PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 48/2003 - 2 June 2003
"The conclusions of the NEO workshop report indicate that
any increased effort in assessing the NEO hazard/risk should be
considered through an internationally collaborative approach.
Following consideration of the workshop's report by the OECD GSF
in the middle of the year, 1 will write to you again."
--From Peter McGauran to Jay Tate, 13 May 2003
"The race to find life on Mars is set to begin on Monday
with the launch of Europe's first voyage to another planet. Three
probes are leaving Earth this summer, starting with the European
Space Agency's Mars Express mission. It carries the Beagle 2
lander, which, if all goes well, will become the first
British-built craft to touch down on another world. The launch
marks the start of a new golden age in Mars exploration."
--Helen Briggs, BBC News Online, 2 June 2003
(1) EUROPE GOES TO MARS
BBC News Online, 2 Jnue 2003
(2) TEAM SEEKS REMAINS OF NIGHTTIME FIREBALL
The Daily Sentinel, 31 May 2003
(3) SCIENTISTS ATTEMPT TO DATE AGE OF ODESSA IMPACT CRATER
Odessa American, 30 May 2003
(4) AUSTRALIAN COMPLACENCY
Jay Tate spaceguard@spaceguarduk.com
(5) BORN UNDER THE SUN: UV LIGHT AND THE ORIGINS OF LIFE
Andrew Yee ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca
(6) RE: WHY SARS IS NOT FROM MARS
S. Fred Singer singer@sepp.org
(7) AND FINALLY: THE PALETTE OF WARNING AND THE PROBLEMS WITH
RISK COMMUNICATION
The Boston Globe, 31 May 2003
=======
(1) EUROPE GOES TO MARS
BBC News Online, 2 Jnue 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2947018.stm
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter
The race to find life on Mars is set to begin on Monday with the
launch of Europe's first voyage to another planet.
Three probes are leaving Earth this summer, starting with the
European Space Agency's Mars Express mission.
It carries the Beagle 2 lander, which, if all goes well, will
become the first British-built craft to touch down on another
world.
The launch marks the start of a new golden age in Mars
exploration.
The US space agency (Nasa) is sending two missions to the fourth
planet. The first of its Mars Exploration Rovers should leave
Earth in a week or so.
Another Mars traveller is destined to arrive early next year.
Japan's Nozomi craft should reach the planet early in 2004 after
a long journey beset by mishaps.
Gold rush
There has long been interest in exploring Mars because it is
believed to be the planet most likely to harbour life.
Clues that Mars once had oceans, lakes and possibly microbes have
sparked a "gold rush" to send unmanned space craft to
visit the planet.
The United States and Russia have spent billions since the 1960s
trying to land a dozen or so space craft on the Red Planet.
Only three have been successful so far: Nasa's two Viking probes,
which landed in 1976, and its Mars Pathfinder, which explored the
surface in 1997.
Mars Express is Europe's first solo mission to Mars and indeed
any planet.
Final launch preparations are underway at the Russian Cosmodrome
in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
The first opportunity for the craft to be blasted into space
comes on Monday at 1745 GMT (1845 BST).
The orbiter with the lander on board will go up on the Russian
rocket that has become the workhorse of the space industry, a
Soyuz/Fregat launcher.
Arid wilderness
The space craft will cover a distance of about 400 million
kilometres (250 million miles) on the six-month journey to Mars.
Its main scientific goal is to detect vast reservoirs of water
thought to be trapped under the Martian surface using a
ground-penetrating radar. It will also take images of Mars and
conduct a geological survey of the planet.
Between them, Mars Express and Beagle 2 could answer one of the
biggest questions in science: Is there, or was there, life on
Mars?
The chances depend much on what happened early in the planet's
history when it was probably warm and wet like the Earth rather
than the frozen, arid wilderness it is today.
"The question is: where is that water? Has it disappeared or
is it still there below the surface?" says Mars Express
project scientist Agustin Chicarro. "We hope to find that
out."
As Mars Express nears the planet, it will drop Beagle 2 into a
basin that could once have contained water and life.
