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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Capital Punishment: It Could be Worse

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Brian H. Gill
Trial broadside: 'A Full and Correct Account of the Confession and Execution of John Pegsworth: Who was Executed this Morning for the Wilful Murder of Mr. John Holiday Ready, Tailor, of Ratcliff Highway, St. George's, East'. (ca. 1837) via Harvard Law School Exhibits, used w/o permission
Spectators and vendors at John Pegsworth’s execution. (1837) Detail of trial broadside.

It seems that, no matter how bad things are: they could be worse.

Take Alabama’s recent execution of a Mr. Smith, for example.

There’s been discussion of whether or not using nitrogen gas was okay, along with the ongoing capital punishment debate.

But at least the State of Alabama didn’t defray expenses by livecasting the execution: despite pay-per-view being a well-established part of our society.

I’ll be talking about capital punishment this week: along with Hammurabi’s laws, the breaking wheel, and a trend that might be good news.

Death Sentences: An Ancient Practice

Pieter Brueghel the Elder's 'The Triumph of Death'; detail showing shipwrecks, a desolate landscape, marching skeletons, a hanging skeleton and breaking wheels. (ca. 1562)
Detail, Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s ‘”The Triumph of Death”, with breaking wheels at right. (ca. 1562)

Capital punishment has been around for a long time.

Some 3,700 years back, the Code of Hammurabi said that folks who accuse others of capital crimes, but couldn’t prove it, “shall be put to death”.

Other capital crimes included giving false testimony in a capital case, or not being able to prove that testimony was true; several sorts of theft, purchasing stolen property; and lying about accusations of stolen property.

Non-lethal sanctions under Hammurabi included removal of fingers or ears, but the only specified form of execution mentioned was impalement.

I don’t think my country’s laws are perfect. But I don’t yearn for the days folks like Hammurabi were writing their law codes.

Fast-forward a few millennia.

Persians, Carthaginians, and Macedonians introduced Romans to crucifixion as an execution technique. Maybe one of them developed it, or maybe they picked the idea up from someone else.

Scaphism, a particularly unpleasant sort of execution by nibbling vermin, may or may not have been a Persian specialty.

Plutarch, a Greek who became a Roman citizen, said it was something Persians did. Considering Persian-Roman relations, I’ll take the claim with a grain of salt.1

The Breaking Wheel

Pieter Brueghel the Elder's 'The Triumph of Death', detail. (ca. 1562)Around the time St. Columba set up an abbey on Iona, folks in Europe apparently thought particularly heinous crimes warranted death on the breaking wheel.

Using a breaking wheel, executioners could kill someone quickly, slowly, or very slowly. Some subjects lasted three or four days. One took nine days to die.

I don’t know when folks started wondering about death by breaking wheel, but one region after another dropped it.

By the mid-19th century, the breaking wheel was history. Europe’s public executions were on their way out, too. They peaked around 1600, along with literal witch hunts. I strongly suspect that religion-themed propaganda for Europe’s turf wars helped stoke those fires.

Interestingly, we don’t call capital punishment judicial homicide anymore. Maybe because it sounds too much like judicial murder, a subset of wrongful execution.2 And that’s another topic. Almost.

But We’ve Always Done It This Way

The Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, only extant copy of the nearly complete text. Currently at the British Library
The British Library’s Copy of “Constitution of the Athenians”, found in a garbage dump.

If you google “we’ve always done it this way”, you’ll probably get links to articles, posts and the occasional video, saying or implying that it’s “the most dangerous phrase in business”. I did, at any rate. Your experience may vary.

I was going somewhere with this. Let me think. Capital punishment. Death by nitrogen. Hammurabi’s law code, Plutarch, the breaking wheel. Right.

We know about how folks lived, and the laws they lived with, because we’ve got written records from the times they lived in. Sometimes.

The Sachsenspiegel, for example, says that someone who commits murder, or arson that resulted in fatalities, gets — or, rather, got — killed on a breaking wheel.

The original Sachsenspiegel was called the Sassen Speyghel, and either way it means “Saxon Mirror”.

