Category: Education

Out of the mouths of young people!

A young man aged eight asks a very deep question.

Now the answer, that I am about to republish, is written to Tristan, aged 8. But frankly I have no doubt that the answer will be keenly read by persons of all ages. Certainly, this 75-year-old found the answer of great interest.

But to the question:

How can a Big Bang have been the start of the universe, since intense explosions destroy everything? – Tristan S., age 8, Newark, Delaware

And the answer:

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How could an explosive Big Bang be the birth of our universe?

April 30, 2020
By Michael Lam, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology

Pretend you’re a perfectly flat chess piece in a game of chess on a perfectly flat and humongous chessboard. One day you look around and ask: How did I get here? How did the chessboard get here? How did it all start? You pull out your telescope and begin to explore your universe, the chessboard….

What do you find? Your universe, the chessboard, is getting bigger. And over more time, even bigger! The board is expanding in all directions that you can see. There’s nothing that seems to be causing this expansion as far as you can tell – it just seems to be the nature of the chessboard.

But wait a minute. If it’s getting bigger, and has been getting bigger and bigger, then that means in the past, it must have been smaller and smaller and smaller. At some time, long, long ago, at the very beginning, it must have been so small that it was infinitely small.

Let’s work forward from what happened then. At the beginning of your universe, the chessboard was infinitely tiny and then expanded, growing bigger and bigger until the day that you decided to make some observations about the nature of your chess universe. All the stuff in the universe – the little particles that make up you and everything else – started very close together and then spread farther apart as time went on.

Our universe works exactly the same way. When astronomers like me make observations of distant galaxies, we see that they are all moving apart. It seems our universe started very small and has been expanding ever since. In fact, scientists now know that not only is the universe expanding, but the speed at which it’s expanding is increasing. This mysterious effect is caused by something physicists call dark energy, though we know very little else about it.

A visualization of tiny energy fluctuations in the early universe. ESA, Planck Collaboration, CC BY

Astronomers also observe something called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It’s a very low level of energy that exists all throughout space. We know from those measurements that our universe is 13.8 billion years old – way, way older than people, and about three times older than the Earth.

If astronomers look back all the way to the event that started our universe, we call that the Big Bang.

Many people hear the name “Big Bang” and think about a giant explosion of stuff, like a bomb going off. But the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion that destroyed things. It was the beginning of our universe, the start of both space and time. Rather than an explosion, it was a very rapid expansion, the event that started the universe growing bigger and bigger.

This expansion is different than an explosion, which can be caused by things like chemical reactions or large impacts. Explosions result in energy going from one place to another, and usually a lot of it. Instead, during the Big Bang, energy moved along with space as it expanded, moving around wildly but becoming more spread out over time since space was growing over time.

Back in the chessboard universe, the “Big Bang” would be like the beginning of everything. It’s the start of the board getting bigger.

It’s important to realize that “before” the Big Bang, there was no space and there was no time. Coming back to the chessboard analogy, you can count the amount of time on the game clock after the start but there is no game time before the start – the clock wasn’t running. And, before the game had started, the chessboard universe hadn’t existed and there was no chessboard space either. You have to be careful when you say “before” in this context because time didn’t even exist until the Big Bang.

You also have wrap your mind around the idea that the universe isn’t expanding “into” anything, since as far as we know the Big Bang was the start of both space and time. Confusing, I know!

Astronomers aren’t sure what caused the Big Bang. We just look at observations and see that’s how the universe did start. We know it was extremely small and got bigger, and we know that kicked off 13.8 billion years ago.

What started our own game of chess? That’s one of the deepest questions anyone can ask.

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Before the Big Bang then there was “no space and there was no time.” Michael Lam says that is confusing. I think that’s a gigantic understatement.

There there’s Dark Energy!

I wonder if we humans will ever come to the point where it is all understood!

More on the magnificent Hubble!

More on the magnificent Hubble!

The BBC have published an excellent article.

There was such a good response to the article on the Hubble that I published on April 27th that it was an easy decision to republish the article that was presented on the BBC website on the 24th, and this time the photographs can be downloaded.

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Hubble telescope delivers stunning 30th birthday picture

By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, 24 April 2020

It’s 30 years ago to the day that the Hubble telescope was launched – and to celebrate its birthday, the veteran observatory has produced another astonishing image of the cosmos.

