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Read an interesting article on the potential of life existing elsewhere in the universe. The entire article is here, or you can just read on for a couple paragraph summary...

The jist of the article is not discussing the possibility of life elsewhere, instead the author is commenting on why life, if discovered on Mars specifically, is bad news for Earth. It's a pretty compelling, if not convincing, argument. I suppose one should start at the beginning: from all we can tell when it comes to intelligent life in the Universe we're it. Our SETI program and the likes have turned up nothing. Simple math, famously the Drake equation, would imply intelligent life has to exist out there. There are 100 billion stars in our own galaxy (a middling size affair) and 100 billion galaxies in the universe. It seems that every time we turn around scientists have discovered another star with planets in orbit, indicating solar systems are more of a norm than an exception in the universe. With all those hundreds of billions of stars, and in turn hundreds of billions of planets: where are they? Where are the aliens? Certainly life should be the common denominator in the galaxy and universe, the sky should be littered with radio signals if not interstellar travel. With all the conditions seemingly favoring intelligent life across the universe something must be stopping it from existing: a "Great Filter" in the author's term.

There are two places a filter such as this could exist. Either in front of us (using our current status as "just" before interstellar travel and good interstellar communication as a base) or behind us in terms of development.

Option 1) the filter is behind us. This could be any number of locations: just the rise of life (after all it took nearly a billion years before our planet got it right and it has only happened once on this planet: as opposed to say photosynthesizing which has independently developed multiple times), the development of multicellular organisms, the development of sexual reproduction (and thus a reliable source of variation beyond mutation), or any such event.

If this is the case the development of complex, and beyond that intelligent, life is extraordinarily rare and we stand atop the technological pyramid of a universe either devoid of life, or teeming with unintelligent life.

Option 2) the filter is ahead of us. The rise to intelligence is nearly inevitable(or at least common, we're the rule not the exception) on planets with the "right" conditions. However shortly after reaching the interstellar travel stage (or just prior to it) "something" happens to destroy them. The obvious culprit would be that with the technology to travel to the distant stars comes the power to destroy ones own species...and over time it is inevitable that it will happen. If you make enough planet splitting bombs, some one is going to let one off. Other culprits could be our particle accelerators or other science experiments forming a blackhole and tearing apart the planet (or some other catastrophic disaster). Catastrophic global warming from the technology required to advance. Any of these could do. But definitely something more than just a societal collapse (say the collapse of the West). Cultures have risen and fallen, each time picking up the pieces and advancing again. It would take more than that to stop all progress: mainly our ultimate demise as a species.

If we find life on Mars we essentially prove that life IS the common denominator in the universe, as it has happened here twice in our solar system. That's 2 for what...6 possible life-supporting planets (Mars, Venus, Earth, and let's just throw in 3 random moons from Saturn or Jupiter). If 1/3 of "good" planets have life...there's a metric shit ton of life out there. If we find a simple life form...well the "filter" could be behind us still, it could be the transition to multicellular life that's so rare. If it's a more complex...then things are more difficult to explain away. More of the likely "behind us" options are removed leaving it more likely that the filter is ahead of us.

If the Filter is ahead of us? Well, that's a gloomy picture. It means that millions of times species have reached where we are now...and then utterly destroyed themselves before being able to begin expanding across their galaxy or the universe. (The author goes into detail about how quickly a single species could colonize across a galaxy...well quickly in comparison to the life of stars or galaxies). That is not encouraging especially as we're getting closer and closer to developing weapons that really could destroy the entire world in a moment (as opposed to the current doomsday scenario of thousands of nukes being required to carpet the globe, to actually kill us all).

It's an interesting concept. But I do have a pretty substantial beef with it; which I'll continue in my next post...but this should be enough to get the gears in your heads turning, and serve as an apology for my gap in postings: I've been sick and just moved back home for a bit while setting up my next digging gig.

Iron Man

So I'm a little late to this party, so sue me...I only saw the movie today (figuring to go with less people in the theater, a more enjoyable experience for me). First of all...we didn't get to see the new Batman trailer, we got 2 Indiana Jones trailers instead. 2? Really?

