The Cabrières Biota: an Ordovician Snapshot

Posted on February 17, 2024 by Brian H. Gill

Christian McCall's/Prehistorica Art's illustration of the Cabrières Biota, detail. (2024?)When I saw “epic importance” and “fossils” in the same headline, I figured whatever’d been found would be at least somewhat out of the ordinary. I’ve learned to take journalistic puffery with at least a few grains of salt.

But this time, the fossils really were something important: exceptionally well-preserved samples from a 470,000,000 year old biome.

“Epic Importance”, Fabulous Fossils, and a Calamitous Crisis

Christian McCall's/Prehistorica Art's illustration of the Cabrières Biota. (2024?) via ResearchGate, used w/o permission. A row of Ampyx (trilobites). Behind the trilobites, a lobopodian, a chelicerate, cnidarians (blue), sponges (green), thin branching algae (red and green) and hemichordate tubes (purple), along with some molluscs. Bivalved arthropods inhabit the water column along with graptolites.'
Christian McCall’s illustration: the Cabrières Biota.

Fossils from the Cabrières Biota probably do have “worldwide importance”, at least to folks who study long-gone ecosystems.

What got my attention, though, after the headlines, was the “place of refuge for animals escaping global warming” angle in these — or this — story. The good news is that I finally backed out of that rabbit hole.

“Amateur Paleontologists Discover Site of Epic Importance—400 Fossils from 470M Years Ago Amid Global Warming“
Good News Network (February 10, 2024)

“Two amateur paleontologists have discovered a site of ‘worldwide importance’ in France containing nearly 400 fossils that date back 470 million years.

“The exceptionally well-preserved fossils provide evidence that this site was a place of refuge for animals escaping global warming….”

“Amateur paleontologists find 400 fossils dating back millions of years ago“
Isobel Williams via SWNS, Talker News; NBC Right Now (February 9, 2024)

“Two amateur paleontologists have discovered a site of ‘worldwide importance’ in France containing nearly 400 fossils that date back 470 million years.

“The exceptionally well-preserved fossils provide evidence that this site was a place of refuge for animals escaping global warming….”

Before I get into why finding a bunch of Ordovician fossils is a big deal — and, for that matter, what “Ordovician” is — a little reassurance and explanation.

Scott Adam's 'Dilbert' strip: Dogbert's Good News Show. ('We'll all die!')I’m not going to rant — well, maybe just a little — about “global warming”.

Basically, I don’t think we’re all gonna die. But I won’t try convincing you that conditions in California and New York City are just simply fabulous.

I am, however, going to talk a little about news outlets.

Down a Rabbit Hole —

John Tenniel's 'The White Rabbit' from 'Lewis Carroll's 'The Nursery Alice.' (1890) from the British Library, via WikipediaArticles about the recent fossil find weren’t identical on NBC Right Now and Good News Network.

Each had its own headline, and (somewhat) different text after the first two paragraphs.

After noticing that the Good News Network’s author was listed as “Good News Network”, I got curious about who actually wrote the article.

Particularly since the NBC Right Now’s author was “Isobel Williams” and “Talker News”, and the NBC Right Now’s dateline was a day earlier that Good News Network’s.

Eventually, I found another “fossil” article by Isobel Williams: datelined last month.

“Some of world’s oldest fossils found are 565 million years old“
By Talker News, Isobel Williams via SWNS (January 15, 2024, updated January 15, 2024)

“Some of the world’s oldest fossils found in Wales have been precisely dated for the first time at 565 million years old.

“Scientists say the remains of the first complex multicellular life capture a key moment in the evolution of life on Earth.

“The fossils are helping to track the pivotal moment in history when the seas began teeming with new lifeforms — after four billion years of containing only single-celled organisms.

“The fossils were found by researchers in the countryside of South West Wales in the Coed Cochion Quarry….”

Then I noticed that the January fossil article was about fossils found in South West Wales, not France. So I backed out of the ‘where did this/these article(s) come from’ rabbit hole.

By that time, it was Wednesday afternoon.

I’m guessing that “the Coed Cochion Quarry” isn’t coeducational, but I am not going to get distracted by Welsh language, landforms, and nomenclature.

— And Out again

Nicholas Konrad's illustration for The New Yorker's 'Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event?', using photographs from Alamy / Getty
Nicholas Konrad’s illustration for “Is the Media Prepared…”, The New Yorker. (detail) (February 10, 2024)

After this dire digression, I’ll get back to fossils and science. Really.

“Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event?“
Clare Malone, The New Yorker (February 10, 2024)

“Ads are scarce, search and social traffic is dying, and readers are burned out. The future will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience.

