lost in Space: Finding a Sense of Place in the Cosmos. [Guest Post by Sean McMahon]
- How does our exploration of the universe aid our understanding of our own place within it?
- The Hunt for an Exo-Earth: How Close Are We? [Guest Post by Hugh Osborn]
- Will the next generation of exoplanet-hunting telescopes find another Earth?
- Rarely Done Planets [Guest Post by David Waltham]
- Climate sensitivity, exoplanetary habitability and 'lucky' Earth.
- A Multiplicity of Worlds [Royal Statistical Society]
- Is the current catalogue of exoplanets representative of the true diversity of worlds in the galaxy?
- Older posts
- The archive
Exoplanet Astrology: Your Guide to the New Planets
Everyone trusts those great sages of our times, those for whom the intricate secrets of the universe are revealed by the night sky. As wise celestial engineers, the mechanics of the cosmos are obvious to them, the connections between the astronomical and the interpersonal are one and the same. These are people fluent in the language of the stars and skilled at interpreting their enigmatic relationship with humanity, akin to the unfurling of a stellar map of our collective psyche. Scholars all, who undertake years of dedicated study of ancient tomes going back hundreds of years, they have peered into the windows of our souls and seen the nuclear furnaces of the stars themselves.
I'm talking, of course, about astrologers. These wise, charitable, true scientists of our age, who dispense this precious knowledge for only the price of a premium-rate phone call or a column in a lifestyle magazine, to any and all comers. Can you think of a more noble profession?
It pains me however, as a relative newcomer to the field, to note that our astrological maps may be somewhat incomplete! Whilst the stars and constellations – whose graceful dance through our personal lives can be traced with ease by gifted astrologers – are relatively fixed in their positions (on human timescales), those charlatan astronomers have since discovered many, many more planets than the astrological academy may be aware.
Of course, let us not forget the effect of angry Mars on your unwavering passion to join the military, or that of powerful Pluto on your impending rebirth, kidnapping, or initiation into an underground crime syndicate 1. But what of the 1800 exoplanets discovered in the past decade or so? What of their effects on the minutia of your slow, inconsequential trudge to the grave? Well, thankfully, I've spent literal minutes conducting my own research on the astrological importance of some of these bodies, and now feel as qualified as any astrologer out there to suggest that you make important and possibly life-changing decisions based on the information I am about to provide to you 2.
Here are my predictions for the first four signs! More will follow soon of course.
(Or, alternatively, you could send a text message which will be charged at standard rates, plus £3.50, or visit my pop-up and clickbait-infested website below.)
The constellation Sagittarius is positively awash with exoplanet-hosting stars, so hold on to your tarot cards because the astrological energy emanating from this sign may well disrupt your centre of balance if this month. HD 179949 b is a 'hot-Jupiter' – a massive planet orbiting very close to its parent star, which moves into the sign this week. Like this tumultuous world, you're feeling increasingly resistant to spectroscopic analyses of your atmosphere, and are keeping evidence of titanium and vanadium oxides close to your chest, possibly to secure a promotion at work. This might seem to be a good strategy now, but your low bond albedo and furnace-like temperatures may make you hot under the collar – a prime target for infrared studies.
This month you may notice a feeling of cold eccentricity creeping into the trivialities of your everyday life. This is probably because of the effect of HD 204941 b on the goat sign this month – a frigid Neptunian planet with an off-center orbit who seems destined to cause a cold-spell in your love life. Detected by the sensitive HARPS instrument, like this planet you need to warm up to those close to you, especially if they're astronomically massive spheres of super-heated plasma undergoing nuclear fusion, and accept that your radial velocity is discernible from light years away. You have to learn to embrace it and move on! Try sublimating a relaxing herbal or chi tea into your chaotic atmosphere as you near aphelion to help you unwind.
Good news! You may find yourself appreciating your relationships with your family members this month. The red-dwarf Gliese 876 is ascendant in this sign and like its extended family of four exoplanets, you'll notice your loved-ones adopting a stable, coplanar Laplace resonance of 1:2:4, which will bring you neither further away nor any closer together, for the next 4 billion years at least. Be aware of co-workers and friends however, who like Gliese 876 itself will react in a highly unpredictable ways to your new-found stability, and will be prone to X-ray emissions. Steer clear girlfriend!
Pisces is inundated with exoplanets, all of whom are jostling and vying for an chance to directly affect the fleeting existence of a billion apes on a tiny planet several light years distant. Can you not feel them? This month, like the gravitational interaction between Saturn-sized exoplanet HD 3651 b and its distant brown dwarf companion, you'll feel like people on your extremely distant peripheries are disrupting your already highly eccentric orbit as a Pisces over the coming weeks. Just as NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope directly imaged this system in 2006, so you'll have the opportunity to compare existing theoretical evolutionary models to these substellar naysayers as we near Christmas. Just ensure you take some time out of your 62 day year for yourself!
Well, that's all for now exoplanet astrology fans, but not to worry, I'll be back with my readings of the remaining signs once I've had a chance to adjust my flux capacitor and have rechecked my calculations. Until then, remember: the whole universe is watching you. All the time. Wherever you are, and what ever you're doing.
This was a guest post by the worlds foremost exoplanet astrologer, Dr Jawbone Hyurns. Follow him on Twitter for regular astrological and exoplanetary updates!
1 In case it wasn't obvious by now, this post is satire. However, these particular statements are actually based on stuff found online, where it was claimed Pluto is the planet of terrorism, death, obsession and kidnapping. Pluto's taking its demotion to minor planet pretty hard it seems, and the astrologers still haven't caught up on its new classification. I did consider including references, but felt an ethical obligation not to provide traffic to these sites. I took a virtual bath afterwards.
