A Curious Statistical Anomaly

The quote above was made by Carl Sagan. That quote has become even more meaningful recently with the release of a new research study by Zita Martins, Oliver Botta, Marilyn L. Fogel, Mark A. Sephton, Daniel P. Glavin, Jonathan S. Watson, Jason P. Dworkin, Alan W. Schwartz and Pascale Ehrenfreund. The title of the paper is “Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite.” Basically, they found uracil and xanthine in a meteorite. These are raw materials for making RNA and DNA that make up us and every living thing on earth.

In their abstract, they say:

Carbon-rich meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, contain many biologically relevant organic molecules and delivered prebiotic material to the young Earth. We present compound-specific carbon isotope data indicating that measured purine and pyrimidine compounds are indigenous components of the Murchison meteorite. Carbon isotope ratios for uracil and xanthine of ?13C = + 44.5‰ and + 37.7‰, respectively, indicate a non-terrestrial origin for these compounds. These new results demonstrate that organic compounds, which are components of the genetic code in modern biochemistry, were already present in the early solar system and may have played a key role in life’s origin.

I was really excited to hear about this finding and would have loved to read the paper, but alas you have to pay to read it. I really wish more scientists would publish their research under Creative Commons licenses so that more of us interested nonprofessionals could read up on these things. Maybe if more of the results of scientific studies were readily available there would be less fear of science as a sort of mumbo-jumbo voodoo thing to be feared. Oops, that rant is for some other time.

What’s really interesting is that these DNA-RNA precursor materials were found on a meteorite. So, did life evolve totally independently on Earth? Did it have help from a few saturated meteorites crashing into our bubbling cauldron of a cooling planet? Is life a random combination of chemicals that could happen anywhere and so are found just about everywhere including space traveling bits of debris?

Whatever the answers to these question, and I’m sure it will take a lot more research and thinking to come up with answers rather than more questions, it means that we, all of us, are made of star stuff. When we look up to the stars and the milky way and the constellations, we now know that we are part of the solar system, our galaxy, and the universe. We are not alone; we are part of the starry heavens.

We just finished watching all three of the extended movies that make up Lord of the Rings (Directed by Peter Jackson). Understand, we didn’t do a marathon — we watched about half a movie a night and finished tonight. It’s a way to unwind. However, every time I watch, my husband (Hyperion: Poor, poor, pitiful, me!) ends up listening to me rant about how Frodo never would have made it without Sam and he doesn’t get enough credit — so I thought I’d share my pain here.

There’s a bit in movie two when Sam and Frodo are talking about about whether stories will ever be told about their adventure, and if Frodo will become a legend in hobbit history. During the talk, Frodo says, “What about Sam? Frodo wouldn’t have made it very far without Sam?” But, when I read the books as a teenager, I realized that Sam was just as much a hero as Frodo, if not more. Yes, Frodo carried the ring and had the weight of it, and the push of the evil on his shoulders for the whole journey. But it was Sam who kept him going. Sam who gave Frodo the help he needed to keep on track with the quest. He fed him. He watched out for him. He gave him hope and laughter when there was none to be had in what was going on around them. That doesn’t take away from Frodo’s efforts to complete the task set for him — to get to Mordor and destroy the ring. But Frodo couldn’t have done it without Sam.

At the end, if Gollum hadn’t shown up, it would have been Sam who would have had to force the destruction of the ring in spite of Frodo. Sam is the anchor to all that is right and worth saving in Middle Earth. No paragon of virtue, but a good person doing the best he can in bad circumstances. He deserves some credit for his part in the adventure as do Merry and Pippin. They each in their own way advanced the cause to save Middle Earth from darkness.

Jackson gives testimony to this by having the newly crowned Aragorn bow before the Hobbits. He also later (in the books) makes the Shire a protected area to help keep the Hobbits safe from human meddling. But as the Eye disintegrates in the final fall of Sauron, it’s Frodo’s name on everyone’s lips. In my youth, it was “Frodo Lives” on all the buttons, banners, and what not celebrating the books. But what about Sam?

To my mind, Sam is the everyman of the piece. He’s the guy that just does what needs to be done without thinking about glory or duty or any of that. He’s the electrician that goes out in the middle of storms to restore power — because it’s his job and it needs to be done (he in the generic form that includes women). He’s the one that stops to help when you have a flat on the side of the road and can’t find your jack and/or your spare is flat. The person who goes to the gas station and gets you gas when you run out. The person who is there with a helping hand when they could just as easily drive by and go on with their own life.