Now, on to the movie, this might come as a shock but I'm going to have to give it 2.5 stars.

I'll pause to let those who have seen it recover from their outrage before I go on. Go take some deep breaths and then come back when you're in control of yourself.

Right up until the last 20 minutes: great movie, I would have given it a 3.5 deal (taking a bit off because lets face it...it's a bit cheesy and over the top. I love that stuff, and eat it up, but it's kind of silly). But the last boss battle just really really damaged the entire movie for me. What's about to follow is kind of a spoiler, so avert your eyes.

*Spoiler alert*
Did you notice something really missing from this movie? Say...Iron Man really kicking ass and taking names? You had a pretty cool fight with his prototype outfit at the onset (one that we've seen most of in the trailers), and then a pretty cool fight, but very one sided and brief, with the red shirt ensigns of the 10 rings evil conspiracy people. It all was building to an awesome fight with the main baddy, wearing the other suit (Iron Monger I think his name is?) where you get to see two robots (essentially) unleashing the full power of the suits, wreaking havoc, and just being amazing. Instead you got the Iron Man suit only at 20% power...not able to fight for more than a few seconds, instead trying to "out think," outrun, out hide, and out trick the other suit. It wasn't bad in and of itself...but it was a terrible let down against the rest of the movie. We never saw Iron Man challenged and using his suit to full capacity. Having the main fight with your hero crippled...and getting his ass beat (as opposed to say in Gladiator where the hero is so awesome that you can only have parity with the baddy if Maximus is crippled), after never really seeing him kick ass is just a giant let down. The movie had carefully culled back his power having him go against under matched opponents he didn't really need to go balls to the wall against, building to a crescendo that never came. Huge disappointment, I'm docking it a full star for that.

*end spoilers*

The scene at the end of the movie: pretty cool...but I'm not going to nerdgasm over it just yet. It's not until 2011 that the Avengers movie is supposed to be released...I'll get a little more excited in 2010.

Undead Naked Archaeology

Alright, so I've finally got my ass in gear and I've started my second blog: undead naked archaeology. I'm going to focus my archaeology posts there: be they comics, new research, or my own personal stories. The plan is to update a couple times a week there in addition to here with a more general focus.

Pop Culture Ruminations

I'm going to give you all a break from my scheduled science-y updates. Yeah I know you're terribly disappointed: you wanted to hear about the cosmos, or evolutionary biology, or the pseudo-science of archaeology (hey, we use metric and everything!). But, instead I'm going to just have to break your hearts.

Years ago I was introduced to mc chris through one song, "Fett's Vette." It was an amusing ditty, I memorized the words, rocked out to it, and didn't really investigate him further. I noticed as he garnered roles in the various [Adult Swim] shows, saw him ranting about Kingdom Hearts but never really got past him as MC Pee Pants, or that guy rapping about Boba Fett.

Somehow yesterday while just cruising around the internets (hey I'm in Kentucky and I wasn't planning on gambling on the horse race*...I'm allowed) I re-discovered the wonders of mc chris.

**Allow me a moment to digress. The path I followed to get to mc chris was amusing. I was watching a pretty sweet Canadian rapper's video (Jesse Dangerously, his site is dangerously.ca) and the youtube side bar suggested I look at some random mc chris song. And yes, I use youtube to listen to songs for free before deciding if I want to purchase them. Apparently the fact that they are both white (and rap) was enough for youtube to think I would like them both equally. I did...but it is interesting that youtube has a latently racist filter. I highly recommend you check out Jesse, he's really talented.**

Anyhow, mc chris: he's from the next town over from me back home, representing the North Shore. His style is called "nerdcore" as often his songs include mentions of Star Wars, video games, all that cool nerd stuff. I hate how everything is "____-core" these days. He aggressively supports file sharing; he took down his earlier albums from being sold (on his site, iTunes, you name it) saying "Pirate that shit." So his success has been through file sharing, and actively encouraging his audience to remix his work, spreading the news.