The small robotic probe, about the size of a garden barbecue,
will dig into Martian rocks and soil to search for the chemical
signature of life.
Hunting for life on Mars is a bold move for Beagle 2, a tiny
space craft with a small budget.
Mars missions have a high failure rate
Life detection experiments on Mars have only been conducted once
before - during the Viking missions of 1976.
While the Viking landers did not find any conclusive signs of
life, technology has advanced since then.
"The experiments being used on Beagle are about as good as
you can get," says Dr Charles Cockell, a Mars biologist at
the British Antarctic Survey.
"It is difficult to know what Beagle might find but if it
did find evidence of life, that would be incredible.
"The fun thing is, what questions will it send back and what
will it answer?"
=============
(2) TEAM SEEKS REMAINS OF NIGHTTIME FIREBALL
The Daily Sentinel, 31 May 2003
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/05/31/1054357963.03033.7221.2164.html
By MIKE McKIBBIN
MONTROSE - A team of researchers is in Montrose and Gunnison this
weekend to gather information that could lead to the discovery of
fragments of a fireball that lit the nighttime skies in five
states last Thanksgiving.
The Nov. 28 fireball weighed around 200 pounds before it broke up
about 23 miles above the ground, according to researchers with
the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, formerly the Denver
Museum of Natural History.
Curator of Geology Dr. Jack Murphy said it may have been the
largest and brightest fireball to come down over Colorado in
several decades. The rock may have broken apart near the Black
Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 10 miles northeast of
Montrose.
But Murphy and Chris Peterson, a physicist and research
assistant, believe meteorites might have landed in more than one
place along the fireball's flight path. They think Gunnison and
Montrose counties are likely locations.
Murphy and his team gave a presentation Friday night at Montrose
High School on what local residents should look for if they go
out meteorite hunting. After a search near the north rim of the
Black Canyon today, another presentation is scheduled for Sunday
at 10 a.m. at the Elk Creek Visitor Center in Gunnison.
The fireball was the first to be recorded by a video camera
linked to the museum's All Sky monitoring program. The camera is
on top of Montrose High School, while a security camera on top of
a building in Longmont also filmed the fireball.
Nearly 350 witness reports from Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska,
Wyoming and Utah were received.
"The eyewitness reports are especially helpful in
determining the track of the fireball," Murphy said.
His team planned to interview Montrose-area witnesses this
weekend.
But Murphy isn't sure what - if anything - might be found. Of
Colorado's 81 confirmed meteorites, only five were found on the
Western Slope, he said.
"Most of them are plowed up on the eastern plains, but they
do fall evenly everywhere," Murphy said. "It's just a
matter of people finding them and they're hard to recognize in
the mountains where you have so many rocks and boulders. They can
also bury themselves and some of them erode fairly rapidly."
Montrose High School science teacher Mike Nadiak and some of his
students analyzed data from their school's All Sky camera as part
of the investigation.
"We got about a half dozen really good pictures,"
Nadiak said. "It looks like a bright light, then it gets
brighter and then it explodes. It was one of the most amazing
things for people to see in the sky around here."
The security camera video shows the rapid, fiery atmospheric
entry and a large bright flare as the meteor broke apart midway
through its descent. After the flare, the video shows the meteor
continuing toward the southwest horizon.
Last week, Murphy and his team were in Rifle to donate a plaster
of Paris replica of the 113-pound Rifle meteorite to the Rifle
Creek Museum.
That meteorite was found around 1948, about 10 miles northwest of
Rifle. Until the last few years, it was believed the Rifle rock
was a piece from the well-known Canyon Diablo meteorite in
Arizona. Recent study confirmed its unique geological properties
and it is now listed in the World Catalog of Meteorites as the
"Rifle" meteorite.
Mike McKibbin can be reached via e-mail at mmckibbin@gjds.com .
© 2003 Cox Newspapers, Inc.