2 Thanks, as always, to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory for their exoplanet astrology resources!
That Tingling Feeling
There is a word in Japanese, Yūgen (幽玄), derived from the study of Japanese aesthetics with no English equivalent, that perhaps comes closest to describing the profound sense of the enormity of the cosmos: to despair and be humbled by the insignificance of the struggle against the indifference of the universe, whilst also appreciating the sad beauty of human suffering. I often find myself grasping for a word to describe this reaction when discussing astrobiology with people, other scientists or members of the public, who find the entire field incredibly depressing; who, at some level, acknowledge the futility of our search for meaning in the distant reaches of space. Some find the emotional burden too great to bear, triggering a minor existential crisis. "It's better not to know", they say, "Not to think about it. Besides, [insert reality TV show name here] is on!"
On one hand, who can blame them? It's not like we're expecting answers to many of The Questions that astrobiology and astronomy are trying to solve in our lifetimes. Science is a gradual process after all, and one that will last as long as there are still questions to be answered. The relative insignificance of our personal lives, our careers and relationships, cast against the enormity of the cosmos and separated by orders of magnitudes of space and time, so clearly presented, can prove a bit too much. The Astronomical Perspective can be overwhelming, and astronomy, as Carl put it, is a humbling experience. I'd like to adopt yūgen as a general descriptor of these feelings.1
Astrobiology is a scientific discipline practised from deep within in the realms of bounded rationality. These bounds stem from a definite, fundamental and detrimental lack of information about the system, as well as a possible cognitive and technological limitation in processing of the limited information available to us. We definitively lack the resources to arrive at an optimally rational conclusion regarding our place in the universe, the existence of suitably habitable environments elsewhere, and the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, we know we're close. We suffer a kind of collective Dunning-Kruger effect regarding how little we know, and how little we know about how little we know. We're approaching that greatest of unknowns, cobbling together a piecemeal scientific narrative as we go, but missing so many parts of the puzzle that it's not even clear what it is we're building. Yet, something innate drives us onwards. Some part of us that has always been, as if a distant memory or half-remembered dream, within our genetic luggage and passed on to us from pre-human ancestors.
The size of our brains relative to our body size (also known as the encephalization quotient (EQ)) has, in fact, gotten smaller in recent times, peaking ~30,000 years ago after 2 million years of expansive growth. I'll leave the anthropologists to argue over why and what this means, but making some crude assumptions about intelligence and EQ we can assume, therefore, that our extremely distant ancestors may have gazed up at the canopy of the night sky and felt that same intangible yearning as we do. At least, there seems to be no cognitive reasons that they couldn't have done so. Maybe it was even more pronounced by the gulf of knowledge that separates their knowledge of the cosmos from our own? The bright band of the Milky Way stretched out overhead, unobscured by pollution, but hidden by ignorance; an unknowable story waiting for a narrator, one that would not arrive in earnest for thousands of years. In the meantime, complex and anthropomorphic mythologies were borne and woven by the tapestry of human imagination and fuelled by our penchant for storytelling.
Perhaps, that sense of insignificance, that yūgen, was even more heart-wrenching in the very distant past when we were young, when our contemporary achievements in understanding of our place in the greater Story would seem unfathomable, akin to magic. Perhaps, yūgen has been a driving force in our history as long as we have existed? I'm not suggesting an evolutionary driver akin to bipedalism, but perhaps a minor constituent of the human story that contributed an unquantifiable edge to our tale. An ember burning near the edge of the campfire of humanity's intellectual awakening, smouldering away throughout the ages whilst we built our temples and cities, waged our wars and battles, waiting for the spark of enlightenment to burst into an inferno of curiosity and discovery.
That's why I'm optimistic about our search. Sure, we may not find any concise answers to the 'big' questions in our lifetimes, and we'll probably always have that sense of yūgen when faced with incomprehensible enormity on galactic and light year-scales, but rather than hiding in the dark, we should embrace the feeling of astronomical despair and turn it into a creative force for discovery! If you don't like being insignificant, find something that makes you significant. Yūgen will be passed on to the next generation of curious scientists and philosophers, and as it has done in the past, it will drive us on to more profound questions and more mysterious unknowns.
1 If any Japanese speakers are reading this, please let me know if I'm using this word incorrectly – my understanding is that the context is important.
Throwing Paradigms to the Wind of Climate Change
This is a guest post by Daniil Bachkirov, a joint master's student in the School of Environmental Sciences and Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where he studies at the juncture of the natural sciences and the humanities in order to use interdisciplinary philosophical, historical and political insights to solve the environmental crisis. He can be reached by email, and (from September) can be found at the Brockwood Park School in Hampshire.
Calls for a collective behavioural and attitudinal shift with regards to the environmental crisis abound these days, but does the language we use reflect want individuals want? Are there cultural processes at work that we continue to participate in even when we're basically saying, "We want things to be different?" And can these cultural processes actually undermine our capacity to change our attitudes?
While it may seem piddling to be talking about language when there are real, observable, physical processes and social inequalities at work that threaten life on this planet, I ask, what enables us to come together and act on these issues? Language!
For that reason, I want to inquire into the specific terms we use to call for these "collective behavioural and attitudinal shifts".
When Thomas Kuhn, philosopher of science, wrote in 1962 about the way in which scientific theories and practice were embedded within structures that validate certain ways of understanding nature whilst discrediting others, and that these were subject to change over time, it is unlikely that he would have anticipated the degree to which the word for these structures; "paradigms", would find usage beyond its original meaning, as they have today. In particular, the idea of the "paradigm shift", where a dramatic intellectual rift occurs in the scientific community about the fundamentals of scientific knowledge, after which one idea usually triumphs over another, turned out to be a popular way of referring to other kinds of shifts in ideas. You could say it's almost a cliché.