This one is of a star-forming region close to our Milky Way Galaxy, about 163,000 light-years from Earth.

The larger object is the nebula NGC 2014; its companion is called NGC 2020.

But astronomers have nicknamed the scene the “Cosmic Reef” because it resembles an undersea world.

[There is an audio by Antonella Nota that is a little under 10 minutes long. I cannot embed it into this post for some unclear reason. Go here if you want to listen to it! It’s well worth listening to.]

Antonella Nota: “It’s called the people’s telescope because it brought the Universe to the people”

Famously blighted by blurred vision at the outset of its mission in 1990, Hubble was eventually repaired and upgraded.

The remarkable pictures it has taken of planets, stars, and galaxies have transformed our view of the cosmos.

Indeed, there are those who think Hubble is the most important scientific tool ever built.

It’s still far from retirement.

The US space agency (Nasa), which runs the observatory in partnership with the European Space Agency (Esa), says operations will be funded for as long as they remain productive.

Last year, its data resulted in almost 1,000 scientific papers being published – so it continues to stand at the forefront of discovery.

For its 25th birthday, Hubble imaged a giant cluster of stars called Westerlund 2

Engineers obviously keep a watching brief on the health of Hubble’s various systems. Pleasingly, all four instruments onboard – the two imagers and two spectrographs – work at full tilt.

In the past, the telescope’s Achilles heel has been the six gyroscopes that help turn and point the facility, maintaining a rock-steady gaze at targets on the sky.

These devices have periodically failed down the years, and during their final servicing mission in 2009 space shuttle astronauts were tasked with replacing all six.

Three have subsequently shut down again, but Nasa project scientist Dr Jennifer Wiseman says this is not yet an issue for serious concern.

“Nominally, we need three gyroscopes, but we can operate on just one due to the ingenuity of the engineers,” she asserted.

There’s a quiet confidence that Hubble can keep working well into the 2020s. Its supposed “successor” – the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – is due for launch next year, but the presence in orbit of this more modern observatory will in truth merely just extend capability; it won’t make Hubble redundant.

That’s because the new facility has been designed to see the cosmos at longer wavelengths of light than Hubble. The duo will be complementary and will on occasion actually pursue targets together to get a fuller perspective.

This is an exciting prospect for astronomers everywhere – but especially for those in Europe where Hubble has been such a rewarding endeavour, says Esa project scientist Dr Antonella Nota.

“From the memorandum of understanding there was a guarantee that European astronomers would get 15% of observing time for the duration of the mission. If I look back at how much time European astronomers got – on average it’s 22%. And it is a peer-reviewed process so we never needed to put a finger on the scales. European astronomers are creative; they’re smart; they’re doing leading-edge science,” she told BBC News.

What has Hubble contributed to science?

It’s a bit of a cliche, but Hubble has truly been a “discovery machine”.

Before the telescope launched in 1990, astronomers didn’t know whether the Universe was 10 billion years old or 20 billion years old.

Hubble’s survey of pulsating stars narrowed the uncertainty, and we now know the age extremely well, at 13.8 billion.

The observatory played a central role in revealing the accelerating expansion of the cosmos – a Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough – and it provided the definitive evidence for the existence of super-massive black holes at the centre of galaxies.

The Deep Field images require Hubble to stare at the same patch of sky for days on end

It’s amazing to think that when Hubble launched, scientists had yet to detect the first exoplanet, the name given to a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. Today, Hubble is pioneering the study of these far-off worlds, examining their atmospheres to try to gauge their nature.

And although the sparkling eight-metre-class ground-based telescopes can now match – and even exceed – Hubble’s skill in certain fields of study, the space telescope remains peerless in going super-deep.

Its so-called Deep Field observations in which it stared at a small patch of sky for days on end to identify the existence of very distant, extremely faint galaxies is one of the towering achievements in astronomy.

These studies have shown us what the Universe was like just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Only JWST, with its finely-tuned infrared detectors, will go deeper still.

A Hubble classic: The Veil Nebula is the expanding debris of an exploded star

Kathryn Sullivan was one of the astronauts onboard Space Shuttle Discovery when it released Hubble into its 612km-high orbit on 25 April, 1990 – a day she recounts in a recent book, Handprints On Hubble.