“My first job in media was as an assistant at The American Prospect, a small political magazine in Washington, D.C., that offered a promising foothold in journalism….”

Clare Malone’s piece in The New Yorker discussed quite a few factors involved in what the author calls mass media and the current calamitous crisis. Did a pretty good job, too.

Brian H. Gill's 'Totally Depressing News Network: TDNN'.But, even now, I suspect that at least some folks might take The News more seriously, if reporters and editors would consider the possibility that:

  • “Chaotic”, “complicated”, and “fast” are not synonyms
  • Everything is not an “unprecedented” crisis

Oh, boy. After emerging from this week’s rabbit hole, here’s what I learned about my sources for the “400 fossils” article(s) —

NBC Right Now is a “Tri-Cities/Yakima News | Nonstop Local News” station in Kennewick, Washington.

SWNS is a content provider of some sort. I hadn’t run across it before this week.

Good News Network is an outfit that shows up in my news feed occasionally.

Here’s what Good News Now and SWNS say about themselves.

About GNN
OUR MISSION, OUR PASSION
“…good news itself is not in short supply; the broadcasting of it is….
“…Thomas Jefferson said the job of journalists was to portray accurately what was happening in society. GNN was founded because the media was failing to report the positive news. In the 1990’s while homicide rates in the U.S. plummeted by 42 percent, television news coverage of murders surged more than 700%, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs.”

SWNS
“Original. Verified. Engaging.
“…SWNS is proud to be supported by Digital News Innovation Fund (DNI) Fund, a European programme that’s part of the Google News Initiative, an effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age. Our syndication platform SWNS.rocks was one of the first projects to be awarded funding.”

An ‘up’ side I see there is that the folks at GNN apparently acknowledge that we aren’t living in the worst of all possible worlds. And SWNS either regards verifying what they hear as a good idea: or think that their subscribers feel that way.

So: on the whole, good news.

Plus, those “400 fossils” articles included specific details. Those details helped me find what Dr. Farid Saleh and others wrote about the Cabrières Biota.

Welcome to the Cabrières Biota

Christian McCall's/Prehistorica Art's illustration of the Cabrières Biota, detail. (2024?) via ResearchGate, used w/o permission. 'In the foreground, a row of Ampyx (trilobites). Behind the trilobites, a lobopodian....'
Christian McCall’s illustration, detail: trilobites and a lobopodian. “The Cabrières Biota…”, Figure 6

Christian McCall's/Prehistorica Art's illustration of the Cabrières Biota, detail. (2024?) via ResearchGate, used w/o permission.What first caught my eye about that illustration was the conga line of spiny critters in the foreground. I’ll get back to them, after this caption from the Farid Saleh and company paper.

“The Cabrières Biota (France) provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems“
Farid Saleh, Lorenzo Lustri, Pierre Gueriau, Gaëtan J-M Potin, et al.
Nature Ecology & Evolution (February 2024)

“Fig. 6 | Artistic reconstruction of the Cabrières Biota. In the foreground, a row of Ampyx (trilobites) and various shelly organisms, including brachiopods and a hyolith (bottom left corner). Behind the trilobites, a lobopodian, a chelicerate, cnidarians (blue), sponges (green), thin branching algae (red and green) and hemichordate tubes (purple), along with some molluscs. Bivalved arthropods inhabit the water column along with graptolites. Credit: Christian McCall (Prehistorica Art).”

Now, about those spiny critters. They’re trilobites: Ampyx trilobites. Ampyx is a genus of trilobites that survived the Late Ordovician mass extinction: which happened some 25, 000,000 years after these Cabrières Biota critters lived and died.

Scientists have found adult Ampyx fossils lined up more-or-less the way Christian McCall shows these: neatly lined up. Odds are very good that those trilobites were going somewhere in a conga line or peloton.1

Lobsters Do It, Maybe Trilobites Did It

We know that spiny lobsters line up in a peloton when they’re going somewhere.

Maybe Ampyx lined up because it helped them get from point A to point B. Or maybe they lined up as part of their mating routines. Since we don’t have living trilobites, Ampyx or otherwise, working out their behavior takes a great deal of data and analysis.

Lobopodians and Other Seriously Weird Critters

Farid Saleh et al.'s figure 4 a, b '...Incomplete armoured lobopodians UCBL-FSL713616 (b) and UCBL-FSL713617 (c) exhibiting two sclerite plates along an elongated soft body with annulations. A lateral extension in b possibly represents remains of the proximal part of a lobopod (?lo)....' (2024)
Incomplete fossils from the Cabrières Biota: armored lobopodians,

Exactly what Lobopodia, and Lobopodians, are depends on who you ask.

