People look at these scopes as single instruments but a lot of those scopes (including Hubble) are part of NASA's Great Observatories project which aims to cover as much of the EM spectrum as posible. IMHO it has to be the most underrated scientific project on the planet.
Hubble can also see a small portion of the infra-red spectrum. The Webb overlaps Hubble's and part of Spitzer's wavelength in the infra-red and fills a gap in the middle. The 42 Meter ground based E-ELT will be 15X more sensitive than Hubble in the visible spectrum.
"They'll keep Hubble going as long as they can since its capabilities aren't going to be duplicated by any mission within the next decade."
They will keep Hubble going for as long as possible. However it's capabilities will be greatly surpassed by both the Webb and the E-ELT within the next decade. We are living in a golden age of astronomy, when I was a kid in the 60's-70's the largest telescope in the world boasted a 0.5 meter mirror, the E-ELT will have a 42 meter mirror.
That program is still available today and is used on government owned computers and by 5% of private connections. However originally the Liberals had a madatory filter in their own legislation and Labor knocked it back in the senate. Now for purely political reasons the roles have reversed.
Mark my words; There will never be a mandatory filter.
This Machevelian shit has been going on for at least a decade, the two major parties take turns at being good cop / bad cop. Neither of them have any intention of making a madatory filter happen they simply go through the motions of a trial in order to buy the votes of certain nooby independent senatators who have no idea they are being scammed.
In other words the trials are Labor's payment for the senate votes of Fielding and Xenophon who both had a mandatory filter as part of their platform and are both needed by Labor to push legislation through the senate (along with the greens). In the Howard government the senate numbers were reversed so the Liberals were the ones buying senate votes with a promise to trial a mandatory filter which they did and like Labor's current trial it went on forever with no firm conclusion.
Why do you think the Liberals never make a big deal out of their (current) opposition to it in the press?
"that is nonsense. It's observable data. One that happens to lead to a different theory. More data will refine, change, or remove they theory."
I think your definition of the term "contra evidence" does not align with the accepted one, contra eveidence is evidence used to falsify the theory in question. The facts that I mentioned falsify the theory that ALL water and organics arrived by asteroid.
"You know, they BOTH could very well be true."
Yes, this was my point, they both ARE true. There is no dispute that organics and water can and does arrive from space and are still doing so, but (as in TFA) many Panspermia theorists claim that it ALL arrived from space after the Earth had formed and that is clearly nonesense.
"BTW, that video in NO WAY disputes panspermia"
Neither I nor the video claimed that, but note that Panspermia does not claim to explain the origin of life, it claims to explain the origin of Earth's water and organic chemicals. If you want to claim that life itself arrived on Earth from space then the theory your looking for is exobiogenisis (which still does not explain how life originated elsewhere).
Please re-read my post a little more carefully. Unless of course it's your hobby to contradict people just for the sake of it.~
"I'm glad that two teams independently verified it but I'm a little concerned that there may be a flaw in the methodology of the reflection of the light. I'm sure they've accounted for everything but I'm just concerned because the only logical explanation is either our fundamental understandings of asteroids is largely incomplete (the first one they picked was laden with organic molecules where normally there are but a few traces) or the methodology of determining their composition falls prey to some unforeseen phenomenon/distortion in this case."
Yes but note that they didn't pick this asteroid at random, they picked it because it was the brightest one known and thus easier to perform the spectral analysis. Ice is highly reflective and probably explains the unusual brightness, it doesn't automatically imply that all asteroids have a similar makeup.
Yes, we have only just begun to explore our solar system. Personally my favorite target for complex multi-cellular life is the sub-surface oceans of Europa but there is certainly no shortage of interesting targets for simple single celled life forms in our solar system and Enceladus is high on that list as are the seasonal methane plumes of Mars.
"Just like the early organisms being bounced around in the oceans and picking up new parts, why couldn't the universe be considered just one huge ocean where all the rocks (whether planets or asteroids) have the same parts and the big ones borrow from the small ones?"
This is an example of why I've persisted with slashdot for a decade. That's a very interesting analogy!