I want to question the popularity of the "paradigm shift". It is problematic on two fronts: Firstly, it seems to be indicative of a kind of 'problematising' that implicitly defines the environmental crisis in scientific terms, i.e, it is a crisis that can be reduced to the physically observable and therefore we can only act to prevent crises with sufficient objective certainty. This normalises one discourse at the expense of others. Secondly, it might not be an accurate term to describe how ideas and practices actually shift in societies. Societies after all, are far more complex than the shared scientific understandings that Kuhn called "paradigms".
So, firstly, what do I mean by discourse? Broadly speaking: a set of practices and beliefs expressed through dialogue in a given culture. It is a central concept in the work of the postmodern French philosopher, Michel Foucault who was interested in examining the conditions necessary for the validation of knowledge about human beings at certain times and places. He developed an "archaeological" method to excavate historical artefacts, i.e. texts, to establish how knowledge becomes an instrument of power.
Central to this process, and the term I want to offer as a non-scientistic, more open-ended conception was the idea of the episteme, or the "epistemological field of power" which creates the necessary conditions for the emergence of knowledge. These epistemes flow into one another with no natural rhythm or progression, but can be metaphorically expressed as changing climate patterns. In this sense, Foucault was not interested in the weather, i.e. isolated ideas and historical figures, but the climate; the complex interrelations that create the weather.
I'm asking the reader to consider the potential social effects of using "paradigm shift" to refer to social and behavioural shifts in our attitude to global climate change. Does this usage not imply that everyone in human societies, like a group of scientists in the 16th century moving from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican model, is at the same level of understanding and appreciation of the problem of global climate change to collectively understand and choose to act upon a shift to a "new paradigm"?
Does it also not imply that global climate change is only a problem for science? And if the dominant ideology in scientism happens to be one of materialism, does using "paradigm shift" not add to a climate of popular understanding that the problems of climate change can be reduced to its materially observable effects?
We need to remember that when we call for a "paradigm shift" in our environmental beliefs and practices, we are employing a metaphor from the world of science. Metaphors work on the principle of shared understanding and reveal value-laden, culturally embedded meaning-making processes. They also work on the principle of "feedback loops", so that those meanings and values embedded in a metaphor are circulated back into society through their regular use, validating those meanings and values.
Might we consider using a term more focused on the broad analysis of intellectual climates rather than a metaphor from a specific discipline? Or better yet, abandon the call for "paradigm shifts" all together?
Dead Stars Reveal Mysteries of Planet Formation
This is a guest post by David Wilson, a PhD student in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick, where he studies the remains of planetary systems around white dwarfs (see below!). He can be found on Twitter and blogs about various astronomy topics at Stuff About Space.
Twenty seven years ago astronomers noticed something strange about the white dwarf star GD29-38.
White dwarfs are dead stars, the burnt out carbon cores of stars like our Sun which have exhausted their hydrogen fuel; incredibly dense, incredibly hot balls of matter roughly the size of the Earth. Because of their high temperature, tens of thousands of degrees, all white dwarfs glow blue.
But the light from GD 29-38 wasn't just blue. When it was split into a spectrum, separated into a rainbow of separate colours, there seemed to be something else there. Something shining with an infrared light, beyond the range of our eyesight.
Initially the discovers were excited, as the red light could have come from an orbiting brown dwarf, a mysterious object several times bigger than a planet but much smaller than a star. But both the white dwarf and the infrared source were pulsating slightly, periodically getting brighter and dimmer. If the red light was from a separate object, then it shouldn't have pulsed in time with the white dwarf.
The spectrum also revealed metals in the white dwarf's atmosphere, heavy elements like calcium, magnesium and iron. These were also out of place, as white dwarfs have such a strong gravity that anything heavier than hydrogen or helium should have sunk down into their cores long ago. The metals must be falling onto the white dwarf from the space around it- but how did they get there?
It took until 2003 for the origin of the mysterious infrared glow to be found, during which time many more white dwarfs with similar red spectra and metal polluted atmospheres were found. The explanation was that the infrared light is coming from a disc of dusty debris surrounding the white dwarf.
This debris was formed from the wreckage of an asteroid, leftover from when GD29-38 was a Sun-like star with its own system of planets. The dust in the disc rains down onto the white dwarf, explaining the metals we see in the atmosphere.
The story of how the debris disc got there is a result of the turbulent formation of the white dwarf. As it runs out of fuel a star swells up to a huge red giant, then blows away roughly half of its mass in an immense stellar wind, leaving the tiny white dwarf core.
With the gravitational force at its heart cut in two, the system of planets around the dying star is thrown into chaos. Planets begin to migrate outwards, trying to reach orbits twice as far away from the central star as before. As they do this, they risk coming into close contact with each other.
Some of the planets survive these encounters and carry on as they are. Others, especially when a big Jupiter sized planet is involved, are thrown out of the system into the depths of interstellar space. And some are scattered into the centre of the system towards the white dwarf.
These unlucky asteroids and dwarf planets fall in towards the white dwarf until they reach a point known as the tidal disruption radius. There the tidal force, the difference in gravitational pull between the parts of the asteroid nearest the white dwarf and the areas further away, becomes so great that the asteroid is ripped apart, forming the dusty debris disc that we see as an infrared glow.
The discovery of this process lead to an important conclusion. As the dust rains down onto the white dwarf it becomes visible to our telescopes. If we can measure what metals there are, and how much of each there is, then we can reveal the chemical composition of the asteroid or planet that formed the disc. We can ask, and answer, the question: "What are planets made of?"
Two decades ago we only knew about the eight planets in our solar system (Pluto was never a planet, it was just mislabelled). Now we know of over a thousand planets, new worlds orbiting hundreds of stars. Through our telescopes we can measure the size of these planets, what their masses are, and even in some cases get a glimpse into their atmospheres.