“Hubble’s scientific impact has just been immense. But what I had not really appreciated until I started writing my book was the extent to which Hubble – because of its gorgeous images and their mind-bending implications – has really permeated popular culture,” she told BBC News.

“I see Hubble on the side of U-Haul (rental) trailers, on tattoos, on lunchboxes, on shirts, in advertisements, almost ubiquitously.

“And I think part of that is down to Hubble coming into service just as the internet was becoming the thing we now know it to be.

“That’s put the pictures right in front of people.”

JWST will study the Universe at longer wavelengths of light

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This is the most amazing invention and regular missions to service the telescope including regular updates to the technology have kept it current.

It has produced the most distant and beautiful photographs. It has also refined our knowledge of when the universe came into existence – 13.8 billion years ago.

Staggering!

This is a good story!

It never fails to amaze me at the potential for friendship between cats and dogs.

This comes from The Dodo website. It’s one of a number of sites that I follow. I should really say more but am lost for words so here it is!

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Cat Makes Sure His Dog Friend Is OK During Thunderstorm

Photo Credit: Mary Barnes

When things get scary, we all need a friend to let us know that everything’s going to be OK.

For a pittie mix named Moose, that friend is a cat named Marvin.

Mary Barnes rescued Marvin six months ago, hoping that the fearless kitty would become a playmate for her 7-year-old dog.

“I didn’t know how Moose and Marvin would get along because Moose had never really interacted with cats, but she’s the absolute sweetest and most gentle girl so I had faith,” Barnes told The Dodo.

Photo Credit: Mary Barnes

“They very quickly became best friends,” she added. “Marvin has the personality of a dog so they nap and play together all day.”

When Barnes moved into an apartment in downtown Detroit, she began to notice that Moose was becoming more and more sensitive to loud noises. Every time the pup heard fireworks or thunderstorms, she would immediately tremble and hide.

“I try to give her treats and keep her busy when it’s storming but she usually ends up going into the bathroom and hiding in the shower,” Barnes said. “She’s always hidden in the shower — it’s her safe place.”

Photo Credit: Mary Barnes

Marvin doesn’t have the same fear of thunder shaking the windows. But Barnes never could have guessed the loving cat would step up and comfort Moose in her time of need.

“Last night was the first really big, long storm we’ve gotten in Detroit since Marvin has been with us,” Barnes said. “He was very curious and concerned about his big sister.”

Marvin knew Moose was suffering and he wasn’t going to let her sit alone.

Photo Credit: Mary Barnes

“He went back and forth to her in the shower to check in,” Barnes said. “It distracted [Moose] from the storm for a little bit because she leaned down to give him kisses!”

The storm eventually passed, and Moose and Marvin quickly got back to playing and relaxing together.

If there’s one thing they both know, it’s that having a best friend can make getting through hard times a whole lot easier.

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The thing about this story is that our pet dogs and cats have a number of emotions and they recognise the need to comfort other animals in the same house.

I suspect that a wide range of animals also have a number of emotions.

I allowed myself to do a quick web search on the subject – there’s loads!

Try this WikiPedia extract:

Emotion is defined as any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content.[1] The existence and nature of emotions in animals are believed to be correlated with those of humans and to have evolved from the same mechanisms. Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to write about the subject, and his observational (and sometimes anecdotal) approach has since developed into a more robust, hypothesis-driven, scientific approach.[2][3][4][5] Cognitive bias tests and learned helplessness models have shown feelings of optimism and pessimism in a wide range of species, including rats, dogs, cats, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings, pigs, and honeybees.[6][7][8] Jaak Panksepp played a large role in the study of animal emotion, basing his research on the neurological aspect. Mentioning seven core emotional feelings reflected through a variety of neuro-dynamic limbic emotional action systems, including seeking, fear, rage, lust, care, panic and play.[9] Through brain stimulation and pharmacological challenges, such emotional responses can be effectively monitored.[9]

Emotion has been observed and further researched through multiple different approaches including that of behaviourism, comparative, anecdotal, specifically Darwin’s approach and what is most widely used today the scientific approach which has a number of subfields including functional, mechanistic, cognitive bias tests, self-medicating, spindle neurons, vocalizations and neurology.

