Natural satellites that are striking a cord

There are some fairly interesting happenings in our universe these days. For now, I'm going to take a look at our own solar system, but I definitely will return to talk about other aspects of the universe.

Just in our solar system, there are purportedly several moons with liquid water oceans. This is surprising given we normally assume any object closer than Earth to the sun does not have water and any object further away has ice but not liquid water.

Europa is a moon of Jupiter's which has the highest likelihood of having a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Most planetary scientists believe that a layer of liquid water exists beneath Europa's surface, kept warm by tidally generated heat due to gravitational/magnetic influences from Jupiter itself. Unusual features on Europa's surface also hint at a hidden ocean.

Europa has emerged as one of the top locations in the Solar System in terms of potential habitability and possibly, hosting extraterrestrial life. Life could exist in its under-ice ocean, perhaps subsisting in an environment similar to Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents or the Antarctic Lake Vostok. If life were to exist on Europa, it would not only prove that life exists beyond Earth but that life is likely to be common throughout the Universe.

Other moons of Jupiter, namely Callisto and Ganymede, as well as Neptune's largest moon, Triton, are also hypothesised to have liquid oceans for similar reasons to Europa, although there is less certainty about them.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the only moon in the solar system known to have clouds and a dense atmosphere. On the surface, water behaves like rock and hydrocarbons behave like liquids such as water. It has a dense atmosphere and the surface is rocky, similar to rocky planes on Earth. Titan has rivers and lakes populated by hydrocarbons. It is also thought to likely have a subterranean water ocean under the mix of ice and hydrocarbons that forms its outer crust.

Scientists believe that the atmosphere of early Earth was similar in composition to the current atmosphere on Titan, with the important exception of the lack of water vapor on Titan. Many hypotheses have developed that attempt to bridge the step from chemical to biological evolution.

Enceladus is one of the hottest places in the Solar System to look for life due to pure accessibility. This tiny moon has geyser-like jets of water bursting from the surface. There are a number of potential explanations, such as the source of the water being supplied from a liquid ocean underneath the crust, heated by Saturn's gravitional/magnetic influence. The presence of liquid water under the crust means there has to be an internal heat source. Scientists now believe it is a combination of radioactive decay and tidal heating, as tidal heating alone is not enough to explain the heat.

Sources:

Articles on "Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, Titan and Enceladus." Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.

Briggs, Helen. "Saturn Moon May Have Hidden Ocean." BBC News - Home. 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 18 Feb. 2011. .

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_liquid_water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_(moon)

What Life is Really About

Trying to weigh my priorities recently has left me pondering what life is truly about. On a daily basis, we are bombarded with a distorted view of what a good life should be - flashy cars, large mansions and madly following anything else that is trending. While these things are not inherently bad, the image that they represent is a materially-obsessed, shallow, artificial and, above all, selfish life.

The respected entrepreneur and speaker Richard Koch once quoted a study exploring the correlation between money and happiness. At the start of the graph, as money goes up, happiness also moves up. This is logical because we need a certain amount of money to stay out of poverty. However, Koch notes that at a "surprisingly low level" of income, as the the scale of money goes up, happiness will tend to level off. What this study shows is that more money does not equate to more happiness, unless you are living in poverty. This is readily seen in the world's wealthiest celebrities, many of whom are not happy.

Tim Soutphommasane, a philosophy writer for The Age Melbourne, asserts that when all our material needs and obsessions are met, “life is bound to be disenchanting”. There are certain aspects of the ‘human condition’ that are directly at odds with the ‘pursuit of happiness’. My personal opinion is that a person can live happily if they recognise the clash between happiness and money, and accept that “there is a certain point beyond which material wealth stops adding to happiness”.

Clearly, life is not about the mindless pursuit of money or judging someone solely from their outward appearance, as the media would like to lead us to believe. So what should we aim for in life? The following points are pretty obvious, but I thought I should remind myself.

What life is about:

• Integrity
• Honesty
• Generosity
• Friendship
• Family
  
• Love
• Harmony
• Morality
• Compassion
• Health
• Happiness
• Good humour
• Doing what you enjoy and having fun

In my opinion, these things are what make life special. They are meant to reflect the 'measures of success', which I discussed in an earlier blog post. These are the aspects of our lives we should develop and carefully look after.

