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Showing posts with the label aliens

Science Fiction at its Best

When it comes to the space exploration within hard science fiction, the one where science is embedded in the narrative to the point that it is impossible to tell a story without it, only rare novels stand out among all the others in the ocean of short stories and novels published online and in traditional ways. Sure, it's not really possible to be familiar with the entire vast universe of sci-fi literature of today compared to past times, especially before the internet, when it was easier not to miss a noticeable book on the public shelf. 

However, even today, the true classics in the genre are easily recognizable, perhaps in all those moments during or after reading when we wonder not if the plot is possible or scientifically plausible but when we fail to distinguish the fiction part from the real science. To achieve this, authors can rely not only on their writing narrative but also on their ability to successfully entangle science and fiction, and not only for those who understand the scientific background with ease.


Despite Andy Weir's latest novel, "Project Hail Mary", being only partly true hard science fiction, it might be one of those rare gems after all. It has everything: Martian-type humor, a real apocalyptic villain, amazing friendship among main protagonists, the author's proposed answer to the origin of life in our galactic neighborhood, a couple of twists in the 'how I didn't see that one coming' fashion, and the genuine and tearful happy ending.

On the other side, to be entirely honest, the apocalyptic scenario, even though nicely scientifically plotted, is too far-fetched for my taste and understanding, but still, it is a bright refreshment compared to the usual man-made villainy we used to deal with in most of the science fiction of today. The same goes for a fictitious lifeform capable of transferring energy into mass and vice versa. It does look strained and not very much in Weir's fashion, considering his previous books that are more scientifically based on the technology of today.


Nevertheless, it is easy to conclude that "Project Hail Mary" is coming with an instant classic flavor and undoubtedly standing shoulder to shoulder with all-timers such as "Contact" by Carl Sagan or "Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke or several modern authors who boldly explored the science behind artificial intelligence, vacuum decay, block universe, holographic principle, simulation theory, etc. I genuinely enjoyed reading it and will be anxiously looking forward to the upcoming movie.

Image ref:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-10/.../Russian_Orlan_Spacesuit

Book reviews
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/books?&max-results=12 

Rendezvous With Rama
 

Is Infinity Real?

Sooner or later, computation hardware and artificial intelligence algorithms will inevitably reach the point of enough sophistication that the creation of a simulation of enormous proportions, for example, the size of the entire universe, will be effortless. So to speak. These god-like engineers of such future simulation will indeed face a decision point regarding which degree of limitation to create for their simulated entities or artificial intelligence units in order for them to never reach the point of finding the proof that their world is in fact nothing more than just a series of electrical or optical currents of one inconceivably powerful futuristic computer.

If created right, there's no doubt that the inner world of all those hypothetical units would seem to be as real to them as our own very reality is to us. So, considering the state of obvious, the question arises by itself: if our own reality is such a simulation and we are nothing but AI units within some alien quantum computer, what exactly is the limitation?


To me, it always has been infinity. My own limited mind always struggled with understanding what it really meant. Aristotle, who buzzed his head with infinity quite a lot, concluded that infinity is only potential in nature. We can always add a number to any number to the point of infinity or divide something into infinite parts, but in reality, he thought that it was impossible to exceed every definite magnitude for the simple reason that if it were possible, there would be something bigger than the heavens or something smaller than the atoms (Greek origin: άτομο, which means without volume and uncuttable).

Today we still can't find the proof of bigger or smaller volumes than we can see or understand. If we look up toward the heavens, we are pretty sure that we cannot see beyond the Big Bang or 14 billion light years in all directions due to the limitation of light speed. The same goes with understanding the smaller volumes of microcosm for which we think the current boundary is around the scale of 10e-12 Picometres due to the quantum limitation of observable micro space without disturbance by the observer.


All things considered, as proposed by mathematics, infinity might be just the other word for really, really big, or extremely small, or very old, or too far away. In every way, simply put, infinity might be just beyond our reach. Perhaps if we are really living in the simulation, this is our limitation, and we are pretty much designed in the realm of simulated physics to never reach it and to never learn what is behind the horizon. Ironically, the ultimate truth could be that there was nothing there. It might be where simulation ends and where alien software developers' backdoor is located. Their own reality could be entirely and unimaginably different.

But what if we are not living in a simulation? What if all the laws of physics were not invented by an ingenious developer and were instead real, perfectly natural, and not artificial in origin? Would we have a volume larger than heavens or smaller than quarks and strings? Or just maybe these two extremes are somehow connected and twisted in a loop with no need for infinity at all? Perhaps, ultimately, the size could be irrelevant and not a factor in all cosmic equations.
 
1 +  = ?

http://sten.astronomycafe.net/is-infinity-real/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity
 

Choosing Planets

Let's turn our imagination to the edge and do something different today. We can call it a thought experiment, a childish game, a daydream, science fiction, pure fantasy, or whatever we want, but let's move the boundaries far away from Earth, far away from our solar system, even farther from our galaxy, and do something wild.

Let's choose a planet.

Or, to be more precise, let's select one in the vastness of the cosmos and move away from this Earth and start new life. Of course, in daydreams we are allowed to do this just because the imagination is what our species differs from others on Earth.

Ok, to begin this little endeavor, we need a little astronomy to start with. What we know for sure is that our galaxy alone contains more than 200 billion stars, the majority of them not so different from our Sun, and by using a basic statistical study based on the planet finder's microlensing technique, there are approximately 100 billion planets orbiting them. Perhaps more. Multiply that by a factor of billions of galaxies in our universe, and you'll get that there are far more Earth twins out there than living people on Earth. There are planets for everybody's taste. So let's start with the planet's basic properties.

Choosing the World

It has to be huge, much bigger than Earth, maybe twice as big in size or even more, to harbor as many people as Earth today and still have plenty of room for many more. To be something like in Canada's distant regions today with only up to a thousand people per square kilometer. However, its composition must be radically different than Earth's, as, in my imagination, it has to maintain gravity more or less like the third rock from the Sun. After all, I don't like to move there and look ridiculously dysfunctional when it comes to, say, simple walking. So fewer heavy elements inside, please, and let it be around the famous, well-known number of 9.81. More or less. So no radical changes when gravity is in question, but I would choose the one with radically fewer water layers than we are familiar with within here. Don't get me wrong, I do like water, and I would like to have plenty of it all over the place, but with no oceans or large seas. Rivers are ok in any variety, lakes too, and small seas are also fine, but please no oceans. Nobody needs that. Hey, it's my planet; if you like oceans, find your own, or don't move anywhere; there are lots of oceans here.

Basically, there must be one giant continent in Norway's style with lots of rivers and lakes and small seas with large bays and calm weather. One rotation cycle could be a little longer than Earth's, but not so much over 30 hours. You can't get rid of old habits that easily. Like Earth, it needs to have a slightly tilted rotation axis to provide longer seasons and temperature changes over the year, with a revolution over the main star similar to the one in Mars or approximately twice as long as Earth's. Earth-like atmosphere and its greenhouse effect would provide a temperature range over the year to be a little milder compared to our native planet, maybe no less than -10°C in harsh winters and no higher than +30°C in summers. A tilted axis and position within the habitable zone of the mother star would also provide no big differences between the planet's equator and pole regions. What else? Oh yes, it has to be protected with both a strong magnetic field and a couple of perfectly positioned giant outer planets from both radiation and looney asteroids and comets. It could also be part of a binary star system, where the second star could also provide additional protection when it comes to violent cataclysmic events in the neighborhood. Last and surely not least, it has to be green all over the place. Extremely suitable for cultivation of various kinds of anything possible. The geography of the planet could be variable with both long valleys and mountains, just like in our home yard.

