Really? Earth-like, life-friendly planets literally everywhere in our galaxy?

[I am deviating to the use of English for this entry, mainly for accessibility to a larger audience.]

This past Monday evening, while following my usual habit of glancing over the day's news headlines on my phone, before pulling the cord on my eyelids for the night, I noticed the following interesting headline:

"Kepler space telescope finds Earth-size, potentially habitable planets are common"

This is fairly exciting news and confirms what I (and hopefully you too) have logically concluded long before any reliable measurements could be made. This article (and its headline) is well constructed and explains clearly how to interpret the results intelligently.

ScienceDaily

But then the news app on my phone suddenly flashed as it updated the list of headlines and I was barely able to stop myself from bursting out in laughter when I saw the new headline reporting this news (from a different and obviously less-professional publication):

"Earth-like, life-friendly ALIEN WORLDS literally EVERYWHERE in galaxy"

So, how did we get from "Earth-size" to "Earth-like" and from "potentially habitable" to "life-friendly", and from "common" to "literally EVERYWHERE"? As scientists, we often joke about these kinds of laughable exaggerations that appear in mainstream media headlines aimed at the more general (non-scientific) population, as accurately depicted in this comic.

Firstly, you can probably figure out that "Earth-size" is not the same as "Earth-like" because being "like" Earth would mean matching most of the properties of Earth, not its size alone.

Secondly, measuring a drop in brightness of a star is a very long shot away from determining whether it is due to a "life-friendly" planet.

Thirdly, "literally EVERYWHERE" is such a bogus claim that I can't even justify bashing it, because "literally EVERYWHERE" means that someone has seen them "literally" everywhere (while in reality the result is only an estimate based on Kepler's observation of a tiny region of space), and "EVERYWHERE" would mean that all of empty space would be filled with those planets. Beyond bogus. Go take a course in English writing before publishing such nonsense.

Of course, this comes from a tabloid publication, whose main focus is sensationalism. But really, is it truly necessary to construct a headline full of such blatant lies and total nonsense? Many of the people who stumble onto that article will not have the scientific education required to detect the deception. Yet, I believe that many of them are smart people and do not deserve to be fooled in such a way. If news outlets can't hire reporters with solid scientific understanding to do their science reporting, they should not report on scientific matters, unless it is copied verbatim from a real scientific publication with appropriate credit.

To anyone reading this and who does not have rigorous training and experience in science, I want to urge you to pay very careful attention to every word used in science news for clues about how to interpret it. Sometimes the deception is more subtle, because facts are often presented in such a way as to be easily misinterpreted in your own brain without you realising it. Words like "potentially" and "probably" and "likely", and "apparently", and especially the love-child of science reporting, that tiny, sneaky little word "may", should all be read with emphasis and not be glanced over as if they were not even there. And don't believe everything you read in the media, and especially on the internet. And consider staying away from tabloids with their sensationalist, exaggerated headlines, unless you go there for the laugh.

I do have to mention that today (4 days later), when I opened the article again for review before writing this entry, the headline was changed to the more palatable:

"Galaxy is CRAMMED with EARTH-LIKE WORLDS – also ALIENS (probably)"

Although the deceptive "EARTH-LIKE" part remains, the article itself is fairly decent, with an insightful picture of how the Kepler measurements were made.

--

According to the current analysis of the Kepler data, it is estimated that about 22 percent of stars like our sun have planets in the habitable zone (where water can exist in liquid phase) that are between 1 and 2 times the size of Earth. That amounts to about 11 billion such planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Now that there is reliable evidence of the existence of these kinds of worlds, astronomy detectives can narrow down their observations and look for more interesting clues about the life-sustainability of those planets - and of course, justify their request for funding those investigations.

We can still look forward to much more interesting findings in the hunt for Earth-like planets, with among others, the James Webb space telescope, successor to Hubble, due for launch in 5 years (2018).

Working yourself to death

Surely, at some point in your life you must have contemplated the reason why you are required to work in order to make a living. Why do so many of us have to spend the best parts of our day sitting behind desks in small cubicles under unnatural light, just so that we can afford a seemingly comfortable life? And how do a minority of people actually manage to live life in luxury while never lifting a finger to do anything that may resemble work? Why can't we all just follow our passions (even if it looks like work), without worrying where we would find the means to pay for food and shelter?

[http://www.familydads.com/balance.php]

The Jewish/Christian Bible (and possibly texts from other ancient religions too) actually reflects the natural law underlying these thoughts and provides evidence that this law has been known to humans for many millenia: "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground..." (Genesis 3:19).

Food won't just jump into your mouth when you are hungry. Your house is not going to build itself. We all have to expend some energy to obtain our food or to construct our shelters. Even animals and plants and tiny micro-organisms are subjected to this law. In ancient times, you could store some food in a granary so that you would not have to work all year long. In modern times we have the flexibility to store money in bank accounts and lucrative investments to support our hobbies/passions, our toys, our holidays, our children's needs, and of course, our retirement lifestyle. But, even if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and you never have to do a day's work yourself in your entire life, those funds that support your lifestyle came from energy expended by someone or something at some point in history.