Basically, they’re Panarthropods, which — if the definition gets traction — is a clade including arthropods, tardigrades, velvet worms, and Burgess Shale critters like Opabinia and Hallucigenia.

A clade is a phylogenetic taxonomic category: and something I won’t even try discussing right now. I like science, big words, and definitions. But this week I’ll be doing well to show you some of the ‘gee whiz’ items I found.

A fair number of scientists call Opabinia, Hallucigenia, and other instances of Cambrian and Ordovician weirdness, Lobopodia: arthropod-worm-things with many pairs of more-or-less-squishy legs.

Some Lobopodians, like Cabrières Biota specimens UCBL-FSL713616 and UCBL-FSL713617, apparently grew armor on at least parts of their bodies.2

Cabrières Biota Fossils: What’s the Big Deal?

Björn Kröger's, David Evans' map of some fossil sites in France: from Fossil Record. (February 2011)
Some Cambrian and Ordovician fossil sites in France. (Björn Kröger, David Evans; 2011)
Farid Saleh et al. maps, showing location of Cabrières, France. From 'The Cabrières Biota (France) provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems', Nature Ecology and Evolution (February 2024)
Maps showing location of Cabrières, France. (Farid Saleh et al.)

Scientists who speak my language, English, call exceptionally well-preserved fossil deposits like the Burgess Shale and the Cabrières Biota spot in France a lagerstätte. Don’t bother trying to remember that. There won’t be a test.

The Cabrières Biota is, or was, back in the Ordovician, near where Cabrières Village is today: in the southern Montagne Noire, in France. If it was in Germany, it’d be Schwarzer Berg. Here in Minnesota we’d call it Black Mountain.

What’s outstanding about the Cabrières Biota fossils is that there’s almost 400 of them, and that they’re so well-preserved that scientists are finding traces left by soft tissue.

That, and that the rocks were very near Earth’s south pole when those critters were alive.3

Heraclitus and Life in a Changing World

Plate tectonic map of Middle Ordovician (plates position as of 472 Ma). Mollweide projection. Modified from Golonka (2012). 1 - oceanic spreading center and transform faults, 2 - subduction zone, 3 - thrust fault, 4 - normal fault, 5 - transform fault.
Earth’s continental plates 472,000,000 years ago, map by Golonka Jan and Aleksandra Gawęda.

“Everything changes and nothing stands still.”
(“πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει”, quoted by Plato in “Cratylus“)
(Heraclitus, Wikiquote)

Earth’s climate hasn’t been stable since the North American Craton was part of Rodinia. Neither, for that matter, have Earth’s continents.

One of these days, maybe I’ll talk about continental drift, plate tectonics, and what we’ve learned about Earth’s shifting surface since the mid-1960s. But not today.

Instead, I’ll just note that the core of North America used to be west of what would become Siberia, and both were on Earth’s equator. That was around 472,000,000 years ago, two million years before the Cabrières Biota left us those remarkable fossils.4

You’ll find “Siberia” marked on that map, next to the Paleoasian Ocean: but the North American craton is called Laurentia. I’m not sure why, and that’s another topic.

Ordovician Climate and Getting a Grip

Maps of from Extended Data Fig. 1 | Distribution of Ordovician Lagerstätten. 'The Cabrières Biota (France) provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems', Farid Saleh et al., Nature Ecology and Evolution. (February 2024) used w/o permission
Maps from “The Cabrières Biota…”, Extended Data Fig. 1 | Distribution of Ordovician Lagerstätte.

Dragons flight's chart: a half-billion years of climate change, based on oxygen isotope ratios. (2005)Anyway, both the NBC Right Now and Good News Network versions of Isobel Williams’ article say that the Cabrières Biota “was a place of refuge for animals escaping global warming”.

In a way, they’re right.

470,000,000 years ago, Earth was a lot warmer than it is now. But it had been even warmer 15,400,000 years earlier — give or take a few hundred thousand. Make that a lot hotter: compared to the ice age we’re living in.

Or maybe it’s the ice age that ended about a dozen millennia back.

I’d better explain something.

I don’t ‘believe in’ global warming.

I don’t ‘not believe in’ global warming.

Earth’s surface temperature has been going up, on average and in general, for the century or so that we’ve had instruments in place and been keeping consistent records.5 Some of that change probably came from large-scale coal burning.

Cleaning up the mess left by uncontrolled industrial processes strikes me as a good idea.

Having screaming conniptions over global warming, climate change, and the dreadfully dire threat of the other political party — profoundly does not.

Illustration from a review of 'The World Without Us', by Alan Weisman: 'New York City 15,000 years after people.' (2007) from urbanghostsmedia.com, used w/o permission.Maybe the current ice age really is the former ice age. The last I checked, scientists weren’t all convinced that we’re not in an interglacial period.