Humanoids by Star Trek "design"

Do you like my paradise so far? In a way, it was not hard to set the basic astronomical properties of the star system and planet itself. However, a bigger challenge comes with defining the demographics of the planet. You might not like it anymore after I continue and say that I would like the planet to be colonized without any domesticated intelligent species. Why? First of all, it wouldn't be right to find a desirable planet along with at least one dominating intelligent species already evolved there. It would be like colonizing the Americas and killing or putting the population into reservations. We've been there. It's just wrong. Secondly, and probably even more important, is that I would like to share it with other intelligent species. Preferably humanoids. Not mandatory, though. That way neither would be in a position to set a flag and say, "This is mine; everybody else is not looking like me; go away". Basically, in my vision, everyone intelligent who would like to come and build a house is welcome at any time as long as they sign some sort of "sharing" agreement. Something similar to the Antarctic Treaty System we are having here on Earth. Basically, the colonization idea would be comparable to the Earth back in dinosaur time, when all the aliens missed the opportunity to colonize it when no domestic intelligent species existed to claim it for itself. Or they didn't miss it at all, and we are actually them and have never been native to this planet.

So how would all that sharing look like, and what kind of civilization am I talking about? There are so-called Kardashev scales defining possible civilizations out there, dividing them into Types I, II, and III, and it, by definition, represents a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of usable energy they have at their disposal. All three types are far away from the civilization of humans as we know it today, and all three are suitable as potential residents for my planet. By the way, let's call it in further text "M." Accidentally, although I first thought of my first name's initial, it is titled more accurately according to the planet's classification seen in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Anyway, the point of using high-end civilization in my story is that young civilizations like ours are simply not suitable. Why? Several reasons, actually. First, it seems that a big amount of mutual tolerance is needed for the sharing principle I have in mind. All desirable intelligent species have to be evolutionary mature and unburdened by racial, religious, and any other interspecies differences. Additionally, the population must be technologically advanced. The system on the planet would be as simple as possible; there would be no countries nor any kind of political organization, no governments of any kind, nothing like on the third rock of our solar system. There will be just one institution, planetary-based, with just one treaty where all colonists have to sign, and it should be pretty simple. If you want to live there, you would have to choose the land that is free and yet unoccupied, claim it yours, and the only condition to keep it is to produce zero waste outside of its boundaries. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want with it—create your dream house, build a school, trade market, entertainment facility, anything at all—as long as you play fair in relation to others.

ISS 3D Printer and first 'emailed' socket wrench

There will be no cities, as the technology at everybody's disposal would provide transportation to the most distant part of the planet easily, safely, and fast. I see smaller settlements, though, based on their mutual benefits and relations. There will be no sports, at least not in the form of the ones we know on Earth. It would be extremely unfair to play, for example, basketball involving multiple species with different masculine properties. However, the technology sports would survive, like races or any kind of recreational activities. Advanced technology in everybody's home would provide planetary and interplanetary networks of various communications; there would be no need for many supporting factories except for basic ingredients, as home computers would be equipped with state-of-the-art 3D printers capable of producing both simple tools and complex machines. The same home computer would also be able to use food replicators for creating food and food supplements. I don't like the existing concept of killing other species and using them for food. Cultivation and planting are perfectly ok, and each household would possess its own greenhouse for growing appropriate food, but I expect high-end civilizations in evolutionary terms would solve "the meat" problem, and I am not talking about a vegetarian diet.

Of course, the main star system would be well explored, with several outposts built for several purposes, along with mining outer moons, other planets, and asteroids in search of all necessary ingredients for planetary life, along with a variety of orbital activities for planetary residents, including entertainment.

Unfortunately, choosing a world to move is still just a dream. Reality still resides far in the future. Nevertheless, I wonder if such a world already exists out there in a far, far... You know.

Image ref:
https://3dprint.com/32269/made-in-space-emails-wrench/

Refs:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/07/full/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Measuring_Gravity_With_Grace.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0734472/
 

Unthinkable Solutions of Fermi's Paradox

"At some point, the gluons will no longer be able to hold the quarks together, and the hadrons will decay. Which will mean the end of matter in this universe." - Albert Einstein 1

As it seems, in our universe, nothing is made to last. Eventually, everything gets old and dies or changes or decays into something else, and I am not referring to the life forms only but to all matter in the cosmos. For all we know, this might not be true within our own macroworld alone, but also deep below, the same goes for particles in the quantum realm as well. The fact is that everything in the universe has a tendency to achieve the lowest energy state and to finally rest within a stable system, even if that means going through various changes or decays. In the quantum world, this could be true for the Higgs field as well. According to Hawking, if it becomes metastable, the vacuum decay bubble will emerge and consume everything in order to eventually reach the lowest energy state possible. For Higgs field being everywhere in the universe, this would mean instantaneous collapse of the whole universe and it's own ultimate change into a new and ultimately alien environment with a completely new set of laws of physics in the aftermath that could not be as friendly to the living beings as they are today.


But relax, this is just a theory; it might be wrong; nothing like it happened in previous 13.8 billion years (or did it?) and the quote from the beginning is not really formulated by the famous physicist. Well, fictitious Einstein did say it in Phillip P. Peterson's 'Paradox', a remarkable piece of science fiction driven by this scientific premise, but still, it might be something he would say if he were still alive today.

'Paradox' is a relatively new novel series, so I am not going to spoil the content, but to really understand how vacuum decay relates to the well-known Fermi's paradox or to better understand aliens' actions towards Earth and other star systems throughout the universe, I'd warmly recommend the read. As a science fiction fan for years and decades, I could only say that I didn't stumble to the better science fiction in relation to concepts such as Dyson spheres, quantum mechanics, fusion engines, antimatter propulsion, warp drives, the creation of the Big Bang and inflationary space, virtual reality of enormous proportions, wormholes, travel, and communication... The list is going on, and I can only speculate what is inside the third book that has just been released (unfortunately, due to my illiteracy in German, I'll have to wait for the summer and its scheduled translation in English). Anyway, this was one of the rare book series with a sequel even more interesting than the first book, with perfectly connected endings in both of them.


The idea of vacuum decay behind Peterson novels for the solution of Fermi's paradox is indeed new in scientific background, but surely there is more logic we can think of and apply to the absence of aliens, and the idea, more than half a century old, is getting renewed attention in recent years. What I am referring to is the simulation theory and/or holographic principle. It is triggered by the very research of black holes and the information paradox, which states that physical information can be lost and swallowed by black holes despite quantum mechanics postulate that nothing, including information, can ever be lost, only transferred from one form to another. One of the solutions for the paradox I discussed a while ago with the question in the post title 'Are We Holograms?' answered Fermi's paradox perfectly.

However, to get back to science fiction, on several occasions in the past, I mentioned "The Thirteenth Floor", the movie that portrays so far the best story about a simulation of everything in existence. I don't know why, but I never read the backstory about this great film, and especially for this post, I went to check where the script came from in the first place and discovered that it was loosely based on the book called "Simulacron-3", written by Daniel F. Galouye way back in 1964. Needless to say, I downloaded the copy and liked it very, very much. Considering the year and the fact that it was written at the dawn of digital computers, the details and sophistication of the story were amazing. In relation to Fermi's paradox, if we are indeed living in a simulated world created by aliens themselves and we are all nothing more than just a bunch of artificial intelligence characters in the game, then the absence of other intelligent forms becomes clear. Or we will meet them when they become programmed and inserted in the simulation. Anytime now.