The Balance of Conformity

The classic argument against conformity is that it constricts individuality and uniqueness. What would be the point of living if someone else could take our place and do just as good a job? However, we all must conform to some extent, so it is rash to condemn conformity from the outset. After all, wearing clothes, drinking water and even breathing are forms of conformity. Of course, those are bare essentials, but even something like going to school is a concept that today's first-world society cannot live without.

On the other side of the spectrum, people conform heavily because they are afraid of standing out. If they stand out, others will readily notice that they are 'different' and may judge them negatively. In order to enjoy life to the fullest, we need to strike a balance between conformity and non-conformity. It is smart to conform in areas that will ensure our safety. For example, a person wears non-offensive clothing to avoid provoking other people into attacking him or her. However, in my opinion, we conform way too much in areas not related to safety and health. In my previous post, I have already noted some areas which I consider 'misconceptions of measures of success'.

Conforming without a strong scientific basis can lead to major problems. In the early 1900s, a stock market craze evolved. It seemed like easy money; but the investors' enthusiasm drove the stock prices up too high. The prices no longer represented to true value of the stocks. This lead to the Great Depression of 1929 in which a large proportion of average investors got owned. If you were a typical person back then and you had followed your enthusiastic friends into the stock market game, you would have lost a large chunk of your life savings.

We follow the crowd because it is easy. If everyone else does it, surely it must be a good thing, right? However, by mindlessly following others, we are failing to use our greatest asset - our brain. Every human being is born with endless potential, but if we do not exercise and develop our brain, we cannot harness the potential. The classic book by Napoleon Hill was called Think and Grow Rich; it is the 'thinking' part that is the most important.

In conclusion, conformity is a tricky issue to tackle. It is intelligent to conform in areas of safety and health. However, other areas give people much more leeway. We must strike our own unique balance between conformity and non-conformity. Conformity is essential, but there are areas where it is better to make our own independent decisions. As the celebrated poet Robert Frost said in his poem The Road Not Taken, "I took the [road] less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Measuring Success

I have recently pondered how a person measures success. Assessing my own priorities, I have narrowed my personal definition of success down to a collection of dot points.

Measures of success

• Ability to help and inspire others less fortunate than you.
• Ability to contribute to society.
• Ability to help and inspire those around you, especially in long-term ways.
• Number of very high quality friendships

Misconceptions of measures of success

• Net worth
• Salary, or how much money one makes
• Material possessions
  
• Academic test scores (e.g. VCE scores)
  

If you believe I have missed anything critically important, please leave a comment. I have not conferred with many people about my views, so I have no idea if they would be considered 'radical' or not.

Of course, there are some basic things I have not listed because I felt that they were too obvious, such as keeping healthy and being able to survive financially. I contemplated listing 'level of academic education' somewhere, but I decided that it would vary from person to person according to their chosen career, e.g. a medical researcher would obviously need a high level of specialised academic education compared to a professional chess player.

I feel that I am being rather hypocritical because I find myself mindlessly working towards some of the dot points in the latter list. This is frightening because I can recognise that they are only superficially important. I feel this is because such pursuits have been drummed into me through media, and sometimes even friends and family. I have no direct solution to such a problem, except to keep an open mind and to keep my options open where possible.

There is one quality I am undecided about. It is the 'ability to immortalise oneself in a positive way – i.e. to establish one’s name in history'. When I asked this of a friend, he also agreed that this point is difficult to categorise. I think the reason I am reluctant to place this in the former list is because all the points there are relatively selfless, but there are clear selfish motivations in trying to put your own name in the history books.

Overall, priorities differ from person to person. There are many people I know who would have 'net worth' listed in the initial list. Nevertheless, I believe the vast majority of people would agree with the selfless qualities listed at the top.

Longest-Living Organisms Part I

This edition of the Longest-living Organisms concerns the longest-living conifer, the bristlecone pine. Bristlecone pines are a small group of pine trees, one species of which, the Great Basin bristlecone pine, lives longer than any other type of tree. They occur only in high altitudes in the Western United States. The trees grow very slowly due to cold temperatures, dry soils, high winds and short growing seasons. The areas they grow in rarely harbour diseases that harm them. Their wood is very dense and resinous, and thus resistant to invasion by insects, fungi and other potential pests. They range from approximately 5 to 18.5 metres tall. By measuring the rings in wood from the older bristlecone pines, scientists can determine what the climate was like thousands of years ago.

The oldest documented living tree is a Great Basin bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of eastern California. It is more than 4,700 years old. A collection of bristlecone pines on Wheeler Peak in eastern Nevada is known to contain several trees over 3,000 years old, with one thought to be about 5,000 years old.