But we can't find out what they're made of, what the geology of these newly discovered planets is like. This means that we don't know for sure if the way that the rocky planets are built in our solar system, the particular mix of iron, oxygen, magnesium, silicon and other chemicals that make up the Earth and its neighbours, is the way all planets are built.
The metal polluted white dwarfs form a perfect laboratory, presenting us with rocky objects that have broken apart into their chemical components. By observing as many as we can, we can begin to explore the chemical diversity of planets and planetary systems. We can see if the way our planets are built is the normal way to construct a planet, or whether Earth is even more unique than we thought.
To date we've discovered around a dozen white dwarfs with enough chemicals to compare their systems in detail with our own. So far, they look fairly similar to the Earth, a hopeful sign. But we need many more to truly explore this area, and over the next few years myself and others will be scouring the sky, using the Hubble Space Telescope above us and an array of telescopes on the ground. We will find more metal polluted white dwarfs, measure the chemicals of the planetary debris around them, and begin to explore in detail what things you need to build a planet.
The future of life detection on Mars: We come in peace, but carry lasers!
This is a guest post by Samantha Rolfe, a PhD student at the The Open University's Department of Physical Sciences, where she is researching potential biomarkers on Mars using Raman spectroscopy. You can find her on Twitter, or talking science on Radio Verulam.
The robotic exploration of other planets has been happening for many decades now. We have been to almost all the classical planets, with the New Horizons mission presently on its way to the Pluto‑Charon system (Pluto will always be a planet in my heart). Among the earliest fragile feelers of this type were extended in the 1970s in the shape of the Viking missions to Mars. Mars has been the subject of speculation for over a century in the minds of humans when considering whether we are alone in the Universe. For many years, almost right up to the landing of the Viking missions, it was believed that Mars had vegetation on its surface; Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli thought he had observed a network of linear 'channels' on Mars during observations in 1877, which was later mistranslated as 'canals' by Percival Lowell, further fuelling the fire that intelligent Martians existed there. However, images from the Mariner program showed the surface to be littered with craters, a surface similar to that of the Moon.
The Viking landers were sent with life detection instrumentation, the results of which proved inconclusive (though recent reanalysis shows they may have detected organic material but it was masked by geochemical processes that were not understood at the time) and this led to pessimism about finding life elsewhere in the Solar System in planetary science departments around the world. Nonetheless, with improving technology and further study of Mars from orbit and the ground has revealed that Mars definitely had areas of standing and running water on its surface for a significant amount of time; long enough to create fluvial fans, sedimentary stacks and rounded pebbles, which are amongst the evidence for liquid water. These discoveries, along with the developing discipline of astrobiology, have forced us to continue looking for the potential of Mars as a habitable planet.
The concept of habitability has been stretched in recent years with the in depth study of extremophiles, often single celled organisms (though they can be found on all three branches of the phylogenetic tree) living in conditions where humans would instantly perish. Examples of terrestrial life living at extremes of temperature, pressure or salinity, for example, makes for an interesting case that Mars may too host life. Liquid water can only exist at the surface of Mars if its freezing point is depressed to extremes, evidence of which has been found in the form of Recurring Slope Lineae – streaks seen to lengthen and retreat with the seasons on crater walls – if there is liquid water at the surface, perhaps there are reservoirs in the subsurface which life could utilise.
Future missions to planetary bodies will be employing new techniques to search for life. Raman spectroscopy is one of these techniques. A non-destructive laser is fired at a sample and some of the reflected photons are engaged in a non-elastic interaction with the sampled molecules, slightly changing the frequency of the returning light. This is displayed as spectroscopic peaks or bands representative of the individual bonds within the molecule. Therefore, each molecule has its own unique Raman spectrum allowing the identification of organic and inorganic molecules even within a mixed matrix of materials, making it a useful tool for life detection.
The present surface conditions of Mars are not forgiving to the survival organic material or, therefore, its detection. The surface is known to be an oxidising environment, leading to the destruction of organic material that may exist at the surface of Mars. The Martian subsurface may be protecting organic molecules waiting to be detected as tantalising evidence for the possible existence of life on the Red Planet. ESA's ExoMars mission, due to launch in 2018, will be carrying a Raman spectrometer and ideas for future missions to Jupiter's moon Europa are also considering strapping a Raman spectrometer to them and throwing it into the extreme radiation environment of the Jovian system.
Before we land on these planetary bodies, we can test what we think we are expecting i.e. can organic molecules be detected in simulated Martian environments? Experiments have shown that organic molecules such as amino acids are able to survive Martian surface conditions, for perhaps millions of years (extrapolated) in small quantities (parts per billion). In the harsh light of the Martian day (where the atmosphere does not block the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun as effectively as the Earth's does), the Raman signatures of amino acids are degraded. Similar results are seen for microbes, such as Deinococcus radiodurans. Their Raman signatures have been analysed and examined after exposure to the ionising radiation environment expected at the surface and near surface of Mars.
If we are to discover organic molecules or even microbial Raman signatures on Mars then it is apparent that we will need to dig or drill down into the subsurface, beyond the depth where destructive ultraviolet and ionising radiation can penetrate. For ultraviolet, mere millimetres of regolith can block harmful rays, but the depth to which ionising radiation is able to penetrate is thought to be at least 2 m below the surface. Luckily, ExoMars will carry a drill with the ability to bore to a depth of 2 m (see what they did there?). Drilling to this depth has never been attempted before and will be a great feat of engineering if achieved. Samples recovered from the subsurface will need to be handled with great care and be removed from direct interaction with the Martian daylight as experiments have shown that Raman signatures of some organic molecules can begin to degrade within seconds, losing vital information about potential life that may exist or have existed in the subsurface.
