I’ve had little time to post today because I’ve spent it all reading a spate of great science news.
First up: For the first time ever, total cancer deaths declined last year. See this report from the American Cancer Society that breaks down mortality by sex and cancer type. You may remember in Tom Bethell’s book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science” he made some rather sweeping claims about the ineffectual War on Cancer. Well, here’s the effect. Population went up last year, but cancer death rates went down. That’s even better than a per-capita decrease in death rates which has been ongoing for years.
Next: NASA announced a new series of Centennial Challenges today. The prizes are worth more than the last round, and the challenges themselves are even better. Here they are:
- Fuel depot Demonstration: $5 million
- Lunar ATV for humans: $1 million
- Low-cost space pressure suit: $0.5 million
- Lunar night power source: $0.5 million
- Re-entry egg drop: $2 million
- Solar Sail Hover: $2.5 million
In addition, NASA announced that they commisioned two studies (one through the X-Prize Foundation) on the feasibility of offering a prize for manned orbital flight, something in the neighborhood of $150 million. Of course, laws still need to be changed to enable this large of a prize, but it should not be hard as far as legislation goes.
Finally there’s this: The BBC reports that the same research group that brought us the Allen Hill’s meteorite (ALH84001) will report that they have discovered what might be evidence for fossilized microbe activity in another Martian meteorite. The team is scheduled to present their findings at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Houston in mid-March.
Is this evidence as “strong” as what we saw in ALH84001? Unfortunately, as with all science-by-press-release, it’s too early to know the details. It appears that the evidence in question here appears to be carbon residues that fill crevices within the meteorite. These residues do not appear to be anything that non-biologic process could produce. Furthermore, the ratio of 13C/14C is way different than the ambient ratio of those isotopes in the solar system. That suggests some preferential process, such as one that biological life could provide, must have deposited those carbon fillers. Check out the BBC article for pictures.
I’m sure we’ll hear more about this next month. Let me put in my word of skepticism. Humans are great at seeing patterns in what we’re looking at. If we stare hard enough enough we can pretty much find anything, really. So, even though this evidence may stand up to criticism better than the Allen Hills meteorite did (which remains to be seen), it is still only suggestive. We need humans on the Martian soil! Then, we can truly get to work on the most important scientific and philosophical question of our time.
