Soundtrack of the Jurassic

Possibly the most amazing aspect of paleontology is not what we know about ancient life on Earth, but how we know what we do.  After all, most of what researchers have to work with is simply bones or impressions of bodies in the dirt; how much could we possibly be able to tell about the life of an ancient organism?  Well, the most challenging – and rewarding – part of a paleontologist’s job is finding ways to use the limited material they have to go beyond simple anatomy and make exciting inferences about prehistoric life: bite marks on fossil bone can tell us about predator-prey interactions; footprints can give us an idea of how ancient animals moved; I’ve posted before (twice actually) about how recent discoveries have actually allowed us to infer the color of ancient creatures.  Well, a new study based on an exceptional fossil katydid – yes, bugs can be fossils too! – is now not only filling out our picture of what the age of the dinosaurs looked like, but also giving us insight into what it sounded like.

Mars Science Lab: Liftoff!

Yesterday morning, at 10:02 EST, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.  In my opinion, this is possibly the most exciting scientific event of the year, as this mission to Mars is carrying the new Mars rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity isn’t the first Mars rover, of course.  The first was the small rover Pathfinder, which spent nearly three months on Mars in 1997 and set the precedent for all following rovers.   Most people are probably more familiar with the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Spirit and Opportunity.  The MER twins landed on opposite sides of Mars in 2004, their mission to answer the big question: has there ever been permanent water on Mars?  In the time since their deployment, these rovers, along with the handful of other landers and orbiters we’ve sent to Mars, have uncovered astounding evidence of past Martian environments: geologic features that hint at ancient river beds, floods, and perhaps even oceans.  The resounding answer is yes, Mars used to have plenty of water.

And why do we care if Mars had water?  Because on Earth, water is the basis of all life.  If Mars had water at one point, could it also have had life like we have on Earth?  This is the underlying question in all Mars research, and it is the main objective of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Flashback

With each new blog post, I try to find some big important new research to talk about, and I try to vary the topics as much as I can.  But just because I posted about something already doesn’t mean that research has stopped, and every now and then I find some new developments in news I've already blogged about.  Here are some recent updates to previous topics I've mentioned:

The Kraken Sleepeth

Today, dear readers, we’re going to do something a little different.  Today, instead of talking about awesome, great science, we’re going to talk about bad science. 

I am speaking, for those of you who haven’t heard, of the Kraken story.

The story starts off in the state of Nevada, over in Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.  In addition to numerous attractions, the park is home to fossils of Shonisaurus, a type of ichthyosaur.  Ichthyosaurs were dolphin-like reptiles that roamed the oceans back in the time of the dinosaurs, and Shonisaurus is one of the biggest to ever have lived, growing to nearly 50 feet long.  Many of these spectacular fossils are still in the ground, where visitors to the park can go see them.

Unleash the Power of the Sun

As I write this blog entry, a team of men who call themselves PlanetSolar are readying their solar-powered yacht to journey across the Gulf of Thailand.  Three hundred and fifty one days ago, these men set out from Monaco on a mission to make a complete around-the-world trip using only solar power.  So far they have made it across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific, around Australia, past the Philippines, through the South China Sea and are currently in the vicinity of Vietnam.  This project’s goal is to show how “high-performance solar mobility can be realised today by making innovative use of existing materials and technology,” and they’re doing it by sailing the world’s largest solar-powered vessel around the globe using nothing but energy from the sun.  How cool!  Go Team PlanetSolar!

Of course, solar-powered vehicles have been a goal of modern technology for a while, and PlanetSolar isn’t the only specially-designated team aiming at it.  For the last twenty years or so, the Stanford Solar Car Project has been working to put solar-powered vehicles on the road.  And it’s not just vehicles getting the solar treatment; solar power is up-and-coming as a use for powering homes.  Over on Long Island in New York, BP Solar and the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA, as the locals call it) have been building a massive solar farm in Brookhaven.  Once completed, this farm should be able to power thousands of homes, as well as offering researchers a great opportunity to test out a big solar farm.  And remember that artificial leaf I told you about several months ago?  Solar power is hitting new strides all over.