I gather that officials in the Holy Roman Empire used the Sachsenspiegel as a reference, when they needed to know what folks in their territory saw as good legal process. I was going to talk about “customary law”, but this has been another one of those weeks.

So I’ll skip lightly over the idea that what’s legal and/or proper depends at least partly on what folks have ‘always been doing’.

Anyway, We’ve got a pretty good handle on what was considered legal in Europe over the last millennium, because we’ve still got records like the Sachsenspiegel from that period.

Well, some records. Stuff gets lost as centuries roll by.

That’s why documents like the Codes of Hammurabi and Ur-Nammu are so important for those of us trying to sort out what was happening back then. They show us at least part of Sumerian and Babylonian legal systems.3

I think we’ve learned a bit since then.

Statistics, a Little History, and Science

Amnesty International/BBC News: countries with the most executions in 2022.
Note: total (estimated, in China’s case) numbers, not adjusted for population.

Considering that something like 334,000,000 folks call my country home, having only 18 legal executions in 2022 is a pretty low number.

We’re number five in that list, but I’m not sure we could be called a world leader in the criminal-killing category.

And, although on the whole I like being an American, and want my country to be outstanding: I can’t say that I mind America lagging behind China and Iran in executions.

Some of what I say next may intersect the 2024 presidential plebiscitary pandemonium, so I’d better start with a disclaimer.

I’m not “political”.

Not in the sense that I’ll try convincing you that one candidate or party is in league with Satan, corporate interests, and an international cabal that keeps sending someone to take your parking spot.

By the same token, I won’t claim God or a panel of experts is 100 percent behind someone or something that’s on this year’s ballots.

I do, however, think that human life matters. Even when it’s the life of someone who has committed egregious acts.

Okay. Enough of that.

I’ll take a very quick look at the decisions and science involved last month’s “nitrogen gas” execution, then talk about some numbers.

Nitrogen Asphyxiation: Bad News, Good News

Amnesty International/BBC News: countries which have 'persistently' killed criminals, 2018-2022.
Top persistent executors of malefactors, 2018-2022.

Three American states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — say that killing a prisoner with nitrogen gas is okay. Some of Ohio’s leadership think that state should follow suit.

I gather that some lawmakers think there are crimes so “heinous” that killing the perpetrator is a good idea. But, oddly enough, nitrogen gas asphyxiation isn’t used because it’s a particularly nasty way to go.

A little biology 101.

We need a steady supply of oxygen, or we stop living.

There’s been considerable research into how long someone can think straight, and survive, with little to no oxygen. That’s partly because aircraft routinely fly where the air gets thin.

Turns out that if a pilot climbs to 18,000 feet without cabin pressurization, he or she has maybe 20 to 30 minutes before oxygen deprivation becomes an issue. A blowout at that altitude would give maybe 10 to 15 minutes.

The “time of useful consciousness” goes down to something like six to eight seconds in low Earth orbit. We think.

Nitrogen, at normal pressures, doesn’t hurt us, but it’s not the oxygen we need to keep living. I gather that a few deep breaths of pure nitrogen gives us about a minute of consciousness — maybe a few seconds — before our brain started shutting down.

The bad news is that, although our bodies have an ‘excess carbon dioxide’ alarm, lack of oxygen by itself won’t push our panic button.

Good news is the same thing. After several seconds to a minute of breathing pure nitrogen, our vision would go offline, we’d become unconscious, maybe have convulsions; and then our heart would stop.4 But our internal warning systems wouldn’t be screaming at us.

Compared to the breaking wheel, it’s a humane way of killing folks who break the rules.

Excessive Bail, Excessive Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Flag of the United States of America.Vermont finally ratified the United States Constitution in 1791.

There’s a story behind that, but it’s a can of worms I’ll ignore this week.

A whole bunch of folks thought the Constitution needed work, so by 1791 they’d more-or-less agreed on 10 amendments. We call those our “Bill of Rights”. They were ratified in 1791, too; and we’ve been arguing about them ever since.

The Eighth Amendment, AKA Amendment VIII, protects us against official bullying.

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
(Eighth Amendment, Constitution Annotated, congress.gov)

Various folks have defined their version of what “cruel and unusual punishments” means. But to date, we don’t have a consensus opinion. Looking at the airborne verbal fewmets splatting into my news feed, I don’t think we’ll agree on one any time soon.