I know: double negative.

The point I’m groping for is that learning about Earth’s climate looks like a good idea. Maintaining a state of blind panic does not.

Back to critters that stopped living long before the 24-hour news cycle began.

Two Biota and Increasing Diversity

Farid Saleh et al., from 'The Cabrières Biota (France) provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems', Nature Ecology and Evolution (February 2024 ): 'Extended Data Fig. 3 | Taxonomic abundances in the Cabrières Biota and their comparison with the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota. The Cabrières Biota showcases a notably higher abundance of algae and sponges, while echinoderms are remarkably scarcer in comparison to the Fezouata Biota. Other animal taxa display relatively comparable representation between the two Lagerstätten. It is important to note that this data is highly probable to evolve with forthcoming fossil discoveries. Hence, it should be used only as an initial comparative reference. The Fezouata Biota dataset derives from the Marrakesh collections.'
Comparison: taxonomic abundances in the Cabrières Biota and the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota.

The Ordovician geologic period lasted some 41,600,000 years. Quite a bit happened during that span of time, but I’ll try summing it up in a few sentences.

Scientists define the Ordovician’s beginning as the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event. Basically, a whole lot of critters died when Earth’s ocean ran low on oxygen. Sea level changed, too. But life went on.

Our name for the Ordovician’s first stage is the Tremadocian. It was really hot, but Earth was cooling off: and would keep cooling during the rest of the Ordovician.

Next came the Floian stage, which was transitioning into the Dapingian when the Cabrières Biota was current events.

Again, never mind these names, there won’t be a test. I’m mentioning them mainly because the Cabrières Biota paper mentions the Fezouata formation.

Fossils from the Fezouata formation formed during the Tremadocian and Floian.

The Fezouata formation fossils — try saying that fast, five times — are lagerstätte. Very well-preserved, in other words.

A couple more words: biota and biome. I gather that in this context, a biota is the plant, animal (and presumably other) life that’s in a particular spot: along with the geology, weather, and other aspects of that spot. A biome is pretty much the same thing.

Farid Saleh et al.’s “The Cabrières Biota…” focuses mainly on describing the fossils.

That’s a vital first step in analyzing the things. They’re the next best thing to having photos and samples from that biota when the critters were alive.

Data from places like the Cabrières Biota and Fezouata formation will help scientists piece together what was happening during the Ordovician.

Assuming that those two points were more-or-less ‘normal’ for their time, it looks like life was getting more diverse back then.6

Gradual Cooling, Occasional Meteor Showers, and an Ice Age

Major trilobite clades summarized. Figure 6, 'The Evolution of Trilobite Body Patterning,' Nigel C. Hughes, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences (2007)As Heraclitus said, change happens.

About 2,500,000 million years after those Cabrières Biota fossils formed, there was a sharp uptick in the number of L chondrite meteorites hitting Earth. Oddly enough, an extinction event didn’t happen then.

Not that we’ve found, at any rate.

Earth kept cooling off. Then, about 460,000,000 back, another ice age began. Scientists are still debating why glaciers started grinding across our world that time. Might have had something to do with dropping carbon dioxide levels.

Earth’s sea level dropped, too. And so did ocean oxygen levels. Small wonder so many critters stopped living. Toxic metals leaching out of the sea floor, another effect of insufficient oxygen, wouldn’t have helped.

I haven’t dug into it, but at least one physicist said that maybe a hypernova went off near us back then. A hypernova’s gamma ray burst would have played hob with anything near the surface on the side of Earth facing the event.

The hypernova idea is still in play, but hasn’t gotten all that much traction.

Knew I forgot something. Volcanic eruptions. There was an uptick in those: so maybe volcanic sulfur in our atmosphere helped cool things off. Then again, maybe not.

There’s a possible asteroid impact involved, too.

What can I say? Earth is not a serenely unchanging place.

But life kept going. Including, after the Late Ordovician mass extinction, trilobites.

Trilobites thrived throughout the Silurian and Devonian. It took the Great Dying to end them: although they were on the skids by that time.7

Living in a Vast and Ancient Universe

Notary137's photo: Grand Canyon National Park; Indian Garden and Three-mile Resthouse viewed from Bright Angel Trail. (April 22, 2006) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission
Grand Canyon: part of Bright Angel Trail. Photo by Notary137 via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.

Bill and Jeff Keane's 'Family Circus' at the Grand Canyon: a river, a ranger, God and a good question. (August 14, 2021)It’s late Friday afternoon as I write this.

So instead of repeating what I’ve said about being okay with God being God, and not getting upset over the Almighty’s design aesthetic, I’ll repeat what I’ve said about living in this vast and ancient universe.

