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A robot that eats flies
By now, you’ve probably heard the sad news in science: The Genesis probe crashed yesterday. The probe contains samples from solar winds, and the capsule was supposed to have popped out a parachute to slow it down enough that a couple of helicopters could catch it. Instead, it hit the earth at 311 km an hour and buried itself halfway into the ground. Obviously, losing so much good data sucks for scientists, and I’m depressed myself.
Yet as I looked at the pictures of the fallen capsule, I couldn’t help but notice: Don’t they look, rather hilariously, like secret snapshots of a crashed UFO? All those puny humans, huddled uncertainly around the wreckage of superior extraterrestrial technology! It reminds me of what it’d be like if one of our probes ever landed on a planet with sentient life. What in hell would they think of the metal gizmo we’d plunked down on their back yards? Of course, crashes like this also serve to highlight the Andromeda Strain-class importance of our planetary protection protocols, an issue I wrote about several months ago.
NASA has posted a mesmerizing video of the falling capsule online. It looks even more like some crazy samizdat VHS tape of a plummeting alien mission gone terribly awry.
Still, I gotta hand it to NASA: They’re scientists, so when something goes wrong, they don’t try to cover it up. They show you the pictures, they write the press releases glumly concluding that everything went all to hell. It’s another reason I so prefer the culture of science to that of our sneeringly mendacious government administration. If anything goes wrong with the nation, you can count on Bush’s minions to try and hide it. But when something goes wrong in science, researchers immediately trot out the painful evidence. “Sure. Check it out. Here’s a video of our $260-million probe slamming into the earth like a bag of anvils tossed out of heaven.”
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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