What We Don’t Yet Know (by sarah)

As many of you now I want to be an Astrobiologist when I grow up - something I am resigned to not doing for the next few years as health and family have to come first.

But when I was working on it I saw so much still to find out it was almost mind blowing. Astrobiology as a formal subject is very young still as in - I bet few of you had heard of it before I started talking about it and I used to call it exo-palaeontology anyway 😉 .

Looking at the concept of life beyond our planet brings you straight to the question of life on Earth. Life's origin, evolution and colonisation of the harshest climes. In recent years life has startled us by turning up in the most unexpected places - entire eco-systems have been found is isolated pockets of water in the ice caps. The study of these creatures and how they interact is only just beginning but what use is knowing about them I hear you ask?

Well as everyone knows there is a thorny issue in science that affects everyone globally and that is Climate Change. Well our climate is a large complex fed back system with interactions that stretch from rock erosion to cows munching grass. One of the things that makes it so very complex is the biosphere - Life is both a driver and a quencher of climatic cycles. It is also a record of it.

Any information or new angles that can be explored with this topic will be immensely useful to mankind. Who knows it may even save us from ourselves but if there is no funding the research can not be done and those pools of ice will melt and be lost forever.

Another aspect is that micro-organisms can live inside rocks - in fact they can even eat the rocks to get what they need. This has reprocusions over say where you can store Nuclear Waste and the like. On top of that one of these little critters happens to etch glass for it's meal times! Photographers may have come across this as a frosting of their lenses - something they curse highly!

The hospitals we go to, especially the older ones often have porous brick work which would appear to now perhaps not be such a good idea! All those nice little nooks and crannies for organisms to live in. But just how much that matters will not be found out with out scientific research continuing.

Another aspect that always captured me was the evolution of the cell and organisms in general. And this where everything we thought we knew about genetics comes a little bit undone. Everything bar those annoying Macro-organisms (and maybe some of them!) appear to be be able to swap DNA. Little circular pieces of DNA called plasmids can be transfered not just between same species but across Kingdoms! (It used to be thought there where 3 Kingdoms in biology but there are at least five and the majority of it is dominated by mirco-organisms not the original Plant, Animal, Fungi!). This is what makes antibiotic resistances in a disease so bad - it can transfer the resistance to other diseases 🙁 But the mechanics and origin of this along with say a solution - lay in exploring how life arose, how the cells evolved. This again needs more work done.

I could keep going, talk about the elemental distributions on the Earth and in the Solar System - how this effects everything from mining for metals to make our computers run to how likely space colinization is but I feel I have made my point!

What we don't know? Just about everything - there is so much - we have just scratched the surface, just set down the tools we need and now the workshop is about to be destroyed before we can even start on the masterpieces.

Science is Vital Poem/Rap (by sarah)

Science is vital the scientist said
The politicians just shook their heads
And smiled oh so very primly
they knew what's best they said rather grimly

Science is vital the teacher cried!
The politicians shrugged and simply lied
The way they had done before
Is telling the truth such a chore?

Science is vital the nurse intoned
The politicians thought it just - another funding moan
Even with their private health care plans
They failed to see what drove - those cancer scans

Science is vital the cleaner shouted
The politicians just looked at money and counted
Forgetting to take in the longer view
Thus knotting the financials into a thorny stew

Science is vital the artist sang
The politicians ignored them till the world went bang
Or did at least for an island at the edge of the world
Crushed and broken is societal whorls

Slowly it crumbled to the sea
A brain drain leaving it's people be
Without the intellectual resources to save themselves
This is what historians will see once they delve

A people derelict and poverty stricken
Science is vital

Why
did
they
not
listen?

Science is Vital (by sarah)

Science is vital - it provides us with technological break-threws which are the corner stone of the modern economy, it provides medicine which we have all benifited from in one way or another and it has fueled the creative industries. At a time when other countries have increased their science funding regardless of the economic state or even becuase of it, our government has decided to slash funding.

Ham stringing the country for at least the next 20 yrs if not 100 (in my opinion). I am watching the brain drain increase as friends are already feeling for other countries where they can continue their research and eat.

This is why I just thought I'd bring Science is Vital to your attentions. Please sign their petition regardless of what your job is (without science you wouldn't have your TV, toaster, kettle! or car - just think about it for a while).

There is also a demo on the 9th of Oct and lobbying on the 12th for those who can make it - check the site out for info on those.

Kestral (by sarah)

Albert the gardener came to say there was a kestral on the ground and the kittens stalking about and maybe we should catch them and put them inside before it got messy. Unfortunatly Alaric woke me up with this info which in my half asleep state ment that I though a kestral had attacked either Hydrogen or Helium!

So I rushed outside with towels and what what not and got annoyed at dad for stopping to put cheese away before going out with the teatowels I'd thrown at him. Anyway it turned out to be a juvinile (I assume from the family roosting in the trees along the stream.) And Hydrogen had chased it into Barbara's garage :/ We flushed the cat out and caught the kestral which didn't appear to have anything wrong with it - Alaric had thought its wing was broken but after a lot of faffing and three adults chasing it. Alaric threw a towl over it and I scooped it up!

I then took it up to the top of the paddock as Dad and Al rounded up all cats and put them inside so they couldn't follow. I put it down gently and because I was wearing chunky monkey gloves I had a little look at it. It seemed fine just scared and the painter had said to me he thought it had flown into something.

So we are assuming it is dazed and scared - it's hidden itself in the gazebo/summer house so I left the door open and continued my calls to it (Al kept informing me that they only respond when trained but it definatly responded when I made noises like they do when they fly. On to of that it came out and sat on the grow bag and looked at me - then I called again and one of it's parents answered.

We have left the door open in the hope that it was dazed with collision and then chased by cat and humans and then bundled in a towel :/ It's mother is calling it and hopefully it will be able to fly up and join her.

If not it will probably still be in the gazebo when we check later - at which point we will catch it again and take it too the vets 🙁 I know we probably should have taken it straight to the vets but if we do that and its only dazed then we've sperated it from it's family.

However one issue came up with all of this - the towel got hooked up on some splintering old boards in the garage which Alaric says are asbestos 🙁 So me and the towels ect... where covered in asbestos dust. I stripped and showered and Al put everything in the washing machine. I am hacked off though as I've already paid for one lot of asbestos to be removed from this place and the whole lot could have all gone at one >:( And I asked if there was anymore!

October’s Challenges (by sarah)

Septembers challenges went well - I haven't finished the novel but am almost there! And am hoping it wont eat too far into the month though I have realised I want to rewrite huge chunks of it :/

Blog post wise I did well over 100 posts over my various blogs and finally sorted out a writing home page and got my head around a few of my on going projects!

And so there is October - and the main question is do I do GothNoWriMo?

I still have the novel from last month to finish :/ and have another project I really really want to complete. This project is The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry and mainly involves sorting out illustrations and the like.

What I am thinking of doing is saying the novel has priority though I still don't want to push at more than 1000 words a day. It is so almost there I don't think it needs it either - then once that is done I shall re-write it, spending an hour on it a day.

I will spend an hour on the Little Book too which should get me a good long way through it and hopefully produce at least a finished book for Jean by the end.

Then if I feel upto it I may well do 1000 words for GothNoWriMo but this will only be on week days as It can only really happen whilst my little girl is at school - this leads me onto another issue with my challenges this month. There is a half term holiday so I will be loosing a weeks worth of writing time which hopefully I will be able to catch up during the rest of the month.

I am also aware that this is basically 3 challenges - GothNoWriMo is taking low priority but hopefully something will get written for it! It may even get it's own monster blog - we will see 🙂

Again wish me luck.