Where capital punishment is concerned, I think part of the problem is that whether it involves death by hanging, shooting, stoning, lethal injection, or something else: the key word is death.5 And there arguably isn’t a pleasant way to kill someone.

Graphs and Charts, Numbers and — Maybe — a Trend

Amnesty International/BBC News: number of executions per year, worldwide, not counting China, 1985-2022.
Executions per year, 1985-2022, not counting China’s contribution.
Death Penalty Information Centre/BBC News: United States executions per year, 2018-2022.
United States: number of executions per year, 1983-2023.

I appreciate the way BBC News uses graphs and charts. But I’d appreciate it more, in these cases, if they’d shown executions per population unit. Like, say, the number of executions per 1,000 people per year.

That’s not what they did, though. So I’ll just note executions peaked, globally, in the late 1980s and again in 2015. And that American executions were on an upward trend at least from 1983 to 1999, then fell from 1999 to 2008: blipped up, then kept sliding down.

I don’t know what made 1999 a bumper year for American executions.

I could say that it was the 1998 elections. Or I could turn it around, saying that the 1998 elections went the way they did because of the rising number of executions.

For that matter, I could give the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak credit for causing executions that year.

Or claim that the storms were divine retribution for the election results. Or the Almighty’s response to “A Bug’s Life” by Pixar.6

But I won’t. As I see it, there are far too many folks making crazy claims. And that’s yet another topic.

The more-or-less steady decline in American executions from 1999 to 2021 looks like a trend: not a statistical hiccup. Particularly since the raw numbers have been decreasing, while America’s population has been increasing.

Growth Curves: Executions Go Down as Population Goes Up

Demmo, Conscious' chart: world population in billions, 1950-2017.
World population, 1950-2017.
Wikideas1's chart: United States of America population in millions, 1950-2021.
United States population, 1950-2021.

The Great Famine of 1315-1317 and the Black Death left 370,000,000 survivors, globally. World population has been growing ever since. Right now, I have a bit upwards of 8,000,000,000 living neighbors.

Growth curves on those two population growth charts aren’t quite straight. But they’re not the exponential curves I’d see in “population explosion” articles, a half-century back.

I talked about an 18th century English gentleman’s concerns regarding “the lower classes of people”, math, and assumptions, back in 2018; and that’s yet again another topic.

A point I think matters is that the number of executions has been going down in my country, on average, for two decades — while the population has been going up.7

I’m pretty sure that executions haven’t gone down because population has gone up. But I don’t have nearly enough information to know what’s behind the decrease.

Whatever the cause, I’ll see fewer executions as good news. Maybe my country’s powers that be are developing an appreciation for human life. That’d be nice.

Acting As If Human Life Matters

Philippe de Champaigne's 'Still-Life with a Skull', a vanitas painting. (c. 1671) left to right: life, death, and time.Last month’s execution of a Mr. Smith probably wasn’t wrong, legally.

There seems little doubt that he had been paid to help kill someone: which, in this case, was illegal.

The murder led to three more deaths — the person who paid for the killing committed suicide, two of the killers were executed. Four more deaths, including the killer who died in prison.

The person who paid for the murder had a familiar motive. He’d been married. He later told his sons that he was having an affair, which was why he paid to have his wife killed. Then he killed himself.

One of the few bright spots I see in the mess that the sons have apparently forgiven the hirelings who killed their mother.8

Responsibility and Dignity: For Everyone

The Atlanta Georgian: April 29, 1913. 'Police Have the Strangler' headline, a pre-trial announcement that Leo Frank had murdered Mary Phagan.I’ve talked about why I think that life matters and murder is a bad idea before, recently: so here’s a quick summary.

Human life is sacred, a gift from God. That’s every human life, each human life: no matter how young or old, healthy or sick we are. That’s one reason why suicide is a really bad idea. I have no authority to end my own life. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2258-2317)

Murder, deliberately killing an innocent person, is wrong for pretty much the same reason.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Or maybe irksome is the word.

Deciding to kill an innocent person is wrong. But it doesn’t make the killer not-human.

