Alien planets and cephalopodoids

The latest issue of Science has a fascinating article on Exotic Earths—it contains the results of simulations of planet formation in systems like those that have been observed with giant planets close to their stars. The nifty observation is that such simulations spawn lots of planets that are in a habitable zone and that are very water-rich.

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(click for larger image)
Final configuration of our four simulations, with the solar system shown for scale. Each simulation is plotted on a horizontal line, and the size of each body represents its relative physical size (except for the giant planets, shown in black). The eccentricity of each body is shown beneath it, represented by its radial excursion over an orbit. The color of each body corresponds to its water content, and the inner dark region to the relative size of its iron core. Orbital values are 1-million-year averages; solar system values are 3-million-year averages. Note that some giant planets underwent additional inward migration after the end of the forced migration, caused by an articial drag force. This caused many hot Earths to be numerically ejected, but had little effect outside the inner giant planet.

Dynamics of Cats has a better summary than I could give, and it leads in with this lovely illustration of an hypothetical alien organism on one of these hot water worlds.

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The only thing cooler than a cephalopod has to be a tentacled alien cephalopodoid. There’s a high-res version of that image at Dynamics of Cats—and I’ve got a new desktop picture.

Maybe it’s an Australian custom

I’ve been asked if this is a common occurrence at scientific conferences: at an Australian conference on climate change, the entertainment at a social dinner was a burlesque show. And the answer is…no. Every meeting dinner I’ve attended has had some white-maned elder statesperson of the discipline do the ‘entertainment’, which is usually thin on the bare flesh and the humor, thick with jargon and historical detail. It can be fun—I recall one talk by JZ Young that was full of squid and voltages that I really enjoyed—but I don’t think it would have been improved if he’d been up on the podium wearing nothing but balloons.

It’s an odd story. The cabaret was cut short after 10 minutes, so I think it’s clear that a significant number of attendees must have expressed their disapproval immediately, and that this was a bit beyond the pale, even for wild ol’ Australia. Some organizer somewhere made a very, very bad decision, I think.

You know that smell when something goes bad in your refrigerator…?

Have you ever browsed a sperm bank catalog? It’s a real meat market. You get lists of men by height, weight, profession, ethnic background, etc., and if you like that 6’1″ red-haired Lithuanian stockbroker, click, and he’s in your shopping cart. They ship direct to your doctor (residential delivery costs extra), and they even have a return policy.

Of course, if you’re anything like me, you look at the list and can’t help but think, “What a bunch of wankers.”

Still, it’s a tragedy when you learn that they’ve been wiped out in a tragic refrigerator accident. Oh, my dear Scots-Irish ski instructor with type A+ blood! Alas, poor Asian medical intern with a fondness for reading! Say it isn’t so, O+ African American lawyer and theater fan! So much potential life lost…when’s the memorial service?

P.S. There is a real tragedy here: men undergoing cancer treatments with risk of infertility also lost deposits. That part isn’t funny at all, and I imagine there is some emotional trauma involved.

That settles it. I’m changing my lifestyle.

Now this is a headline: Man lived to 112 on sausage-and-waffles diet. In addition to living that long, I have another dream:

“All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets,” Coles said.

“Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia,” Coles said. “He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer’s.

When I’m dead, I want someone to discuss my internal organs on the internet. Photos would be even better. I don’t anticipate that they will get quite the glowing report this fellow’s did, but still, the idea that my guts could be the topic of morning breakfast conversation appeals to me.

(via Byzantium’s Shores)