Sam is the person, we see every day in our lives who goes that extra mile and never asks for anything in return. So, why don’t more people recognize the heroism of Sam, Merry, and Pippin. The ones who are caught up and just do the best they can for what is right in spite of being small and overlooked.

I’m sure if you think about it there have been some Sams in your life. Maybe you are or have been a Sam. Maybe if we were all Sam more often the world wouldn’t be in the mess it is. So, lets have a cheer for Sam. Frodo never could have done it without Sam.

It seems that when the Mars soil was first scooped up and the arm tried to dump it in the ovens there was a bit of a problem. The soil was clumpy and things didn’t turn out quite the way they were expected too. However, scientists on Earth sent commands to jiggle/vibrate the screens over the intake tubes of the ovens and some finer bits of the soil filtered through and now the tests can continue.

Okay, I’m still in awe that someone here can send a message (actually computer instructions) to a machine there (170 million miles from here)  and have it work out. I find it very inspiring that Earthlings are actually branching out to explore our solar system in this small way. The more we understand the geology and geography and physical composition of the other planets and bits of debris that populates our solar system — the more we learn about our own environment.

A favorite saying of my grandmother was something like, “you can’t see the forest for the trees”. When we study Earth, we have all sorts of preconceived ideas about how things are and how they should be. So, we look for what we expect to find. In exploring the Mars surface, there is some of that. But, we don’t know what’s there and there are so many competing theories about what it is like and why it’s the way it is–that we have to look with open minds as well as open eyes (or probes, lens, and other mechanical tools). Once we look without the preconceived notions at another planetary body — scientists often find things that make them then turn towards our own planet and look again to see if those same insights can be used to better explain our world.

Of course the study of Earth is a bit complicated by the fact that we have an abundance of plant and animal life in a complex interplay and interconnected reliance on things being in balance. It’s the imbalance that has built up and caused (totally and unabashedly simplified here) what’s endearingly called Global Warming.

All that we learn is added to our knowledge of planetary formation, life, and decay. It can help us understand our own planet. No knowledge is useless, for science always builds on what has gone before — even if it is to reject it and start over from scratch.

Meanwhile, I marvel at the wonder of communicating with another planet even if it is communication with our own machinery.  (Hyperion: Especially when my cell phone won’t function in the brand-new high tech office building where I work.  Maybe we should relocate my office to Mars?)

Today it was 101 without the heat index. The weather stations said it wouldn’t cool off until 8 PM. We walked down to the mailbox about 4PM and it was really hot. But at 8:30 PM, temperature 95 degrees, we went out and watered all the plants. Finished prepping the lavender slice of the herb garden. While Paul pulled weeds in some of the perennial planters, I managed to plant the 3 rosemary plants and the 4 lavender plants.

Right now, it’s thundering but I haven’t yet seen lightning (Hyperion: I have!). It is supposed to storm tonight. I’m hoping it clears off for tomorrow so I can get more of the garden ready. I’m hoping to get the tomato plants in before the weekend. But with this weather — there is no telling what will get done.

Yesterday it was 107 with the heat index. Today it was even warmer. We walked down to the mail box to get the paper (1/4 mile). Then worked in the garden for about 20 minutes which was as long as we could take. Paul got the yard prepped for mowing–lots of branches and twigs came down in the rain last night.

I worked on the rosemary slice of the herb garden. Our herb garden is a big circle and the rosemary bit is one eighth of it. I had to pull out all the rosemary plants last years as they were really getting leggy. So this year I’m replanting with some new ones. I only got about half of the slice weeded and the dirt ready for planting. It was just too hot. Then it didn’t really cool enough in the late afternoon to go out. Well, okay we could have gone out but by then I was working on some indoor stuff.

Anyway, in view of the heat we’re having, I thought I’d use a picture of the Heat Miser doll for this post. I love Christmas and the TV and movies at that time (otherwise I hate the commercialism). But the song from the show keeps going through my head. It’s so lucky that we didn’t wait to get the furnace replaced. We (meaning me) would have been unable to manage this heat without air conditioning and we’re even under trees and fairly shaded from direct sun in the house.

It’s times like these when I really wonder how peopled lived in the heat without being able to change their environment to suit them. I do realize that in those days houses were built to help with that and now-a-days we build all the houses the same no matter where in the country they are or what the environmental conditions are. For example, I’d say in the tornado alley area, people should really be building underground or earthship type housing, which would be better able to survive a tornado — especially an underground house. We saw some of those when we were in Coober Pedy, Australia. They build underground because of the tremendous heat in the desert were the town is located (with some of the house above ground). However, underground housing is cooler in heat and easier to heat in the cold.