Sources:

"bristlecone pine." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010 <http://school.eb.com.au/eb/article-9016487>.

Sprugel, Douglas G. "Bristlecone pine." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine

Funny Kitty on TAYG

Here is a scene of a Funny Kitty on Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation. Please watch the full scene.

Saturn's Two Amazing Moons

Saturn has at least two stand-out moons as I have recently been informed about.

Titan - on this moon, which is Saturn's largest, water behaves like rock and hydrocarbons behave like water or liquid; it has a dense atmosphere and the surface is rocky (similar to rocky places on earth); Titan has hydrocarbon rivers and lakes

Enceladus - this is the hottest place in the Solar System to look for life due to pure accessibility; it beats Mars and the supposed liquid ocean underneath Europa's icy crust; this tiny moon has geyser-like jets of water bursting from the surface; there are a number of potential explanations, such as the source of the water being supplied from a liquid ocean underneath the crust, heated by Saturn's magnetic/gravitional influence

For more information, search the NASA website.

Giant Lizard

Check out this awesome picture that I took of a lizard in the Sydney Blue Mountains. The resemblance to a crocodile is quite interesting. Click the picture to enlarge.

A Look into Animal Gigantism

The Komodo dragon is the largest living species of lizard. They grow to more than 3 metres long and can weigh up to 165 kilograms. The dragon has a forked tongue that is 40 centimetres long.

These flightless "dragons" are effective predators and have enough speed and strength to take down deer, wild pigs and water buffaloes. They don't need to capture live prey directly, since they have a venomous bite that severely decreases blood clotting. Their saliva contains bacteria that can kill wounded victims in a few days.

Komodo Dragons can live for 50 years. They display relatively tame behaviour within a short period of time in captivity and are also capable of recognising individual humans.

Their unusual size is attributed to "island gigantism", where the size of animals isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to their mainland relatives. The explanation for this is that large mammalian carnivores are often absent on islands, due to their large range requirements and/or difficulties in over-water dispersal.

In their absence, the ecological niches for large predators may be occupied by birds, or reptiles in this case, which can then grow to larger-than-normal size.

As such, these giant animals are closely related to their smaller counterparts. With the arrival of humans, many giant island endemics have become extinct.

Some other examples of island gigantism include giant rats, giant ducks, giant rabbits, dodos (closely related to pigeons and doves), giant tortoises, Haast's Eagle (largest known eagle which attacks at speeds of 80 km/h), elephant birds (largest known bird, growing up to 2.7 metres tall and weighing about 450 kg) and King Kong. (Okay, you got me, the last one was fictional.)

The cousin of island gigantism is the better known "island dwarfism". But who likes things that are tiny?

Another natural phenomenon is "deep sea gigantism", where deep-sea-dwelling animals to display a larger size than their shallow-water counterparts. This is probably due to better nutrients in the deeper water.

Examples include Japanese spider crabs (up to 3.7 metres across from the tip of one outstretched claw to another and weighing 18 kg), the seven-arm octopus (largest octopus, 4 metres long and 75 kg), giant oarfish (world's longest bony fish, reaching up to 12 metres long and weighing 270 kg), the colossal squid (larger than the giant squid, largest known invertebrate, 12-14m in length, weighs up to 495 kg).

Bibliography

Huey, Raymond B. "Komodo dragon." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 16 Jan. 2010.

Clarke, Simon James. "Elephant bird." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 16 Jan. 2010.

"Komodo dragon." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica,
2010. Web. 16 Jan. 2010.

"Aepyornis (Elephant Bird)." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica,
2010. Web. 16 Jan. 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism

Take that advertisements!

Do you hate websites that have animated advertisements? They are highly distracting and are often irrelevant to the actual content of the website. One example of a website I have recently gone to is CliffsNotes (free English notes about literature books), which is jam-packed with both animated and non-animated image advertisements.

I have found a neat (and free) add-on to Mozilla Firefox that blocks off the majority of animated advertisements. If you don't use Firefox already, I highly recommend you give it a try. Although it used to be much better than Internet Explorer, Microsoft have improved IE a lot recently. But there are still some very small things that you will find more convenient when you compare Firefox to IE.

Anyway, the add-on to Firefox I was talking about is called Flashblock. As its name suggests, it blocks parts of websites that use flash. Where the flash object used to be, an 'F' symbol appears, which you can click on to run the Flash program if you feel like it.