Next in line of the fictitious solution for Fermi's paradox on the first glance is not something that much unthinkable. But if we reason about communications over long distances in space, calling the ET and/or receiving a message from aliens from deep space is not as easy as we might think. By using our current technology, that is. The most obvious is the SETI project, which was founded half a century ago based on only monitoring electromagnetic radiation in search of ET broadcasts. After that, many years of looking for the signal from the above failed to find anything so far.

The most interesting and one of the first works of science fiction in this realm was Carl Sagan's 'Contact', in which aliens managed to receive the Earth's earliest TV broadcast 25 light years away, decoded it, and sent it back into SETI's antennas. Unfortunately, even though this looks much more plausible than vacuum decay or giant simulation, it really is not. Engineering and the science behind it are cruel. To broadcast anything at all in the electromagnetic spectrum, the signal must be focused and powerful enough to reach the destination without dissipation of the signal, to avoid the data being embedded in too much noise on the way, or to experience path loss while spreading out over long distances. Our EM broadcasts from Earth are meant for Earth only (or for the Moon on occasion or two in the past), and they are not powerful enough to reach even the closest stars without serious signal loss. To get weak transmissions like that, aliens around Vega might need solar system-wide antennas to detect UHF broadcasts from us. The same goes for SETI on Earth; it is unlikely we will ever get anything that is not narrow, focused, and aimed directly toward us. Nevertheless, ''Contact' will always stay on my physical and digital shelves for being one of the best science fiction films in the history of the genre.


At least for this post, the last and final obstacle with life forms swarming the vast space throughout the universe(s) is ... life itself and its potential limitations. Organic life based on carbon or something else exotic to us could be fragile and short in general. One small asteroid strikes the planet in the Goldilocks zone, and poof... everything dies and resets. Billions of years of evolution go into oblivion in a cosmic second. Even if major extinction events miraculously avoid the intelligent species, they might be destined to destroy themselves at the end of the path. Even more unthinkable scenarios we are still not aware of yet can pop into the equation. One of the obstacles could be that life could exist only in networked scenarios, or, to be precise, it could only work and evolve, more or less, in the form of a giant hive mind in relation to the mother planet. If that's true, there could be a limit in distance for a small number of individuals to leave their world, where they would ultimately lose connection to the hive and die. We never sent anyone or anything to live beyond moon orbit, so if this is true, the border of life could be anywhere beyond that.

I am not sure that Arthur C. Clarke had this in mind when he wrote 'Rendezvous with Rama' back then in 1973. Probably not. However, it was not far from common sense that in this unthinkable scenario, in order to sail toward the stars, the only way that could be done is to build enormous spaceships and giant cities that could carry everybody on the one-way journey. There are countless hazards for that kind of travel, and something along the way might happen to the people who originally populated Rama in the beginning. If we add to the story ultimate laws of physics and issues with limited speed of travel, vast distances between stars, and sparse sources when it comes to little things like food and fuel, 'the hive mind' problem could be another perfect solution to the paradox to consider.


But let's stop here with imagining all potential reasons why we still haven't met ET. If I would like only to spice it up with more unthinkable reasons, it would not be that hard. Just think about the "Zoo Hypothesis", in which we are created and observed by aliens in their science fair experiment, or the theory that we are the first intelligent civilization to emerge so far, or that there is 'The Great Filter' that limits intelligent life species from reaching the potential to dive into stars.

In the end, we could all be wrong. Evolution of species throughout the universe might not be headed toward stars at all. Perhaps we have to reset our minds and look elsewhere, no matter how strange it sounds.

1 Quote by Albert Einstein character from Phillip P. Peterson's Paradox novel series

 Novels:
http://raumvektor.de/paradox/
https://www.amazon.com/Contact-Carl-Sagan-ebook/
https://www.amazon.com/Rendezvous-Rama-Arthur-C-Clarke

Image refs:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/heres-how-universe-could-destroy-itself-horror-vacuum-decay
http://lcart3.narod.ru/image/fantasy/jim_burns/jim_burns_cylindrical_sea.jpg
http://starkovtattoo.spb.ru/titanfall-wallpapers

Refs:
http://www.bidstrup.com/seti.htm
https://briankoberlein.com/2015/02/19/e-t-phone-home/
https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_F._Galouye
https://medium.com/o-s/6-mind-bending-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox
 

The Oldest Pictograph for Copper

Last year, during our visit to the Cretan site of Knossos and their wonderful museum in Heraklion dedicated in large part to one of the greatest peaceful periods in human history, I didn't hide my admiration for the old Minoans and their way of life. I even said I would move to Crete without second thoughts if I had a time machine, mainly to avoid the hostility of the world order we are currently living in today. At the time, considering only the European continent, I was under the impression that cultures like Minoan were rare and the Bronze Age society we glimpsed on Crete was maybe walking on the edge of being the only one in the history of mankind. To say the least, I couldn't be more wrong.

Only a couple of millennia before the late Neolithic period, known as the Chalcolithic or simply the Copper Age, there was an old European society that lived for centuries and also flourished in peaceful harmony and perfect equilibrium with nature, themselves, and their immediate land, where they built large settlements with big houses, streets, and infrastructure. And one of their major cities, by using vocabulary for describing settlements built 7000 years ago, existed almost next to my backyard. So to speak.


Prehistoric Europe, probably like everywhere else in the world, has experienced a civilization boom after the Neolithic revolution and invention of agriculture, along with the domestication of wild animals. That also included a boost in population and ways of living, and in these parts of the world, for almost eight centuries, if not longer, rose a civilization that belonged to the well-known Turdaș-Vinča culture. Many archaeologists today consider this early civilization for the throne of being the first independent and distinguished modern humans and true civilization cradle.

More than ten major settlements were found, and most of them were in the process of excavation throughout Serbian territories, with the addition of several more within neighboring lands, especially Transylvania in central Romania. These people not only perfected agriculture but also were the first to initiate the Copper Age in world history. The art of pottery was their hallmark, and many alien-shaped figurines triggered a wave of 'ancient astronauts' theories, and I will only quote one of the referenced articles: "The appearance of these figurines is striking. Many depictions of extraterrestrials in ancient literature and art reference the same oval-shaped heads, enormous almond eyes with dark pupils, and small noses and mouths". Whether or not this is evidence enough to conclude that Vinča people were in contact with extraterrestrial beings who helped them to achieve a higher level of life, I will let you conclude or ignore, but one thing is for sure: these people, along with their way of clothing and decorating, early metallurgy, and the functionality of their large, for the time, houses and settlements, were almost on the same levels of civilization as the old Minoans who lived and flourished three millennia later.


If you add to the facts that pottery was practiced at the household level with artifacts clearly created and shaped by children, along with evidence that women's clothing included mini-skirts and trousers, it is really fascinating. All vanished civilizations from ancient times earned their place in the evolution of humanity, but those of them who practiced or invented something for the first time and what we today take for granted represent our true and genuine heritage. Within the humanity tree, Vinča people deserved a very special place for two very important things in our evolution as a species.

They developed one of the earliest forms of proto-writing, which still waits for definite evidence of whether or not it overgrown simplicity over centuries and became the true representation of their spoken language. The second achievement is indisputable for most scholars. This culture was the first one, in the current knowledge and archaeological evidence, to learn how to smelt copper ore. They were the pioneers who took the big step toward the end of the Stone Age.