No matter what we do, what we believe, or where we live, we’re all obliged to “to do what is good and avoid what is evil”. And, like it or not, we’re all made “in the image and likeness of God.” Respecting “the transcendent dignity of man” may be inconvenient, and it’s often not easy, but it’s part of my faith. (Catechism, 360, 1700-1706, 1928-1942)

So is remembering that responsibility and justice matter.

But, although justice is a cardinal virtue, vengeance is not. (Deuteronomy 32:35; Sirach 27:27–28; Romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30–31; Catechism, 1807, 2262)

So no matter how much I might feel like getting even with someone — yeah. I’d better move along.

“…An Increasing Awareness….”

Claes Jansz Visscher's Gunpowder plot executions etching, detail. (1606)
English justice, 1606: public vivisection after the Gunpowder Treason Plot.

Sound and fury has died down, in my social media and news feeds at any rate, from a change in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Until August of 2018, the death penalty was recognized as something that might be okay: for authorities who were so desperately hard-up that their only option was to kill prisoners who might otherwise hurt or kill others.

That was then. Now, since I’m a Catholic, working for an end to capital punishment is on my to-do list.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2267, prior to August 2018

“Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against an unjust aggressor.

“If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

“Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm — without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself — the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’†”
(†Pope St. John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium vitae 56)

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2267, after August 2018

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

“Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

“Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’,‡ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
(‡ Francis, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017, 5.)

Not that there’s much I can do on a global, national, or state level. I’m just some guy living in central Minnesota.

But I can suggest that human life matters. Even when it’s the life of someone who has behaved very badly.

And that’s a whole mess of other topics.

Assorted angles, attitudes, and assumptions:

1 Ancient history:

2 Not-so-ancient history:

3 More than you need, or may want, to know about:

4 Science and a current issue:

5 A constitution and a continuing controversy:

6 Events and a movie:

7 Life, death, math, and (sometimes) making sense:

8 Societal snapshots of a sort:

Posted in Being Catholic, Discursive Detours | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Cancer in the Family

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Brian H. Gill
OCE Rare Cancers Program's Rare Cancers Zebra Ribbon (rare disease). via Oncology Center of Excellence, FDA, used w/o permission.
OCE Rare Cancers Program’s zebra ribbon.

First, the good news. Our number-two daughter’s cancer is slow-growing. The not-so-good news is that it’s aggressive. And, of course, that she’s got cancer.

I learned about the cancer in early January.1 The family knows a little more now, and I’ve gotten the okay to talk about it. Which isn’t easy. I’ve been — distracted — and that’ll very likely continue.

Putting Feelings in Perspective

From my 'May 13, 2023: It's Been an Interesting Week'; our granddaughter broke all three bones in her arm, and wanted to visit us. (May 13, 2023)Another bit of good news is that our granddaughter’s left arm has healed nicely. She broke all three bones last year. It’s particularly good news, since she’s a lefty.

Back then, I said “Life Happens, and That’s Okay“, which made sense at the time: and still does.

Which doesn’t — emphatically doesn’t — mean that I felt good about our granddaughter’s pain, or our number-two daughter’s recent cancer diagnosis.

So — 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.

Our youngest child died in early February of 2002.

Previous Experience

From my 'Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Hope', discussing our youngest child's death. (October 9, 2016)We’d lost one of our children in a miscarriage, but figured our sixth pregnancy would end in a normal delivery.

It didn’t. As we were approaching the Interstate exit nearest the hospital, something went wrong.

My wife tells me that our baby thrashed around: then stopped moving.

I see that I haven’t talked much about this since 2017: not surprising, since it wasn’t a pleasant experience. The good news is that my wife survived, which I’m told wouldn’t have happened if the placenta had given way near the edge.

The point of reviewing that spot of unpleasantness is — actually, it’s at least two points.

First, I learned what another sort of sudden loss and grief feels like. I could rehash that, but I won’t. Here’s an excerpt from 2017, discussing what happened in 2002:

“I tried — briefly — bargaining with God when we lost Elizabeth, our youngest child.

“When the somewhat one-sided conversation was over, I was accepting the unpleasant realities, and asking for help dealing with them: so I don’t feel particularly guilty.