Raman spectroscopy is only some of what we have to look forward to in terms of future martian life detection missions and with all the new information we have been gathering with Curiosity of the Mars Sample Laboratory mission in Gale Crater (rounded pebbles indicating long term presence of liquid water, Mars is not red all over but grey too – a sedimentary rock, 'John Klein', was drilled into, a first in Mars exploration, and was found to be grey under the surface with analysis being consistent with clay minerals), we can only imagine what we might find in the future. Especially given that Curiosity's mission is only to assess the habitability of Mars, not search for life, we have so much to look forward to.
Despite the amazing advances and discoveries made by robotic missions, robots are no substitute for human exploration. It is thought that humans could have conducted the same amount of research that the Mars rovers have within a few days or weeks, compared to the several years that it has taken. However, human space exploration warrants further discussion as there are many difficulties that we need to overcome before travel into interplanetary space will be safe enough, never mind the spiralling costs.
East Anglia's Giant Purple Blob
This is a guest post by Luke Surl, a PhD student in the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) at the University of East Anglia, where he is researching the atmospheric chemistry of volcanic plumes. You can find him on Twitter, or visit lukesurl.com for his excellent science-inspired comics.
Last week a giant purple blob descended upon East Anglia, with commotion and a flurry of newspapermen in its wake. The vulnerable were told to shelter in their homes, powerless to tackle its all-pervasive reach. Wisdom was sought from the sages of this ill-understood art, but all that could be done was hope the blight would soon pass.
A little dramatic license is appropriate for a guest blog, no? To decode, the purple blob is the region of "Very High" air quality risk shown on the official maps that have been appearing this week. These maps have been accompanied by warnings for asthmatics and others sensitive to such conditions. The "sages" are the atmospheric scientists who, normally eclipsed in the media spotlight by their climatic colleges, have been ubiquitous on in the media.
If you haven't been keeping track, in short a combination of factors conspired this week to cause parts of Britain to experience an usually high level of particulate matter. Britons were breathing dust blown in from the Sahara, plus some with old-fashioned home-grown pollution. The weather slowed the dispersion of this event causing it to linger and intensify.
While "smog" seemed to be the media's favoured term for the phenomenon, (evoking memories of the London smog of 1952) the discussion amongst the atmospheric scientists at UEA (where I do research) was of the aerosol counts. "Aerosol" is a catch-all term for solid and liquid particles suspended in air, and there are, critically two sorts. We deem primary aerosol particles directly emitted to the atmosphere whilst secondary aerosol are particles which form in-air from gaseous beginnings
The Saharan dust we have been inhaling is primary. Secondary aerosol is most readily created when the air has been polluted with sulphur and NOx. On an ordinary day, road traffic is the biggest such aerosol offender. In London, one of the principle raison d'etres of the congestion charge is to prevent such an air quality hit in a concentrated metropolis of cars and people.
Such technical distinctions are, however, largely ignored by ones lungs. Particles smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter travel into the lungs. The smallest of these can end up penetrating and settling deep into the respiratory system. This is not good news for anyone, especially asthmatics and others with similar conditions.
In some of the more morbid papers that atmospheric scientists are likely to come across, this air quality impact can be quantified. A 2009 study found Americans living in the most polluted areas can attribute air quality to their lives being about 2.5 years shorter than their cousins in cleaner areas. In China, where the economic boom has been quite literally dulled by thick smogs in its cities, the numbers are quite terrifying. These numbers are difficult to process. They are cold, dispassionate and cryptic, buried in journal papers few will read. But every data point hides an individual tragedy of a life extinguished early
Thankfully Norwich and London are nowhere near Chinese levels, though there are still thousands of such deaths a year. Britain, and the EU in general, quite rightly holds itself to very high standards with regards to its air.
As in everything, the recent incident has had a political dimension. Public debate has asked whether this incident is to be blamed on natural or human causes.
This misses the point. While the primary aerosol from the Sahara and the directions of the winds are beyond the remit of any public policy. But this natural phenomenon is compounded by human action. Regardless of how we apportion the blame, the particulates owing its existence to our cars and factories isn't made harmless or insignificant by their natural counterparts, rather they can make a bad problem worse, especially for the most vulnerable. And even when the winds change and the purple blobs and media disperse, this pollution can still chip away days, months or years from human lives.
There's nothing more essential to human life than the air we breathe, which is partly one of the reasons I have chosen atmospheric science as my field of research. It's also fundamentally something we cannot help but share with our neighbours and community. Our air's pollution and perturbation, from nature and from man, is something that will impact us all.
The Null Hypothesis: When Do We Declare a Barren World?
This is a guest post by Euan Monaghan, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Physical Sciences at The Open University, where he studies the habitability of the subsurface of Mars. You can find him on Twitter.
Astrobiology is the search for life elsewhere in the universe. When this search is focussed on a specific world, there's a chance—quite a good chance it would seem—that this search will turn out to be fruitless; that there will be no life to be found except the terrestrial life we bring along with us in the process. But can we ever say for sure?
This piece is focussed on Mars, but the idea applies to all worlds targeted for astrobiological exploration. The particular habitats on Europa, Titan or Kepler-62e might be different to those found on Mars, but the question is the same everywhere: does this world host life?
Scientific progress has made the martians of our imagination progressively smaller and more insignificant. No longer the grand canal builders of old—no longer even considered to be multi-cellular—the optimistic amongst us imagine microbes in briny pockets kilometres beneath a hostile surface; their presence deep underground given away by a subtle disequilibrium in the gases of Mars' tenuous atmosphere. If the martians are there, they're in hiding.