Vinča-Turdaș symbols were found practically everywhere engraved on artifacts excavated in Serbia and Romania. Hence the name by which it is known; like with Cretan civilization, we don't know how they called themselves. Most of the inscriptions are on pottery, and the vast majority of the inscriptions consist of a single symbol. This indicates that symbols are used similarly to what we are familiar with today as "icons", and lots of different pictographs are probably designed to identify the object they are engraved on, the content of it, the owner, value, and measure, perhaps even the ancient logo of the household or manufacturer. Most likely the names of individuals as well. For example, the name Cochise of Native Americans' Apache means "oak wood", and one of the Vinča symbols most definitely means the same thing. No doubt there were a series of pictographs related to copper and whatever they made out of it.

However, over the time of civilization's existence, the script probably evolved along, and these three tablets in the image above, found at a site in the village of Tărtăria, indicate more complex writing that most likely represents words of their language. So far, no "Epic of Gilgamesh" alternative has been found, but lots of work on sites is still ahead, and I am sure many other sites are still waiting to be found. Even so, Vinča symbols predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the first Minoan writing by far.


To me, the Vinča-Turdaș script most definitely resembles all other linear scripts, which means by using the symbols it is possible to write complex lines and sentences, but I am far from being the expert in the field. However, this suggestion is sound, and lines of text dated to the period and found in two locations in Bulgaria and Greece support the hypothesis. For the theory to become proven or disputed, cracking the ancient code must be done first, but for all lost languages, this is not easy. For example, old Minoans used a "Linear A" script that is still a mystery even though it is related to its solved big brother, "Linear B". Its amazing that these three scripts are possible to download in the form of TrueType fonts, and just for fun, I used them in this image to print "Milan's Public Journal" in Vinča, Minoan, and Mycenaean. This is rubbish, of course, and all these people from the past would need very different keyboards to write their languages (letters of the alphabet would not do any good for their symbols), but still, it was fun to play with.

While the writing puzzle is still not solved, Vinča people who lived nearby natural deposits of copper ore very quickly developed a process to extract the metal from the mineral and to build various tools and weapons used only for hunting. One of such sites is the one from my neighborhood. Only an hour of driving to the south is the archaeological site of Pločnik, probably the first ancient city in the world where copper smelting was industrialized. We visited the site last weekend, where we found amazing replicas of Vinča people's homes and also a nearby museum in the city of Prokuplje with lots of excavated items from the site and lots of stories from the excavation itself.



Even today, there are deposits of malachite and azurite in the wide area where the site is located, and our guide hinted that in the past they were probably able to find them in the river as well. Both are common copper minerals that are melted at 700 °C. Campfires are about 200° short of the temperature needed, so they built square-shaped furnaces stored in larger buildings with pipe-like earthen blowers with hundreds of tiny holes in them used to blow compressed air directly into fire. Whether people, like Viktor in the above video, were manually blowing the air or they had some sort of leather bellows is still unknown.

The place is very big—more than 100 hectares. The ancient city was large and populated from 5500 to 4700 BC in a row until it was destroyed in a big fire by probably intruders from afar. What happened with survivors and where they moved after is also not known. Like Minoans, no peaceful society ever survived hostile events and probably ceased to exist entirely or fully dispersed among the newcomers. Anyhow, we were all carrying lots of impressions from the last weekend trip to the history of our own neighborhood, along with a piece of pottery, 7000 years old, we received as a gift from the excavation park. No words could describe all of our gratefulness, especially Viktor's, when he had to choose a piece that maybe once belonged to his peer from the early Copper Age.

The Minoan Legacy:
https://www.mpj.one/2017/07/the-minoan-legacy.html

Stone Age of Iron Gates:
https://www.mpj.one/2015/08/stone-age-of-iron-gates.html

Cyclops of Peloponnese:
https://www.mpj.one/2016/08/cyclops-of-peloponnese.html

Image & Video refs:
https://www.disclose.tv/the-danube-valley-civilization-script-is-the-worlds-oldest-writing-313756
http://korzoportal.civcic.com/julka-kuzmanovic-cvetkovic-plocnik-kako-doziveti-neolit/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH2BtavSrxaRyvOJS5JZaHQ

Refs:
http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/serbiavinca.htm
https://cogniarchae.com/2015/10/29/tartaria-connection-between-vinca-and-proto-linear-b-script/
https://www.disclose.tv/mysterious-vinca-statuettes-evidence-of-extraterrestrial-contact-313094
http://www.ancientpages.com/2015/09/30/mysterious-ancient-vinca-culture-undeciphered-script/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_symbols
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/civilisation-script-oldest-writing
http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/02/17/7000-year-old-inscription-undeciphered-vinca-script/
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm
http://vrtoplica.mi.sanu.ac.rs/en/section/58
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting#Copper_and_bronze
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/17456/pdf
https://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/native-american

Serbian refs:
https://sr.wikipedia.org/sr/Плочник_(археолошки_локалитет)
https://www.serbia.com/srpski/posetite-srbiju/kulturne-atrakcije/arheoloska-nalazista/vinca/
http://muzejtoplice.org.rs/index.php/en/muzejtoplice
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Civilization-Museum/Arheo-park-Pločnik
 

What is Intelligent Life?

I remember reading an article in the Guardian last year with the title "Our galaxy may contain billions of planets with the same mass as Earth". Surely, it is a valid scientific guess as it is, but if it is really true, my first thought would be that intelligent life as we know it (assuming we are intelligent species) is as rare as we can imagine. If they are not, the big question is, why are we still not able to detect any single proof of their existence, or are they still not eaten by some violent alien species? The only logical answer, that we are the first ones to walk on the edge of impossibility, is logical to me. Most likely we are missing something important—a discovery as important as fire was.


While this statement is still accurate and generally speaking plausible, let's think a little more about it. So to start with the original statement, are there really that many planets with Earth-like properties in our galaxy? Ever since I read the Drake equation for the first time (shown above), I couldn't get rid of the feeling that there was nothing spectacular I could conclude from it. Come on, really, this is just another scientific speculation at best, as we simply don't have any valuable information about star systems other than our own. Not until the recent year did we have any observations of local star clusters related to potential planets. The only scientific data coming in this regard is the one from the Kepler mission, and after two and a half years, it still didn't find a single hint of an Earth-like planet. Yes, this is just the beginning, and the Kepler spacecraft only searches for changes in brightness of the nearby stars looking for planets, but still there is nothing so far. Just giant Jupiter-sized or supermassive rocky planets. I wanted to sound optimistic, but I would expect at least one stable candidate in these 2.5 years of Kepler's. Maybe it is there in scientific data still waiting to be revealed, or maybe those giant planets harbor Pandora-like satellites? Or nothing's there? The future will tell.

Next, there is a common interpretation that life-supporting planets exist in large numbers, but intelligent life is rare, or we are, by some rare possibility, the first one. As this sounds plausible on first glance, it is not. We simply have this one-time experience with Earth, where one single cell needed almost one billion years to evolve and almost three billion for the first multicellular creatures to arrive, not to mention that the first plant evolved only half a billion years ago. So, a life-supporting planet or satellite requires many billions of years of evolution, not many times interrupted with cataclysmic events. If we take this for granted, then it seems that complex life, like us, needs a small amount of time, astronomically speaking, compared to less complex ones like trees or grass. Therefore, again astronomically speaking, if we find a greenish environment on some planet, the chances of finding intelligent life on that planet in some sort of statistical existence are pretty big.


Ok, what's next? Oh yes, intelligent life... Is that what we are? Are these Hawking's famous sayings right? "Primitive life is very common, and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth". If you ask me, it is only half right. I'd say if primitive life is common, then complex life could be common as well, but the second statement is pretty much accurate. I don't want to sound pathetic, semi-scientific, or too philosophical here, but there is a simple fact that what differs humans from animals is that big rational brain of ours. On the other end, what is pretty much similar to animal life is that still hyperactive emotional or reptilian part of our inner head. I am not sure what the next centuries will bring to us, but it will be either further development of the rational brain at the expense of the emotional one or vice versa.