I like it. I like it a lot.

And I enjoy living in an era where much of the science I learned in school turned out to be just part of a much larger puzzle.

I think it’s been about two and a half years since I talked about God, truth, secondary causes and being human.

Basically, it’s like Pope Leo XIII said: “truth cannot contradict truth”.

If I think God is God, that God creates everything we can see, and that God isn’t a liar: NOTHING we learn about God’s universe can get in the way of an informed faith.

Granted, learning something new often involves reviewing our preconceived notions.

And — yeah. I’ve talked about this sort of thing before. Often:

1 Trilobites, lobsters, an old behavior and a new research paper:

2 Lobopodia and other words you’ll almost never hear in casual conversations:

3 Where to find the Cabrières Biota:

4 Parts of Earth’s long story:

5 Weather, climated, adn the occaional ice age:

6 Mostly miscellania:

7 End of the Ordovician, but not the end of trilobites:

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Family Health Issues: Cancer, a Smile, Tubes, and Waiting

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Brian H. Gill

Good news from number-two daughter’s operation last week. As she put it, ‘I’ve still got my smile’.

Medicos had gone back into her neck last Wednesday. One of the possible outcomes was disruption of nerves that control the lower-right side of her face.

That didn’t happen, happily, and — good grief. I don’t remember whether she got back home Thursday or Friday. The immediately-important point, though, is that she got home: which in her case is a mile or so outside a town in North Dakota.

I’ll call the doctors finding more dubious lumps good news, too. They’re getting tested — the lumps, I mean, not the doctors. The working assumption is that they’re more cancerous growth. Which I’m calling good news, because now they’re out.

Number-two daughter goes back today (Monday, February 12, 2024) to get what she calls “Frankenstein tubes” taken out of her neck.

I don’t know when radiation treatment starts.

Right now, I don’t feel hopeful, worried, frightened, or much of anything else about number-two daughter’s health: present and future. That particular tract in my emotional landscape is still basically blank. I talked about that before.

I’ve also mentioned a member of the extended family who couldn’t walk, but did wake up after rather bad vehicular accident.

Since I/we have heard nothing more about what’s happening in his household, I’m assuming that he’s still alive. Which, like waking up after an operation, is good news.

Several days have gone by without a major medical incident in the family. Which I am also taking as good news.

I’m pretty sure I’m worried about number-two daughter and the man who can’t walk — or work — and I’ve talked about that before.

Meanwhile, I’m still bringing up issues concerning those two, the rest of the family, and a small crowd of other folks, in my daily prayers. And that’s another topic.

Update. Number-two daughter got home Thursday. Her radiation therapy starts in about five and a half weeks. This came up in conversation with number-one daughter.

Somewhat-related posts:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Jezero Sediment, TOI-715 b: Headlines and Extraterrestrial Life

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Brian H. Gill

Results from Google News search: 'exoplanet habitable'. (February 5, 2024)Last month ended with headlines hinting that our first glimpse of extraterrestrial life was just around the corner.

A week later, there’s the usual politics and pandemonium in the news: but no space aliens.

I’m not surprised. I’m not disappointed, either.

I am, however, excited about what we’ve found in Jezero crater, and a new world that’s not quite Earth 2.0.

Perseverance on Mars: Sediment and Speculation

From Paige et al., Science Advances, 2024), via ScienceAlert: 'Diagram of the depositional and erosional history of the Jezero western delta region.'
Jezero crater’s history of deposition and erosion, according to Paige et al., Science Advances. (2024)

ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin's photo, via NASA: Jezero Crater's delta, image from ESA Mars Express Orbiter. (September 21, 2020)The Mars 2020 mission hasn’t sent back snapshots of a Martian “EARTHERS GO HOME” protest, but we may have Martian microfossils in the sample tubes Perseverance has been collecting.

“Scientists More Hopeful Than Ever That Perseverance Has Already Found Life on Mars“
Carly Cassella, ScienceAlert (January 24, 2024)

“If signs of life really do exist on Mars, there’s a chance the Perseverance rover has already rolled over them.

“Underground radar images suggest it is searching in the perfect spot for fossilized microbial life….

“…Scientists strongly suspected the Jezero Crater once contained a delta system, as its surface holds the telltale signs of a dried-out lake bed, fed by an ancient river. That’s why a Mars rover was sent to investigate the crater in February of 2021.

“Now that researchers can peer beneath Jezero’s dusty exterior, they are more excited than ever by the possibility that Percy has already scooped up signs of extraterrestrial life….”

I’d planned on talking about RIMFAX, the Perseverance rover’s ground penetrating radar, and how recent data (apparently) confirms that flowing water built Jezero crater’s delta.