“I suspect that some folks say bargaining with God is always wrong because they see it as trying to manipulate God. That’s a bad idea: also impossible. The Almighty is just that. I can’t make God do anything. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 268-274, 2118-2119)

“God is good, merciful, and loving. But because we live with consequences of a really bad decision, seeing that love as jealousy and vengeance is easy; and that’s another topic. (Exodus 34:6; Psalms 73:1, 103:8, 136:1–26; Catechism, 270-271, 385, 397-406, 1472)…”
(“New Daily Prayer Routine” (February 19, 2017))

Second, when I wasn’t stewing, fretting, or praying, I was postponing sadness, misery, grief, and emotions whose ID tags got lost in the shuffle.

I’d been sitting up with my wife. Folks at the St. Cloud hospital were on duty, and would have been far more useful in a medical situation. But I wanted to be available, in case she woke up and wanted unskilled help. Besides, I wanted to be there.

At the time, I could feel — metaphorically — things snap in my mind, each time I blocked a rush of emotion.

I knew that there would be consequences: later, when I had free time. Which there were, but the nervous tic and auditory hallucinations eventually ended.

What I’m feeling, or not feeling, now is different. No surprises there. I’m 22 years older, and the circumstances are different. Just the same, I’m wondering when or if this ‘blank’ feeling will give way to something more definite.

“…Feelings, Woah, Woah, Woah, Feelings….”

Edvard Munch's 'Anxiety', oil-on-canvas, currently in Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway. (1894) via Wikipedia, used w/o permissionDespite a distinct gap where feelings like fear, anxiety, and great galloping heebie-jeebies should be,2 I’m pretty sure that at some level I’m worried about our number-two daughter’s health.

I’d be worried if I wasn’t worried.

Now, about emotions and me.

First off, emotions — feelings — happen. They’re part of being human. So is thinking, or should be. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 154-159, 1763ff)

Thinking. Right. About that: I have free will. I can decide to act, or not act. Believe, or not believe. Think, or let feelings, whims, and impulses decide for me. (Catechism, 1730-1794)

Developing, maintaining, and using, my conscience isn’t always simple or easy. But it’s a good idea, anyway. (Catechism, 1786-1794)

Feelings connect “the life of the senses and the life of the mind.” (Catechism, 1764)

By themselves, feelings aren’t good or bad. They just happen. What I do with them: that’s up to me. With practice, I can control them. To an extent. St. Thomas Aquinas talked about that. And, as usual, it’s complicated. (Catechism, 1767)

Emotions can tell me that something needs attention. Feeling worried, for example, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What I decide to do about feeling worried, or angry, or elated, or whatever — that’s what can be good or bad. (Catechism, 1765, 1767-1769)

Ideally, my feelings and my reason would be working together. In any case, I’m expected to think. (Catechism, 1777-1780)

Diagnoses, Definitions, Surgery, and (Probably) Good News

Cancer.gov's 'Fundamentals of Cancer': '10 of 10, What is metastasis?'.
Metastasis: scary? Yes: very.

I deleted much of the research I’d done for this post Wednesday morning. By accident, which didn’t make it any less lost.

If I wasn’t so distracted, distraught (probably), and discombobulated: well, that’s how I’ve been this week, so I’ll work with what I’ve got and move on.

On January 15, I heard that our number-two daughter is dealing with an adenoidal cystic carcinoma, that it’s aggressive (bad news) but slow-growing (sort of good news). Also that this sort of cancer tends to travel along nerves.

Odds are that you haven’t heard about an adenoidal cystic carcinoma before. It’s what one resource called “a rare malignancy”. On the other hand, our daughter’s version of this problem is a ‘normal’ sort: one of her salivary glands has gone bad.

I was going to talk more about that, and maybe I will — eventually. But for now, here’s an excerpt from a resource that I hadn’t scrambled:

“Adenoid Cystic Cancer“
Mohammad Ammad Ud Din; Hira Shaikh, editor; StatPearls [Internet] (last update April 14, 2023)

“Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy arising from the secretory glands, most commonly seen involving the salivary glands. Although uncommon, it is an important differential to consider for a painless swelling in the head and neck region because of its high tendency to metastasize….”