I am not saying that we must completely suppress emotions like Vulcans or try to augment people to reach this goal, but I am 100% sure that all human misbehavior today, like wars, global crises, hunger there and overfilled bellies here, and cultural or religion-based animosity between people, relatives, or neighbors, is simply caused by a reptilian complex deeply hidden in the center of the human brain. Of course, I really can't imagine living a life without emotions at all, but simply put, this part of human beings should not be in charge over reason. It's been proven too dangerous so many times.


So, in a nutshell, as soon as this part of the brain evolves down under the border of no return, I guess we should not call ourselves an intelligent species. Until then, it is unwise for some interstellar species to give us technology to leave the Earth—the chances that we would use it for star wars are bigger than that we would go to the next level and use it for peaceful exploration of the solar system and beyond.

The last and probably the most important from my original statement last year was the hint that we were missing something important, like a fire-like breakthrough discovery. Is that what we are missing—some space technology or a warp drive? Sure, this is the necessity; we definitely can't populate other planets or go interstellar with today's rockets, but in today's spirit, it seems that it is definitely something that will help our rational brain to become the real boss in our heads. Only then can we step further and say that intelligent life finally emerged on Earth. Only then can we say that our railguns are only made for mining the asteroids and not for killing people because they look different.

Is this possible?

Sure, if we are spared by some major cataclysmic event within the next couple of centuries or if we don't create one ourselves. I have all my hopes in the evolutionary process but also little doubts as well. But, when the day is bright and cheerful, I also have all my hopes that tomorrow humanity will overpass this current stage of evolution and head for something more.

Image credits:
http://eugenius330.deviantart.com/art/Message-413092189

Search for habitable planets:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/

Refs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/28/galaxy-planets-mass-earth-life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/reptiles/reptiles14.htm
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/stephen-hawking-no-biological-life.html
http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/seti/drake_equation.html
 

Time Travel

It's a well-known fact that our universe is, as far as we know today, a four-dimensional space-time continuum with three spatial coordinates and time playing the role of the fourth one. We are perfectly capable of traveling backwards and forwards within the first three spatial coordinates, but is it possible to do the same on the fourth one? I am sure you would agree that it is not too exciting going up or down or left or right, but traveling through time could be something special. But is it possible? Let's explore all the theories, share some stories, and read about one connected hoax.


Well yes, like many of you, I also love reading sci-fi stories and watching great movies about time travel, but before I start upgrading my DeLorean with a brand new flux capacitor kit I can find online, let me tell you a story that inspired me to start reading articles and buying popular scientific books regarding the famous fourth dimension of our universe. It happened about 12 years ago when I was telecommuting with a Munich-based company developing software for interactive conferences for pharmaceutical companies. We did a great job, and I was asked to visit Munich for some software tuning and also for some socializing with my partners during the famous Oktoberfest festival. This is kind of a "conference" where instead of software driving the event, the only tool needed is, you guessed it, a great Bavarian beer. So, one night we went there and had a great time. I remember my visit didn't hit the main Oktoberfest night, but still the feeling was all the same. We were sitting in the big hall filled with lots of wooden tables, and I estimated up to 500 people in there. In one brief moment of insanity, I spotted a man enjoining his friends about 50, maybe 70 meters away from us. They were doing the same as us, drinking beer and having a good time, but what impressed me the most was his appearance, which hammered my head for a couple of moments or more. He looked amazingly like the gray aliens portrayed in the Fox Mulder X-Files that aired at the time. He had a large head compared to his body, large slightly curved black eyes, a small nose and mouth, and not much of ears on the top of his head. Probably because of the large amount of beer, I didn't remember clearly what happened after, but I was probably in the center of loud laughter when I pointed my finger and said, "Look, there's an alien drinking beer!" I am sure the amount of beer I drank was responsible for the whole thing, but still, ever since then, I can't stop thinking that gray aliens are nothing more than just our future descendants traveling through time, visiting the past and enjoying good shows, like in this case the best quality of Bavarian beer, especially brewed for Oktoberfest.

Let's face it, we surely don't know how humans will evolve within the next millennium or more, but I am confident that one particular outcome could be just like grays! It's not far from reason that our body would evolve down while our head will be 'heading' in the opposite direction in the future, directly caused by fewer physical activities and more brain evolution toward rationality. Anyway, if I am a future human in possession of a DeLorean with a working flux capacitor from "Back to the Future", after visiting a couple of main historical events, I would definitely visit some great entertainments of the past.


Ok, ok, I know how ridiculous this sounds, so I will stop now and try to get back to the main topic. Let's try to summarize what we scientifically know about time and how to bend it. Through Einstein's theories, we now definitely know that the universe is built from the fabric that is bendable. It was first proven by a famous experiment during a solar eclipse, which showed the curvature of light from a star as the light rays passed by the sun. Arthur Eddington led an expedition to West Africa back in 1919 in order to take pictures of a solar eclipse with definite proof of dislocated stars located next to the sun's disc, caused by a curved universe caused by the sun's large mass. In other words, we definitively know that spacetime is bendable, but the physics of how and why it bends is a completely different story. According to Einstein, in lack of better knowledge of the universe's fabric itself and lack of discovery that would prove the existence of gravitons, we can't say for sure even that gravity is a force at all! It could be just a property of the space-time fabric that bends easily by mass. In other words, the universe could be just a large system of perforated roads for traveling particles with mass and energy waves. Maybe to describe it better with a metaphor, if we are a large mass traveling throughout space and we don't have enough speed and encounter a curved space around a giant star, we are doomed and will be simply captured into circular motion around the large star. The question is, of course, is it possible to curve the space that much so we can travel the curved path back or forth in time? Thanks to Einstein, we now have a great understanding of the physics of the big. There are mathematical equations that describe and predict all known and still not observed objects in our universe. We are also aware of boundaries like the ultimate speed of light for any particle with a mass, and even the physics of the wormholes and warp drives are mathematically plausible. The only problem is that we are too small to comprehend the great amount of (negative) energy required to establish a wormhole or a drive capable of curving the space instead of propelling itself. In many theoretical studies of wormholes, it is still unknown whether or not it is possible to create a stable tunnel through the fabric.

It seems that building large shortcuts in the universe is still out of our reach, probably because of the great energy needed and our lack of understanding of the space fabric itself. The solution is probably waiting to be discovered within a quantum level of existence. Compared to enormous space and large objects, ironically speaking, studying the science of small particles and energy waves is difficult because we are too big! Simply put, we are unable to monitor and understand small objects because our monitoring tools are too large in size. For example, if we are using an electron microscope, we would only be able to monitor objects much larger than the electrons we are beaming into; otherwise, we would be adding additional disturbance to objects we want to see. Studying the quantum world is only possible indirectly, like in giant accelerators where we are beaming two small particles and forcing them to collide and then learning from the snapshots taken from the clash. However, quantum mechanics is a scientific discipline we have been researching for a century or so, and while there are many things waiting to be understood, we have already learned a great deal about particle physics, electromagnetic waves, and the quantum microworld.