Wonder why no one is touting people looking at alternative housing for the energy crisis.

Today was hot — 98 degrees (107 with heat index). Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. But this evening it was another thunder, lightning, and rain storm. I’m hoping if dries off so we can get some yard work done tomorrow. We were supposed to run errands today but it took 6 hours at the tire place to get a replacement tire and wheel alignment. That blew a day. Paul went alone and I got to stay home and catch up on some of the work I didn’t get done during week because of headaches and missing spoons. Guess what, you can almost see the dining room table again.

But I finished my one of my socks while reading. Did you know if you sit cross-legged and hold the pages open with your big toes, you can read while knitting? Well, you can. So tonight I kitchener stitched the toe and wove in the ends of the sock. I already started the second sock. I really mean to learn to do two socks at once this year but didn’t this time.

The yarn is thicker for warm winter socks. The pattern is my plain vanilla one that’s just from trial and error from making socks using a pattern. I cast on 72 stitches and k2p2 around. Then every 5-6 rows or so I did a cross with the knit stitches. I think if I do this again I’ll stagger the cross and do half off set by 5 rows and see what that looks like. Then a standard heel. I reduced the stitches by a bit when I got to the instep by purling 2 together every other group of purl stitches. Then as I approached the toe area, I did the same again when I hadn’t purled 2 together. Then about an inch from the end I just switched to all knit stitches. All the decreases were at the sides so the toe tappers (rather than every so many stitches for a round toe).

Last night we drove to Virginia for the 1st Friday meeting of WSFA (Washington area Science Fiction Association). Just as we left the driveway and started down the main road, there’s this big field. That’s where we saw these guys…

You can see the ones closest to us. We stopped the car on the edge of the road. I recently got a new camera that’s small enough to carry in my bag and it has a 12x telephoto lens. In the back you can see two other deer that are smaller and in the tall grasses. I love coming up on things like these and we used to always miss them because we didn’t have the camera with us because it was just too big or too awkward to carry. We’d have gotten a better picture, but the battery died in the camera, and in the few seconds it took Paul to fish out the replacement battery he always carries, the deer moved away.

Later on the way home, we saw a fox, two cats, and, I think, a groundhog. We also saw several deer but it was nearly midnight so we didn’t even try for photos we just wanted to get home and sleep.

Getting out to see friends is always nice but getting back home, safe and sound, is even nicer. Hope all of you have a good weekend too.

I was wandering around this morning and early afternoon, feeling like I was thinking through a fog and wondering where all my spoons had gone. In spite of it all, I’d managed to work my way through a user’s guide and half a system administration guide. That was in prep for some software I’m configuring for a website that I’m working on (contract work). Anyway, seems that caffeine didn’t help and I didn’t dare start to do anything I couldn’t afford to screw up so I was taking notes — imagine real notes in the margins and highlighting the parts I knew I’d have to do later when the brain fog cleared.

I even, in desperation, cleared off the dining room table (currently my desk). More coffee. Considered pain meds but decided against it. I thought I’d just bear with it for a while. Then the thunder started rolling in. Phone rings and Paul says he’s coming home early, they just got a bulletin from the weather service that there were severe storm warning out. I hung up and the wind started to pick up. The sky darkened. The wind really, really, started whipping through the trees. I stood with my coffee and watched a limb come down off one of the huge trees at the end of the driveway. Luckily it wasn’t a heavy one just long and thin and whippy. It was almost beautiful the way it did this slow swirling somersault through the branches and landed in/near the driveway. I wasn’t about to go check on it because the big trees out front were swaying at least two to three feet off plumb.

Then the rain came. It was so heavy I couldn’t even see the plant pots on the deck outside the sliding doors. Luckily, I’d brought in the seedlings when Paul called. We lost the lights of course. They came on about 2 1/2 hours later maybe later.

In the midst of the storm, I finally realize — no wonder I couldn’t think straight. Storm coming — barometric pressure shifts. At least there was a reason for all the internal fog. Finished a book, Maggie Sefton’s Dyer Consequences (My review will be reviewed in Gumshoe Review‘s July issue.)