While emotions in animals is still quite a controversial topic it has been studied in an extensive array of species both large and small including primates, rodents, elephants, horses, birds, dogs, cats, honeybees and crayfish.

There’s much more and it is a comprehensive article.

 

 

Thirty Years of the Hubble Space Telescope

My how the years go by!
Back in 2010 I wrote about the Hubble, wishing it Happy Birthday!

Now here we are in 2020 and, again, I want to feature this most amazing space telescope ever.

The thirtieth anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope was on the 24th April, 2020, just three days ago.

The challenge is that the photographs that go with the article are not permitted to be shared with you. So I have grabbed some others that, apparently, are alright.

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How the Hubble Space Telescope opened our eyes to the first galaxies of the universe

April 24, 2020
By Professor Rodger Thompson, Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

The Hubble Space Telescope launched on the 24th of April, 30 years ago. It’s an impressive milestone especially as its expected lifespan was just 10 years.

One of the primary reasons for the Hubble telescope’s longevity is that it can be serviced and improved with new observational instruments through Space Shuttle visits.

When Hubble, or HST, first launched, its instruments could observe ultraviolet light with wavelengths shorter than the eye can see, as well as optical light with wavelengths visible to humans. A maintenance mission in 1997 added an instrument to observe near infrared light, which are longer wavelengths than people can see. Hubble’s new infrared eyes provided two new major capabilities: the ability to see farther into space than before and see deeper into the dusty regions of star formation.

I am an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona who has used near infrared observations to better understand how the universe works, from star formation to cosmology. Some 35 years ago, I was given the chance to build a near infrared camera and spectrometer for Hubble. It was the chance of a lifetime. The camera my team designed and developed has changed the way humans see and understand the universe. The instrument was built at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, under our direction.

Seeing further and earlier

Edwin Hubble, HST’s namesake, discovered in the early 1900s that the universe is expanding and that the light from distant galaxies was shifted to longer, redder wavelengths, a phenomenon called the redshift. The greater the distance, the larger the shift. This is because the further away an object is, the longer it takes for the light to reach us here on Earth and the more the universe has expanded in that time.

The Hubble ultraviolet and optical instruments had taken images of the most distant galaxies ever seen, known as the Northern Hubble Deep Field, or NHDF, which were released in 1996. These images, however, had reached their distance limit due to the redshift, which had shifted all of the light of the most distant galaxies out of the visible and into the infrared.

One of the new instruments added to Hubble in the second maintenance mission has the awkward name, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, NICMOS, pronounced “Nick Moss.” The near infrared cameras on NICMOS observed regions of the NHDF and discovered even more distant galaxies with all of their light in the near infrared.

Astronomers have the privilege of watching things happen in the past which they call the “lookback time.” Our best measurement of the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years. The distance that light travels in one year is called a light year. The most distant galaxies observed by NICMOS were at a distance of almost 13 billion light years. This meant that the light that NICMOS detected had been traveling for 13 billion years and showed what the galaxies looked like 13 billion years ago, a time when the universe was only about 5% of its current age. These were some of the first galaxies ever created and were forming new stars at rates that were more than a thousand times the rate at which most galaxies form stars in the current universe.

Hidden by dust

Although astronomers have studied star formation for decades, many questions remain. Part of the problem is that most stars are formed in clouds of molecules and dust. The dust absorbs the ultraviolet and most of the optical light emitted by forming stars, making it difficult for Hubble’s ultraviolet and optical instruments to study the process.

The longer, or redder, the wavelength of the light, the less is absorbed. That is why sunsets, where the light must pass through long lengths of dusty air, appear red.

The near infrared, however, has an even easier time passing through dust than the red optical light. NICMOS can look into star formation regions with the superior image quality of Hubble to determine the details of where the star formation occurs. A good example is the iconic Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula, also known as the pillars of creation.

The optical image shows majestic pillars which appear to show star formation over a large volume of space. The NICMOS image, however, shows a different picture. In the NICMOS image, most of the pillars are transparent with no star formation. Stars are only being formed at the tip of the pillars. The optical pillars are just empty dust reflecting the light of a group of nearby stars.