"findings that bolster a leading theory for the origins of life on Earth that the essential building blocks of life came from asteroids."
No it doesn't, that "leading theory"(*) is untestable and completely ignores contra evidence. Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon are respectively the 1st, 3rd and 4th most abundant elements in the universe. Hydrogen and oxygen combust to create water. Modern day volcanos spew all three elements out in large quantities, mainly as water vapour and carbon based molecules. If a rock 100 odd km across has organics and water what in the world make anyone think that a rock over 6000 km in diameter formed from the same primordial material would have have none?
While it's certainly very likely that some water and organics arived via asteroids, frankly the ridiculous improbability that ALL of it arrived via asteroids is too fucking stupid for words. Such psuedo-scientific claptrap only detracts from what is an otherwise fascinating discovery.
(*) = Here is what a real leading theory for abiogenisis looks like; "no ridiculous improbability, no supernatural forces, no lightning striking a puddle, just chemistry", and with a great soundtrack to boot!
Umm, you do realise that Xenophon was elected on an anti-gambling platform and initially joined forces with Fielding to push Labor into introducing a mandatory filter that would block gambling sites in exchange for thier votes on other issues before the senate, right?
You also realise that Xenophon changed his stance on the filter after Conroy dragged all sorts of other free speech issues into the filter, right?
And you surely realise that Fielding went quiet on the filter after his own anti-abortion sponser's website "somehow" made it onto Conroy's blacklist, right?
And now, surprise, surprise, Conroy has shelved the filter and Labor no longer have an official policy on the issue. Maybe, just maybe, that's because the filter has already served it's purpose?
The more independents we get into both houses, the sooner genuine democratic representation can be recovered.
Ummm, while I agree that preferential voting usually results in a more balanced representation of what the electorate think they want, the real villinas who proposed the filter are two independents, Fielding and Xenophon. Labour just went through the motions of a trial in an attempt to buy their senate votes, the previous Liberal government did the same thing and Labor blocked it in the senate, just as the Liberals are now blocking it in the sneate.
Oh, and don't believe everything you read in a slashdot summary. Labour did not promise a mandatory general filter they promised to continue the existing mandatory filter on government owned computers (ie: schools, libraries, etc). Unfortuantely the ministry of truth have been hard at work and the policy document where I read that has been expunged from the web. My guess is they won't have an official policy until they figure out which independent senators they will need to scam after the next election.
He is NOW, he was elected on an anti-gamblimg platform and originally joined Fielding in pushing for the filter. Ironically I believe it was Conroy that changed his mind by dragging all sorts of other issues into it (such as the web site owned by Fielding's anti-abortion sponsors). However I agree Xenophon seems more sensible than either Fielding or Abbot and at least had the honesty to admit he was wrong in proposing the filter.
As for electing independents, Fielding only got 2% of the primary vote (thus the nickname Mr 2%). He won because of preference fuckery by the two majors that was intended to keep out a popular greens candidate but it backfired and they got a Christian extremist instead.
Yep, as I have said all along I believe Conroy's job was to extend the inqury and trials so that it never got done, that's why Fielding's anti-abortion sponsers "somehow" ended up on the proposed blacklist. The two major parties did the same thing under the Howard government except their roles were reversed. The two major parties have been playing this "bad cop, good cop" game for over a decade, it is not, nor has it ever been, a genuine attempt to introduce censorship, it's about neutering nutjob independents for the one term they will get in office.
Also the summary is wrong, Labor never promised a mandatory general filter before the election, they promised to continue the mandatory filter on government owned computers (schools, etc) which was already in place.
But hey, Machevelian politics is not as sensational as totalitarians taking over Oz.
"Religion can supply that, but it doesn't have to be the source."
I didn't say it had to be the source, in fact I don't think it is the source. The real source is our tribal instincts, religion and race are the most obvious indicators of tribe and therefore the most common justifications for good people to do EvilThings(TM).
"When I was a Cub scout, I was programming my TI-57 calculator."