============
(3) SCIENTISTS ATTEMPT TO DATE AGE OF ODESSA IMPACT CRATER
Odessa American, 30 May 2003
http://www.oaoa.com/news/nw053003c.htm
By Julie Breaux
A trio of scientists trying to get the Odessa meteor crater to
give up its age were met by stiff resistance at the prehistoric
site Thursday.
The three University of Arizona scientists pulled several core
samples of sediment from beneath the floor of the crater, a
National Natural Landmark located about seven miles west of
Odessa.
Led by Vance Holliday, a professor of anthropology and
geoscience, the group included David Kring, professor of
geoscience and planetary science, and James Mayer, a field
assistant who is studying for his doctorate in geosciences.
The group is taking core samples so Holliday can determine the
exact age of the crater, which has never been done before,
Holliday said.
But at about 20 feet below ground, the doughnut-shaped drill bit
attached to a long hollow tube in which the core samples were
being collected struck something so impenetrable that the field
work came to halt.
The group arrived at the site just after daybreak to begin boring
through infill sediment at the approximate center of the crater,
which is 510 feet in diameter, its deepest depression about 30
feet below the surface of the surrounding, mesquite-choked plain.
Holliday, Kring and Mayer hope to leave Odessa with 40 feet or
more of core samples, Holliday said.
From them, Holliday may be able to determine when chunks from a
huge iron asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere slammed into
the ground at an estimated 40,000 miles an hour, Kring said.
Holliday estimated the cosmic event happened between 50,000 and
100,000 years ago. The core samples will help pin that timeline
down and more, Kring said.
Kring, who specializes in studying the impact of meteor craters,
said he will use analyses of the organic makeup of the soil to
reconstruct what the environment was like thousands of year ago,
what types of plants and animals were living here when the meteor
struck West Texas.
"So this is a time when this part of North American had
mastodons and mammoths and giant ground sloths and things of that
sort," Kring said. "But until we get a precise date, we
won't be able to gather that picture with any detail."
Kring came to Odessa with impressive credentials.
He was a principal investigator at the Chicxulub Scientific
Drilling Project near Merida, Mexico, in the Yucatan Peninsula.
The impact of the Chicxulub meteor is believed to have led to one
of the greatest mass extinctions on Earth, including that of the
dinosaur.
Because relatively few large meteor craters remain intact, the
Odessa meteor crater is a "fantastic and rare educational
opportunity" for area residents and the scientific
community.
"Impact cratering is the dominant geological process in the
solar system," he said. "It is the process that shapes
planets moreso than any other process."
Impact cratering alters the environment, moving water around and
creating a new habitat for plants and animals. That has occurred
in Odessa, but to what extent isn't known - yet.
"The Chicxulub crater wiped out the dinosaurs, and it wiped
out more than 75 percent of the species of plants and animals,
both on land and in the sea, from the face of the Earth,"
Kring said. "And that cleared the way for mammals to evolve.
If that impact didn't occur, we wouldn't be here. So having a
center like this is an extraordinary opportunity. ."
Copyright © 1999-2003 Odessa American. All rights reserved.
=============
(4) AUSTRALIAN COMPLACENCY
Jay Tate < spaceguard@spaceguarduk.com
]
Benny,
The list might be interested in this letter just received at the
Spaceguard Centre from Australia. Unless I am very much mistaken
it boils down to "we are going to do nothing as a nation,
and we'll wait to see what the OECD decides to do in the
future."
Jay
--------------------
THE HON PETER McGAURAN MP
MINISTER FOR SCIENCE DEPUTY LEADER OF THE HOUSE
Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 T (02) 6277 7440 F: (02) 6273
7330 E: peter.mcgauran.mp@aph.gov.au
13 May 2003
The International Spaceguard Information Centre
Llanshay Lane
Powys LD7 ILW
UNITED KINGDOM
In 2002 1 received correspondence from you concerning Australia's
involvement in activities to monitor asteroids and other 'Near
Earth Objects' (NE0s) of potential concern.
You may recall that in my reply, I referred to Australia's
membership of the OECD's Global Science Forum (GSF), which
established a steering committee in January 2002 to advise on
what might be done to study the NEO issues and give advice to
governments on what is known and what more might need to be done.
