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A rose by another name . . .

What makes a planet a planet? And why do we care so much?

Is Pluto a planet? When the International Astronomical Union (IAU) — a group of nearly 10,000 astronomers from 65 countries — voted to revoke Pluto’s status as a planet in 2006, there was a public outcry. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and Mark Sykes, an astronomer with the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), recently squared off in the Great Planet Debate, ostensibly to settle the question.

Looking in towards our solar systemThe IAU defines planets as round objects that orbit a star independently; they do not share their orbit with other similarly sized objects, as Pluto or the asteroids of our solar system do. The PSI has contended that roundness alone should be the defining factor, since the shape implies a layered substructure (like Earth’s crust, mantle, and core) and possible geologic activity sometime in the object’s history.

I asked Ohio State planet hunter Scott Gaudi what he thought of the debate. “I personally think the PSI definition is impractical and considerably more arbitrary than the IAU definition,” he said. “The PSI position mostly seems to be adopted because of a visceral, illogical, and emotional reaction to Pluto being ‘demoted’, which I think is bizarre.”

Our misunderstood friendWhy the outcry? As Tyson points out in his new book, Americans are especially enamored with Pluto. It may have something to do with our fondness for a certain Disney character. Then again, in the old solar system model, Pluto was the smallest planet — the little guy, the underdog — and Americans always like the underdog.

The Great Planet Debate ended in a stalemate, insofar as nobody was proven wrong. In reality, nobody could have been proven wrong, since both sides were using different criteria for the argument. But both Sykes and Tyson agreed that the simple IAU designation of objects as “planet” or “not planet” is perhaps impractical, with the huge diversity of objects being discovered in our own solar system and elsewhere these days.

The real solution might be found among the reader comments that appeared on the New Scientist Web site after the debate. In the Star Trek universe, solar system objects are classified in groups according to composition and habitability. Earth (and Spock’s homeworld Vulcan) are class M (comfortably habitable for humanoids), while Pluto would be class D (a dwarf “planetoid,” or minor planet, basically uninhabitable). Couldn’t we adopt a similar classification system in real life? It wouldn’t be the first time that science fiction influenced space science, or even the second.

What makes a planet a planet? It doesn’t matter. The debate drives home the point that science is not an arbitrary set of rules, but rather a fluid process where ideas are posed and challenged. The process can be frustrating, meaningful in our everyday lives… and fun! The sooner the general public catches on to that idea, the sooner we’ll have a real-life USS Enterprise orbiting another planet — class M or otherwise.– Pam Frost Gorder

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Tags: Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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Scientist as star . . .

I’ve always been a sucker for science fiction on television.

I was eight years old when Science Fiction Theatre first appeared at our home, 12 when Rod Serling first introduced The Twilight Zone as his own “fifth dimension,” and 15 when The Outer Limits first took over my television set.  Like thousands of other kids of that time, science (fiction) offered mystery and wonder and surprise in a world plagued by cold-war fears.

Along with 1950s-genre movies, these shows offered the public their only picture of what scientists were like, and what they did.  Scientists were portrayed as being the cause of problems as often as they were its solution.

The opening scene of Science Fiction Theatre set the tone for dramas of this kind.  The camera slowly panned around a laboratory-like room showing “sciencey” devices like oscilloscopes, Tesla coils, telescopes and microscopes, flasks and such with bubbling solutions . . . you get the picture . . . before the host’s baritone voice explained:

“Hello.  I’m your host, Truman Bradley.  Let me show you something interesting . . .”

Now, a half-century later, science fiction still maintains its niche on television and, while the special effects are routinely phenomenal, the stories are formulaically the same.  And the start of the fall television schedule – with new shows like Fringe, Eleventh Hour and Primeval – brings back a recurring question:

“Is the depiction of science offered by television and Hollywood good or bad for science.”

For the last dozen or so years, organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundation have tried to get a foot-in-the-door with both screenwriters and TV producers to try to influence their depiction of science and the folks who do it.  Needless to say, any success has been marginal over time.

Shows like Numb3rs and the CSI series do seem to be promoting and supporting science in their dramas.  Numb3rs allows its stars, several of whom are mathematicians, to aid the FBI and keep the world safe.  The CSI programs all depict science as being as essential to solving crimes as guns and badges.  In these programs, scientists are obviously smart, and reasonably social . . . almost like real people.

And real scientists like that.

What they tend to like less is the idea that the science always works.  In real life, it often doesn’t.  And that’s okay .  Most scientists admit that often more is learned from failure than it is from success.

But are such depictions really “good” for science?  That depends.

If TV programs, or movies for that matter, are expected to accurately depict the way science happens, then the answer is no.  The pace of good science is far too slow for the needs of modern drama.  And a happy ending is never assured.

But if simply whetting the interests of viewers towards more science is enough, and that appetite spurs them onto learn more about research, then the TV folks and moviemakers are doing a good job.  The spark that these programs light in viewers’ minds may lead to new career decisions, or at least a better appreciation of science.