But that, and why “organic” and “alive” aren’t synonyms, will wait. Mainly because of the continuing family health situations. I’ve talked about that before.

Short version: it looks like sediment in the lake that filled Jezero crater very probably holds evidence of Martian life.1 If there ever was Martian life, that is.

Bacteria and Mars

NASA's high-resolution scanning electron microscope image of 'an unusual tube-like structural form that is less than 1/100th the width of a human hair in size found in meteorite ALH84001. This structure was not part of the published research paper, but it is located in a similar carbonate glob in the sample.' (1996) see https://web.archive.org/web/20051218192636/http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/marsmets/alh84001/ALH84001-EM1.htmOver the last few decades, we’ve ruled out life on the Martian surface, microbial or otherwise, because several sorts of radiation and toxic chemicals would kill it.

If it wasn’t already dead from exposure to extremely low air pressure and pretty much no water.

Then, with people landing on Mars in the foreseeable future, some researchers checked out what would happen to some microcritters that make us sick: if they got loose on Mars.

“Testing shows some bacteria could survive under Mars conditions“
Bob Yirka, Phys.org (February 7, 2024)

“An international team of radiation specialists, biologists and infectious disease experts has found four types of bacteria that are capable of surviving exposure to the hostile Mars environment. In their study, published in the journal Astrobiology, the group exposed four human-infectious bacteria to Mars-like conditions….

“…But they also found that all four survived to some extent when exposed to all that Mars would throw at them—three of them survived for 21 days, with one of them, P. aeruginosa, seeming to multiply and thrive.

“The research team concludes that bacteria carried inadvertently to Mars could pose a health risk to astronauts, particularly if the bacteria mutated to help them better survive the harsh conditions.”

I see at least two takeaways here.

First, this is a good example of why making sure Martian landers are thoroughly clean is a good idea.

As it is, if we do find living microorganisms on Mars, my guess is that someone will insist they must have originally come from Earth. Since nothing can live on Mars.

Second, and this is a point these scientists were making: being careful about what we bring along when we visit Mars in person is a good idea. Because microbes that make us sick can survive on or near the Martian surface. There’s no sense in adding hazards to an already-hazardous environment.

I don’t know what, if any, effect this latest study will have on discussions of things like the “chain structures resembling living organisms” scientists spotted in a Martian meteorite, back in 1996.

Last I heard, the consensus is that the “chain structures” weren’t microfossils. Partly because they are far too small to be alive, partly because non-living processes can produce similar shapes.

There are theoretical limits to how small critters can get. The chemical mechanisms in our cells take up a certain amount of room.2

If someone finds “chain structures resembling living organisms” that move, grow, and otherwise act like living critters — then it’ll be time to review those theoretical limits.

TOI-715 b: Habitable? Maybe — Worth Studying? Definitely!

Roger Sinnott's and Rick Fienberg's sky chart: constellation Volans; for IAU, Sky and Telescope magazine. (2011) Approximate location of TOI-715 marked with a red circle.The super-Earth last month’s headlines is TOI-715 b.

“Discovery Alert: A ‘Super-Earth’ in the Habitable Zone“
Pat Brennan, News and Events, NASA (January 31, 2024)

“The discovery: A ‘super-Earth’ ripe for further investigation orbits a small, reddish star that is, by astronomical standards, fairly close to us — only 137 light-years away. The same system also might harbor a second, Earth-sized planet.

“Key facts: The bigger planet, dubbed TOI-715 b, is about one and a half times as wide as Earth, and orbits within the ‘conservative’ habitable zone around its parent star. That’s the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface. Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere….”

What makes a planet a super-Earth is usually its mass: something more than Earth’s, but less than the mass of planets like Uranus and Neptune.

The last I checked, we don’t know the mass of TOI-715 b. But we do have its radius/diameter: 1.55 times that of Earth, give or take 0.06.

I did see one article give a mass for TOI-715 b: roughly three and a half times Earth’s mass. Since a planet 1.55 times Earth’s diameter would have a volume 3.723875 times Earth, I’m guessing that’s where TOI-715 b’s reported mass came from.

Maybe TOI-715 b does have exactly the same density as Earth. But we don’t know that yet.

That NASA news release gave TOI-715 b’s distance as 137 light-years. I’ve also seen 138 and 139 light-years given as how far away the exoplanet and star are.

I don’t know where NASA got 137 light-years. The best number I’ve seen for distance is 42.46 parsecs, which works out to about 138.49 light-years.

That puts TOI-715 in the neighborhood of Zeta Volantis. It’s a binary star that passed within a couple dozen light-years of us, back when folks we call Neanderthals were living south of my ancestral homelands.

