Friday, March 21, 2008
The great discovery in astronomy at the beginning of the third millennium
is that there are planets around other stars - lots of planets around lots
of stars. But is there life? If there is it won't be on HD 189733b in
the constellation Vulpecula 63 light years distant. A "hot-Jupiter"
planet hugging the skirts of a star a bit smaller than our sun, HD 189733b
is too hot and too massive for life. Nevertheless, the detection of
methane and water in its atmosphere, reported in this week's issue of
Nature, is an important step in the search. Not that the presence of
these gases tells us anything about life, rather it confirms the
technique. As the planet passes in front of the star the absorption
spectra of the light at the rim of the planet gives its atmospheric
composition. The measurement stretched the capability of Hubble's near
infrared spectrometer to the limit, but should be much easier with the
more powerful James Web Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013.
The search for life to which we are not related is the great science quest
of this century. Spirit and Opportunity are still hunting for the most
likely spots on Mars. In the highly unlikely event that Bush's Moon-Mars
proposal ever lands people on Mars, the first mission is unlikely to find
life. The odds of finding life, however, will increase sharply with each
subsequent landing. Any life they find is going to look very familiar.
The guarantee to reviewers of confidentiality is regarded by editors as
essential to candid commentary. Pfizer however, sued by patients who
suffered serious side effects from the arthritis drugs Celebrex and
Bextra, sued three major medical journals for their files related to the
drugs. Pfizer said they could be useful to its defense. A federal judge
in Chicago has denied Pfizer's effort to obtain the files from two
journals.
"More than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and
two billion have inadequate sanitation." So begins a special
section “Water under Pressure” in this week's Nature. No matter what
fixes science comes up with, they will in time be inadequate if population
continues to grow. Global warming, energy crisis, and clean water
supplies are the current warning signs. Before that it was hunger, but
in a triumph of science, the Green Revolution turned hunger into a
political problem. The man most responsible for the Green Revolution,
Norman Borlaug, said in his 2003 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance
speech, "...we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power
of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction." In the
end, human reproductive instinct always wins; ask Elliot Spitzer.
Reproduction means increased food production, that means irrigation,
irrigation means wells, that means less ground water. In coastal regions,
the wells are bringing in saltwater.
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