This GSF NEO steering committee organised an international
workshop on NEOs which was held at the European Space Research
Institute, Frascati, Italy from 20-22 January, 2003. With
assistance provided by the Federal Government, Australia was
represented at the workshop by an expert in risk modelling, Dr
John Schneider, Group Leader, Geohazards & Urban Risk
Research, Geoscience Australia.
A draft report on the outcomes of the workshop has been released
on the OECD's website: http://www.oecd.org/sti/gsf
. I have enclosed an extract from the report listing its
conclusions.
The outcomes of the workshop will be discussed at the next
meeting of the OECD GSF to be held in late June this year.
Professor Vicki Sara, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian
Research Council is the head of the Australian delegation to the
OECD GS17.
You may already know that Australia invests around $40 million
each year on astronomy research. The Federal Government
contributes the major proportion of this, including $14 million
annually through the CSIRO, with Universities spending over $24
million.
In 1995, a review of astronomy research by the Australian Academy
of Science's National Committee for Astronomy established that
areas other than asteroid detection had higher priority in the
astronomy community. The funding priorities were reviewed in
2001, and there was no change to those identified in 1995.
Astronomers placed access to the major international Gemini
telescope project, and participation in the early stages of
international work towards a major new telescope - the Square
Kilometre Array (SKA), as their top priority, to which the
Government responded.
The Government provides $23.5 million for Australia's
participation in the Gemini and SKA projects. These funds also
provide for increased computing capacity at Swinburne
University's Centre of Astrophysics and Supercomputing and the
Parkes Radio Telescope as part of the SKA project.
The Government also funds astronomy projects through the
Australian Research Council's grants programs and ongoing support
of the Anglo Australian Observatory.
Astronomy is a collaborative world activity, with no one country
able to cover every issue. Australia is a respected and leading
member of the world's astronomy community and contributes
substantially to discoveries of major importance.
The attached conclusions of the NEO workshop report indicate that
any increased effort in assessing the NEO hazard/risk should be
considered through an internationally collaborative approach.
Following consideration of the workshop's report by the OECD GSF
in the middle of the year, 1 will write to you again.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGauran
===============
(5) BORN UNDER THE SUN: UV LIGHT AND THE ORIGINS OF LIFE
Andrew Yee < ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca
>
BioMed Central Limited
London, U.K.
Contact:
Gemma Bradley, press@biomedcentral.com
, +44 (0) 20 7323 0323
Embargo until 28 May 2003, 13:00 GMT
Born under the sun: UV light and the origin of life
Early evolution of life as we know it may have depended on DNA's
ability to absorb UV light. This insight into the early moments
of life on Earth comes from research published today in the
journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
The research fills in one of the major gaps in our understanding
about the origins of life: how single molecules were able to join
together to create the self-replicating long chain molecules of
RNA, the precursors of DNA. It "sheds new light on the
earliest steps of evolution," write Armen Mulkidjanian and
his colleagues from Osnabrück University, Germany and National
Institutes of Health, USA.
With no ozone layer the primordial Earth was a hostile place.
This was especially true for long-chain molecules that would be
broken up by UV radiation, which was at 100 times today's level.
Most existing theories about how life evolved involve hiding the
first life forms away from the light. Instead, Mulkidjanian and
his colleagues have investigated the idea that high levels of UV
light hitting the primordial earth were vital to RNA's survival.
The researchers used computer-modelling technology to assess the
ability of RNA to form from its constituent parts, sugar
phosphates and nitrogenous bases, with and without high levels of
UV light. They found that the ability of nitrogenous bases to
absorb and disperse UV radiation could protect the backbone of
primordial RNA from breaks. Under high levels of UV, RNA
molecules were more stable than other large molecules and the
small molecules that join together to create the RNA. This gave
RNA molecules a selective advantage, so that their levels then
increased through the simulated process of natural selection.
Moreover, part of the energy from the absorbed UV light could
have driven the elongation of RNA chains.
