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How Nearby Supernovae Affected Life On Earth 109
sycodon writes with news of research into how nearby supernovae affected the development of life on Earth. "[Professor Henrik Svensmark] found that the changing frequency of nearby supernovae seems to have strongly shaped the conditions for life on Earth. Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered. Prof. Svensmark remarks in the paper, "The biosphere seems to contain a reflection of the sky, in that the evolution of life mirrors the evolution of the Galaxy.' ... The data also support the idea of a long-term link between cosmic rays and climate, with these climatic changes underlying the biological effects. And compared with the temperature variations seen on short timescales as a consequence of the Sun's influence on the influx of cosmic rays, the heating and cooling of the Earth due to cosmic rays varying with the prevailing supernova rate have been far larger.""
Re:Star Trek (Score:5, Funny)
IIRC, a temporal anomaly - which was created by the Enterprise shooting its magical bullshit beam into the same place, at three points in time, grew bigger as it went back in time, and prevented life from forming.
Q bopped Picard around from past to present until he figured it out, and saved the day with an inverse magical bullshit beam and paradox, whatever bullshit LeVar Burton spewed out to "explain" it.
Ultimately Q's the good guy, since while he wasn't allowed to directly affect or fix it because of more magical bullshit Q rules, he bent the rules to lead Piccard figure it all out.
Or was that not the last episode? You should maybe ask someone who liked the show more than me. I just liked to rub one out to the space cheerleader mind reading chick, now and then.
Re:Star Trek (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Star Trek (Score:4, Informative)
I found it a really strong episode, not for the plot (Which, like most trek, is BS) but for the way Q and Picard play off each other. TNG's best episodes often have a strong Q/Picard dynamic. My favourite being Tapestry, which had that *and* a half decent story around it.
Disclaimer: I am not a trekkie. Despite looking like your stereotypical example of one
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Yeah, Tapestry is probably my favourite Q episode and easily one of the strongest episodes in the whole franchise, not counting the really incredible DS9 pieces like In The Pale Moonlight (a title which has the distinction of being the only Batman reference in all of Star Trek.)
You've hit the nail on the head about characterization, though. 80s/90s/00s Star Trek was at its core a human drama, just in the context of science fiction. Ron D. Moore once said in an interview that in some episodes the writers did
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"80s/90s/00s Star Trek was at its core a human drama, just in the context of science fiction."
Most of the hard SF authors define science fiction as a human story in the context of some future world. So you can simplify your sentence to "Star Trek was at it's core science fiction."
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No question, it's (usually) not GOOD science fiction, but human drama and science fiction aren't two distinct concepts. Star Trek is science fiction, with the science part poorly done.
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Everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the majority of matter on the planet, including life, is from the remnants of a supernova, I'd say it helped quite a lot.
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As I understand it, and I'm no expert, this 'lack of supernovae' argumnet is used by creationists and has been thoroughly debunked by astronomers.
anti-time (Score:1)
"Aww...it didn't happen. See what you've done?"
Life Has Prospered (Score:2)
>Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered.
Nothing like repeated blasts of high-energy gamma radiation to stir things up.
Re:Life Has Prospered (Score:5, Funny)
HULK AGREES!
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>Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered.
Nothing like repeated blasts of high-energy gamma radiation to stir things up.
TFA does in fact explain that when he says "prospered" it means increased biodiversity.
However, his mechanism is that nearby supernovae cause cooler climates (how???), and that when the earth is cooler there's a broader range of thermal environments between the equator and the poles, thus more niches for life to diversify into.
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However, his mechanism is that nearby supernovae cause cooler climates (how???)
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/research/CLOUD-en.html [web.cern.ch]
Trying to parse... (Score:2)
Trying to make sense of this:
And compared with the temperature variations seen on short timescales as a consequence of the Sun's influence on the influx of cosmic rays, the heating and cooling of the Earth due to cosmic rays varying with the prevailing supernova rate have been far larger
Is this a correct translation?
"The influence of supernovae on cosmic rays is greater than the sun's influence on the cosmic rays"
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I have no idea. That sentence made absolutely no sense to me. I think this is right up there in terms of "WTF does slashdot have editors for?" My best guess is that it's supposed to mean "because the sun drags the earth through areas that have significant differences in the amount of cosmic rays in them, the total effect of cosmic rays on global temperatures has been larger than previously thought". But again, it's a guess that's more based on the notion that cosmic rays impact global temperatures rather th
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The correct translation from this guy would be:
"I can't actually show that it's the cause of climate warming, so I'll put in a confusing sentence to make it seem that way."
He compares the climate change with we are currently experiencing to things that take a much longer time, and things that aren't happening at the rate he referrers to 500 million years ago.
If the Earth was currently being bombarded at the rate necessary for his claim, we would be seeing extinction events.
Classic denier.
Here is a break dow
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I don't think he's a "Classic denier." Most deniers' skepticism is based on cognitive-biased faith - this guy seems to have actually done considerable work to support his cognitive bias.