The dawning of the age of infrared

When NICMOS was added into the HST in 1997 NASA had no plans for a future infrared space mission. That rapidly changed as the results from NICMOS became apparent. Based on the data from NICMOS, scientists learned that fully formed galaxies existed in the universe much earlier than expected. The NICMOS images also confirmed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing down as previously thought. The NHDF infrared images were followed by the Hubble Ultra Deep Field images in 2005, which further showed the power of near infrared imaging of distant young galaxies. So NASA decided to invest in the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, a telescope much larger than HST and completely dedicated to infrared observations.

On Hubble, a near infrared imager was added to the third version of the Wide Field camera which was installed in May of 2009. This camera used an improved version of the NICMOS detector arrays that had more sensitivity and a wider field of view. The James Webb Space Telescope has much larger versions of the NICMOS detector arrays that have more wavelength coverage than the previous versions.

The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in March 2021, followed by the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, form the bulk of future space missions for NASA. These programs were all spawned by the near infrared observations by HST. They were enabled by the original investment for a near infrared camera and spectrometer to give Hubble its infrared eyes. With the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers expect to see the very first galaxies that formed in the universe.

The Eagle Nebula in visible light. NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

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The spiral galaxy NGC 2008 sits centre stage, its ghostly spiral arms spreading out towards us, in this image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.  This galaxy is located about 425 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Pictor (The Painter’s Easel). Discovered in 1834 by astronomer John Herschel, NGC 2008 is categorised as a type Sc galaxy in the Hubble sequence, a system used to describe and classify the various morphologies of galaxies. The “S” indicates that NGC 2008 is a spiral, while the “c” means it has a relatively small central bulge and more open spiral arms. Spiral galaxies with larger central bulges tend to have more tightly wrapped arms, and are classified as Sa galaxies, while those in between are classified as type Sb. Spiral galaxies are ubiquitous across the cosmos, comprising over 70% of all observed galaxies — including our own, the Milky Way. However, their ubiquity does not detract from their beauty. These grand, spiralling collections of billions of stars are among the most wondrous sights that have been captured by telescopes such as Hubble, and are firmly embedded in astronomical iconography.

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited one of its most iconic and popular images: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. This image shows the pillars as seen in infrared light, allowing it to pierce through obscuring dust and gas and unveil a more unfamiliar — but just as amazing — view of the pillars. In this ethereal view the entire frame is peppered with bright stars and baby stars are revealed being formed within the pillars themselves. The ghostly outlines of the pillars seem much more delicate, and are silhouetted against an eerie blue haze. Hubble also captured the pillars in visible light.

Rodger I. Thompson was the Principal Investigator for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, NICMOS. He was responsible for the execution of a contract to Arizona Board of Regents from NASA to deliver NICMOS as a Hubble Space Telescope Instrument and carry out a scientific investigation with it. Prof. Thompson received summer salary from this contract at his University pay rate during the execution of the contract which ended in 2004. Prof. Thompson is not currently receiving any external funding.

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Now for two YouTube videos.

The first is a celebration of the 30th anniversary.

And the second is slightly longer but conveys images taken from the telescope. I have no doubt that you will love them as we did!

Both these videos are beyond words! That we are alive today and can share these videos on this blog is stupendous!

See you tomorrow!

Earth Day!

I simply forgot it was Earth Day yesterday!

I wanted to let the post on Tuesday run for a couple of days because it really made the point about dogs, in particular, being animals who love to love!

But I then forgot, until I woke up on the 22nd, that yesterday was Earth Day.

So what to publish?

Yesterday in Merlin was a damp day with a steady rain coming down in the morning. About 10am I volunteered the idea that we should drive the shortish distance to Galice; just 10 miles from where we live. Galice is a very small settlement on the Western bank of the Rogue River. Then we drove on for a few more miles. It was incredible scenery. The misty, damp forest and the river running below in the gorge.

I had my camera with me and the following are some of the photographs that were taken.

Just for a change! All within 15 miles of home!

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For those interested in learning more, I am publishing the WikiPedia account of the Rogue River.