Yeah, and I built a crystal radio when I was seven (we didn't have calculators in the 60's). I'm not saying kids under 10 are stupid but if you set the bar too high the majority will lose interest. A kid needs to be keenly interested before they do remarkable stuff and even then there may not be a great deal of understanding about what they are doing.
For example: when my daughter was 4 I was amazed to see her one day start up my XT from a floppy, type in some commands at the dos prompt, navigate through a complex text based menu system and start playing "Ug Olympics". I asked her how she could do this without being able to read or write, her reply - "You showed me and I remebered it". I hadn't actually "shown" her anything, she had just watched me set up her favorite game for her.
"New math might have been the worst thing to happen to me academically."
I know what you mean, I was a victim of "new english". Despite being ranked in the 95th percentile for comprehension at HS, I didn't know the difference between a verb and a noun until I was 30 and studing for my degree. Even at 50 it still requires effort to avoid some of the bad habits I was taught in grade school.
"The National Ignition Facility is not doing research into energy production." - True
"The research they're doing will not have applications in energy production." - If there's one thing that is constant in the history of science it's that nobody can second guess what fruits fundemental research will bear.
How about a merit badge for creating Web pages or setting up a Web site.
Maybe one for completing a simple self-taught course in a simple language like Java?
The pin is for cubs not scouts, most cubs are still learning to read and write.
"Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion". - Steven Weinberg.
"Both Goodell and Kintisch make it clear that geoengineering is at best a complement to drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. “We have to immediately launch a worldwide program to stop polluting our atmosphere with this surprisingly pernicious trace gas,” Kintisch argues. Most scientists feel much the same, viewing geoengineering strictly as a possible emergency backup plan that should be used only if things get really dire....[snip]...Kintisch also digs deeper than Goodell into explaining the details of how geoengineering might work — and why it would be so difficult to do well....[snip]...That's not to say Kintisch argues in favour of geoengineering, but that he writes from firmly within the world of science, and for an audience who's comfortable with science, too....[snip]...Kintisch is sceptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
"Climate change scientists have now resorted to trolling us."
Climate scientists have known about the negative forcing of areosols since at least the 1950's. It's the half truth behind the widely repeated troll that "most climate scientists predicted an ice age in the 70's". I know of no reputable climate scientist* who would advocate repealing the clean air act and going back to pea-soupers and acid rain as a sane method of tackling AGW.
* = Eli Kintisch (the author of the original opinion piece in the LA times), does not advocate increasing pollution. He is simply pointing out that man made areosols are currently masking the full impact of CO2 emissions. His book Hack the Planet is an informative work about the pros and cons of geoengineering options that governments may be tempted to consider if things continue on a BAU basis. As the Nature review points out; "Kintisch is skeptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
Like the vast majority of scientists his prefered geoengineering option is to wind down the current uncontrolled geoengineering experiment in a responsible manner, but as we have seen there is some mighty stiff oposition against that option from powerfull vested interests. And how surprising is it to learn that they are the same vested interests who, for almost a century, successfully used anti-science and economic alarmisim to fight tooth and nail against any and all proposals for clean air regulations?
Composting is at best carbon neutral but when production techiques are taken into account it becomes cabon positive. However if you turn waste paper into bio-char the cycle becomes carbon negative, plus you get the additional side benifit of energy generation, along with the improved soil benifit of composting.
Bio-char alone is not a silver bullet but it's by far the most underrated method of significantly reducing emmissions, probably because (like composting) corporations can't see a way to make big bucks out of it.
Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone.
You do know that carbon-containing molecules are the basis of all life on earth, right?
I tire of the unscientific hyperbole that seems to be increasingly associated with environmentalism.
And you know that the enormous variety of deadly venoms found in nature are carbon-containing molecules, right? I tire of the psuedo-scientific strawmen that have always been associated with attempts to discredit well established science.
Slashdot Mirror
People look at these scopes as single instruments but a lot of those scopes (including Hubble) are part of NASA's Great Observatories project which aims to cover as much of the EM spectrum as posible. IMHO it has to be the most underrated scientific project on the planet.
