BEARSCARE

Last week, a piece of space junk crashed into a savannah in Namibia, Africa. Though NASA wrote it off as just another “Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel”, or COPV, which are pretty common in space and often survive reentry and land on Earth intact, local authorities knew they had something special. In a press conference, Namibian president, Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba, addressed press questions, “Oh yes, we did open it. It was filled with dead ants. We’ve recruited some experts to examine them, and they haven’t been able to identify them.”

He went on, “Carbon dating suggests that the ants are over 20,000 years old, which obviously makes no sense in any conventional way.” The international community, so far, has shown little reaction. When pressed on the matter, EU Secretary for Extraterrestrial affairs gave the following statement: “We do not believe the object is any reason for alarm. Many ants were launched into space during the 1970s in COPVs and we reject any results suggesting the ants date back to the stone age. Who even cared about ants back then? It’s a bunch of bologna, if you ask me.”

We’ll be following this story closely. I’m personally interested to find out if the ants are 100% carbon based, or if they have traces of silicon or arsenic. Stay tuned and stay watchful.

NASA released a breakthrough astrobiological finding Thursday. NASA scientists have discovered animals made with arsenic rather than phosphorus, the fundamental building block of all known life. Arsenic, a metal, is structurally similar to phosphorus, a non-metal. Because of this, arsenic is deadly to phosphorus-based animals since their bodies incorrectly identify it as phosphorus and attempt to bond with it.

Found primarily on Rhea, a moon of Saturn, astrobiologists have identified over 900,000 species, ranging from small ant-like organisms to, “well, primates, if you will,” explains Shannon O’Keefe, NASA’s top astrobiology researcher and professor emeritus at Christopher Columbus University. O’Keefe went on to explain that high resolution photographs taken during fly-bys by NASA’s New Horizons deep space probe were the primary source for the new findings.

“We are planning a mission to attempt to interact or even communicate with the new species. Everything is moving very quickly. It’s very exciting,” O’Keefe went on, “We think the quickest way is to send a new space probe containing written and recorded information and also a radio transponder so that, if or when these new species have the intelligence to communicate, they will be able to do so.” O’Keefe would not comment on rumors that President Obama had ordered the 1970s era Pioneer design be used to save money, but she did answer, “Yes, we already spent the money and would like some return,” to the question of whether the space probe would include the Pioneer Plaque pictured below (NSFW version here).

Check back for updates on this rapidly developing story.

NASA has announced that they plan to release new findings about their search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) on 2 December 2010. Although NASA official are remaining tight lipped on the matter, it is highly likely they will announce that we have been contacted by an otherworldly civilization.

Extraterrestrial life is nothing new; Bearscare.org has reported two separate events concerning astrobiological discoveries (http://www.bearscare.org/2010/01/09/new-alien-discovered-on-mars/ and http://www.bearscare.org/2009/08/16/life-discovered-on-mars/). So, considering little worm-like aliens are old news, my guess is this new discovery is either of a civilization, or, at least, alien dinosaurs.

Check back tomorrow for all the details.

(Bearscare) — A new species of snake has been discovered in South America. Unlike others, these snakes can contort their bodies’ aerodynamic properties to provide lift. That is, they can fly.

The species was accidentally discovered by a group of graduate students from the Humphrey College of Life Sciences at Christopher Columbus University who had traveled to Ecuador to study insects. Instead, they found themselves bombarded by a hailstorm of snakes.

“We had set up camp just that afternoon,” Ph.D candiate Ulam Vindesh explains, “and we were about to cook dinner. It felt exactly like what it was,” he continued, “a snake falling on my head.” Chrysopelea are most active at dusk. Locals confirmed that it is very dangerous to roam the jungle without proper headgear.

The non-poisonous Chrysopelea is very timid, and this shyness is responsible for the 40% death rate of its victims. “When they land on your head,” explains Vindesh, “they quickly slither down over your ears and wrap around your neck. We learned that, when scared, the flying snakes coil around any cylindrical object available. This behavior is analogous to pill bugs or armadillos huddling in their shells. Those snakes are surprisingly strong.”

Though their intentions are pure, Chrysopelea are very dangerous to tourists. Please, if you’re visiting Ecuador or any other nearby communities, make liberal use of snake repellant and wear a spiked helmet. No one knows the yearly death rate from Chrysopelea attacks, but estimates range between 10-100 thousand.

For years physicists have tried to reconcile Einstein’s theories of Special and General Relativity, his discovery of mass-energy equivalence, and Max Planck’s discovery of Quantum Mechanics. These old brains couldn’t figure out how really, really big things and really, really small things could be governed by the same physical laws. Today, I figured it out.