HD 76700 b is in the same general direction, too. A probe to TOI-715 would pass the L 98-59 planetary system, and I’m drifting off-topic.

What’s exciting about TOI-715 b is that it’s close, by cosmic standards. That, and the fact that TOI-715 b passes across the face of its star every 19 days, should give scientists a look at its atmosphere: if any.3

Extraterrestrial Life: Bat-People and Making Sense Anyway

'Nouvelles découvertes dans la Lune....' A lithograph from 'Great Astronomical Discoveries', The New York Sun, translated into French. (1835) Artwork probably by Benjamin Day. Part of the 'Great Moon Hoax of 1835'. 'Lunar animals and other objects Discovered by Sir John Herschel in his observatory at the Cape of Good Hope and copied from sketches in the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' Benjamin Henry Day, Library of Congress, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.It’s been a while since I talked about the Great Moon Hoax of 1835.

Briefly — for me — The Sun, one of New York City’s serious newspapers, ran a series of six articles about Sir John Herschel’s “great astronomical discoveries”, starting in August of 1835.

Seems that Sir John had discovered life on the Moon: tiny zebras, unicorns, bipedal beavers with no tails: and winged humanoids. The latter, “Vespertilio-homo” built temples: but apparently hadn’t invented clothing.

The Sun mentioned that the articles were fiction in September of that year, never retracted them, and issued a reprint in 1836.

Scientists recognized hokum, hogwash, and hooey when they saw it. I don’t know how many other folks believed the articles. Or noticed the ‘we’re just fooling’ statement. And maybe never got word that bat-people weren’t flitting about on the Moon.

I suspect that the Great Moon Hoax, 1947’s flying disc craze,4 and assorted other screwball fads helped make “extraterrestrial life” seem silly. At best.

Evidence, Logic, and — Maybe — Extraterrestrial Life

NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Olmsted (STScI)'s illustration: absorption lines from dark cloud Chamaeleon I, showing which substances are present within the molecular cloud. Spectral data from three of the James Webb Space Telescope's instruments. (2023)What impresses me is that outfits like NASA admit that they’re thinking about whether or not life may exist on other worlds: and taking astrobiology seriously.

“Life, Here and Beyond“
Marc Kaufman, About Astrobiology, Astrobiology at NASA (October 12, 2022)

“…While no clear signs of life have ever been detected, the possibility of extraterrestrial biology — the scientific logic that supports it — has grown increasingly plausible. That is perhaps the single largest achievement of the burgeoning field of astrobiology, the broad-based study of the origins of life here and the search for life beyond Earth….”

I don’t “believe in” extraterrestrial life. I’ll talk about that later. But I definitely agree that “the possibility of extraterrestrial biology … has grown increasingly plausible”.

We keep finding more-or-less-complex organic molecules on other worlds and in interstellar clouds. And the catalog of other worlds long since passed the 5,000 mark.

Granted, many of those other worlds never could and never will support life. But some are remarkably like the place we call home.

Earth 2.0, Reality, and an Op-Ed

NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt's illustration: comparison of Kepler-186, Kepler-452, and (inner) Solar planetary systems. (2015)
Kepler-452 b: not quite ‘Earth 2.0’, but close. (2015)

Kepler-452 b’s sun is a whole lot like ours: pretty much the same size and color, maybe a billion years older.

Kepler-452 b is almost exactly the same size as TOI-715 b: half again Earth’s diameter, and almost certainly a rocky world, like ours. That’s why reporters called it ‘Earth 2.0’ and ‘Earth’s cousin’ when it was discovered, back in 2015.5

I still see the occasional headline with “Earth 2.0” in it: generally when scientists spot another exoplanet that’s not wildly unlike ours. But I haven’t run across other op-eds like this one, not recently:

“Earth 2.0: Bad News for God“
Jeff Schweitzer, Huffington Post (July 23, 2015)

“…I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world’s major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens. I am not alone in this conclusion that religion will contort to accommodate a new reality of alien life.

“Let us be clear that the Bible is unambiguous about creation: the earth is the center of the universe, only humans were made in the image of god, and all life was created in six days. All life in all the heavens. In six days….”

At the risk of being marked as one of the “all” who will spout “nonsense” about religion and reality: here’s why I don’t fear the discovery of new worlds and extraterrestrial life.

‘Because Aristotle Says So’?!

NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt's artist's concept: how rocky, potentially habitable planets might appear. (April 13, 2022)
R. Hurt’s illustration: hypothetical habitable worlds. (2022)

Schematic diagram of Peter Apian's (Petrus Apianus) cosmology, largely reflecting Aristotelian physics and cosmology. From Peter Apian's 'Cosmographia,' annotated by Gemma Frisius. (1524) Reproduced in Edward Grant's 'Celestial Orbs in the Latin Middle Ages.' (1987)First, we’ve been through this before, at least in principle.