The goal for all of us, is to find a way to expend as little as possible energy to achieve maximum economic gain. But, is that actually possible for every single person on this planet? Or, will it always be attainable by only a minority?

For the past year, I have exchanged the office life for one in which I have freedom to do with my time as I please, but at the cost of lower income. I obviously haven't found my optimal work point yet. But, at least I have had the opportunity to deal with important issues in my life and feel a lot more balanced and invigorated today because of that. Most people suffer all their lives without having that privilege.

Notice how this topic is starting to connect energy with economics. More on that idea in a future post... :)

[Here is my explanation for why you don't see much English on this blog.]

[http://blog.jokeroo.com/2011/05/20/why-work-doesnt-happen-at-work/]

How to make money

Welcome to the first installment of my discourse on general economic principles and how it affects you and me as individual economic participants. According to my previous explanation, I have decided to compose this series in English, since it contains information that is universally applicable, but presented quite differently from any other literature on economics that you may find elsewhere (I think).

Be warned however, that I am by no measure an expert on economics. I rely purely on my limited knowledge and my imperfect logical deductive reasoning abilities.

In staying true to the general theme of this blog, I must mention that I have developed a keen interest in economics as it relates to my ability to build a star ship, with which I can travel to other planets that orbit other stars. And, we all know that star ships cost a lot of money, especially in light of the fact that we still need to research (and hopefully discover) and develop the appropriate technologies to actually build one. I am also somewhat curious to know how we might do transactions with any alien life that we may encounter on our future voyages.

The Earth is littered with all kinds of recipies, charms and self-help books that presumably explain how to make lots of money. But have you ever stopped for a moment to think about where money comes from and why we actually need it?

Let me take you a short while back in time to the first monetary transaction (or how I imagine it would have happened). Suppose there was once a farmer, called Abraham, growing wheat crops and baking bread from the flour that he got after harvesting and milling. Also suppose that Abraham had a neighbour, called Bartholomew, who was a dairy farmer with cows aplenty. Normally, Bartholomew enjoyed eating his cheese on a slice of bread and had an agreement with Abraham to exhange one jar of milk for one loaf of bread, since Abraham also fancied having some milk in his coffee.

But, one year the rains were scarce and the wheat grew sparse, so Abraham had very little stock of bread. Abraham couldn't sell all his bread anymore, or else he would starve. And one jar of milk would not sustain him equally. So, Bartholomew proposed to pay with two jars of milk and two blocks of cheese to get his loaf of bread, since bread has become his staple food without which he would surely starve. (Note how the principle of supply-and-demand increases or decreases the value of products.)

Soon, Abraham became tired of having cheese and milk all the time. But, Bartholomew still needed his bread. So, Abraham devised a cunning plan and told Bartholomew that he can get his loaf of bread in exchange for a little token. This token would serve as a contract, stating that Abraham may exchange it back for two jars of milk and two blocks of cheese at any time of his choosing. The idea spread like wildfire and pretty soon everybody was exchanging tokens for resources. And a funny thing happened. Suddenly Abraham was not limited to getting milk and cheese for his tokens. This was convenient, since he never acquired a liking to milk and cheese again. Instead he used his tokens to buy fruits and desserts. He also invested in some newly invented tools with which he could channel water from the river and increase his crop yields. By making more bread, he would be able to sell to more people and get more tokens in exchange.

But there remained a big problem with the token system. You had to remember the value of each individual token. In some communities, they used valuable objects as tokens, and they ended up negotiating the value of their tokens at each transaction. So, at some point in time, another clever mind invented a standardised monetary system, in which tokens had a fixed, predetermined value.

Today our tokens are little pieces of paper or metal coins, without intrinsic value, but they still symbolise a contract between a buyer and a potential seller. The seller will always agree to the value of the token, although the value of the product being sold may still fluctuate. And once you have taken goods from the seller, he/she will agree to accept your token.

And this is how you make money: Everytime there is the potential for resources to be exchanged, money is created. So, in order to get more money (or even to grow a country's economy), all you need to do, is acquire exchangeable resources. As soon as people want those resources, your money will start flowing in. It's funny, but this concept is fundamentally equivalent to stealing, unless you exchange something of equal value upon acquisition (which defeats the purpose). It also reminds me about how certain countries became exceedingly wealthy by colonising and effectively plundering half of the undeveloped world. They understood this principle very well.

So now you have to ask yourself: what kinds of exchangeable resources can you acquire that other people will want to buy? Typical resources are farming and mining products. Farming acquires resources by tapping nutrients from the ground (or stealing it unless you replenish it with fertiliser or compost) and energy from the sun. Mining acquires resources by cutting and gathering pieces of rock (or stealing it from the Earth). Artisans can acquire skills by which they can trade in the resource of time through delivering some kind of service. And, certain skills may be more valuable than others.

I hope you have now gained some insights into (or refreshed what you knew all along about) some of the fundamentals of economics based on money. Of course, this is not the complete picture, and there are many more aspects that I would like to share, but that is to be continued in another entry.