Hubble can also see a small portion of the infra-red spectrum. The Webb overlaps Hubble's and part of Spitzer's wavelength in the infra-red and fills a gap in the middle. The 42 Meter ground based E-ELT will be 15X more sensitive than Hubble in the visible spectrum.
"They'll keep Hubble going as long as they can since its capabilities aren't going to be duplicated by any mission within the next decade."
They will keep Hubble going for as long as possible. However it's capabilities will be greatly surpassed by both the Webb and the E-ELT within the next decade. We are living in a golden age of astronomy, when I was a kid in the 60's-70's the largest telescope in the world boasted a 0.5 meter mirror, the E-ELT will have a 42 meter mirror.
That program is still available today and is used on government owned computers and by 5% of private connections. However originally the Liberals had a madatory filter in their own legislation and Labor knocked it back in the senate. Now for purely political reasons the roles have reversed.
Mark my words; There will never be a mandatory filter.
This Machevelian shit has been going on for at least a decade, the two major parties take turns at being good cop / bad cop. Neither of them have any intention of making a madatory filter happen they simply go through the motions of a trial in order to buy the votes of certain nooby independent senatators who have no idea they are being scammed.
In other words the trials are Labor's payment for the senate votes of Fielding and Xenophon who both had a mandatory filter as part of their platform and are both needed by Labor to push legislation through the senate (along with the greens). In the Howard government the senate numbers were reversed so the Liberals were the ones buying senate votes with a promise to trial a mandatory filter which they did and like Labor's current trial it went on forever with no firm conclusion.
Why do you think the Liberals never make a big deal out of their (current) opposition to it in the press?
Thanks, that's a great piece of philosophical art.
"that is nonsense. It's observable data. One that happens to lead to a different theory. More data will refine, change, or remove they theory."
I think your definition of the term "contra evidence" does not align with the accepted one, contra eveidence is evidence used to falsify the theory in question. The facts that I mentioned falsify the theory that ALL water and organics arrived by asteroid.
"You know, they BOTH could very well be true."
Yes, this was my point, they both ARE true. There is no dispute that organics and water can and does arrive from space and are still doing so, but (as in TFA) many Panspermia theorists claim that it ALL arrived from space after the Earth had formed and that is clearly nonesense.
"BTW, that video in NO WAY disputes panspermia"
Neither I nor the video claimed that, but note that Panspermia does not claim to explain the origin of life, it claims to explain the origin of Earth's water and organic chemicals. If you want to claim that life itself arrived on Earth from space then the theory your looking for is exobiogenisis (which still does not explain how life originated elsewhere).
Please re-read my post a little more carefully. Unless of course it's your hobby to contradict people just for the sake of it.~
"I'm glad that two teams independently verified it but I'm a little concerned that there may be a flaw in the methodology of the reflection of the light. I'm sure they've accounted for everything but I'm just concerned because the only logical explanation is either our fundamental understandings of asteroids is largely incomplete (the first one they picked was laden with organic molecules where normally there are but a few traces) or the methodology of determining their composition falls prey to some unforeseen phenomenon/distortion in this case."
Yes but note that they didn't pick this asteroid at random, they picked it because it was the brightest one known and thus easier to perform the spectral analysis. Ice is highly reflective and probably explains the unusual brightness, it doesn't automatically imply that all asteroids have a similar makeup.
Yes, we have only just begun to explore our solar system. Personally my favorite target for complex multi-cellular life is the sub-surface oceans of Europa but there is certainly no shortage of interesting targets for simple single celled life forms in our solar system and Enceladus is high on that list as are the seasonal methane plumes of Mars.
"Just like the early organisms being bounced around in the oceans and picking up new parts, why couldn't the universe be considered just one huge ocean where all the rocks (whether planets or asteroids) have the same parts and the big ones borrow from the small ones?"
This is an example of why I've persisted with slashdot for a decade. That's a very interesting analogy!
"...the earth was FORMED by asteroids. One way or another, everything on earth has extraterrestrial origins..."
Exactly, and the more we look the more we are finding that water and simple organics are ubiquitous components of the universe.
"findings that bolster a leading theory for the origins of life on Earth that the essential building blocks of life came from asteroids."
