Ancient Logic

I originally called this last of my year-end posts “Alive in…” because honestly I couldn’t think of a more general or truthful way to labeling the intention of these posts: “I was alive in 20XX and here’s what I saw.” That’s the way it’s seemed to me in the past. Heading Across by Morgan Crooks (2018) I had a tough year in 2018 but I survived. There are many, many things that happened that made this year difficult but I’m still alive and I hope for a better 2019. I guess I’ll start at the top. As many of you already know, I’m getting divorced early next year. Lauren and I have gone through rough patches before but at some point this year it became apparent to both of us that we were trying very hard to keep something going that was making us both miserable. So, in the next few months I will be: selling my house, filing a lot paperwork, transitioning to some other living situation, and figuring out where to go next. In part, although this has been incredibly difficult and I hones...

The headline is interesting on its own, but I was actually more curious about the breakdown of chemicals available in Martian soil. One of the things that makes the Moon less attractive as a site for a permanent colony is the lack of elements needed for organic life. Having enough nitrogen available in the soil to have once supported life suggests that agriculture on Mars might be sustainable without outside intervention (ie launching nitrogen rich asteroids at the surface of the planet.) Nitrogen is essential for plants and other biological processes. In addition, nitrogen currently represents less than 3% of Mars' scant atmosphere, a figure that would have to be raised during any attempt at terraforming.

It's a little early to say whether or not Curiosity's discovery of complex organic molecules constitutes a let-down or not. I think whenever information is teased in this way to the public: 'oh, the rover found something , but we can't tell you what it is just yet,' there's bound to be a feedback loop of speculation, official silence, and then even more speculation. The first rumors of organic chemicals quickly became sigs of microbes became like actual Martian fossils, right there on Mars! Now we're back to chemicals that might be organic. So, that's something. Unless it's just contamination from Curiosity itself which is always a concern. I am actually ambivalent about the whole question over life on Mars. If we find it, of course that would be an enormous discovery, mind-blowing really. But if we never find life, I think in someways that might be nearly as significant. The discovery of life on Mars would suggest that life is in somewha...