Maybe we ought to be satisfied with that.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Researchers, Science Communication by earleholland
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Do things right . . .

It’s not hard to do what’s right.  But sometimes, it can be difficult.

The differences between the two adjectives may seem subtle in the abstract, but when they describe ongoing situations, distinctions become clearer.

Ohio State researchers did a good deed last week but it wasn’t easy.  For at least two decades, boxes of bones have been patiently stored in the anthropology department’s building on campus.  They had been unearthed in the early 1960s during an archaeological dig in West Virginia and were the last remains of a group of Native Americans living in the western part of the state, in what is now Putnam County.

Artist's rendering of what Buffalo 600's village might have looked likeThrough a circuitous route, the “Buffalo 600” – as they became known – passed through several hands as individuals volunteered to do small studies of the remains in hopes of identifying the lineage of the long-lost people.  The collection eventually landed at the University of Toledo.

In the early 1990s, an Ohio State graduate student was visiting the Toledo campus and learned that the bones were about to be discarded.  He rescued the remains and with anthropology professor Paul Scuilli, trucked them back to the Columbus campus, where they stayed until last week.

The remains were repacked for storage and catalogued and on Wednesday, they were turned over to the Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex Research Facility in Moundsville, WV.

That was the right thing to do, but it was far from easy.

To begin with, remains like these are controlled by provisions of the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and their disposition must meet fairly strict guidelines.  Organizations possessing such remains must keep them safe and secure.  And any efforts to rebury, or “repatriate,” them must be done in conjunction with the tribe that they’re affiliated with.

But for the Buffalo 600, no tribal linkage had been made in the decades since the remains were unearthed.  That meant that Ohio State was legally bound to safeguard the remains until “ownership” and “control” – both legal terms – were established.  That was solved when West Virginia officials provided the university with documents showing its control over the collection from the beginning.

Workers unearthing Buffalo 600 remains in early 1960s.Equally challenging was an ongoing quandary within the anthropological/archaeological community.  While scientists in these fields easily recognize that reburial is appropriate for such remains, they also know that once buried, the possibility of learning anything more about these ancient peoples is lost forever.  There are ample examples of cases where newer technology, once it is available, is used to discover important new information about lost cultures.  No scientists enjoy closing the book on future discoveries.

In the end, turning the collection back over to West Virginia officials was the right thing to do.

“The new research facility in Moundsville is excellent and they will be well-protected, and available for study, until their final disposition is determined,” said Clark Spencer Larsen, professor and chair of anthropology.

Juggling federal law, concerns over science and basic humanity, while difficult, can be done.  It just usually can’t be done quickly.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Researchers, Science policy by earleholland
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Deluge of data . . .

Sitting in Jason Box’s office one afternoon last month, I remembered how far science has come in recent years.  We huddled around his giant computer monitor and discussed how images of glaciers in northern Greenland — 3,200 miles away – differed from those taken the day before.

Petermann Glacier, Northern Greenland, NASABox, an associate professor of geography and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center, was monitoring how two of the largest – Petermann and Jakobshavn – were eroding in nearly real-time.  The changes he’s seen convinced him that large chunks of at least one of them will soon break off. [read more here]

Two weeks later, another Byrd glaciologist, Ian Howat, was deciphering images showing how the widespread retreat of glaciers along Greenland’s southeast coast is changing our understanding of ice dynamics on the second-largest ice-covered land mass on earth.

Both Box’s and Howat’s research depends on daily satellite images of Greenland’s ice fields.  And both of their efforts would have been impossible just a few years before.

 What fosters their work, and that of tens of thousands of other researchers, is our newfound ability to capture data in vast amounts and sift through it in ways unimaginable a decade or so ago.

“We need to remember that while things actually are changing rapidly, part of the surprise comes just from our ability to see those changes immediately,” Howat says.  “In years past, when the information arrived infrequently and with less detail, did similar change happen, but we weren’t there to see it?”

If a tree falls in the forest . . .

Sea of DataThe sheer volume of data that’s available to scientists now is all but immeasurable.  Researchers in the life sciences can now “mine” these vast data stockpiles seeking patterns and clues to diseases and living processes.  Colleagues in astronomy and astrophysics can look for similarities across vast stretches of the cosmos in ways impossible before.

And some experts have asserted that it will take decades just to assess the data accumulated so far from past NASA missions, much less the new data that constantly flows in.

Scientific American reported last week that when the latest international atom smasher – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – starts work this fall at the massive physics lab at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, the data flowing from experiments there will fill the equivalent of one DVD (5 gigabytes) ever five seconds.  Researchers have amassed a network of 80,000 computers just to handle the flow of data coming from the research.

While science struggles to cope with the growing complexity of its discoveries, the rest of the world seems more and more reticent to accept anything but the simplest of answers to nearly all questions.

What is “the cure” to cancer?

How can we stop global warming?

Civilization has long passed the time for easy answers.  We need to accept the complexity of most things we face.  Otherwise, we’re likely to drown in the data careening our way.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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