So, what do we quantumly know in regard to time travel? This is the story of searching for the ultimate theory that could be able to connect the microworld with the fabric of the universe itself and explain both the physics of micro- and macro-objects and their relations. We are still out of luck, but a couple of leading theories arrived in the previous century in the form of string theory and its variations. What is common for all of them is that they compete with old particle physics either to replace it or to be built on it similarly to what the theory of relativity did for Newton's gravity theory. String theory in the form of a membrane, or M-theory, suggests multiple dimensions and also the creation of multiple universes caused by collisions of membranes. The microworld in this theory would be capable of living and traveling through multiple dimensions and perhaps even universes. Now, how is this connected to time travel? It is important because of our efforts to find a solution to a so-called time travel paradox where traveling backwards in time would be potentially dangerous because of the butterfly effect, where a time traveler, by changing something even as small as killing a butterfly, would end up in a fatal disturbance of the future already happening events. So the additional question arises: if time travel backwards in time is possible by bending space, how has nature solved this paradox? Two solutions are proposed, wherein in one the universe is blocking inconsistent events by its nature, so it is simply impossible for you to go in the past and kidnap Hitler or kill somebody's ancestors in order to change history. If a future version of you visits a younger you, then it is simply impossible to prevent you later in the future from not making the visit in the first place, as this already happened, and it is nothing but a closed, inconsistent loop that is very hard to imagine. Too complicated? Maybe, but then check the other solution where time travel actually places you in a different timeline or parallel universe with copies of you and others. The quantum world recognizes a so-called quantum entanglement where two particles share the same properties even when located in two different locations in space, maybe in time, and perhaps even separated by two dimensions or branes. Does it look like 'fringe' science to you?

Either way, traveling back in time seems to be impossible, blocked, or extremely hard. If you ask Stephen Hawking, the only proof we need is a lack of tourists from the future visiting us. Of course, if you exclude my encounter with the Oktoberfest and gray alien from the beginning of this story.


Like you probably noticed, this post is more about traveling backwards in time, but it would be unfair not to mention the ease of traveling forward in time. We are doing it on a daily basis, and since you started reading this post, you have traveled forward in time for a couple of minutes by now. However, jumping forward into some future destination in time is a different story, but thanks to the theory of relativity, during fast flight of, say, 95% of the speed of light, traveling into the future is more than possible. So to speak. In theory, that is. Namely, it is a well-known thought experiment where a train is circling the Earth at near to light speed for a period of 100 years. Time in the train could be slowed down by a ratio of 1/5000, and their passengers would be older by only one week compared to their fellow Earthlings, who got older by one full century or so.

Like I said, easy. :-)

Time travel is not only popular in scientific circles or sci-fi stories. It is also popular among internet hoaxes. Back then, during 2000 and 2001, a guy named John Titor ruffled the internet audience of the time within bulletin boards and forums, claiming that he came from the year 2036 of his own universe into ours as a guinea pig of the government time travel experiment in his own future time. He was sent to retrieve some old computers they lost in their timeline. He even posted various images and schematics of his time machine based on contained micro singularities installed in the car capable of bending the laser beam toy and therefore the space-time itself. It was enjoyable how detailed it was, along with predictions of future nuclear wars, the CERN LHC experiment, the war in Iraq, etc. Don't miss this story in the below links. I am looking forward to the movie.

* Image credit
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092026/

Refs:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../STEPHEN-HAWKING-How-build-time-machine.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/parallel-universe.htm
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/132932268/a-physicist-explains-why-parallel
http://www.quantumjumping.com/articles/parallel-universe/parallel-universes-theory/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1269288/STEPHEN-HAWKING
http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/wormhole.htm
http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A6345407
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor
 

Who's Behind the Wheel?

Have you ever been in a situation to answer somebody's question with 'Yes and No'? Well, it is definitely one of those answers they are teaching politicians to answer every time they need to use some evasive maneuvers in order to avoid discussions they don't want to get into. But in this case, the answer to the question from the title, or expanded a little with "Are you really behind the wheel of your body?" is really "Yes and no". And nothing could be closer to the truth. The keyword is, of course, parasitology, a very complex scientific research that is trying to understand properly all the macro- and microorganisms that can't live without other living beings and usually do that without their consent and rather use them to live their entire or partial life, which in most cases leads to the host's malfunction, to use a raw mechanical word. They only leave hosts in case of their death or if the host's environment is exploited to the level of uselessness for parasitic survival or simply to follow the natural circle of life, i.e., to lay eggs outside the host environment.

Toxoplasma gondii—a single-celled protozoan*

This blog is not a medical source or place for studying biological entities of any kind, and I am surely not really qualified to provide any advanced knowledge about parasites and how to avoid contamination or heal after. But I am always interested in scientific edges and research that provide unusual results, to say the least, and this post is more about whether or not some parasitic species, like Toxoplasma gondii, are able to affect the human mind in a way that the personality of the host could be changed to the level of influencing their entire social life. However, some basic information can't hurt in order to better understand how biology works. For example, if we are talking about macroparasites or entire sexually developed tiny organisms with complex 'teen' and 'adult' lives with stages of infecting hosts, feeding, laying eggs, and contaminating surroundings, then we are talking more about different kinds of worms (shaped as round, tape, hook, whip, etc.) invading hosts through raw meat, contaminated water, or unclean food. This is the most common way of intrusion, but parasitic eggs can be spread everywhere and through the simple touch of infected handles, phones, appliances... anything at all. When inside, they eat your digested food or even your blood vessels and cells. And they spread a wide variety of diseases, even though they can stay dormant for months and years. They are truly microscopic monsters, very similar to those 'Alien' types in horror movies.

However, the bigger they are, the better they are studied and understood, and today, contrary to the Dark Ages, when parasitic infection was able to spread severely among huge numbers of people, treatments are very successful if detected as early as possible. The smaller they get, like the single-cell deadly microorganism known as Plasmodium (the malaria parasite), the tougher the fight is for knowledge and treatments for diseases they are causing. And for some parasites, disease, in the form we define it, is just the final stage of their complex life. As it seems, they are also very much able to force their hosts to do their bidding as well. In the most intelligent and cruel way. Let's see what Toxoplasma gondii is capable of. Sometimes it is hard to believe all the scientific facts. And believe me, 'believe' is the right word for this little alien and hostile invader of hosts' minds. Humans included.

Cats and Mice: It's Complicated*

All parasite species tend to complete their lives from the stage of being born till the end of their lives. Toxoplasma gondii's ultimate treat is the cat. This is what it is designed for, and this is where it wants to finally multiply and end its life. But it is hard to find a cat when you need it, right? So there are lots of potential intermediate hosts on the way. Before they ultimately end in the intestine of a cat-shaped animal, they find the drive in the cysts of the brain and other tissues of a warm-blooded species, including humans. If they move into rats or some other rodent animal, the parasite recognizes its intermediary and alters the host's behavior for one purpose only—to be an easy victim for cats. More precisely, they induce high levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known to alter novelty-seeking and enhance the host's neuroticism. In other words, the mouse becomes a curious adventurer of its surroundings and loses fear of cats and everybody else. Uninfected rodents have built-in protection from their native predators and always try to avoid areas marked with cat urine or odor, but after the infection, the parasite brainwashes rodents to even go into craving cat urine and directly into the trap. Toxoplasma gondii can only sexually reproduce in the feline gut, and there you have the answer to why cats love mice and rats so much. Even more surprisingly, all the symptoms in infected lab rats stay after parasites die in the rodent, suggesting permanent changes in the host's neural system.

