The Scale of our Solar System

This is hard to wrap your mind around:

Star Scale Montage - Funny bloopers R us

Computer Animation Progress

There is a lot of work going on in the computer animation world - especially to try and make animated faces look more realistic. Here an employee talks about the difference between motion capture and what her company is doing which is pretty amazing as you'll see at 1:18

Oscar: The Hospice Cat

I love this story because of the mystery and the compassion of cats!

(Story as seen here)
Oscar, a two year old cat that lives at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island in the New England region of the United States, appears to know when residents at the home are approaching their final hours because he curls up next to them.

The story of Oscar, the hospice cat who conducts daily rounds like a feline version of a hospital consultant and appears to be able to predict when patients are going to die, is told in an essay about a day in his life by one of the doctors, David Dosa, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dosa said that Oscar has been accurate in 25 cases so far. He sits with patients at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, when they are in their last four hours of life.

"He doesn't make many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dosa in an interview with the Associated Press news agency. Dosa is professor of medicine at Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Rhode Island, and a geriatric consultant at the nursing home.

Dosa said that relatives of the dying patients "take solace" from this curious phenomenon. The companionship that Oscar provides is appreciated, he said.

Oscar was adopted by the medical staff as a kitten and his home ever since has been on the third floor of the nursing home, with the dementia patients.

Soon, he was making his own rounds, sniffing patients and looking them over, then he would curl up beside a patient who died a few hours later.

Staff at the hospital trust Oscar's instinct so much that they call the patient's relatives to let them know it's likely their loved one will be passing away soon.

Dosa says Oscar is an "aloof" cat who is not normally friendly towards people, he describes him as hissing at a patient when she walks past. But he seems to take his work very seriously, and when he settles next to a patient who is dying, he purrs and nuzzles them.

Sometimes, when he is ejected from his vigil beside a dying patient (some families don't like him there), he paces and meows outside the room.

Cat experts say that cats can sense illness, especially in their owners or other animals. They can also sense changes in the weather, and their ability to sense impending earthquakes is well known.

According to a report in the Washington Post yesterday, another doctor at the home, Joan Teno who is also of Brown University and experienced at treating terminally ill patients, said that Oscar can predict who is going to die more accurately than the staff.

She became convinced of Oscar's "skill" while she was treating a patient who had stopped eating, was breathing erratically and her legs had started to look blue. She thought the patient was near death. But although Oscar called in to see her, he did not stay in the room.

However, as Teno later found out, this was 10 hours before the patient actually died, and the nurses told her that Oscar came back to sit with the dying patient 2 hours before she finally passed away. This was Oscar's 13th accurate prediction.

Speculating on the accuracy of Oscar's predictions, Teno said she wondered if he smells something, or he notices subtle changes in the behaviour of the nurses while they attend the patients.

There is a commendation wall plaque at the nursing home, awarded to Oscar by a local hospice agency. The plaque reads: "For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat".

"A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat." David M. Dosa. NEJM Volume 357:328-329, July 26, 2007, Number 4

Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom. From atop the desk in the doctor's charting area, the cat peers down the two wings of the nursing home's advanced dementia unit. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts. Slowly, he rises and extravagantly stretches his 2-year-old frame, first backward and then forward. He sits up and considers his next move.

In the distance, a resident approaches. It is Mrs. P., who has been living on the dementia unit's third floor for 3 years now. She has long forgotten her family, even though they visit her almost daily. Moderately disheveled after eating her lunch, half of which she now wears on her shirt, Mrs. P. is taking one of her many aimless strolls to nowhere. She glides toward Oscar, pushing her walker and muttering to herself with complete disregard for her surroundings. Perturbed, Oscar watches her carefully and, as she walks by, lets out a gentle hiss, a rattlesnake-like warning that says "leave me alone." She passes him without a glance and continues down the hallway. Oscar is relieved. It is not yet Mrs. P.'s time, and he wants nothing to do with her.

Oscar jumps down off the desk, relieved to be once more alone and in control of his domain. He takes a few moments to drink from his water bowl and grab a quick bite. Satisfied, he enjoys another stretch and sets out on his rounds. Oscar decides to head down the west wing first, along the way sidestepping Mr. S., who is slumped over on a couch in the hallway. With lips slightly pursed, he snores peacefully — perhaps blissfully unaware of where he is now living. Oscar continues down the hallway until he reaches its end and Room 310. The door is closed, so Oscar sits and waits. He has important business here.

