David Grinspoon @DrFunkySpoon@qoto.org
Astrobiologist, Author, Musician
Joined Nov 2022
Happy birthday to Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto in 1930 (when he was 24 years old).
Holy strange mutualism Batman!
These plants don’t do photosynthesis, rather they steal food from the roots of other plants that do. And they rely on prehistoric bunnies to spread their seeds around!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/science/rabbit-parasite-plant-islands.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Oh this is not good. (If accurately reported)
Popular science communicator working as paid disinformation sellout for fossil fuel industry.
Heads up DC: the sky right now looks like it’s about to turn some fantastic color…
Can a planet, in some sense, think?
My talk "Planetary Intelligence - cognition as a factor in planetary evolution" is now online!
Given last month for Astrobiology & Planetary Exploration (APEX) seminars at UCL/Birkbeck. Scroll to the bottom for my talk.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/planetary-sciences/news-events/apex-seminar-recordings
Absolutely GORGEOUS image of spiral galaxy M88, about 50 light years away, looking a lot like our home Milky Way Galaxy would look if you could see it from this vantage point.
Taken by Adam Block at Mt. Lemmon where I used to hang out during grad school...
This year we lost the brilliant, brave and beautiful Nichelle Nichols, who would have been 90 years old today. It was such a thrill to meet her and work with her briefly (at a science communication event in Atlanta 2012).
Also just found this exchange with my Dad from 2002 (print out from e-mail)
Still unpacking my office (hey it’s only been 1.3 years) & found another letter from Carl Sagan. This is why I can’t just toss shit out.
Holy wow! This new infrared image of Jupiter’s moon Io from the Juno spacecraft shows volcanoes, lava flows and lava lakes glowing with heat radiation!
NUDGING A SPACE ROCK
That’s one small change in an asteroid’s orbit, one giant leap for humanity.
(my latest for @SkyandTelescope)
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/cosmic-relief-david-grinspoon/nudging-a-space-rock/ https://twitter.com/DrFunkySpoon/status/1602718160607711237/video/1
“Deep in the big black heart of the lone star state…”
What we’re up against in our struggle for a sane, just livable future. Powerful corporate forces determined to wring every last nickel out of the oil fields as they continue to wreck our world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/climate/texas-public-policy-foundation-climate-change.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The best of times and the worst of times.
The war and climate disruptions are producing what may be “the largest global food crisis in modern history.”
From https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/01/world/russia-ukraine-war-news/the-un-seeks-51-5-billion-in-aid-driven-in-part-by-the-war-in-ukraine?smid=url-share
And yet look how wonderfully encouraging are the long term trends, as seen in the figures below (from Max Roser’s site Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/)
Certain belief in the nonexistence of free will (because our current physics “proves” this) is similar to certain belief in the existence of an omnipotent god. Both remove human agency and responsibility, for reasons of preference of a worldview.
I totally forgot about this interview, but what I said seems to make sense: the binary distinction between biology and technology may at some point cease to apply. https://dailygalaxy.com/2022/11/alien-habitats-likely-abodes-of-advanced-ai-machine-life-weekend-feature/
Our new paper:
Venus Life Finder Habitability Mission: Motivation, Science Objectives, and Instrumentation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.11443 https://twitter.com/DrFunkySpoon/status/1595084779128606723/photo/1
Astrobiologist, Author, Musician
Joined Nov 2022
