Looking for sea shells on Mars

Mars had some warmth and water in it's early existence, but probably not long enough for complex life to evolve. It is not clear if even the simplest life could or did occur.

But that doesn't mean we can't look for seas shells in a previously flooded basin. There's lots to see, and finding pretty pebbles is a noble goal. Unusual shapes catch the eye, and beg for a close look. Would we even recognize a Martian fossil? What would it take to be convinced?

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier sea shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Isaac Newton

Is unlikely a sea shell. Detail of top-right of image below.

At this location, at the Kimberly, there are lots of shiny pebbles embedded in a sandstone matrix. These are also not a dime-a-dozen on Mars -- it's not obvious how small stones get rounded and polished. Wave action and river transport is usually how it happens on earth.

The side of this sandstone block shows layering with roughly uniform thickness. On earth this would indicate seasonal deposition, perhaps due to annual fluctuations in composition.

Nearby some course grains with angular facets slowed erosion along an edge of a bedding plane.

Beneath the block sand slips down-slope.

Curiosity's robotic arm and instrument packages are even shinier, smoother and less likely.

"All computers are just carefully organized sand." xkcd.com/1349/ 

This is the position at which the MARDI camera took the top images:

Just before moving to this position, a mast camera took this shot of one face of the arm's instrument package, to check that every thing was in order. Can't get much more ordered.

All Curiosity images that make it back to earth are available at:

http://curiosityrover.com/?orderby=etreleased&sort=DESC&limit=20&thumbsize=large&cams=\

Half Tau Day

The circle constant is the ratio of circumference to radius; in a Euclidean space the length of the circumference is identical to tau*radius. This makes for a natural unit of angular measure, the radian. Tau radians is a full turn, an identity function. Any shape rotated by tau radians brings it to its original orientation.

Many interesting patterns are symmetric after a half-tau radian rotation. This one is a black and white inverse after a half-turn about an axis through the center point:

space-time crystals

A space-time crystal is a dynamical system that is periodic in time and space, analogous to a crystal which is periodic in space. Some physicists think that actually atomic scale physical systems can take this form, and be stable long enough to explore their properties. Or perhaps stable enough to survive the heat death of the universe!

"Can matter cycle through shapes eternally?
'Time crystals' idea is challenged but its proponent doubles down."

Here's a 3-D (time x 2-spatial dimensions) space-time crystal, composed of elastic collisions of particles on a plane:

3-D space-time crystal: A 4x4 checkerboard tiling, where each particle's path is a square. Viewed as a cross sections of continuous fibers, it is a three dimensional knit. [Dynamically modelled and rendered in Processing.]

I think I can ...

Opportunity sent this sublime postcard from Solander Point, taken November 12, 2013. [2018 update: The rover is still functioning well, at 13+ years into the mission, about 38 times its design lifetime.]  (source and description)

[2018 update: It is still climbing, looking for a good view of Endeavour crater's rim layering and morphology, and finding a comfortable slope to soak up sun during the coming winter. (source and description)]

Here's a composite pic of Burns Cliff, in Endurance Crater, back in November 2004. (original composite and description, with stretched colors)

Cover Oregon fail

Software is hard, and large software systems can't be implemented without failure, correction and changes to the specifications.

But this example from Cover Oregon (Oregon's Obamacare implementation) is worse than broken:

Submit online (for IE users only)

Before you start filling out your application for health insurance and financial assistance, here are some things you should do and know:

1) Use the correct browser

This online application is built and tested for use with Internet Explorer. Using other browsers may cause  the form to not work properly. Important: The "submit" button does not work when used with the  Macintosh Safari or Google Chrome browsers. Please do not use Macintosh Safari or Google Chrome browsers with this application. Update 1/12/14: Now there is a more complete explanation of how the site is worse than broken, with the same liberal use of bold: Important: If you use Internet Explorer as your browser: You will be able to submit your application online via a secure delivery system. You will not be able to save your application or retrieve it after you click SUBMIT. Please print a copy of your application for your records before clicking SUBMIT. If you use Firefox, Chrome, Safari or another browser (not Internet Explorer): You will NOT be able to submit your application online. You must print the application and send it to us by mail or fax (see application for details). Do not click the SUBMIT button on the application, because your information will not be sent and will be lost. We are not able to support the use of this form on iPads (or other tablets) or mobile devices at this time.