Click here to download Flashblock.

This wonderful add-on, coupled with unchecking Tools --> Options --> Content --> Load Images Automatically, easily took care of all the image advertisements on CliffsNotes. Of course, you will want to turn the latter option on again when you visit other websites, otherwise images won't load.

You'll be surprised at the number of advertisements that Flashblock will block during normal browsing (e.g. YouTube, Hotmail, etc.).

The Feeling of Immortality

In my rather random research, I have found two animals that are "biologically immortal". They technically just keep regenerating and never actually "die".

According to Wikipedia: "The Hydrozoan species Turritopsis nutricula is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again. This means that there may be no natural limit to its life span. However, no single specimen has been observed for any extended period, and it is impossible to estimate the age of a specimen. Theoretically, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it biologically immortal until its nerve center is removed from the rest of the body."

However, Wikipedia is often inaccurate (not wrong, just inaccurate). I could find no information on this animal in the paid subscription websites Britannica Online Encyclopedia or World Book Student.

The Wikipedia article on Turritopsis nutricula also mentions the predatory species Hydra, another kind of cnidarian that is claimed to be immortal.

Now, I found an article on this creature on both Britannica Online Encyclopedia and World Book Student!

Britannica Online Encyclopedia mentions that Hydra is "a genus of invertebrate freshwater animals of the class Hydrozoa (phylum Cnidaria)." It is an "organism [that] consists of a thin, usually translucent tube that measures up to about 30 millimetres (1.2 inches) long but is capable of great contraction... All Hydra species feed on other small invertebrate animals such as crustaceans." However, it makes no mention of the species being supposedly "biologically immortal".

Nevertheless, I found positive evidence on the World Book Student website. L. Muscatine, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles states: "Hydras can regenerate (regrow) parts of their bodies. It is estimated that in a period of several weeks a hydra replaces all the cells in its body. The hydra, therefore, never grows old."

I think this constitutes sufficient evidence to prove that this Hydra animal is biologically (but not physically if it gets eaten) immortal.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula

"Hydra." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 7 Nov. 2009 .

Muscatine, L. "Hydra." World Book Student. World Book, 2009. Web. 7 Nov. 2009.

Interesting Facts About Chicken

Despite the picture, I haven't had KFC chicken in a year or two. Nevertheless, I have discovered some interesting facts about the animal that our favourite food comes from.

Did you know?

Chickens can live from five to eleven years, depending on the breed. The oldest chicken lived 16 years. However, chickens that are raised for their meat are typically slaughtered in 6 to 14 weeks.

In the wild, they often scratch at the soil to search for seeds, insects and even larger animals such as lizards or young mice.

Lighter chickens are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens will sometimes fly to explore their surroundings, but usually do so only to flee perceived danger.

The meat of chicken is also called "chicken". (I bet you didn't know that one!)

Chickens can make good companion animals and can be tamed by hand feeding. Chickens are generally low-maintenance. The major challenge is protecting the birds from predators such as dogs, raccoons and foxes.

Chickens have been known to live after beheading. Mike the Headless Chicken or Miracle Mike was an extraordinary case in which a chicken lived 18 months after its beheading. It's authenticity was established by the University of Utah.

Some groups which advocate for more humane treatment of chickens claim that they are intelligent. Dr. Chris Evans of Macquarie University claims that their range of 20 calls, problem solving skills, use of representational signaling, and the ability to recognize each other by facial features demonstrate the intelligence of chickens.

Hens lay eggs without the need for fertilization by a rooster. However, these eggs do not contain offspring.

Sources: Wikipedia, Guinness Book of World Records

See below for a morally-correct article.

Wrestling - The misunderstood sport

It's well known that wrestling is fixed - results of matches and storylines are predetermined. But wrestling is seen in a negative light and is misunderstood. Professional wrestling is the performance, management, and marketing of a form of entertainment based on elements of Greco-Roman wrestling, mixed martial arts, and theatre. Just to make a couple of points clear:

1. Wrestling is an entertainment sport done by professionally-trained performers. Why I enjoy wrestling: watching people fight and unleash moves on each other for entertainment is fun to watch. Wrestling moves look and sound cool: Twist of Fate, Swanton Bomb, Go to Sleep, Starship Pain, etc.