Re:Trying to parse... (Score:5, Informative)
Classic politically motivated Slashdot climate post.
The guy didn't say anything about current warming, carbon dioxide, human activities or anything else. He's saying that cosmic rays influence climate (they do), short term variation due to the sun's magnetic field have a fairly small effect (the opposite of the words you're trying to put in his mouth) and a bunch of supernovae going off nearby has a larger effect (not hard to believe).
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"The guy didn't say anything about current warming, carbon dioxide, human activities or anything else."
Well, perhaps not in this article. Thanks to google, it's not hard to find where Henrik Svensmark's climate change chips lie. Here's something to get you started, complete with a potent musical background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1qGOUIRac0 [youtube.com]
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Going with the ad hominem argument then?
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No, this was an example of the "rebutting error with verifiable fact" technique.
That URL (or a simple google search) reveals that the guy has said quite a bit about current warming and carbon dioxide.
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I'm not sure if you noticed, but this thread is about a particular excerpt from the story current under discussion.
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"The guy didn't say anything about current warming, carbon dioxide, human activities or anything else."
Well, perhaps not in this article. Thanks to google, it's not hard to find where Henrik Svensmark's climate change chips lie. Here's something to get you started, complete with a potent musical background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1qGOUIRac0 [youtube.com]
So you are saying he's not a scientist? I have to ask because we are all talking like he is a scientist, but, as we all know, there is a consensus among all scientists that global warming is real and caused by SUV's, and Republicans. Only ignorant hicks, Bible thumpers, and creationist believe otherwise.
So, which one is this guy?
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SoulSkill complete rewrote my submissions, which I admit I completely plagiarized from here, [wordpress.com] which is a good summary of the very technical paper.
The author does take pot shots at AGW at the end so perhaps SoulSkill was looking to avoid a flame war that would completely drown out the very interesting paper.
Of course, now that posted the link, it's probably Flame On for many.
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It doesn't help that Svensmark has been shown to be wrong. Of course he ignores the data of the last few decades.
His finding have no bearing on Climate Change we are experiencing, and there are many large Cosmic ray increase that we know of that caused no effect.
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I'm not going to tell you I understand this paper. I'll thank you to not insult the rest of us by suggesting that you do.
If you believe in Science at all, you'd at least read interpretations of his paper as they come out an keep an open mind.
But if you want to just be some AGW tribalist, go right ahead.
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Since the paper was only released today I am fairly confident that he knows nothing of it.
Irony (Score:2)
"If you believe in Science"
Not only does my tribe "believe in Science", we also fight for peace and fornicate for chastity.
But our reality distortion does not stretch so far as betting some third party lipstick yet to come will make this scientific spam into Miss Universe.
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On the other hand, your ability to quickly switch modes into an overbearing moron, directing people how to think was impressive.
Carry on.
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Thanks for the link. Makes a whole bunch more sense than TFS. Whether or not it's real is quite another thing - it's going to take a while to digest it and work through the issues he presents. I'm presuming that his previous research concerning the variation in biodiversity is real or at least plausible. Any comments?
Soulskill: Bad boy! No Doritos for a week.
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Shouldn't this be measurable by measuring the background radiation!?
Dominant species (Score:2)
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What the paper is hinging on seems to be the statement [wordpress.com] that
the changing rates of supernova explosions relatively close to the Earth have strongly influenced the biodiversity of marine invertebrate animals, from trilobites of ancient times to lobsters of today.
With the assumption that other clades follow suite (the several mass extinctions have involved virtually all life forms, some more than others but a significant change in all genera).
Further, the hypothesized effect from supernovae is also coincident with changes in uptake of Carbon 13 (as a proxy for photosynthesis).
Fairly strong correlates if the underlying assumptions are true.
IT was a (Score:2)
life creating kaboom?
Electric/Plasma Universe Theory - Supported Again (Score:1)
Re:Electric/Plasma Universe Theory - Supported Aga (Score:4, Funny)
The energy output of the sun is tied to the electric field strength of the surrounding galactic neighborhood, which fluctuates over time.
Indeed. I'm working on a unification for Electric Universe Theory and Time Cube Theory, which, if I can pull it off, should make me the Crank of the Century.
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Remember this mocking when that time comes. You'll have plenty of company in your camp of people who didn't see it coming, but you'll forever lose your geek cred when you find that you've been the flat-earther, mocking the true scientists who based their theories on observations, not mathematical models.
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Possibly, but it's certainly not going to be the electric universe "theory" that replaces it.
Re:Electric/Plasma Universe Theory - Supported Aga (Score:4, Funny)
Let's see, on the one hand I have the opinion that almost every cosmologist holds, and the other I have the opinion of a Slashdotter.
I'm really torn on this one.
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although, you do have a lower UID then him
now I am torn.