"The suggested mechanism turns the high UV levels on
primordial Earth from a perceived obstacle to the origin of life
into the selective factor that, in fact, might have driven the
whole process", write the authors.
"It seems quite unlikely that the extremely effective
UV-quenching by all major nitrogenous bases is just incidental.
We can assume that these bases were selected to perform the
UV-protecting function before they became involved in the
maintenance and transfer of genetic information. In this
(primordial) world the nitrogenous bases served just as
protecting units. Accordingly these units were replaceable and
variable. Exactly this variability could have paved the way to
the variability of the future genomes".
Three of the four nitrogenous bases that protected RNA from UV on
primordial Earth are the same as those that make up the genetic
code of DNA. Ironically, the ability of DNA to absorb UV light is
now responsible for many skin cancer deaths. When the bases of
DNA absorb UV light they often suffer structural damage, although
the DNA backbone remains intact. If this damage occurs within a
gene it can lead to the alteration of that gene, which may cause
cancer.
Notes for editor
Upon publication on Wednesday 28th May at 13:00 GMT, this article
will be freely available online via
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/3/12/abstract, according
to BioMed Central's policy of open access to research articles:
Survival of the fittest before the beginning
of life.
Selection of the first oligonucleotide-like
polymers by UV light
Armen Y. Mulkidjanian, Dmitry A. Cherepanov,
Michael Y. Galperin
BMC Evolutionary Biology
Please publish the URL in any news report so that your readers
will be able to read the original paper.
Contact the authors:
Dr. Mulkidjanian can be contacted by phone on +49-541-969-2871 or
by email at mulkidjanian@biologie.uni-osnabrueck.de
Dr. Galperin can be contacted by phone on +1-301-435-5910 or by
email at
galperin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
For any further information please contact Gemma Bradley by email
at
press@biomedcentral.com
or by phone on +44 (0)20 7323 0323 x2331.
BMC Evolutionary Biology
(http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcevolbiol/) is published by
BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com), an independent
online publishing house committed to providing immediate free
access to peer-reviewed biological and medical research. This
commitment is based on the view that open access to research is
essential to the rapid and efficient
communication of science. In addition to open-access original
research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other
subscription-based content.
===========================
*LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
===========================
(6) RE: WHY SARS IS NOT FROM MARS
S. Fred Singer < singer@sepp.org
>
Dear Benny
While I generally agree with Williams' arguments that "SARS
is not from Mars" (CCNet 29/05/03), I just wish to point out
that radiation belts do not "protect'" from solar or
cosmic radiation. On a different note: One remarkable feature was
the rapid identification and characterization of the virus.
Another positive development from the SARS epidemic was the
active collaboration between scientists and laboratories from
different continents. We may be thankful some day for having had
this experience. If and when a new viral disease appears in
future -- whether natural or manmade -- the world will be better
prepared -- thanks to the SARS opportunity to test
defenses.
Best
Fred
=========
(7) AND FINALLY: THE PALETTE OF WARNING AND THE PROBLEMS WITH
RISK COMMUNICATION
From The Boston Globe, 31 May 2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/151/business/The_palette_of_warning+.shtml
By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff
Richard Binzel is in charge of preventing global catastrophe. But
when the federal terror alert level was raised from ''elevated''
to ''high'' last week, he didn't pay much attention.
''The scale doesn't say what anyone should do differently,'' said
Binzel, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology who has some experience in designing warning systems.
He helped create what is known as the Torino Scale to assess the
risks of an asteroid or comet striking the earth, and whether its
consequences could ''threaten the future of civilization.''
Like business leaders in industries such as nuclear power and
chemical manufacturing who study the problem of how to warn the
public of an impending danger, Binzel worries the government's
five-color Homeland Security Advisory System is too vague to
generate the attention it deserves. But Binzel has adjusted his
own warning scale to include more specific information -- and
acknowledges he's been having trouble finding just the right
words to convey what actions people should take.