2. There's very little blood in wrestling (unless it's by accident).

3. Wrestlers are professionally trained so that their moves won't injure other wrestlers.

How come wrestling is often non-competitive or "fixed"? It is because of the huge physical strain on wrestlers that it cannot be a normal competitive sport such as tennis. I'm sure a normal human being can't wrestle four days a week, it's simply too tiring. In addition, Rey Mysterio notes that "injuries can happen at any time".

See above for an article about chickens.

Ryan's Philosophisationing

Ryan Shelton's Philosophisationing of Karma on Rove.

Mass–energy equivalence

[Note: Do not read this article if you have learned physics or are talented in science.] Maybe you know it better as E = mc². The only reason I called it "mass–energy equivalence" was because Wikipedia calls it that, and also I couldn't write that "squared" thing in the title.

We've all heard of Einstein's formula for relativity, E = mc². Einstein proposed his formula in his 1905 paper, "Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?" But what does it really mean? Well, in the formula, E is energy, m is relativistic mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum (which is 299,792,458 meters per second).

So basically, expressing the formula in words: energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Described using units, E (in joules) = m (in kilograms) multiplied by (299,792,458 m/s)². Thanks Einstein!

Kristy's First Week

Kristy, the new newsreader, has some pranks played on her on Rove.

Carl Baron Standup

Carl Baron's Standup from Rove two weeks ago.

New McDonald's Video Game

Have you heard of the McDonald's Video Game? Basically, you control what happens at McDonalds, from the storefront, the pastures where you raise your cows and the slaughterhouse. Keep your eye on your money figure and make sure it doesn't run out!

This game was featured in a CNET article.

Click here to play the game.

Tennis Grand Slam Dates

The four Grand Slam tournaments are the most important tennis events of the year in terms of public attention, world ranking points, tradition and prize-money awarded. Here are their dates:

Tournament	Surface	Date
Australian Open	Hard Courts	January
French Open	Clay	Mid-May and early June
Wimbledon	Grass	Late June and early July
US Open	Acrylic hard courts	August and September

Just to keep you up-to-date, here are some current rankings:

1	Rafael Nadal		0	14960.0
2	Roger Federer		0	10470.0
3	Andy Murray		0	9020.0
4	Novak Djokovic		0	8830.0
5	Juan Martin Del Potro		0	4830.0

Where do domestic dogs originate from?

What is the origin of man's best friend and when did the friendship begin? The common domesticated dog is a subspecies of the gray wolf. The gray wolf is an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago. The gray wolf can be linked back even further to a small weasel-like mammal called Miacis about 60 million years ago, which is the ancestor of all canids (i.e. dogs, coyotes, jackals, wolves and foxes), however Miacis is irrelevant to what we're talking about today. To sum up, DNA sequencing and genetic drift studies reaffirm that the gray wolf shares a common ancestry with the domestic dog.

This raises another question: how did humans, who haven't been around for that long, manage to influence the creation of so many breeds of domestic dogs? According to an uncited source from Wikipedia, the domestication of the gray wolf took place in a handful of events roughly 15,000 years ago in central Asia. Also according to Wikipedia, archaeology has placed the earliest possible domestication at about 30,000 BC and, can confirm that they were already domesticated by 7,000 BC.

However, according to About.com, dog history has been studied recently using mitochondrial DNA, which suggests that wolves and dogs split into different species around 100,000 years ago. Nevertheless, the author notes that "another recent study" suggests that the entire population of dogs today are descended from three females near China about 15,000 years ago. A burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel has joint human and dog interments dated to 14,000 years ago. K. Kris Hirst states that 13,000 year BC date is the probable date of domestication.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, fossil remains suggest that five distinct types of dogs existed by the beginning of the Bronze Age (around 4500 BC). They were the mastiffs, wolf-type dogs, pointing dogs, sight hounds (such as the Saluki or greyhound) and herding dogs. Illustrations of dogs dating from the Bronze Age have also been found on walls, tombs, and scrolls throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

Dogs were interbred to enhance their powerful attributes. Fleet-footed sight hounds were revered by noblemen in the Middle East, while in Europe powerful dogs such as the mastiff were developed to protect home and traveler from harm. Many breeds are extremely ancient, while others have been developed as recently as the 1800s.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/dogs.htm

"Dog." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 8 May 2009 <http://school.eb.com.au/eb/article-15458>.

McGinnis, Terri. "Dog." World Book Online Reference Center. 2009. 8 May 2009.