There's a lot of excitement about the best signature of life yet seen on an exoplanet. The plant in question is a sub-neptune about 2.6 times the diameter of Earth that orbit a red dwarf that's 124 light years away. It has an orbital period of 33 days and is in the habitable zone. It has an atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane, but there's a strong suggestion it's a water world. A few years ago dimethyl sulfide was found. That's significant because it's only produced by living organisms on Earth. The latest work shows it exists in densities about twenty times greater than on Earth. Dimethyl sulfide is mostly produced by algae in the oceans on Earth and is partly responsible for the odor you associate with the ocean.
Lots of caveats.. while we don't know of other natural mechanisms that could produce a lot of the molecule it doesn't mean there aren't any. Also careful examination of signals sometimes (often) causes them to disappear. Folklore is this group and a few other competitors have been bashing the data for some time and can't make the signal go away. I've read the paper, but it's not my field so I can't really judge other than listening to a friend at Caltech and another at PI.
It was seen with the James Webb Space Telescope. A follow-on has largely been completed that would be useful for confirming the signal and looking for other interesting signatures, but the Trump regime killed the program along with most space science and astrophysics.
A few years ago I had a long series of exolife discussions with a 35 year old friend . My belief then - and this assumed NASA and JPL would continue to be functional entities - was that we'd have a strong confirmation in her lifetime.., probably not mine. At this point it seems pretty hopeless as so much damage is being done to the programs
getting lost for the thrill of it
Last week a friend and I were chatting about the tension between exploration and exploitation in technology. The work of James March came to mind. My old friend Norm had a few of us read his paper on exploration and exploitation for a few of our Friday afternoon sessions at Bell Labs. It had set off a good deal of work in a number of fields and was relevant to the Labs as exploratory research was cut in favor of more exploitative work. March's paper was interesting as it suggested ways to model the tension between research, development and exploitation when resources are limited (they almost always are). It also brought up the fact that people have differing tolerances and tastes when it comes to the risks associated with each of these areas.
For the moment I'm more interested in concentrating on exploration as that's what I find most rewarding. By many metrics individual exploration isn't worth it compared to sticking to a well-trodden (by you or your firm) path. It's difficult and sometimes impossible to optimize and it frequently fails. On the other hand if you're willing to learn from failure it can be powerful and an education plus every now and again you have an insight or discovery.
Some of us find the discoveries or insights - and even the path of being somewhat lost - fun and even thrilling. It's been suggested there's a dopamine hit that helps drive this in some. It's not something we can do all the time as it's generally not productive, but the discoveries and flashes of insight are what can bring change.
There's a good deal of work that suggests interdisciplinary at the individual and/or organizational level provides richer explorations with higher success rates. It certainly seems to be the case in the physical sciences. Those who make the greatest strides are often those who have come up through varied pathways. Creativity appears to be linked to interdisciplinary as well as focus.
Doing something is much richer than just watching. It's been noted dementia rates are much lower among those who are constantly doing things that require learning. It doesn't seem to matter what it is, but has to be something that's mentally challenging. Learning to knit, a sport you haven't done, math you don't know how to do, how to draw, play a musical instrument .. anything as long as it's hard.
There are false novelties. Social media gives a stream of novel things to watch giving people dopamine hits. There's a bit of an addiction. Perhaps we're wired for it. Another false novelty is sugar. When we needed the calories sugar provided a hit. Now we don't need the extra calories, but for many of us the attraction of sugar can be unhealthy.
Back to creativity. I might be wrong, but I've come to believe it's something you develop and enhance. There are several measures of it. You have to take them with a grain of salt as it's not exactly clear what's being measured, but there's a general agreement among these methods that creativity has been dropping in teenagers and college students since the late 90s with a very large drop beginning around 2010. A sobering conjecture is heavy use of social media is taking away from other forms of the work of exploration. It's also been noted that this drop isn't seen among those who are doing tasks that require constant exploratory learning.
So turn off the GPS every now and again and take find new paths. Surround yourself with interesting people who are dissimilar. It's something of a luxury to do much of this in most work environments so take up new hobbies and keep pushing yourself.
Posted at 04:14 PM in building insight, change, critical thinking, general comments, science, society and technology | Permalink | Comments (0)
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