Human-Not-Quite-Human

“Professor Bract, although a distinguished botanist, is not in any way an unmanly man. He has, in fact, a wife and seven children. Tall and burly, the hands with which he handles his delicate specimens are as gnarled and powerful as those of a Canadian lumberjack, and when I swilled beer with him in his laboratory, he bawled his conclusions at me in a strong, gruff voice that implemented the promise of his swaggering moustache.”  Dorothy L. Sayers, in “The Human-Not-Quite-Human”, 1947

[From Things Cory Doctorow saw.]

Wayne Morse Free Speech Spot

From The Register-Guard, Eugene, OR
Commissioners approve rules on plaza hours

"As part of the rule change, the county is now calling the area the Wayne Morse Terrace instead of its more commonly used name, the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza. A smaller area within the concrete plaza is now the designated free speech area."

"

Mars, Waypoint 1 breccia (Darwin)

Curiosity's view from Waypoint 1, across the basin of Gale Crater. Foothills of Mount Sharp at top, a smaller crater in the middle, and a larger crater partly covered by sand drifts (bluish) extending across the frame:

[original image: 0387MR1588005000E1_DXXX.jpg, contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences.]

Darwin is a rock outcrop at Waypoint 1 that's getting a close look for clues relevant to the geologic and hydrologic history of Gale Crater. Below is a series of images, from very close-up, to wide angle. Apparently it is a breccia, or possibly a conglomerate:

 [original image: cropped from 0394MH0306001001C0_DXXX.jpg (see below), contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences and sharpened.]

 [original image: 0394MH0306001001C0_DXXX.jpg, flat lighting (in shadow) highly contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences.]

 [original image: 0394MH0190001002C0_DXXX.jpg, contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences.]

The red rectangle, below on left, indicates the approximate field of view of the above image:

 [original image: PIA17481.jpg, contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences.]

Hazard camera wide angle shot, with Darwin at center and Mount Sharp in background:

 [original image: FRB_432374294EDR_F0160050FHAZ00323M.jpg]

Martian crusts

There are many thin crusty structures on Mars. Curiosity's mast camera took this pic, including different types of rock with a planar form. Apparently these are often formed by consolidation of sedimentary material, and later excavated by a thin sandblasting wind. But the range of physical processes that formed them are not clear.

[original image: 0317ML1300021000E1_DXXX.jpg, contrast stretched to highlight structure and color differences.]

Excerpt of [news media], from [paper of record], [today's date]

[Country/state] television captured clear images as a mob of more than [a large number] attacked a small [minority rights] march, sending at least [a number of] people to the hospital.


[Religious figure] who helped to organize the [counter-event] said that while the violence was “regrettable” and those who committed it should be punished, the [religious organization] was obligated to protest the [event] and would “not allow anyone to humiliate us.”

“When there are so many people, it is difficult to speak only about [religious persuasion] and morals,” said the [religious figure] in his [day of the week] sermon. “Many were not able to overcome their nature and saw enemies in the others, said bad words and punched them. I was told [religious figures] were among them. I am not able to either condemn or justify them. They are also humans.”


[Religious figurehead], after the violence, urged protesters to leave the streets and for both sides “to pray for one another.”

“We do not accept violence,” [religious figurehead] said. “But it’s also unacceptable to give propaganda” to [minority group].


“We have already gone too far by having [minority group] openly promoting their [viewpoint],” a [adult professional] said. “This is unacceptable! By allowing things like this, we let [country/state] turn from the road of its traditional destiny.”

“Arrests will be too much; it will help to further excite the situation in [country/state],” she added.


[A teenager] said that while she opposed the violence, she believed that the “truth was on the side of the [religious organization].”

“No one should be punished for this,” she said. “This is for [a deity] to judge them, not us.”