Let’s start with the small stuff. Max Planck discovered that energy itself could not be found in a continuum of magnitudes; that there must be some small quantity of energy by which every other quantity could be described. He named this small quantity quantum. One day, back in the early 20th Century, Planck and Einstein were arguing and Planck started working math problems to cool off. He noticed that his equations all reduced to a single number, whose units were energy-time. Although he knew this was big, he still shoved it Einstein’s face.

The number has come to be called the Planck Constant; its value is 6.626068e-34 J·s and is denoted h. This discovery spawned the largest rivalry the discipline of physics has ever seen: Einstein’s law of General Relativity governs the behavior of very massive objects whereas Planck’s theories of quantum mechanics accurately describe very tiny particles; and these two classes of objects act very, very differently. How can there be two discrete physical frameworks operating simultaneously and independently in one Universe?

The answer (this is where Einstein and Planck left off and I took over) lies in the Planck Length. I concede that I neither discovered, derived nor invented the Planck Length. It is a physical constant realized by combining Einstein’s Gravitational Constant, G, the Planck Constant, h, and the speed of light in a vacuum, c. The Planck Length is 16.163e-36 meters. This length is, literally, the smallest meaningful distance in the universe; that is, a particle traveling at an arbitrary velocity cannot traverse a distance smaller than 1 Plank Length. If 1 Planck Length is defined as the distance between two infinitesimally close points, A and B, a particle reaching point A will instantaneously be present at point B. That’s a Planck Length.

A trivial, though profound, corollary to the Planck Length is the notion of a Planck Volume. This is simply the Planck Length cubed, which equals 4.222e-105 cubic meters. Though evidence suggests that there are more than 3 physical dimensions (plus 1 or 2 time dimensions), considering observable, 3-dimensional space, the Planck Volume is the smallest “slot” any quantum of mass or energy can occupy. Though any conventional measure of volume can be described by any arbitrary solid shape, the Planck Volume is unique. Consider a vector of magnitude 1 Planck Length arbitrarily oriented in space. Now consider another vector of equal magnitude oriented in any direction not equal to that of the first. For a particle to legally traverse along a composite vector made from these first two, they must be orthogonal to each other. If the two are not, the particle would travel a distance which is not an integral number of Planck Lengths. Applying the same logic to a third vector, it is obvious that this vector must be orthogonal to the first two. Therefore, the fundamental quantum of 3-dimensional space is a perfect, x-y-z axis defining a cube. This unequivocally demonstrates that the observable universe is composed of very tiny cubes, though it offers no absolute structure or frame of reference.

Now consider Einstein’s theories. Combining the central tenant of Special Relativity, that no object can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, that this velocity is a fundamental parameter of the universe, and the Planck Length, we can derive the Planck Time. That is, dividing the smallest quantum of distance by the largest possible velocity yields the smallest meaningful quantum of time. This value, (16.1636e-36 m)/(2.99792458e8 m/s) = 5.3915e-44 s, represents the smallest amount of time during which any event in our Universe can occur.  An equivalent calculation is the Planck Frequency, found by dividing the speed of light by the Planck Length, the smallest possible wavelength. The Planck Frequency is 1.85481e43 Hz (this frequency is 29 orders of magnitude greater than the highest frequency of visible light). Considering a discrete wave-particle at the Planck Frequency and using the Planck Constant, we can calculate this particle’s energy with the relationship E = hf. This energy, the Planck Energy is 1.2290e9 J. This represents the maximum energy a particle, oscillating at the Planck Frequency and occupying a single Planck Volume can have. But that’s not even the impressive part.

A little less than 14 billion years ago, during the infinitesimally small moments before the Big Bang, scientists believe that all the energy (mass) of the Universe was concentrated in a single point of zero-dimension, also known as a singularity. Such a point is obviously unobservable, as is a Planck Volume quantum. However, the latter represents a meaningful measure of space. So, consider a fundamental quantum of space, described earlier as a set of three orthogonal dimensions forming a cube with sides of 1 Planck Length, inside which is this singularity containing the entire energy of the Universe. At the exact moment at which the Big Bang occurred, energy would have been released from the singularity to expand outward. At some point, this energy would occupy the interior of the cubic Planck Volume and instantaneously be visible to an observer (the notion of an observer is obviously absurd, but reasonable for purposes of discussion). At this point, the energy would begin radiating out at the most fundamental frequency, the Planck Frequency, which corresponds to the Planck Energy. As an absolute value, this energy itself is unimpressive; however, the story changes when one considers the instantaneous Energy-time derivative, i.e., the power, produced by our young universe, the fundamental value of energy radiated during the fundamental quantum of time: (Planck Energy) / (Planck Time) = 2.2794e53 W.