I'd suggest you check out his site (mcchris.com) where you can listen to the songs off his new album "mc chris is dead." My favorite song on there is in fact a remix of his earlier song "geek." The mix is called "zakath geek remix" (you can probably find the original somewhere else on the internet as well, I also recommend "white kids love hip-hop"). It's really an awesome song, and doubly awesome that he's taken those remixes and put them on his album with his own work. So yeah, cruise by at your convenience and check it out. On this album it also turns out he wrote a song about my future wife. There was some sort of "make your own music video" contest for this song, and I happen to like the one I'm posting here the best (although a quick look through the hits on the other videos indicate that the one featuring pretty girls had 700k hits to this ones 10k. ). So yeah: a tribute to my once and future wife: nrrrd grrrl





* Okay, I need to put an addendum here concerning the Derby this year. In case you didn't hear the number 2 placing horse (Eight Belles) broke both her ankles on the track immediately after the race and had to be euthanized right there on the track. What a damn shame. I understand that these horses are bred to race, and to love to race, so they aren't really being "forced" into it (just like sled dogs aren't abused into racing the Iditarod, they love to run). I saw Melanie's thoroughbreds racing each other enough to realize that the enjoy the exhilaration of just sprinting about, that's not my beef. Instead it is in the breeding itself: the emphasis on breeding for the speed traits has left them so delicate especially considering that they're racing at 2 and 3 years old; before they're even necessarily done growing, bones fully fused and solid, etc. The traits for speed tend to make them delicate; hence all the breakdowns (two broke down at the Rolex 3 Day last weekend here as well). I'm not an expert in any way shape or form, but I like to think that I can learn from those around me, and from what Cari and Melanie have shared I think I can safely say that it's cruel to select for traits that are so dangerous in the long run of a horse's life...but there's no way to enforce breeding for sturdier legs and making the next generation of horses slower. Breeders and owners wouldn't go for it...they want speed, and longer thinner ankles with more powerful muscles is faster (if more dangerous). It's not just spindly legs, an extreme example of this dangerous trait breeding is the HYPP disorder found in many quarter horses, causing increased muscle growth essentially at the cost of the disorder killing or crippling the horse later in life.

This isn't particularly well structured, and I haven't cited any sources as to the specific traits that are dangerous and how they're selected...but you have the internet; if you're really going to call me on it google it yourself.

Poor Eight Belles, gave those boys a hell of a race.

Just like American Airlines...

I apologize for the long delay. Life, as it has a tendency to do, has been happening.

I intended to do a bit of work over the weekend, comic and "blog"-wise, but Dr. Cook called me (or "DC" as he's known in the biz) and I ended up volunteering my weekend to go up to Dayton to dig out at Wildcat. For the uninitiated Wildcat is the site I worked on last summer and will be once more this June and July. Nothing extremely exciting was going on, just prepping the sites of our trenches with shovel tests. However it did cut into my R&R time.

What on earth could I have planned to do otherwise with my weekend?

Well the plan is to eventually get a blog up here specifically for my archaeological record. Or rather for me to record my archaeological wanderings, musings, and news. Any comics would be posted there (hopefully once a week...we'll see how that goes) along with updates of my own digs and the archaeological world as a whole. This particular corner of cyber space I intend to continue to fill with general updates of stuff I find interesting: my life, science, the internets, whatevs.

Currently I'm working at the local Panera, using their internet instead of the hotel's. The luxurious Days Inn has been kind of cranky of late: locking us all out of our rooms, cutting of internet access intermittently, and when I put my "do not disturb" sign up during the day they leave a new set of towels and soaps and the like on my doorknob. So now that I've kept them out 3 days in a row (no sense in having them change my sheets and towels every day; I'm not that pampered) I have 3 garbage bags (yes, that's how they come bundled) full of towels. How bizarre.

I was going to put up a cool picture as a segue to my next idea for a post...but even here the internet is being weird and disconnecting periodically. Tres bizarre. I have no idea what is going on...so here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.