As we gain a greater understanding of the geologic and climatic history of Mars, a subterranean biosphere doesn't seem so unreasonable. While Mars was likely warm and wet long before the Earth was, it is also smaller and so cooled faster. It couldn't hold onto a thick, warming atmosphere for long and so its surface water was gradually lost, both out into space and down into the planet's interior, to be fixed within the structure of minerals, frozen as permafrost or trapped in groundwater aquifers beneath layers of ice. And as Mars cooled and the water descended, so did the planet's habitable zone, until it was hidden from view.
The habitability of any extra-terrestrial environment is estimated through the study of life adapted to extreme conditions on the Earth. This 'envelope of life', with its upper and lower boundaries of temperature, pressure, salt tolerance and so on, is expanding all the time. The relatively recent discovery of our own deep subsurface biosphere, as well as its remarkable diversity and extent, has broadened our concept of what we consider to be a habitable environment. It is with this ever-more subtle knowledge of our own world that we turn back to the planets in our search for life.
The next logical step in that search, for Mars at least, is a detailed study of its atmosphere. In early 2016 the European Space Agency will launch a mission to do just that: the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will perform a more comprehensive inventory of the martian atmosphere and the respective abundances of its gases than ever before. It is hoped that the results of this study will provide an insight into active processes occurring deep underground. But then again there is the very real possibility that the TGO will arrive in orbit and find no signs of life, however tentative. The null hypothesis—Mars is a barren world—would still stand. Should we then give up on our search, or do we commit time and resources to a strategy of ever more sophisticated astrobiological exploration, all the while striving to prevent accidental contamination by terrestrial life?
The inevitable moments when we decide to re-focus our search for life beyond the Earth should not be considered moments of pessimism. The universe has too much potential.
Lost in Space: Finding a Sense of Place in the Cosmos
This is a guest post by Sean McMahon, a PhD student in the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen. Sean's research applies geological perspectives and techniques to astrobiological problems ranging from the origin and distribution of life in the universe to the origin of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Visit his excellent blog, Fourth Planet, for more on his research, his impressive space art and photography, and writings.
"Though a planetary perspective is a magnificent and enriching thing, places, not planets, are the core of human experience. It is from places that we build our world."
— Mapping Mars, Oliver Morton (2002)
"He stood thereby, though 'in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities,' yet manlike towards God and man; the vague shoreless Universe had become for him a firm city, and dwelling which he knew."
— The French Revolution: A History, Thomas Carlyle (1837)
Last year, in a car park in Aberdeen, I saw Jupiter through a telescope for the first time. What I saw was not the familiar red-spotted giant from the Nasa photographs, that great bronze bauble marbled with cream like artisan coffee—no. What I saw, through a gap in the Scottish clouds, was a pale round smudge with three white specks for moons. It was not dramatic but it was a strange and lovely moment. It reminded me that Jupiter, the other planets, and even the distant stars and galaxies, are no less real, no less here—albeit further away—than Scotland, clouds, car parks, and me. They are on the same map, sharing our geography, our humdrum commonplace reality.
In our eagerness to be inspired by astronomical imagery, we are often tempted to forget this fundamental sameness. Documentaries about the cosmos besiege us with spectacular graphics, rousing orchestral music and rapturous, lyrical narration. In the tradition of Carl Sagan, we are urged to adopt a "cosmic perspective", in which the Earth dwindles to an insignificant1 "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam". Meanwhile, digital space art is reliving the Romanticism of 19th Century painting: balance, proportion and subtlety are abandoned in favour of vertiginous perspectives, extremes of colour and contrast, and sublime, mystical lighting: silhouetted planets disintegrate into vast purple nebulae bristling with crepuscular rays. Thus, it seems that an ecstatic, almost mythical vision of outer space, emphasizing above all its spiritual and aesthetic grandeur, has taken root in popular culture.
Maybe that vision has some role to play in attracting public interest to the space sciences. But paradoxically, it can make the "wonders of the universe" seem less accessible than ever; profound, ethereal, miraculous, even unreal. It bolsters the popularity of astrology by reinforcing the illusion that planets and stars are unfathomable, heavenly beings: much more plausible aids to divination than ordinary material things. Most worryingly, it can give the impression that space exploration is an esoteric spiritual quest, unrelated to ordinary human problems and unfit for serious attention from media, government or young, career-minded scientists.
Perhaps the "numinous" view of space reflects a deeper failure to grasp the implications of the Copernican Revolution. Somehow, I suggest, we still make some kind of basic ontological distinction between the heavens and the Earth2. Consequently, we are unable to feel truly embedded in our extraterrestrial environment, which remains a transcendent, detached and coldly beautiful space rather than a homely, material, lived-in place. The Apollo programme helped to bridge that gap for a generation, transforming the moon from an icon of celestial indifference into a humanly intelligible landscape—rather like a golf course, in fact, replete with bunkers, buggies, flags and footprints3. Revealingly, many people today find it easier to believe that the whole thing was a hoax.
The sharp, vivid photographs taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover can have a similar effect, reminding us that the martian surface is a real place, not so different in appearance from the rocky deserts of Libya or the High Arctic. Despite our unsophisticated cultural relationship with outer space—a mixture of mythology, indifference and reverence—a crewed mission to Mars in the next thirty years now seems very likely. I hope that mission will allow the next generation to feel more at home in the universe, more fully at ease with the fact that even Milton Keynes4 is part of the Milky Way. What we stand to gain is not an exalted "cosmic perspective" but simply a richer, more expansive sense of place, of where it is that we live our lives.
1 This strain of rhetoric characteristically fails to observe that human beings adjudicate the significance of the universe, not the other way around.
2 Douglas Adams exploited this confusion to humorous effect, juxtaposing ordinary things with cosmic phenomena: the "restaurant at the end of the universe," the "whelk in a supernova" and so on; "you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist but that's just peanuts compared to [the size of] space".