Intelligent aliens too plentiful

As humans, we often ponder the probability of intelligent alien life existing somewhere else in the known universe. Some even dismiss the idea as a total impossibility.

A while back, I had a short discussion with a friend or two about the nature of intelligence. What exactly do we understand about the idea of being intelligent or a life form having intelligence? Where does intelligence start? Is a tiny ant intelligent if it can work with its fellow ants to build gigantic ant hills? Is a dog intelligent for understanding your commands and being able to execute them, or even just puff at you and turn its head away in disbelief of your arrogance? What about monkeys that can do basic math, or wild orangutans that have their own culture and technology?

We often attribute increasing levels of intelligence to increasing brain sizes and complexity. With such reasoning, would the enormous brains of whales and elephants not make them more intelligent than us puny little humans? Just because we can easily kill them doesn't mean that they are less intelligent, but only that we are more violent. Who is to say that whale intelligence is not simply beyond our comprehension? Maybe in their songs they are debating the stupidity of the human race or lamenting the havoc that we wreak to their once beautiful world.

And what about our own race? Even we humans have varying levels of intelligence. Since the same is true for other primates, you may even consider the possibility that some apes are smarter than some humans.

Thinking about all this prompted a fleeting synaptic commotion in my head about our never-ending search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And, I realised that it is really a misnomer to be searching for intelligent aliens. They may well be very plentiful, but like whales, might not give a moment's thought to building shelters and trade routes and communication satellites or even any technology at all. What we are actually seeking, are industrious aliens. Or rather industrious, intelligent aliens, since ants have also proven to be fairly industrious.

And, it seems that there might even be a better chance of finding them than our previous calculations suggested.

[What's that funny-looking language on the rest of this blog? See the explanation that I posted previously.]

[If you are interested in using the alien picture, please download it from the original website, since you will need to read the license agreement.]

My salary saved the planet today...

... or at least a small part of it (I think).

Recently, I was faced with a hard choice:

1. take the position at a company much closer to home (which I already accepted) and thereby gain a fair improvement in my quality of living, or
2. stay with my current employer (50 minutes away from home by car) for another year at a salary nearly (or possibly even more than) double what I would get from my new employer.

I was a little uneasy about the idea of taking back on my "promise" to work for my prospective employer, but for such large amounts I had to at least give it a thorough consideration.

I have good reasons for not wanting to travel almost 2 hours a day to and from work anymore. So, I had to calculate how big a salary I would need to move closer to my current employer in order to achieve the same life-style improvements. When I discovered that I would need more than double the salary to achieve a life-style improvement that does not even completely match what I would otherwise get (eg. I would be much further away from most of my friends and family), I immediately knew that something was wrong about the whole idea. What was it?

Well, from the way my mind thinks about the world, I immediately realised that this extra cost indirectly translates to an extra strain on the environment. How could I willingly accept such a large salary merely to afford the necessary expenses that would eventually cause so much more harm to the environment? And this, when I can get a better quality of living at half the price?

This is the first time that I have considered my impact on the environment when negotiating for a salary - and it was enlightening. It also made the decision much easier, and I now get other non-financial benefits too, such as working in a new environment on new projects after having been with my current employer for three years.

So, that is how my salary saved a little part of our little planet for a little while.

What do you think? Am I an idiot for not taking the money?

[What's that funny-looking language on the rest of this blog? See the explanation that I posted previously.]

Why no English?

My initial language-processing neurological pathways were constructed around the scaffolding of symbols and sounds that are collectively known as the Afrikaans language. Yet, even before I went to school, while those same synaptic networks were still very pliable, I already had a couple of English friends. By now, thanks to many good teachers, I can think and communicate in both languages almost equally well.

At the conception of this blog, I found it quite hard to decide on which language it would be based. On the one hand, I feel that I can conjure up more vivid and colourful images and expressions (including a few amusing neologisms) when using Afrikaans. I mean, an expression like "little planet hopper" just does not have the same ring to it than "planeethoppertjie" does. On the other hand, I have many English speaking friends that do not understand Afrikaans.

This blog was initially aimed at providing some alternative, light-hearted amusement to friends (and, to whomever else finds it enjoyable, and while at the same time serving as a medium to share some fascinating discoveries that I have made, either from following scientific news, or from merely observing my environment). As such, I would have found it more pleasurable to make it accessible to all of them. But, as I considered all the factors, I could not ignore the multitudes of existing English blogs that already serve a similar purpose. I have very little time at my disposal (and so does my intended audience), so it is important to me that I don't become just another blogger with no significant value to add. I had to create something unique that could not be found elsewhere on the web. So, Afrikaans it had to be.

It is sad to me that many of my friends will never have the opportunity* to laugh at my creations and come along to play on far away, breathtaking worlds, unspoilt by evil human hands. But at least (I hope) this is not a dull blog. ;)

I do, however, believe that I may on specific occasions feel inclined to compose an English entry. This would mostly happen when I want to share knowledge or understanding about material that is not available in general on the web. I shall categorise such entries under the "English Posts" label, which you can find on the menu bar to the right.

* Even with the appearance of automated language translators, many of the underlying cultural nuances might not be recognised and therefore loose its comic effect.