Twenty-five minutes later, the door finally opens, and out walks a nurse's aide carrying dirty linens. "Hello, Oscar," she says. "Are you going inside?" Oscar lets her pass, then makes his way into the room, where there are two people. Lying in a corner bed and facing the wall, Mrs. T. is asleep in a fetal position. Her body is thin and wasted from the breast cancer that has been eating away at her organs. She is mildly jaundiced and has not spoken in several days. Sitting next to her is her daughter, who glances up from her novel to warmly greet the visitor. "Hello, Oscar. How are you today?"

Oscar takes no notice of the woman and leaps up onto the bed. He surveys Mrs. T. She is clearly in the terminal phase of illness, and her breathing is labored. Oscar's examination is interrupted by a nurse, who walks in to ask the daughter whether Mrs. T. is uncomfortable and needs more morphine. The daughter shakes her head, and the nurse retreats. Oscar returns to his work. He sniffs the air, gives Mrs. T. one final look, then jumps off the bed and quickly leaves the room. Not today.

Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. She is surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one from her wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscar jumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to consider the situation, and then turns around twice before curling up beside Mrs. K.

One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabs Mrs. K.'s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to make phone calls.

Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices.

On his way back to the charting area, Oscar passes a plaque mounted on the wall. On it is engraved a commendation from a local hospice agency: "For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat." Oscar takes a quick drink of water and returns to his desk to curl up for a long rest. His day's work is done. There will be no more deaths today, not in Room 310 or in any other room for that matter. After all, no one dies on the third floor unless Oscar pays a visit and stays awhile.

Note: Since he was adopted by staff members as a kitten, Oscar the Cat has had an uncanny ability to predict when residents are about to die. Thus far, he has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families. Oscar has also provided companionship to those who would otherwise have died alone. For his work, he is highly regarded by the physicians and staff at Steere House and by the families of the residents whom he serves.

There IS Life on Mars

The Mars Phoenix Mission is a robotic spacecraft on a mission to Mars to search for environments suitable for microbial life, and to research the history of water there.

But I don't want to talk about how amazing this mission is (and it is), or how unbelievable it is that we can get color images from the surfaces of other planets. No - this blog focuses on one assumption: What would it mean if there IS life on Mars?

In my mind, if there is evidence of life on mars (which presumably could have lived there over a billion years ago) life in the Universe is no longer "special". In fact it would lead me to believe that life in the Universe is abundant, though spread out through cosmic time depending on the specific life of the stars and planets involved. In fact there is an equation (The Drake Equation) that predicts the likelihood that we could come in contact with intelligent life in our solar system.

The Drake equation states that:



where N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible; and
R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

To think in an almost unbounded Universe that not only is there life out there, but there was life just next door, as the Phoenix potentially could show, suggests that life is not precious but maybe still fleeting. Moreover - the genetic variability in complex life would be so wild, we probably can't imagine what other life could look like. Considering the genetic variety this planet has seen (not the most extreme in my mind being dinosaurs considering the extreme amounts of energy needed to keep them alive) if life is abundant, then we may not be the product of some higher power but one output of an infinite number of random number generators.

Now I am not presuming that Phoenix will find evidence of complex life, or that it will even find evidence of life. In fact it will be lucky just to find water on mars at all (see left - thanks Mike!). More likely it could find evidence of microbes. But then I don't think it would be far fetched to think that if there was life on Mars, then similar to life on our planet, simple forms of life over billions of years can evolve into the complex organisms here on Earth like the cat or the platypus, the hippopotamus or the giraffe.

In fact I am not sure that society as a whole or even our varied Religions are prepared to incorporate the fact that life could be more abundant than we previously thought and exist throughout the Universe. I think we often struggle combining Science and Religion (The old evolution versus creationism debate). If Darwinism is tough enough to grasp, then how much would we struggle to accept life outside the bounds of Earth.