No it doesn't, that "leading theory"(*) is untestable and completely ignores contra evidence. Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon are respectively the 1st, 3rd and 4th most abundant elements in the universe. Hydrogen and oxygen combust to create water. Modern day volcanos spew all three elements out in large quantities, mainly as water vapour and carbon based molecules. If a rock 100 odd km across has organics and water what in the world make anyone think that a rock over 6000 km in diameter formed from the same primordial material would have have none?
While it's certainly very likely that some water and organics arived via asteroids, frankly the ridiculous improbability that ALL of it arrived via asteroids is too fucking stupid for words. Such psuedo-scientific claptrap only detracts from what is an otherwise fascinating discovery.
(*) = Here is what a real leading theory for abiogenisis looks like; "no ridiculous improbability, no supernatural forces, no lightning striking a puddle, just chemistry", and with a great soundtrack to boot!
Umm, you do realise that Xenophon was elected on an anti-gambling platform and initially joined forces with Fielding to push Labor into introducing a mandatory filter that would block gambling sites in exchange for thier votes on other issues before the senate, right?
You also realise that Xenophon changed his stance on the filter after Conroy dragged all sorts of other free speech issues into the filter, right?
And you surely realise that Fielding went quiet on the filter after his own anti-abortion sponser's website "somehow" made it onto Conroy's blacklist, right?
And now, surprise, surprise, Conroy has shelved the filter and Labor no longer have an official policy on the issue. Maybe, just maybe, that's because the filter has already served it's purpose?
Vote for your local independent.
The more independents we get into both houses, the sooner genuine democratic representation can be recovered.
Ummm, while I agree that preferential voting usually results in a more balanced representation of what the electorate think they want, the real villinas who proposed the filter are two independents, Fielding and Xenophon. Labour just went through the motions of a trial in an attempt to buy their senate votes, the previous Liberal government did the same thing and Labor blocked it in the senate, just as the Liberals are now blocking it in the sneate.
Oh, and don't believe everything you read in a slashdot summary. Labour did not promise a mandatory general filter they promised to continue the existing mandatory filter on government owned computers (ie: schools, libraries, etc). Unfortuantely the ministry of truth have been hard at work and the policy document where I read that has been expunged from the web. My guess is they won't have an official policy until they figure out which independent senators they will need to scam after the next election.
"Um, Xenophon is against the filter"
He is NOW, he was elected on an anti-gamblimg platform and originally joined Fielding in pushing for the filter. Ironically I believe it was Conroy that changed his mind by dragging all sorts of other issues into it (such as the web site owned by Fielding's anti-abortion sponsors). However I agree Xenophon seems more sensible than either Fielding or Abbot and at least had the honesty to admit he was wrong in proposing the filter.
As for electing independents, Fielding only got 2% of the primary vote (thus the nickname Mr 2%). He won because of preference fuckery by the two majors that was intended to keep out a popular greens candidate but it backfired and they got a Christian extremist instead.
Both Labor and the Libs are in favor of a mandatory filter like the British foriegn office was in favour of the European Union.
Yep, as I have said all along I believe Conroy's job was to extend the inqury and trials so that it never got done, that's why Fielding's anti-abortion sponsers "somehow" ended up on the proposed blacklist. The two major parties did the same thing under the Howard government except their roles were reversed. The two major parties have been playing this "bad cop, good cop" game for over a decade, it is not, nor has it ever been, a genuine attempt to introduce censorship, it's about neutering nutjob independents for the one term they will get in office.
Also the summary is wrong, Labor never promised a mandatory general filter before the election, they promised to continue the mandatory filter on government owned computers (schools, etc) which was already in place.
But hey, Machevelian politics is not as sensational as totalitarians taking over Oz.
"Religion can supply that, but it doesn't have to be the source."
I didn't say it had to be the source, in fact I don't think it is the source. The real source is our tribal instincts, religion and race are the most obvious indicators of tribe and therefore the most common justifications for good people to do EvilThings(TM).
"When I was a Cub scout, I was programming my TI-57 calculator."