3 Some readers will know that the American astronaut Alan Shephard did in fact play golf on the moon; two golf balls remain there.
4 Milton Keynes is an architecturally unprepossessing English town and home to the Open University, where much British space research has been conducted.
The hunt for an Exo-Earth: How close are we?
This is a guest post by Hugh Osborn, a PhD student in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick. Hugh's research involves using transit surveys to discover exoplanets. Visit his excellent blog, Lost in Transits, for more on exoplanets, their detection and his research.
In the 1890s Percival Lovell pointed the huge, 24-inch Alvan Clark telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona towards the planet Mars. Ever the romantic, he longed to find some sign of life on the Red Planet: to hold a mirror up to the empty sky above and find a planet that looked a little bit like home. Of course, in Lovell's case, it was the telescope itself that gave the impression of life, imposing faint lines onto the image that he mistook for canals. But, with Mars long since relegated to the status of a dusty, hostile world, that ideal of finding such a planet still lingers. In the great loneliness of space, our species yearns to find a world like our own, maybe even a world that some other lineage of life might call home.
A hundred years after Lovell's wayward romanticism, the real search for Earth-like planets began. A team of astronomers at the University of Geneva used precise spectroscopy to discover a Jupiter-sized world around the star 55-Peg. This was followed by a series of similar worlds; all distinctly alien with huge gas giants orbiting perishingly close to their stars. However, as techniques improved and more time & money was invested on exoplanet astronomy, that initial trickle of new worlds soon turned into a flood. By 2008 more than 300 planets had been discovered including many multi-planet systems and a handful of potentially rocky planets around low-mass stars. However, the ultimate goal of finding Earth-like planets still seemed an impossible dream.
In 2009 the phenomenally sensitive Kepler mission launched. Here was a mission that might finally discover Earth-sized planets around Sun-like stars, detecting the faint dip in light as they passed between their star and us. Four years, 3500 planetary candidates and 200 confirmed planets later, the mission was universally declared a success. Its remarkable achievements include a handful of new terrestrial worlds, such as Kepler-61b and 62e, orbiting safely within their star's habitable zones. However, despite lots of column inches and speculation, are these planets really the Earth 2.0s we were sold?
While such worlds may well have surfaces with beautifully Earth-like temperatures, there are a number of problems with calling such worlds definitive Earth twins. For a start the majority of these potentially habitable planets (such as Kepler-62e) orbit low-mass M-type stars. These are dimmer and redder than our Sun and, due to the relative distance of the habitable zone, such planets are likely to be tidally locked. The nature of such stars also makes them significantly more active, producing more atmosphere-stripping UV radiation. This means, despite appearances, 'habitable' planets around M-dwarfs are almost certainly less conducive to life than more sun-like stars.
Even more damning is the size of these planets. Rather than being truly Earth-like, the crop of currently known 'Habitable planets' are all super-Earths. In the case of Kepler's goldilocks worlds, this means they have radii between 1.6 and 2.3 times that of Earth. That may not sound too bad, but the mass of each planet scales with the volume. That means, when compression due to gravity is taken into account, for such planets to be rocky they would need masses between 8 and 30 times that of Earth. With 10ME often used as the likely limit of terrestrial planets, can we really call such planets Earth-like. In fact, a recent study of super-Earths put the maximum theoretical radius for a rocky planet as between 1.5 and 1.8RE, with most worlds above this size likely being more like Mini-Neptunes.
So it appears our crop of habitable super-Earths may not be as life-friendly as previously thought. But it is true that deep in Kepler's 3500 candidates a true Earth-like planet may lurk. However the majority of Kepler's candidates orbit distant, dim stars. This means the hope of confirming these worlds by other techniques, especially tiny exo-Earths, is increasingly unlikely. And with Kepler's primary mission now ended by a technical fault, an obvious question arises: just when and how will we find a true Earth analogue?
Future exoplanet missions may well be numerous, but are they cut out to discover a true Earth-like planet? The recently launched Gaia spacecraft, for example, will discover hundreds of Gas Giants orbiting Sun-like stars using the astrometry technique, but it would need to be around a hundred times more sensitive to discover Earths. New ground-based transit surveys such as NGTS are set to be an order of magnitude better than previous such surveys, but still these will only be able to find super-Earth or Neptune-sized worlds.
Similarly, Kepler's successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite which is due to be launched in 2017, will only be able to find short-period planets with radii more than 50% larger than Earth. HARPS, the most prolific exoplanet-hunting instrument to date, is also due for an upgrade by 2017. Its protégée is a spectrometer named ESPRESSO that will be able to measure the change in velocity of a star down to a mere 10cms-1. Even this ridiculous level of accuracy is still not sufficient to detect the 8cms-1 effect Earth's mass has on the Sun.
So despite billions spent on the next generation of planet-finders, they all fall short of finding that elusive second Earth. What, precisely, will it take to find this particular Holy Grail? There is some hope that the E-ELT (European-Extremely Large Telescope), with its 35m of collecting area and world-beating instruments will be able to detect exo-earths. Not only will its radial velocity measurements likely be sensitive enough to find such planets, it may also be able to directly image earth-analogues around the nearest stars. However, with observing time likely to be at a premium, the long-duration observations required to find and study exo-earths could prove difficult.
Alternatively, large space telescopes could be the answer. JWST will be able to do innovative exoplanet research including taking direct images of long-period planets and accurate atmospheric spectra of transiting super-Earths and giants. Even more remarkably, it may manage to take spectra of habitable zone super-Earths such as GJ 581d. But direct detection of true Earth-analogues remains out of reach. An even more ambitious project may be required, such as TPF or Darwin. These were a pair of proposals that could have directly imaged nearby stars to discover Earth-like planets. However, with both projects long since shelved by their respective space agencies, the future doesn't look so bright for Earth-hunting telescopes.
After the unabashed confidence of the Kepler era, the idea that no Earth-like planet discovery is on the horizon may come as a surprisingly pessimistic conclusion. However not all hope is lost. The pace of technological advancement is quickening. Instruments such as TESS, Espresso, E-ELT and JWST are already being built. These missions may not be perfectly designed to the technical challenge of discovering truly Earth-like planets, but they will get us closer than ever before. As a civilisation we have waited hundreds of years for such a discovery; I'm sure we can hold out for a few more.
Rarely-Done Planets
This is a guest post by David Waltham, Reader in Mathematical Geology at Royal Holloway, University of London. David's new book, Lucky Planet, is out in April 2014. Visit his 'Strange Worlds Catalogue' for more exoplanet oddities.
The issue of manmade global-warming seems far removed from questions of exoplanet habitability but there is a close link. A planet whose climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse-gas changes is also a planet that responds strongly to increasing heat from its aging star; and it's hard for such a world to remain habitable for long. The Earth seems to be one such world (that's why global warming is such a threat) but it has never-the-less remained habitable for billions of years. How it managed pull off this trick is an intriguing, but not particularly new, mystery.
In 1972 Carl Sagan and George Mullen recognized that, since our Sun produced 30% less heat when she was young, surface temperatures on the early Earth should have been far below freezing. However, geological evidence showed running water when our world was just a few hundred million years old. Sagan and Mullen called this the faint young Sun paradox and, forty years later, there is still no consensus on how to resolve it. However the concept of climate sensitivity, an idea refined over the last thirty years by climate scientists interested in anthropogenic global-warming, now gives us a clear framework for discussing the issues.
Climate sensitivity tells us how much warmer a planet becomes for a given increase in the heat it receives. It's a bit like going from gas-mark 5 to gas-mark 6; how much hotter does this make an oven? At gas-mark 6 more gas is being burnt and temperature rises but, in a badly insulated oven for example, the increase would be less than expected. Similarly, different planets warm up by different amounts for a given increase in heating and this difference in climate sensitivity depends upon the relative strengths of positive and negative feedbacks in the climate system. As I'll show below, the faint young Sun paradox occurs because Earth's high climate sensitivity is incompatible with the flowing of liquid water on her surface when she was young.
Climate sensitivity is usually expressed by how much warmer the Earth becomes if carbon dioxide concentrations are doubled. Doubling of CO2 is expected by the end of the current century and so this is a very concrete way of expressing the expected impact. The best guess is that climate sensitivity is in the range 1.5-4.5 °C . This range is largely based upon computer models of the present-day climate system but it is backed up by simulations of Earth's past climate which only match observations when similar climate sensitivities are used . If anything, these geological studies suggest that the computer estimates are too low but let's be conservative and stick with the computer models. What does a climate sensitivity of 3 °C predict concerning temperature changes over the life time of our planet?
To calculate this we need to re-express climate sensitivity in a slightly different way. Doubling CO2 increases heating at the Earth's surface by 3.7 Wm-2 but, to produce an equivalent amount of heating at ground level, solar radiation must go up by 5.3 Wm-2 because some is reflected back into space. Thus, temperatures go up 3 °C if solar heating increases by 5.3 Wm-2. Earth's climate sensitivity is therefore 0.6 °C per Wm-2. Heat from the Sun has actually gone up 90 Wm-2 over the last 4 billion years and so temperatures should have risen more than 50 °C. This implies a young Earth that endured average temperatures near -40 °C and that is inconsistent with liquid water anywhere on our planet's surface.
An obvious objection to this analysis is that the ancient climate system was very different to that of the modern Earth and so the present-day climate sensitivity may not be relevant. That's a fair point but we can get around it by concentrating instead on the Phanerozoic Eon (i.e. the last 542 million years) when there is no reason to think that climate sensitivity would have been massively different to today. Solar heating has increased 15 Wm-2 over this time and so temperatures should have risen by about 10 °C but there is no evidence whatsoever for such a rise. Analysis of oxygen isotopes in ancient marine organisms suggest that Phanerozoic temperatures have fluctuated around a steady mean or perhaps even dropped a little. Thus, whether we look at the whole of Earth's history or just the last half-billion years, there is no evidence for the expected overall warming despite the steadily increasing luminosity of our Sun. What's going on?
The missing part of the puzzle is that Earth itself has evolved, both geologically and biologically, during its long history. For example, the slow growth of the continents and the biological evolution of more effective rock-fragmenters (e.g. lichens and trees) has steadily increased the efficiency with which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by the chemical reaction of acid-rain on volcanic rock. Another greenhouse gas, methane, has also greatly declined through time as oxygen levels have grown following the evolution of photosynthesis. Furthermore, land, especially plant-covered land, is more reflective than sea and so, as the continents grew and as they became colonized by life, more of the Sun's heat has been reflected into space. These processes, and perhaps others, cooled our planet as the Sun tried to warm it.
Two opposing forces therefore fought for dominance of climate trends and, coincidentally, roughly cancelled out. But what produced this coincidence? Some would ascribe it to the Gaia hypothesis that a sufficiently complex bio-geochemical system will inherently produce environmental stability. However there's no credible mechanism for this and, in any case, Gaia may have confused cause and effect: Earth's complex biosphere didn't produce a stable climate; rather a stable climate was a necessary precondition for a complex biosphere. If this is right, then biospheres whose complexity and beauty rival that of the Earth will be rare in the Universe. On the majority of those few worlds where life arises, it will all-too-soon be frozen by bio-geochemistry or roasted by its sun. However a few worlds will, purely by chance, walk the fine line between these fates long enough for intelligent life to arise. We live on one of those rare, lucky planets.