Funny evolution side note. There are crabs in Japan called Samurai Crabs, or Heikengani - species of crab native to Japan, with a shell that bears a pattern resembling a human face. It is locally believed that these crabs are reincarnations of the spirits of the Heike warriors who committed suicide by jumping into the sea. Tradition follows that if a crab is caught with a Samurai face on it - it is thrown back into the sea. Carl Sagan used these crabs as an example of unintentional artificial selection (versus natural selection) where if you were a crab with markings somewhat similar to a Samurai warrior's face, you survived more often than any others, and over time you looked more and more like a Samurai warrior because of this selection!



I for one am rooting for us finding evidence for life on Mars and I am not sure why. I don't think I have completely wrapped my mind around what that would mean, but I have an inner desire for it to be true. There is a romantic and elitist notion to life only existing on Earth, but that seems to be such a lonely and cold existence. And as my next blog discusses, the case where life only exists on Earth leads me to think we need to do so much more as a species than we are currently doing to leave a legacy in the Universe (and I don't know what that is obviously).

There ISN'T Life on Mars

It's probably not a big story if we don't find life on mars. After all it's a long shot for us to think that a spacecraft that we launched 442,000,000 miles from earth and will only have 92 days to look for left over evidence of life in ice sparse buried ice remnants before the spacecraft is frozen and destroyed is what I call an astronomical long shot.

So let's focus on a bigger question. What if there isn't any other life ANYWHERE in the solar system. What could that mean? Consider the short time we have been on earth.

The Cosmic Calendar is a scale in which the lifetime of the universe is mapped onto one calendar year; that is to say, the Big Bang took place on a cosmic January 1 at precisely midnight, and today's date and time is December 31 at midnight. On this calendar, the solar system did not appear until September 9, life on Earth arose on September 30, the first dinosaurs appeared on December 25th, the first flowers on December 28th and the first primates on December 30. The first humans did not arrive until around 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and all of human history has been recorded in the last 10 seconds.

So if life only exists here on earth, and we are but a flash in the pan, what does it all mean? Are we one of the greatest flukes in evolution, or are we direct evidence of a higher power at work? It boggles the mind. if we are unique in the Universe, and I mean not just currently, but in all time, you would think that we would have some greater purpose. But the facts are that the entire planets evolution was headed in many different directions only to have a meteor kill off all of the dinosaurs in one giant mass extinction (of which there have been many) and make it possible for us to be here today. In fact over 99% of species that ever lived are now extinct. We probably will be too, some day. Eventually the Earth will dry up just like Mars and best case scenario only "trace evidences" of life could be found frozen in buried ice.

I guess the big question is why are we here, and as this blog proposes, if we are the only place where life exists AND life will only exist for such a short period of time in the cosmic sense, what's the whole point? Are we supposed to do anything special? Or will the next form of life that takes over be as intelligent and do something special? It just seems like if life is so precious in the Universe - we probably should be accomplishing more than eating, sleeping, and vacationing.

Just keep in mind that after a nuclear world war, or mass extinction from our greenhouse gasses and global warming, the Earth will still be here, and as inhabitable as ever considering we have been through the Snow Ball Earth:

Snowball earth describes the coldest global climate imaginable - a planet covered by glacial ice from pole to pole. The global mean temperature would be about -50°C (-74°F) because most of the Sun's (Solar) radiation would be reflected back to space by the icy surface. The average equatorial temperature would be about -20°C (-10°F), roughly similar to present Antarctica. Because of its solid surface, the climate on a snowball earth would have much in common with present Mars.

The carbon dioxide levels necessary to unfreeze Snow Ball Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about thirteen percent of the atmosphere. Over 4 to 30 million years, enough CO2 and methane, mainly emitted by volcanoes, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of permanently ice-free land and water developed.

I guess in summary there probably isn't much we could do to the Earth worse than what it has seen, though this is not a case to ignore being environmentally friendly as that is critical to our existence. I just think it is a low benchmark to say leave the Earth in tact and live like the animals when we could potentially do or create so much more. Rather this is a a call for "what the heck legacy are we going to leave, as potentially the only sentient beings ever to exist in the Universe." There seems to be an exponentially higher benchmark required for our contributions to the Universe, and in general we spend most of our time just trying to survive and very little time creating, inventing, and building.