But what happens if T. gondii finds the way and invades the human body? And according to research, it is apparently capable of infecting us on large scales, and up to one-third of people around the world are estimated to be potential hosts. And we are sort of a dead end for their travel. If we exclude sporadic cases of tigers and lions attacking and eating humans, cats actually can't thrive on us. Well, yes, domestic cats don't eat human beings, but still, there are other ways of transferring parasites from humans to cats, and it seems that Toxoplasma gondii, like in rodents, is also trying to use its unprecedented ability to alter host behavior, all in favor of parasitic life fulfillment. For the simplicity of this blog post, we can make a difference in parasitic life inside an intermediate human host compared to rats and mice. In its acute form, I would say after the parasite realizes there is no way out, or due to some other reason in the mixture of the parasitic and host's life, the human host can go into severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, suicidal behavior, or the performance of slow mental activity and thinking. Within a large amount of time, in the parasite's latent form, the host is going through light personality changes that are very difficult to recognize as a disease. The latent toxoplasmosis might even be immune to treatments and antibiotics, and some hosts, like our distant rodent relatives, could even change their response to cat odor as well.

The Veneration and Worship of Felines in Ancient Egypt*

Perhaps a decade ago, one comprehensive study was finished at Charles University in Prague, in the Czech Republic, by Jaroslav Flegr, and numerous researchers ended with extremely interesting findings published in the paper "Induction of changes in human behavior by the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii" (referenced below). Over the years, they tested many cases of infected men and women against 'Cattell's personality factors' (a sort of scientific personality test designed to reveal aspects of an individual's character) and compared them to those performed by non-infected people. Both infected men and women had significantly higher apprehension and levels of social fearfulness, with significant differences in results between the two groups. Infected men showed lower superego strength (rule consciousness), higher vigilance, were more likely to disregard rules, and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic. Women, on the other end, showed higher warmth and higher superego strength, suggesting that they were more warm-hearted, outgoing, conscientious, persistent, and moralistic. And all those human properties are not considered a disease of any sort. Remember that the latent stage of toxoplasmosis can be the case for one of three people you can meet on the street, including yourself and me. All those people would behave differently if they were not under the influence of small microorganisms only visible under the eye of an electronic microscope!

Now, it is very much close to all sorts of logic that human culture, isolated or widespread, can alter individual personality. In simple words, if you are a member of a herd of sheep, you are most likely a white sheep and behave like all the other members of society, well... the herd. However, the same logic goes for humans and the other way around—that cumulative personality might shape cultural dimensions through the collective behavior of individuals. And if you got yourself a society of humans, all or most of them infected with T. gondii (which is not far from the truth, especially in the early history of mankind ever since ancient Egypt and the domestication of cats), their cultural self would no doubt be shaped far from the case if they were all uninfected and healthy. And if you glimpse again the personality of diverted subjects above, with increased apprehension and decreased superego with men and highly sensitive women, if you ask me, the very own free will could be in question along with increased susceptibility to superstition and religiosity.

Well, I am not saying it, and surely there's lots more research to be done, but if one small society in the history of humanity should thank a small microorganism for, i.e., the rise of religion and everything that implies, you have to wonder...


...about a nice plot for a novel. And that is exactly what Tom Knox did with his thriller called "The Deceit", an amazingly wrapped plot that connects the origins of all religions, ancient Egypt, domesticated cats, Toxoplasma gondii, and everything that might come out of this twist glued together. True or partially true or not at all, this book inspired me to learn something that I didn't know before and, of course, pushed me for a little web research that ended with this blog post. This is actually a second time that Tom Knox, a.k.a. Sean Thomas, forced me to do some more reading about the background of his novel, and needless to say, I recommend both books and am looking forward to more of his work. I have already hinted at "The Marks of Cain", which apparently offers similar travel through the history of man. Stay tuned.

T. gondii refs:
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/1/1.short
https://web.natur.cuni.cz/flegr/pdf/induction.pdf
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/273/1602/2749
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070403-cats-rats.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526142/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16PF_Questionnaire

* Image refs:
https://www.science.org/content/article/.../toxoplasmosis-parasite-lab
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/veneration-and-worship-felines-ancient-egypt-003030
 

Aliens & UFOs

Not so long ago I mentioned the great city of Alexandria in the post Constantine & Naissus when I described the horrible misfortune and death of Hypatia, one of the greatest philosophers and astronomers of the 4th century AD, who lived at the very end of the classical Greek era of prosperity. Within the same city walls, a couple of centuries before, one of the greatest and most famous scientists of all time, Claudius Ptolemy, was living, exploring, teaching, and dedicating his life to various disciplines, including astronomy and, of course, the unavoidable astrology, which was considered to be "connected science" for centuries, especially in the old ages.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

Among other things, Ptolemy will be remembered as one of the first scholars who described and identified 48 constellations of clear and unpolluted nightly skies above Alexandria so many centuries ago. One of the biggest constellations in his list was the great constellation of Gemini. This zodiac member* (one of 13 constellations that appears in the background of the Sun during one year of Earth's orbit) is made out of 80 stars. Perhaps the most interesting stars in Gemini are two "twins", Castor and Pollux (twin brothers from Greek mythology), who are among the brightest star systems of the heavens, the first being a system made out of 6 stars gravitationally bonded while the other is an old and evolved giant star. These two stars are the pillars of the whole constellation and certainly the most important stars in Gemini, but from the point of view related to this post's title, maybe the more interesting star in the constellation is its 37th member. A star without a name with astronomical designation HD50692 and simply called 37 Geminorum or "37 Gem". It came to focus during the year of 2003 when astronomers Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull, under Project Phoenix (a part of SETI), published the article Target Selection for SETI. I. A Catalog of Nearby Habitable Stellar Systems. The goal was to, by thorough examination of various star features (like star age, composition, similarity to the Sun, capability to harbor a stable habitable zone where liquid water can exist, etc.), narrow down 118,218 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue database to the relatively small number of potential SETI targets. The result of the research is the Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat), with a selection of 17,129 candidates with potentially habitable exoplanets capable of complex life similar to Earth.

After this initial research was done in 2003, according to one of the paper writers, astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull, "37 Gem" was most likely the best candidate to harbor an Earth twin planet within its Goldilocks zone. The star is stable and non-variant, middle-aged, and just a bit hotter and brighter than our Sun. It is located 56.3 light-years from our solar system, and it is one billion years older than our sun. Now, if this system is rich with elements originated from old supernova explosions in the distant past, like in our planetary front yard, and if major cosmic collisions and natural doomsday scenarios didn't interfere much with the evolution of lifeforms, then this star and its potential planetary system is more than promising. However, so far no planets are detected in this system, and no radio messages are caught from this direction, but if some Earth-like planet is there and, in one potential scenario, if some sort of intelligent life emerged and evolved, the fact is that they had one billion years ahead of us. In simple words, if alien humanoids, or whatever they look like, exist, they could be far more advanced than we are, and they may not communicate with radio waves anymore. Furthermore, if interstellar travels are possible with some sort of 'warp speed' spaceship technology, it is likely that they already developed it by now. Not to mention that this kind of advanced civilization would be fully aware of all star systems in their neighborhood of, say, 100 light-years in all directions. In other words, if they exist, they already know about us.