Once inhabiting a single Planck Volume, the energy would propagate isotropically until it occupied 8 Planck Volumes, then 81, 256 and so forth. Within a tiny fraction of a second, this expansion would appear continuous, though the actual geometry of the young Universe would still, and will indefinitely, remain a cube with dimension of integral multiples of the original dimension, the Planck Length. This intensity is 26 orders of magnitude greater than the power radiated by our Sun. If that isn’t shocking enough, consider that the sun occupies approximately 3e122 Planck Volumes. That’s 1 Googol followed by 22 more 0s.

So, we have now characterized the initial, observable state of the Universe. We have also demonstrated that the Universe, if considered in the three physical, observable dimensions, is fundamentally described by a perfect cube expanding. Approximating the universe to be 14 billion years old, or 2.5966e53 Planck Times, the length of each side of the Universe is 7.7845e61 Planck Lengths, or 1.2582e27 meters. This distance is 8,410,930,211,398,689 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Bảo Lộc, Vietnam — A scientist vacationing in southern Vietnam has discovered a new lizard in one of the most unlikely places. “I was on a quest to find the best Phở in southern Vietnam,” begins Dr. Frederick Garfield, professor emeritus at Christopher Columbus University’s Benson College of Herpetology, “and I had no intention of eating lizard; I gave that up years ago!” It turns out that, as Garfield was browsing the menu at Nam Dinh Diner, he was quite taken with a grilled lizard dish. “They seasoned it with lime, basil and a hint of honey. And no, it didn’t taste like chicken at all. It was so delicious that I asked the chef to show me where the meat had come from.” And the rest is history unfolding in front of our eyes: the first new lizard species in over 120 years.

There are approximately 650 species of reptiles, of which only 22 are lizards. “You wouldn’t think it,” Garfield continued, “but lizards, as a subgroup, are extraordinarily homogenous. The only taxonomoligcal family with fewer distinct species is Hominidae.  But this one, it was the tastiest.”

The interesting thing about Leiolepis ngovantrii, known locally as ngon vật, is that all members of the species are female, just like in Jurassic Park. Unlike Jurassic Park, however, these lizards reproduce through cloning. “The locals explained to me that, upon maturity, an individual is allowed to burrow several feet into a nutrient rich topsoil-compost slurry. After two weeks, a visibly weakened lizard emerges followed, a month later, by an exact, though younger, copy.

“I have already assembled a team of graduate students here at CCU and am raising funds for a trip back to Bảo Lộc. This is the first big herpetological breakthrough of the new millennium and the finest moment of my career,” remarked Dr. Garfield, reclining behind his desk, a snifter of cognac in hand. “I wasted 35 years on snakes. I’m a lizard guy now.”

This is big. A few months back, Bearscare.org was the first to report the discovery of a simple, worm-like organism native to the planet Mars. Well, on Saturday, Spirit, one of two rovers currently on the Mars, came across a bizarre, octopus-esque creature. See below.

Very little is known about the critter, and taxonomists are struggling to think of an appropriate name for it. Although, for internal purposes, NASA has dubbed the alien MO-2, short for Mars Organism 2, it is being called Gregory for the time being, after the technician who first viewed the image.

“I had just gone to the vending machine for a Sprite, and when I returned to my desk I saw this weird picture on my screen. At first I thought it was a prank,” remarked Gregory Boone, a junior technician who was working the graveyard shift. “It sucks working so late, but I guess now it was all worth it. Maybe I can work during the day now,” he continued.

Needless to say, the world is stunned. Opportunity, the other Mars rover, is on its way to rendezvous with Sprit, explains Nils Brodin, a NASA official, “see, at the last minute [before the launch] we realized this might happen. So, we installed a pod onto Opportunity which could be jettisoned and sent back to Earth. It looks very similar to the Apollo capsule, except smaller.” The plan is for Opportunity to scoop Gregory up, place it in the capsule, and send it to Earth to be studied by eager scientists. “We expect Opportunity to arrive in about 3 weeks. In the meantime, we will be trying to figure out what Gregory eats. We want to keep the little guy alive and will be constantly monitoring him through a dedicated video feed from the capsule. It’s going to be tough, though. There’s not much other than rocks and dirt on Mars, so we’re kind of at a loss,” remarked Brodin as he tied his shoe. “This will change everything.”

Brodin also noted that the capsule can travel much faster on the return journey to Earth since it’s much lighter than the capsule the rover was sent it. He said they expect to recover the capsule a few weeks after it has been jettisoned.

Stay tuned for updates.

After studying ancient Roman manuscripts, researchers have decided to investigate repeated references to VIAE BIMINAE, or The Roads to the Biminis, a Spanish word from antiquity meaning “Eastern Land”. Surprisingly, the search for the road was very brief. The most logical place to start a search for an ancient bridge from Europe to the New World is the Iberian Peninsula. Brent Braanson of the University Afrikaans of South Africa assembled a team of researchers in Porto, Portugal and began digging. What they found has already gone down in history.