About a thousand years back, Aristotle was making a big impression on European academics; which was good news and not-so-good news.

The good news — my opinion — was that Aristotelian logic helped us think about how we think.

The not-so-good news was that many academics became entirely too respectful, regarding Aristotle’s views.

That came to a head in the 13th century. One of the many topics getting attention was speculation that we might not be standing on the only world.

Some scholars said that other worlds could exist. Others said that wasn’t possible: because Aristotle had said there was only one world, and we’re standing on it.

That’s when the Bishop of Paris got involved. His Condemnation of 1277 said, at least by implication, that God’s God and Aristotle’s not.

Not even if what Aristotle said didn’t line up with what God does.6

One of the prohibited claims from the Bishop’s list:

27A. That the first cause cannot make more than one world.
“Selections from the Condemnation of 1277“, Gyula Klima, Fordham University (November 23, 2006)

This is a very oversimplified version of socio-philosophical-political concerns in 13th century Europe, but it’s what I have time — and mental focus — for this week.

Belief, Preference, and God

NASA/ESA/STScI's Hubble image: Abell 2744 galaxy cluster, in the constellation Sculptor. (2014) from JPL News Release see https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia17569I don’t “believe in” extraterrestrial life.

I don’t not believe in extraterrestrial life.

I’m quite sure that we have not found solid, clear, unmistakable evidence that life exists anywhere except on Earth. And places we’ve carried it, like Earth’s moon.

On the other hand —

We’re finding life’s chemical components scattered throughout the universe.

Insisting that life can’t, or mustn’t, exist elsewhere strikes me as silly.

I’d prefer that we find life which unequivocally began on another world: even Martian microbes would do.

But I won’t insist that there must be Martian microbes: or that we must have neighbors in this vast and ancient universe.

That sort of decision is up to God.

Basically:

  • God’s God
  • I’m not
  • I’m okay with that

The idea that God is large and in charge isn’t new:

“Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.”
(Psalms 115:3)

I’ve talked about this before, and almost certainly will again:

1 Mars, rocks, and microfossils:

2 A microscopic Martian meteorite mystery:

3 Exoplanets, life, and all that:

4 In the news:

5 2015: Earth 2.0, but not quite:

6 Aristotelian enthusiasm and a reality check:

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More Family Health Issues, or, NOW What?!

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Brian H. Gill

As number-one daughter said Tuesday evening, ‘what is it with this family?’

Earlier that evening, I’d learned that a member of the extended family was — good news — alive, conscious, and home.

Not good news — a vehicle had hit another vehicle, which hit another — and eventually the kinetic energy was transferred to the one he was in.

He became conscious about a half-hour later, I gather. The concussion has left him with (best-case scenario) vertigo that keeps him from walking.

But, hey: he’s alive. And he’s another person whose specific concerns are going into my daily prayer routine.

I’m writing this Tuesday evening, February 6, in central Minnesota. A Catholic Citizen in America is on UTC/Greenwich time, so “More Family Health Issues, or, NOW What?!” will be dated February 7, 2024.

Either way, number-two daughter is scheduled for surgery Wednesday: which, from where I’m sitting, is tomorrow.

I’ll say this: our lives aren’t boring.

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Cancer in the Family, Update: Operation This Week

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Brian H. Gill

'Cancer in the Family' (January 27, 2024)Recapping what I said week before last: our number-two daughter has cancer, but our granddaughter’s left arm has healed nicely. I’m still feeling blank, emotionally.

As I said then:

“…how do I feel about one of our children having cancer?

“That’s a good question.

“I’m pretty sure I’m worried, but it’s hard to tell.

I’d say that I feel numb, but that’d be a step up. It’s more like I feel blank, emotionally. That’s a bit unsettling; or would be: if I hadn’t experienced unpleasant emotions, and their oxymoronic — it’s a real word, look it up! — absence, before….”

She’s had one operation, which removed a cancerous salivary gland. Or most of it, at any rate. This week — tomorrow — she’ll have another operation, removing more dubious tissue. After that, I understand, comes radiation therapy.

Again, I’m pretty sure I’m worried. Partly because I’m having a harder-than-usual time focusing on tasks-at-hand.

The situation could be much worse. Number-two daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and all are handing the unpleasant news very well. Medicos have learned a great deal about cancer and how to treat it, since my youth.

Meanwhile, here in Sauk Centre, there’s not much I can do to help: apart from praying, which I’ve been doing. So I’ll keep doing that, and see what I can do about getting a post ready by Saturday.

I’ve talked about this sort of thing before, and probably will again:

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