Astronomy, of course, is the science dealing with extremely large numbers, and thanks to many new techniques in interstellar observation, we now know a great deal about the star "37 Gem". Even though the two stars are similar in many aspects, it is actually not the exact Sun twin. Like in the case of the identical twins of the mythological story of Castor and Pollux, the two stars are different. Slightly, but they are. Way back in the year of 2004, I read one interesting hypothetical question within a popular Serbian Astronomy Magazine. Miroslav Filipović, one of the astronomers who worked at the time at the Australian Parkes Observatory, asked a very interesting question. He wondered what would happen if we took the almighty hand and in one millisecond replaced our sun with "37 Gem"? It was actually an interactive quiz question (here is the Serbian link), and I couldn't resist posting my thoughts on the subject. Basically I said that this scenario would be catastrophic for our solar system. All orbits would start changing immediately, and our Goldilocks zone would suffer the most as the asteroid belt would go into a chaotic stage, and in the process of adjusting to the new boss, until all orbits stabilize, Earth would probably lose all habitable properties due to asteroid bombardments similar to the early stage of the solar system, and life as we know it would most definitely cease to exist. The biggest unknown to me was what would happen to Jupiter? This giant planet and its orbit act as a gravitational balance between the main star and all other planets, and with its enormous gravity, it attracts all killer objects toward itself and keeps the asteroid belt in line. The moral of the story is that even the slightest difference between two stars can be the major difference in their system geometry and behavior. Not to mention that if we use our solar system analogy, in order for life to survive billions of years of evolution, there must exist one giant planet in the right position in order to protect the planets in the habitable zone from serious attacks from large asteroids and comets. If we put this story into consideration, it seems now that finding Sun's twin doesn't guarantee the existence of a habitable Earth-like planet capable of the evolution of intelligent life.

With the latest update of this post, I tried to simulate this hypothetical scenario in Universe Sandbox. 37 Gem, actually, is not part of the app's default library, so, to test it out, I just enhanced the Sun's mass to match 37 Gem's, which is estimated to be 1.1 solar masses. In the simulation result, within hours and days, the Earth's orbit changed and the Goldilocks zone expanded, causing the average temperature to jump from a cozy fifteen degrees to more than fifty. I am not sure that there is a physics process in existence to create something like this, but this fragileness gave me another stomach twitching nevertheless.


But to get back to the title, and in light of so many reported UFO sightings all over the world and with lots of stories involving alien autopsies, abducted humans, and (ancient) alien astronauts, we believers can ask ourselves, is there an ultimate connection between aliens & UFOs?

Well, the ultimate fact is that we still have no single proof that aliens exist at all, and sometimes, the lack of proof means that it doesn't exist at all, and in this case, this might be true for our small interstellar neighborhood. So, for now, the answer to the famous question "Are there aliens in UFOs?" will stay "No". UFO will still be what the acronym means in the first place: "Unidentified Flying Object". To be honest, on several occasions I saw UFOs in the sky. One of them was pretty memorable—a decade or so ago there was one bright light flying very fast above the beach resort in Greece, and its magnitude was probably about -5 or even brighter, which was probably the brightness of three or four full Venus magnitudes, and believe me or not, what first popped to my mind wasn't aliens driving some fancy saucer, and instead the first thing I thought was that this might be related to the jet military planes from the nearby air force base located a couple of hundred kilometers near Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country. It's not that I am one of those conspiracy theorists out there; it was the simple fact that we were regularly seeing these jets during daylight, with some of them repeatedly breaking the sound barrier above the Aegean Sea. However, what I didn't hear that night was the sound of a jet. It was flying completely quietly. That fact is still buzzing in my mind. But not enough to immediately imagine little grays in shiny alien aircraft in search of abductees.

UFOs Explained***

In favor of the fact that there is no proof of aliens visiting our planet or any significant proof of their communications detected in past decades speaks the 50+ years of radio silence since SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been using scientific research to detect at least one confirmed artificial electromagnetic signal from above. That is if we exclude the WOW!** signal from August of 1977. Jerry R. Ehman, an American astronomer, detected the strong narrow-band radio signal that appeared to originate from Chi Sagittarii, a shared three-star system in the constellation Sagittarius. However, even though the signal never repeated again, it remained the best candidate for the proof of one alien world 220 light-years away from Earth. The signal was 30 times louder than normal deep space noise, and the fact that its frequency was 1420 MHz, the same frequency the most common element, hydrogen, resonates at, no doubt points toward the valid conclusion that it indeed was artificial in origin. Too bad it has stayed unconfirmed ever since. But if it was really a message from the alien race living in one of the star systems of the Sagittarius constellation, I could say that I fully understand why it was not repeated (or detected) again. The simple reason is the same as why we here don't send messages to outer space on purpose. Or, to be precise, why broadcasts sent from Earth to chosen star systems are not continuous messages and are instead just some isolated, shy, and timid dispatches.

Ever since SETI started its research in only listening to the heavens, there has been a loud debate over whether or not it is wise to send pointed messages to the unknown aliens. There is a simple fear that some of them can be violent and eager to enslave us the moment they receive this kind of invitation. If you ask me, I stand by the point that sending these messages is too early. We are still a young civilization, and it is wise to wait for a couplemore decades until we, at least, evolve from residents of one planet into residents of one solar system. We simply need to understand more than just Earth before we start actively searching for the contact of the third kind. Of course this doesn't stop people behind Active SETI or METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), who have been trying to send messages ever since the first message to ET was sent in the form of Pioneer plaques, placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 spacecraft, illustrating a hydrogen atom, a naked man and woman, and the solar system's main objects. A couple of years later, the first radio message was sent from the Arecibo radio telescope toward the 25,000-light-year-distant star cluster M13. The Arecibo message was created by Dr. Frank Drake with the help of Carl Sagan and contained simple physics along with mathematical and graphical data, and it served more educational purposes than as a real attempt to contact extraterrestrials.

'Aliens form Orion'****

On the other end, there are pointed messages to the desired star systems with more complex data included. Scientists and politicians are not really united when it comes to possibly messaging extraterrestrials, not to mention that there is no valid protocol for what we should do if some ET pays us a surprise visit, and so far there are no united efforts to perform active SETI on a global scale. Instead, some not very bright individual messages are sent from time to time, like the one sent last year toward the source of the WOW! signal with, believe it or not, 10,000 Twitter messages. I wonder what aliens would conclude after reading tweets, but I am sure nothing good. Equally problematic, to say the least, a message called "Teen Age Message" is sent from a radio telescope in Ukraine in 2001. The message's content and target stars were selected by a group of teens from four Russian cities. You probably guessed, teens, among other data, have chosen to send an audio file, and in this case a concert named "First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials". Among other stars, this message is sent toward "37 Gem" as well, and it will arrive in December 2057. Then we will know for sure if aliens there like music and art.

In conclusion let me say the obvious. Space is a cruel place, and distances between two star systems are tremendously huge. Technology to build a spaceshipfor interstellar travel is definitely extraordinary and not just within the realm of solving the cruising speed to be faster than light. I am more than positive that first contact with alien technology will be with some robotic probe instead of live contact with cute and friendly aliens in a flash. If traveling through the space was easy and solvable, we would probably have significant proof by now that aliens exist, and we wouldn't be buzzing our minds with the Fermi paradox and the obvious question of why the nightly sky is not filled with alien spacecraft, deep space stations, and beautiful green girls from Orion.


Original post date: November 2013; Updates: December 2016, December 2015

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

*What is the Zodiac?
http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-zodiac
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder2/en/

**Wow! signal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

***UFOs Explained –– and Unsolved
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a3995/4304207/
http://ufodigest.com/news/0809/ufos-solved.php

****The Green Sisters
http://www.startrekmemorabilia.com/non-human-hotties/slave-sisters-from-bound

More resources:
http://static.astronomija.co.rs/razno/zabava/igre/pobednik2.htm
http://static.astronomija.co.rs/dubokisvemir/galaksija/explanete/37gem/odgovor.htm
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/627/habitability-betting-on-37-gem
http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031008190106.4hcm1yfo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_twin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_to_Extra-Terrestrial_Intelligence
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/newworlds/HabStars.html