Ancient Roman Map of the Atlantic

They didn’t just find a road; they found foundations of pylons which appear almost modern. This discovery has turned both history and science in their heads. These pylons, which stretch clear across the Atlantic Ocean, once held up a great bridge, the Via Bimina, from Portugal to South Carolina. That’s right. The Romans were in America at least 1,000 years before Leif Ericson and nearly 1,300 years before Columbus.

The Bimini Ruins

The pylons lead to empty land about 30 miles south of Charleston, SC. An excavation there has already uncovered Earth-shaking findings: mugs, skeletons, boat spines and even etchings created by Roman artists over 1,500 years ago. These etchings depict generally peaceful relations with the Native Americans.

What exactly happened to the Roman explorers is currently unknown. Their settlements have vanished, short of the artifacts left underground. It is currently thought that the bridge was destroyed, probably by hurricanes, shortly after it was completed, and only a few Romans made it to the New World and back to tell the story.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this discovery was a completely different one. During initial dives studying the pylon foundations, scientists discovered foundations consistent with most Roman aqueducts. According to the journal, History, “it has been unequivocally shown that early Roman engineers did build an aqueduct to carry fresh water from North America to Europe. We knew their water was contaminated and we had no idea how they sustained the greatest civilization this world has known,” according to the renowned anthropologist, Gerard McManus.

McManus went on, “today our understanding of the ancients has been, for all intents and purposes, turned upside-down. They knew more than we give them credit for. A new epoch of history has just been discovered and we all need to question our own societal structures; our past isn’t what we think it was. Columbus is a lie.”

That opinion is not that of bearscare.org, though it is very interesting.

On Sunday, the International Martian Imagery Analysis Institute (IMIAI) announced they had confirmed that a series of stills and video clips they had been studying for two months does in face depict a worm-like creature moving through the Martian soil. The imagery was obtained by MER-B Opportunity, one of two robots operated by NASA on Mars. NASA has yet to comment on the finding, but experts almost unanimously agree with the conclusion reached by the IMIAI.

"Slinky" the Martian Worm

“Today we know that we are not alone,” remarked IMIAI chair, Lynne Swarsky. “Our organization has been devoted to the search for Martian life and now we know it was all worthwhile.” The creature discovered on Mars, nicknamed “Slinky”, looks very similar to Earthly tape worms. “It’s not a coincidence at all,” clarified Lawrence Wright, a geneticist and professor and James Madison University in Virgina. “The hardest part in evolution is getting from molecules to living organisms. These organisms are extremely simple and, next to a single celled creature, the tape worm is about the simplest. Think of it as the fundamental building block of  life.” Wright went on to explain that, given ideal conditions, we could expect to be observing more complex life on Mars, such as mammalian-type creatures, within the century.

There is no data suggesting whether the specimen discovered on Mars is carbon-based, like most life on Earth, but it is expected that NASA will fast-track a manned mission to Mars to collect samples. There is no reason to believe that these Martian worms could be a threat to our planet at the time, but it is very important to know for sure. I will be writing my congressman to voice my concerns and encourage a “yes” vote on allocating funds to send a collection mission to Mars and I suggest my readers do the same.

“First we found water and now this! Next thing you know, there will be little green animals with three eyes just like we always dreamed,” concluded Swarsky in the statement released by the IMIAI. Today is truly an exciting day, but we just need to approach the matter with caution.

The journal, Nature, is reporting that geneticists have discovered that crab claws and eagle talons are genetically identical. According to Dr. Derek Wright’s article,

We were searching for ways in which both species related to their common ancester, the trilobite. We mostly focused on the major organs, but got nowhere. By chance, one of our interns noticed a similarity between x-ray images of the upper bone in the claws of both crabs and eagles. It turns out that, genetically speaking, the crab claw and eagle talon are identical

Actually, it wasn’t just a similarity. The two animals’ claws are indistinguishable to the naked eye, as shown in the image featured in the article, used with permission, below.

Left: crab claw upper bone structure, Right: eagle talon upper bone structure

Dr. Wright continued,

Today is a new day for science. A bird and crustacean sharing an entire body part? This has never been observed in written history. Now that we know that entire bone structures can survive one billion years of evolution, we can examine even human features, particularly those in the wrists and ankles. The holy grail of science has always been to connect humans to a common ancestor, often theorized to be the trilobite, but we’ve never even come close to realizing this dream. My guess is that in 1,000 years, no one will even care who invented the airplane because this will be, by far, the greatest contribution to science since the discovery of the wheel. I’m serious.

Early reactions to the controversial article have mostly been very positive. “I can not believe we overlooked this,” remarked Gerd Levensen. “We spent years looking for similarities in the brain. The claw? It’s so simple.”

Congratulations to Dr. Wright and his team. We hope to get an interview soon.