''You have to get it down to a simple take-home message in which
people can say, `Should I pay attention to this or not?' ''
Binzel's struggles show the broader problem facing emergency
officials trying to categorize unpredictable, threatening events.
The federal advisory system was much maligned by comedians as ''a
national mood ring'' when it was introduced in March 2002, and
it's hard to say how much notice it gets with the public. After
officials raised their official warning color to ''orange'' on
May 20, because US intelligence officials concluded that Al Qaeda
may resume attacks on US soil, it was rare to find people who
said they had shifted their routines as a result.
''I wouldn't change my regular behavior because it's not clear
how or why I should change it,'' said Alicia Bucknam, a public
relations executive from Melrose. Yesterday, federal officials
reduced the level back to ''yellow,'' the middle level of risk on
the five-color scale, citing a decrease in threatening signs and
the passing of the Memorial Day holiday. Officials from the
Department of Homeland Security referred questions about the
scale to the agency's public affairs office, which wouldn't make
anyone available for comment.
But this week, department secretary Tom Ridge also gave the first
sign that he thinks the country needs a nationwide
emergency-alert system that would make use of new communications
technologies. ''At the end of the day [we need] an emergency
alert system that communicates to telephones, wireless systems,
pagers, and the like,'' he said at a May 28 meeting at the
Federal Communications Commission, according to Government
Computer News, a trade publication.
Kenneth Allen, executive director of the Partnership for Public
Warning, a nonprofit advisory group backed by Bedford-based Mitre
Corp., said Ridge's comments were also the first time he has
acknowledged publicly there is work to be done beyond the warning
scale.
''He may be starting to understand that the color scheme works to
tell everybody what is the national mood . . . but that if
something happens and we want to get the word out to people,
there will be all these issues'' about exactly how to do it, said
Allen, who attended the meeting.
Government officials and company executives have struggled since
the depths of the Cold War to come up with a system that would
alert Americans to impending danger, often with mixed results.
The widely known Emergency Alert System can be used to broadcast
official warnings over television and radio stations, but
previous talk of upgrading it to send warnings over cellphones
and pagers has made slow progress. On Sept. 11, 2001, an official
at the Federal Emergency Management Agency put the system on
standby, but didn't activate it. (Late-night TV viewers know the
system from its occasional practice runs: ''This is a test of the
Emergency Alert System -- this is only a test . . .'')
Since then, many industries and officials have debated a host of
measures for how to make the best use of the country's warning
infrastructure to minimize the risks of terrorism. Some of these
have generated derision, such as Ridge's suggestion earlier this
year to stockpile duct tape. Other policy debates have been
sharper, such as whether the Commerce Department's weather radio
system should the basis of an all-hazard warning system.
But the central challenge involves how to develop a warning
system that conveys remedies as well as risks. ''One of the
messages that sociologists give us, and which I think is right,
is that you never present a risk without telling people what they
should do about it,'' said Lucy Jones, chief scientist at the
Pasadena, Calif., office of the US Geological Survey, which tries
to alert residents of earthquake aftershocks.
People who have met with Ridge's staff, such as David Ropeik, who
studies risk communication at the Harvard School of Public
Health, say officials at least understand the concern.
Ropeik worries that using the color-coded scale alone raises the
level of fear in general. ''Frightened people make dangerous
choices,'' he said. For instance, some people will drive rather
than fly, statistically a safer activity. Also, Ropeik noted an
FBI finding that firearm sales have gone up about 5 percent after
terror alerts.
Ropeik doesn't condemn the advisory system, however. Without
access to more classified intelligence, he said, ''it's
impossible to say that they're doing well, or poorly, or whether
they're giving us enough specifics about what they're warning us
about.'' Another past federal adviser, John Sorensen, a
researcher at Oak Ridge Laboratories in Tennessee and the author
of several academic studies of effective warning, said he would
scrap the current five-color warning system.
''It doesn't bring any credibility to the agency and I think it
creates a public perception that even if they knew something,
they're withholding information,'' Sorensen said. ''That's the
wrong way to communicate with the public.''
Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com.
This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 5/31/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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