The Rogue River (Tolowa: yan-shuu-chit’ taa-ghii~-li~’,[7] Takelma: tak-elam[8]) in southwestern Oregon in the United States flows about 215 miles (346 km) in a generally westward direction from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean. Known for its salmon runs, whitewater rafting, and rugged scenery, it was one of the original eight rivers named in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. Beginning near Crater Lake, which occupies the caldera left by the explosive volcanic eruption of Mount Mazama, the river flows through the geologically young High Cascades and the older Western Cascades, another volcanic province. Further west, the river passes through multiple exotic terranes of the more ancient Klamath Mountains. In the Kalmiopsis Wilderness section of the Rogue basin are some of the world’s best examples of rocks that form the Earth’s mantle. Near the mouth of the river, the only dinosaur fragments ever discovered in Oregon were found in the Otter Point Formation, along the coast of Curry County.

People have lived along the Rogue River and its tributaries for at least 8,500 years. European explorers made first contact with Native Americans (Indians) toward the end of the 18th century and began beaver trapping and other activities in the region. Clashes, sometimes deadly, occurred between the natives and the trappers and later between the natives and European-American miners and settlers. These struggles culminated with the Rogue River Wars of 1855–56 and removal of most of the natives to reservations outside the basin. After the war, settlers expanded into remote areas of the watershed and established small farms along the river between Grave Creek and the mouth of the Illinois River. They were relatively isolated from the outside world until 1895, when the Post Office Department added mail-boat service along the lower Rogue. As of 2010, the Rogue has one of the two remaining rural mail-boat routes in the United States.

Dam building and removal along the Rogue has generated controversy for more than a century; an early fish-blocking dam (Ament) was dynamited by vigilantes, mostly disgruntled salmon fishermen. By 2009, all but one of the main-stem dams downstream of a huge flood-control structure 157 miles (253 km) from the river mouth had been removed. Aside from dams, threats to salmon include high water temperatures. Although sometimes too warm for salmonids, the main stem Rogue is relatively clean, ranking between 85 and 97 (on a scale of 0 to 100) on the Oregon Water Quality Index (OWQI).

Although the Rogue Valley near Medford is partly urban, the average population density of the Rogue watershed is only about 32 people per square mile (12 per km2). Several historic bridges cross the river near the more populated areas. Many public parks, hiking trails, and campgrounds are near the river, which flows largely through forests, including national forests. Biodiversity in many parts of the basin is high; the Klamath-Siskiyou temperate coniferous forests, which extend into the southwestern Rogue basin, are among the four most diverse of this kind in the world.

Rogue River from Hellgate Canyon
Map of the Rogue River watershed
Location of the mouth of the Rogue River in Oregon

Just to reflect on the fact that people have lived along the Rogue River and its tributaries for 8,500 years!

Is it any wonder we love dogs!

A brilliant yet very touching post to be shared.

This story came out on Mother Nature Network quite recently.

I really cannot add any words at the present time. The article says it all!

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Removed because of an alleged copyright infringement.

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This is a very ’rounded’ story about Tricycle, one that shows that love in the dog community is never very far away. Actually, I would go on to say that we adults who also love our dogs, probably putting them above our own needs, offer something very special.

Time; beyond imagination!

I don’t know what is was that engaged me; to the point that I have written this blog post.

We rise around 4:30 am, thanks to the dogs, and after they have been out we retire to the bedroom and lay on the top of the bed and have a couple of cups of tea. Come 5am, week days, we listen to BBC Radio 4 and the World at One. Then immediately after the World at One, at the moment, is a fascinating series on A History Of The World in 100 objects.

A few days ago, after the end of the programme, I drifted off into some form of introspective gaze about the past. I mean the past big time!

The Universe

When and how did it all start? That seems to be the Big Bang. The Big Bang was an incredibly long time ago, some 14 billion years ago (rounding it up!).

Here’s an extract from Wikipedia:

The current measurement of the age of the universe is around 13.8 billion years (as of 2015[1]) – 13.799±0.021 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model.[2] The uncertainty has been narrowed down to 20 million years, based on a number of studies which all gave extremely similar figures for the age.

That’s 13.8 times 10 to the power of 9!

Our solar system

Again, pretty old by human standards; 4.6 billions years ago.

Again, an extract from Wikipedia:

The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system’s mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.

So our solar system came along 9 billion years after the formation of the Universe.

Planet Earth

Our planet formed not long after our solar system. That’s pretty obvious if you ask me.

Thus Planet Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. Again, thanks to Wikipedia.

Life on Planet Earth

Southampton University have published an extremely interesting chart of the timeline of the human condition. In it is revealed that the earliest atmospheric oxygen was 3.5 billion years ago, a necessary prerequisite to air-breathing life. But it took an extremely long time before monkeys appeared; some 36 million years ago. That’s 36 times 10 to the power of 6, or 383 times shorter than the start of the universe.

The earliest hominins (Australopithecus spp) among the hominids in Africa, bipedal, larger brain came along some 4.2 million years ago.

Among them were humans using stone tools, some 2.5 million years ago. Then 2 million years ago came the earliest direct ancestor of modern humans, Homo erectus (South Africa), co-habiting with Australopithecus and Paranthropus.

Then 40,000 years ago Neanderthals make flutes from bone, then 14,000 years ago the domestication of dogs in China, 7,000 years ago the world population passed 5 million souls, and 3,500 years ago the earliest alphabet (North Semitic, Palestine and Syria).

3,000 years ago the world population passed 50 million.

Come forward to just 195 years ago and the first public railway for steam locomotives (George Stephenson, UK, 1825) came into existence. In 1945, Alan Turing created the world’s first programmable calculator which lead directly to the first computer.

Then just 34 years ago the total population passed 5 billion souls (1986).

This and much more in the timeline which really is a fascinating read. Put together by C. Patrick Doncaster,  7 April 2020, one of the then 7,641,557,720 (rising by 148 per minute, 77 million per year).

But …

The discovery of quarks in 1968 caused us humans to think again about matter.

Wikipedia:

A quark (/kwɔːrk, kwɑːrk/) is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei.[1] Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons (such as protons and neutrons) and mesons.[2][3] For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of hadrons.

Then there’s antimatter, now that’s really weird.

Again, an extract from Wikipedia:

There is strong evidence that the observable universe is composed almost entirely of ordinary matter, as opposed to an equal mixture of matter and antimatter.[4] This asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics.[5] The process by which this inequality between matter and antimatter particles developed is called baryogenesis.

So, to put it in layman’s terms, the fact that I am sitting here at a computer trying to make sense of it all and failing is just down to luck. The observable universe and my perception of it comes down to matter as opposed to antimatter!

I’ve got a headache!

N.B. It’s a little after 12:30 am (PDT) on the Saturday and I am going to leave this post up as the latest for tomorrow as well. There have been so many wonderful comments.

The making of a scent dog.

A repeat of the guest post from Bryony Ravate.

Once again, I am having a struggle to come up with something original. Once again it is at these times of life that I am very grateful for the offer of a guest post. Take Bryony for example. This is not the first time that I have presented her work but I am grateful to her.

This is her article on scent dogs.

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The making of a scent dog.

By Bryony Ravate, January 2nd, 2020

If you’ve been lucky enough to be around dogs, you will have probably noticed how their noses are always moving. By possessing a nose up to 15x times more sensitive than our own, with 600,00 neurones, they can sniff out different components in every room. When you’re cooking a meal, you will be able to recognise the smell of a dish. But when your dog smells the meal, he can smell each individual spice and seasoning, the oils, the crockery and even any water.
You can use your dogs’ keen sense of smell for play – laying out different scents for them to explore. But their noses can also be used for working environments– such as in airports, with the police and in search and rescue missions. They can track down suitcases hiding illegal substances, follow the suspect of a crime and sniff out the victims of a snowstorm. To become scent dogs, the canines go through vigorous training. However, although all dogs have an exceptional sense of smell, not all dogs make it through training.

It makes sense to analyse what leads to success and failure in scent dog training. So, a keen researcher at University College Cork, Ireland performed a literature review in which factors behind success and failure in scent dog training were analysed. A literature review is the process whereby you search a database full of information (usually research articles published in reputable journals) and you extrapolate the information to create your own source. Here, I’m going to pull together some of the points I found the most interesting, points you may not think would affect the making of a scent dog.

Personality

Dogs with strong motivation to play or search, dogs which were bold rather than shy, and dogs which can adapt and cope with stressful stimuli are more likely to become scent dogs. High motivation to play or search, makes a dog easier to train. Play can be used as a reward, by allowing the dog to pull on a chew toy after being successful in a trial. Finding scents may be perceived as a game to the dog, increasing his motivation to engage. Bold dogs are less unnerved by new surroundings and situations. A nervous dog may be hesitant about pursuing an unknown scent – but a bold dog will take little hesitation. Adaptable dogs may be able to apply their knowledge to different situations and they will be unphased by commotions and will keep working when faced with distractions.

Housing Standards

Dogs that live in enriched environments throughout their training have increased ability in trials. Like children, the more opportunities you offer your dogs to learn, explore and interact with their environment, the more it allows them to develop and grow. Dogs should feel secure in their home environment when not working; keeping them with other dogs and in bright rooms without using loud cleaning equipment (such as hoovers) will make them less anxious, leading to better accuracy in scent trials.

The Human Partner

Dogs emotions are often intertwined with their handlers. When a dog’s owner gets angry, the stress hormones in the dog increase as a result. If a dog handler is happy, the dogs will perform better. The bond between dogs and their handlers can affect the accuracy of scent trials. If the dog lives at the owners’ home when he’s not working, obedience and accuracy are increased. Although the bond between scent dog and handler is important, they must be independent thinkers. When faced with a problem- solving task, they must be able to manipulate the environment themselves to find a solution, rather than looking at their handler for cues about the answer.
These are some factors which can alter the likelihood of a dog being a successful, as reviewed by Camille A Trosi and her team. What we must keep in mind is that all dogs are individuals. We cannot use this information to ensure all dogs in the future will pass scent dog training. However, we can use this knowledge to give potential scent dogs the best possible start to life; providing enrichment, an affectionate bond with their handler, and a suitable home environment. Canine personalities are not always determined by genetics, and a suitable environment can give a dog a metaphorical push in the right direction to ensure he is the best he can be, whether that be as a scent dog, a guide dog or even a lap dog.

Original Source : Troisi, C. A., Mills, D. S., Wilkinson, A. and Zulch, H. E. 2019. Behavioral and Cognitive Factors That Affect the Success of Scent Detection Dogs. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 14, pp. 51-76. doi: 10.3819/ccbr.2019.140007

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Now what I haven’t done before but intend to do straightaway is to reproduce an extract from Bryony’s CV.

I currently hold a Pass with Distinction in MSc Animal Behaviour and Welfare from Queen’s University Belfast. I also have a BSc in Animal Behaviour and Welfare from Plymouth University. As well as holding two degrees relevant to the field, I currently have 2+ years of work experience. I possess the core attributes required when pursuing a career in the scientific industry; dedication, independence and initiative. I am highly passionate and believe that with my unique skillset I can have a valuable impact in the field of Science Communication.

Plus Bryony has her own blog, BrynsteinScience, and is also on Instagram, of the same name.

We wish Bryony much success in her work life and in her caring and interest for animals in general and dogs in particular!

There is an extensive article on Wikipedia in the UK on scent dog and the link to that article is here.

Finally to close with this wonderful photograph of a scent dog.

By Taz80 / SEDIRI Eddy – Personal picture, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15094727

That’s perfect!

Questions; questions; questions!

About the position of our pet dogs and cats in this current pandemic.

So many of us are spending time at home. Lots of time!

And so many are asking questions about CORVID-19 and out pets.

Therefore I think it’s worthwhile to republish this article that appeared on Mother Nature Network yesterday.

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Removed because of an alleged copyright infringement.

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Now it is quite a long article but then again you probably have much more time to read this post! And, frankly, there is a lot of good information contained within it!

So, be safe and look after your pets!

How are these present times affecting pet owners?

A timely post on pets and COVID-19

I have chosen up to now to leave the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic to others to write about.

However, the following article published by Mother Nature Network on April 1st seemed relevant to the many hundreds who read this blog and have pets.

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Removed because of an alleged copyright infringement.

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Mother Nature Network are pretty good in terms of the accuracy of their work so, on balance, you can regard this information as legitimate .

These are very strange times for millions of us spread all over the place.

It will eventually be behind us and I, for one, can’t see it come too soon!