Yeah, and I built a crystal radio when I was seven (we didn't have calculators in the 60's). I'm not saying kids under 10 are stupid but if you set the bar too high the majority will lose interest. A kid needs to be keenly interested before they do remarkable stuff and even then there may not be a great deal of understanding about what they are doing.
For example: when my daughter was 4 I was amazed to see her one day start up my XT from a floppy, type in some commands at the dos prompt, navigate through a complex text based menu system and start playing "Ug Olympics". I asked her how she could do this without being able to read or write, her reply - "You showed me and I remebered it". I hadn't actually "shown" her anything, she had just watched me set up her favorite game for her.
"New math might have been the worst thing to happen to me academically."
I know what you mean, I was a victim of "new english". Despite being ranked in the 95th percentile for comprehension at HS, I didn't know the difference between a verb and a noun until I was 30 and studing for my degree. Even at 50 it still requires effort to avoid some of the bad habits I was taught in grade school.
"The National Ignition Facility is not doing research into energy production." - True
"The research they're doing will not have applications in energy production." - If there's one thing that is constant in the history of science it's that nobody can second guess what fruits fundemental research will bear.
How about a merit badge for creating Web pages or setting up a Web site. Maybe one for completing a simple self-taught course in a simple language like Java?
The pin is for cubs not scouts, most cubs are still learning to read and write.
"Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion". - Steven Weinberg.
Maybe, also some people write better than they speak.
"His thing is geo-engineering though, so his take is that this means we must start geo-engineering now.
No it doesn't, Kintisch is a reporter for the journal Science and as this Nature review of his book points out...
"Both Goodell and Kintisch make it clear that geoengineering is at best a complement to drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. “We have to immediately launch a worldwide program to stop polluting our atmosphere with this surprisingly pernicious trace gas,” Kintisch argues. Most scientists feel much the same, viewing geoengineering strictly as a possible emergency backup plan that should be used only if things get really dire....[snip]...Kintisch also digs deeper than Goodell into explaining the details of how geoengineering might work — and why it would be so difficult to do well....[snip]...That's not to say Kintisch argues in favour of geoengineering, but that he writes from firmly within the world of science, and for an audience who's comfortable with science, too....[snip]...Kintisch is sceptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
"Climate change scientists have now resorted to trolling us."
Climate scientists have known about the negative forcing of areosols since at least the 1950's. It's the half truth behind the widely repeated troll that "most climate scientists predicted an ice age in the 70's". I know of no reputable climate scientist* who would advocate repealing the clean air act and going back to pea-soupers and acid rain as a sane method of tackling AGW.
* = Eli Kintisch (the author of the original opinion piece in the LA times), does not advocate increasing pollution. He is simply pointing out that man made areosols are currently masking the full impact of CO2 emissions. His book Hack the Planet is an informative work about the pros and cons of geoengineering options that governments may be tempted to consider if things continue on a BAU basis. As the Nature review points out; "Kintisch is skeptical about the idea that we can tame and control ecosystems, let alone the whole planet."
Like the vast majority of scientists his prefered geoengineering option is to wind down the current uncontrolled geoengineering experiment in a responsible manner, but as we have seen there is some mighty stiff oposition against that option from powerfull vested interests. And how surprising is it to learn that they are the same vested interests who, for almost a century, successfully used anti-science and economic alarmisim to fight tooth and nail against any and all proposals for clean air regulations?
Composting is at best carbon neutral but when production techiques are taken into account it becomes cabon positive. However if you turn waste paper into bio-char the cycle becomes carbon negative, plus you get the additional side benifit of energy generation, along with the improved soil benifit of composting.
Bio-char alone is not a silver bullet but it's by far the most underrated method of significantly reducing emmissions, probably because (like composting) corporations can't see a way to make big bucks out of it.
Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone.
You do know that carbon-containing molecules are the basis of all life on earth, right?
I tire of the unscientific hyperbole that seems to be increasingly associated with environmentalism.
And you know that the enormous variety of deadly venoms found in nature are carbon-containing molecules, right? I tire of the psuedo-scientific strawmen that have always been associated with attempts to discredit well established science.