That “high tendency to metastasize” got my attention.

What ‘aggressive but slow-growing’ means isn’t so clear. Particularly since an “aggressive” cancer is (apparently) one that is not slow-growing.

  • aggressive cancer
    Cancer that develops, grows, or spreads quickly.
  • metastasis [meh-tas-tuh-sis]
    Cancer cells that spread from the primary site where they started to other parts of the body through the lymph system or bloodstream.
  • metastasize [ meh-TAS-tuh-size]
    The spread of cancer cells from where the cancer started (primary site) to one or more sites elsewhere in the body, often by way of the lymph system or bloodstream.
  • metastatic [meh-tuh-STAT-ick]
    A way to describe cancer that has spread from the primary site (where it started) to other structures or organs in the body.
    (“Cancer Glossary: Definitions & Phonetic Pronunciations“, American Cancer Society)

And at least one sort of slow-growing cancer is called “indolent”, not “slow-growing”. According to one source, anyway:

“…We defined an indolent cancer as including all of the following criteria: clinical stage I nodule on prevalence LDCT scan with a volumetric doubling time >400 days and maximal standardized uptake value (SUVmax) ≤1 on positron emission tomography (PET) scan (when available)….”
(“Indolent, Potentially Inconsequential Lung Cancers in the Pittsburgh Lung Screening Study” , Prashanth M. Thalanayar et al., Annals of the American Thoracic Society (August 2015) via PubMed Central (PMC)) [emphasis mine]

I don’t know how a carcinoma — a particular sort of cancer, and that’s yet another topic — can be both “aggressive” and “slow growing”. The gap in my knowledge is unsettling, but I don’t actually need to understand that particular bit of the current family situation.

Our daughter has had a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan3 — details of PET technology are among the notes I inadvertently deleted this week.

The scan picked up a number of anomalies, but no obvious sign that the cancer has metastasized. I’ll take that as good news.

“…Cancer cells can break away from the original tumor and travel through the blood or lymph system to distant locations in the body, where they exit the vessels to form additional tumors. This is called metastasis….”
(“What Is Cancer?” , Fundamentals of Cancer, What is Metastasis?; National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health) [emphasis mine]

Another Operation, Radiation, and Prayer

Sb2s3's photo of a foggy road near near Baden, Austria. (2015) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Before outlining what’s being done about our daughter’s cancer, I’d better explain how I see life, health, medical treatments, and prayer. Or, rather, repeat what I said a couple years back:

“…Being healthy is okay. Being sick is okay. What matters is how I act. It’s even okay to help others get or stay healthy. Life and physical health are ‘precious gifts.’ Taking care of both is a good idea. Within reason. Obsessing over either isn’t. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1509, 2288-2291, 2292-2296)

“Prayer isn’t always easy, but it’s always possible. Which is a good thing, because living as a Christian without prayer doesn’t work. Prayer is what makes sharing the love Jesus has for us possible. (Catechism, 2742-2745)…”
(“Experiencing COVID-19: It Could Have Been Worse” , Prayer and Making Sense (February 19, 2022))

Our number-two daughter has had her cancerous salivary gland removed. They’ll go in again, I gather, removing ‘might be cancerous’ tissue.

That second surgery will add to the existing scar on her neck, making it more noticeable: which I’m sure is the least of her, or our, concerns.

Then she’ll start radiation therapy.

This is not going to be a particularly placid period for any of us.

But we’re getting by. I don’t know the odds that number-two daughter’s treatments and monitoring will keep the cancer at bay. But I insist on hoping that they’re successful.

Meanwhile, I’ve added prayer for her medical situation to my daily routine.

Happily, if that’s the right word, an item from my role in a parish prayer chain had me looking up prayers specifically mentioning cancer — which resulted in my learning about St. Peregrine; and that’s yet again another topic.

Brian H. Gill's 'Blue River'. (2016)More about life, health, death and options:

1 Distracted since January’s second week:

2 Does “Feelings” sound familiar? It should:

3 Stuff I was going to talk about this week; but didn’t, for the most part:

Posted in Being Catholic, Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments