No, I’m not talking about my wife again.
I’m taking about the mysterious Magnapinna, the giant squid that is rarely seen alive. Follow the link for some amazing footage.
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This composite photo was created from 400 separate shots
After almost two months of the dull, painful trickle of science from the Phoenix lander, there’s finally some interesting news:
Water on Mars!
The Phoenix lander has confirmed it. Sure, it’s in the form of ice, but it’s water nonetheless.
You might say that this isn’t even news, that telescopes and orbiters have been telling us this for years. But I’m a skeptic: I prefer to hold out for solid evidence, instead of getting in a tizzy based on “indications” or “suggestions”.
But it’s there alright. Good old life-affirming H2O. And the soil contains all those yummy nutrients that are prerequisites for life.
Apparently the majority of experiments on Phoenix are looking for soil “capable of sustaining” life, not life itself. How uninspiring is that? Surely they could have included a couple of experiments looking for actual life?
Wouldn’t it be something? Wouldn’t it be so extraordinarily mind-boggling if life, any life, past or present, was found on another planet?
Yet I am bored by the Phoenix mission, with all its annoying problems trying to get a soil sample into the cookers. How many man hours vs. robot hours, just to scoop some soil into the lander? I bet it’s 1,000 to 1 at least. Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely think we need to continue such missions – but we’ve got a lot of work to do before we consider sending robots to Mars to build a habitat or otherwise prepare for a manned expedition.
We as humans are so limited in our technology. We think we’re so clever with out mobile phones and plasma TV’s. But we’re at such a fragile stage in our very temporary presence here on Earth. We’ve been changing things, and our planet will never be the same. Yet we continue to reach for the stars, but all we can manage is the handful of planets that orbit our own star. And even then we struggle. Half of our missions to Mars have failed.
Something else caught my attention today. Apparently JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) has some Phoenix findings they want to share with the White House before sharing with the public. Some sources maintain that this is routine, but elsewhere on the internet there is excitement and much speculation. And, the internet being what it is, you can be sure there’s a host of conspiracy theories just to keep things interesting. (A funny place, the internet.) I’ll be very interested to hear the follow-up to this. Maybe they’ve found some clues up there about the JFK assassination.
I had a lovely Father’s day last Sunday.
I guess I knew Father’s Day was coming, but all I felt was a vague sense that I was supposed to do something. I wondered what. But then I remembered: call my father. But it’s not Father’s day in Canada. It happens on a different day over there, doesn’t it? (Rationalizing can be useful. What guilt?)
But when I woke up Sharon said to me, “Happy Father’s Day! What would you like for breakfast?”
I hadn’t realized – it was my first father’s day! Me, a dad!
I got my favourite breakfast (cream cheese, lox and onion on a toasted bagel) and later on a nice steak for dinner. Not bad, eh? I tried to remember what I’d done for Sharon on Mother’s day… I couldn’t. She reminded me: I was hungover and useless. I’d been out the night before, wetting the baby’s head. All I could manage was a pathetic back rub.
But that’s not all. After what seemed like hours locked away in the living room, Sharon and Bruce presented me with this card.
The footprint is easy to make out; the unrecognizable glob on the left is his paw. (Apparently he wasn’t into the idea of flattening his hands).
He painted the inside all by himself. He clearly has talent.
Thanks Bruce. Thanks Sharon. That was totally unexpected. I guess this is for real now, eh?
.
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This is what the train says:
When I first rode this train I was completely taken with that voice. She speaks at every stop. The way she pronounces Gourock makes me lighter somehow. She lilts up on the last syllable, as if she’s asking a question – Gourock? Where is that? But it’s her rolling ‘r’ that kills me. And the collapsing of the vowels. It sounds so exotic.
I like how the pronouncement is so final: “This train is for Gourock”. As if it’s this train’s sole purpose, to take us to Gourock, where (as she says later on), “this train will terminate.” Then they build us a new train for the next time. There’s something very appealing about that.
This train is for Gourock. I like it. We’re in the right place.
Most of our attempts at Mars fail, so I’m always delighted when we get a successful landing. This is from NASA’s Phoenix Lander, taken yesterday.
This one is amazing. This is the Mars Orbiter getting a picture of Phoenix on the way down. How cool is that?
It cost almost $600 million dollars to build and launch. I’m no rocket scientist, but that still seems like a lot to me.
There’s a Canadian weather lab on board, at the cost of some $37 million. I’m glad Canada still plays a role in space exploration. But how can you spend $37 million on a tiny weather lab? I’m not complaining, I just want to know. My Casio Pathfinder watch cost me $100, and it has temperature, tides, barometer, barometer history, moon phases, and who knows what else. What about just sending up a couple of those?
Phoenix will be analyzing the soil, using a low-tech scoop and high-tech ovens, looking for water and other building blocks of life. I don’t expect them to find any martians in the soil, but there’s a good possibility they’ll find evidence of previous life. That will be as important a discovery as finding current life. This is going to be fascinating.
See http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/.
Today when I got home from work I noticed a bit of a mess on the hall carpet. I was about to pass it by when I had a second look – what exactly was all this fluff and stuff? Feathers, too. Lots of them. Had the cats got into a pillow? Wait, no… Fuck.
Ruby had caught the bird finally, and brought it in for a wee bit of torture. It looked like she’d been at it for awhile. Maybe Shackleton had joined in. A nice afternoon of tag team torment.
Why do they do that? And why do we still love them?
Down on the landing there was some bird parts amongst the feathers and fur. Not as many as you’d think though. Just the skull, with a few feathers still attached. The feathers were black, striped with a rich blue. They were beautiful.
The cats must have eaten the entire body, including the spine. There was also a foot, and part of a talon. And more feathers. A wee spot of blood on the main landing. Savages.
Sharon wasn’t home yet – I decided to clean all this up sooner rather than later, so I tossed out the few tiny parts I could find and vacuumed up the rest. I left the blood where it was.
The nest had been inside a retaining wall holding up the top level of the back garden. Mummy-bird would land on a tree overhanging the wall, check things out, then make a perfect line in and through her wee hole in the wall. She’d feed her chicks and soon emerge, off to look for more.
I’d been watching mummy-bird and her nest for awhile. But the cats soon figured it out and they wouldn’t let up. It was the hunting spot for the locals. Mostly it was Ruby, crouching, waiting, for what seemed like hours at a time. Sometimes Shack took an interest, and the black mongrels from next door. But this was Ruby’s bird.
I watched from the window of my study. I liked seeing mummy-bird, following her mummy-bird instincts. But I couldn’t think what to do about the cats’ useless instincts. There were options, sure, but they involved 2 by 4’s and chicken wire. I wasn’t up for it. I decided that instead of busting my back I’d just let nature take its course.
But now I can’t help asking myself if my laissez-faire attitude is a symptom of something deeper. I made my choice, but what does that say about the broader human values within me? I feel torn. I did have a choice. But instead of saving her and her chicks’ lives, I went for the easier option and let “nature” take her course.
But what course is that? Letting my sadistic cats mutilate and torture this poor bird over a period of hours, while the chicks died of starvation?
After Sharon got home I went up to the wall and had a peek. Darkness. I put my ear to the hole. Silence. I stayed for a few minutes, listening at the various other cracks and holes. Nothing. Later on I went back with flashlight for another look. I was just about to give up when I saw it. My breath caught for a moment. He was tiny, but his beak looked formidable. I bet he would have caught lots of good stuff. A single black bug was crawling over him. No feathers on this guy yet. His skin was still glistening. He was dead.
I came back to my study and thought about it. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I felt so sad, yet there was something aside the sadness. I could almost feel my heart closing. I heard the clink, saw the dull glint of hardened steel.
The hole is too small to get the dead chicks out. Maybe, if I really tried, but then what? For what? I can’t describe how sad that makes me. Not just that they’re dead. It’s more the clink I heard that saddens me.
Maybe I should also mourn all the worms and bugs that mummy-bird killed to feed her young ‘uns. But I have no connection to worms and bugs.
Our backyard seems empty now. It’s incredible how much life this one little bird brought to it, just flying here and there, finding the good stuff, flitting and singing and perching. She seemed a happy bird, enjoying her work. I’m sure Ruby enjoyed her work too. But hers was a cruel work, without purpose and mindless of consequence.
There’s plenty of hidey-holes left in the wall. Maybe next spring we’ll get another nest. If so, you can be sure I’ll be ready with the 2 by 4’s and the chicken wire.
This Train is for Gourock 