The radio said hundreds of thousands of people in Maryland and Virginia were without power. Another storm just rolled through staring about an hour ago — actually, it still is, but not as impressive as earlier. From what the radio said it was really bad in some places with a tornado or possibly two. We were luck. Paul said there were at least 8 trees down on the drive home turning the road into one lane but he got home safe.

Nature can be so beautiful and dangerous at the same time. I love to watch lightning storms from the comfort of my home. But enjoying the light show, you can forget just how much raw power is being released with each strike. Then there’s the wind and the damage to property and surrounding natural landscapes (trees, bushes, gardens…).

I hope damage was limited to things…I hate when people and animals are injured or killed in storms. It’s the randomness of the damage. There’s no way you can prepare except for what you can do in general. Storms hit here and not there for no reason other than chance. Nature doesn’t reason — it just is.

Hyperion here. I didn’t tell Gayle at the time, since I didn’t want her to worry, but the bulletin we received said that a line of thunderstorms was approaching at 60 miles per hour. It looked likely to spawn tornados as well, so either get out of the way, or get to a shelter. Since it was heading west to east, and I live east of work, I decided to bug out before the storm hit and out run it if I could. In the five minutes it took me to shut things down and get to the parking garage, the weather went from cloudy, but still, to black clouds, high wind, and torrential rains. The power also started flickering in the building. I was suppose to go to the recycling center and the post office on the way home, but decided I preferred staying alive. I skedaddled home as quickly as I could and did manage to stay ahead of the worst of it. Still, it knocked a lot of tree limbs down onto the road, and even a couple of whole trees. Traffic lights were also out for the last 20 miles of the trip. Miraculously, the other drivers actually slowed down and behave rationally, so other than having to swerve around debris in the road, the trip wasn’t actually that bad. After that we had a nice late afternoon reading by oil lamp and wind-up lanterns, and now the powers back (obviously) and the rain has settled down to a nice relaxing hiss outside.

Just watched Enchanted, a combination live action and animation film from Disney. Directed by Kevin Lima. Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, and Rachel Covey — and others. Special Features: Bloopers, Deleted Scenes, a music video, three making of musical number features, Pop-up book of Pip’s Adventure, then a short bit that tells you if you got the BluRay Disc there would be some neat features you didn’t get on the regular disc (I think this was a cheap shot but that’s just me–but it did confirm my belief that I had spotted a lot of homages to past Disney fairy tale animation films.)

Enchanted is basically a mash up of Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella, with the main character named Giselle falling through the rabbit hole construct from fairy tale land to New York City — from a land of happily ever after to a place where no one cares and there is never a happily ever after. The reason for the fall through the interdimensional portal was that the Wicked Queen Narissa/Stepmother didn’t want to loose her crown and her power when her stepson, Price Edward, married. She’d managed to keep him busy for years and away from women so he’d never meet the girl of his dreams. But Giselle and Edward sang a duet and thus were fated to be lovers, married, and live happily ever after. Until the Queen (evil remember) decides to step in and fix things. In New York City, Giselle finds things very different but she’s plucky and lucky and manages to find a friend to help her. Edward, of course, is a hero and must save his beloved. So, much adventure, lots of wonderful musical numbers, miscellaneous misunderstandings, and then true love finds it way with a bit of a twist.

The animation in New York City is absolutely amazing. Top of the line and very realistic. The animation in fairy tale land, Andalasia is a wonderful homage to the original Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella animation of yesteryear. The acting is also top notch considering a lot of time it was responding to nothing at all. Amy Adams did a stunning performance playing Giselle as a innocent who has a totally different outlook on life. It reminded me a bit of the wolf in 10th Kingdom though with none of the innuendo and darkside of that rendition of fairly tale life.

This is definitely a film that the entire family can watch, including the younger children. The story is well told and the violence is the old Disney minor level that children should be able to deal with. The music is catchy and the musical numbers a lot of fun to watch, much like the old musicals I loved as a child: The Music Man, Mary Poppins, and so on… Don’t hesitate to have a family film night with this one.

As far as the Hugo award nomination goes…I don’t get it. The special effects are stunning, but the story doesn’t have the depth and layering that I’d expect a film nominated for a Hugo award should have. Is it a good film? Yes, it is. But it doesn’t have that extra textural/visual depth that I’ve come to expect in nominees, especially after last years slate of nominees (depressing as all get out but nonetheless outstanding films). And before anyone calls me on it — yes, I did nominate this year.

So, for some light entertainment and some good time to spend with family and popcorn at home, check out Enchanted. It is enchanting.