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Well, i for one, will at least wait to see his final mod score before i take sides!
although, you do have a lower UID then him
now I am torn.
It's a well-known fact that you can use the ratio of two people's UIDs to determine the probability of who's right.
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Hey, be fair. It's a Slashdotter backed up by a half dozen or so cranks.
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Those younger than forty will probably live to see the fall of the Big Bang Theory.
Even if it turns out that many phenomena have electric-plasma origins, I don't think the most basic premise of the big bang is going to go away. Red-shifted galaxies provide strong evidence that galaxies have been moving away, and if you rewind the process you're left with a big bang.
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Unless our understanding of the red-shift incorrect as well...
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We know:
1 - Red shift is observed in proportion to distance
2 - Relative velocity (away from us) causes red shift
Based on these two facts, it cannot be proven that relative velocity depends on distance. That's why it's just a theory.
Relative motion is one possible cause of the observed red shift, but that does not mean it is the only possible cause. I think it is more likely that light loses energy in some
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Critique of tired light: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm [ucla.edu]
It's possible that the big bang theory has it wrong about galactic redshift, but that seems more like wishful thinking than observational data.
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Those younger than forty will probably live to see the fall of the Big Bang Theory.
Well, sure. If you look at the list of longest-running TV shows by category [wikipedia.org], it looks like Meet The Press, which started in 1947, has been on the longest. If The Big Bang Theory were to run for the same length of time, someone who's 40 now would have to live to be just over 100 to see it end its run. That's plausible, assuming humanity doesn't do something to wipe itself out in the meantime. But somehow I don't think it's going to run for 60+ years.
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Electric Universe?!! I wouldn't even do Electric Avenue!
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How about the Electric Slide?
Re:How does a supernova cool the atmosphere? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How does a supernova cool the atmosphere? (Score:5, Informative)
Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest they may have an influence on the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed cloud droplets). This is supported by satellite measurements, which show a possible correlation between cosmic-ray intensity and the amount of low cloud cover. Clouds exert a strong influence on the Earth’s energy balance; changes of only a few per cent have an important effect on the climate.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/research/CLOUD-en.html [web.cern.ch]
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I believe they also did an experiment at CERN [web.cern.ch]
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You bet they did, and what they discovered was quickly hushed up, and labled classified.
-Hack
PS: (i.e. People won't pay Carbon Credit taxes if they kept doing those sorts of experiments so they shut them down.)
Re:How does a supernova cool the atmosphere? (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the person above you posted a link to the CERN site for CLOUD which includes a link to CLOUD's website (http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/) which includes a link to their publications (http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/People/Publications.html). All they have is some preliminary data from a prototype but still includes a link to the initial publication "Results from the CERN pilot CLOUD experiment" (http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/1635/2010/acp-10-1635-2010.html)
But that probably doesn't fit with what ever decoder ring you found at the bottom of your box of cocoa pebbles which rather than suggesting you drink more Ovaltine apparently claimed that CLOUD results are classified.
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Unclassified is a classification too!
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Brought to you by the society for redundantly linking redundantly to redundant links
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Carefully read this blog [wordpress.com]. While his main point is to say that there isn't any evidence that cosmic radiation is causing global climate changes, it does discuss a possible mechanism.
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Supernova tectonics (Score:2)
In the new work, the diversity of life over the last 500 million years seems remarkably well explained by tectonics affecting the sea-level together with variations in the supernova rate, and virtually nothing else.
I'm guessing that if he were to factor in the rate of meteor impacts, the beating of butterfly wings would turn out to be a driver of evolution too.
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Ah. Someone who doesn't understand statistics.
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Let's Start a Religion! (Score:2)
Well, duh! Is anyone on Slashdot surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
Svensmark is the scientist whose controversial ideas ultimately led CERN to conduct its CLOUD experiment. The gist of his idea was: cosmic particle presence (more clouds, due to more substrate) and solar magnetic activity (less clouds, due to repelled particles) are amongst the driving factors --perhaps the primary one-- of climate volatility on Earth, because they control overall cloud cover.
CERN's conclusion? Svensmark was basically spot on with respect to cloud formation.
Make no mistake here. Clouds excersice materially high positive and negative feedback loops on climate. Whether it is overwhelmingly superior or merely predominant to carbon dioxide et al is the only point of contention.
In light of this, is any Slashdot reader surprised that proximity of supernovae, aka amount of cosmic particles, accepting the evidence that the latter have an impact on cloud cover and thus on climate, might have an impact on how life in thriving on Earth?
And now the warmists will exclaim... (Score:2, Troll)
Oh noes! Human CO2 causes supernovas!!! I'm super cereal!
(yes, yes, mod me troll/flamebait)
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And cancer causes cell phones. [xkcd.com]
Uptick? (Score:1)
According to the graphs, we are currently on an uptick. Does that mean I'll grow a second wanker?
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SuperNova Credits Exchange to the Rescue! (Score:3)
Effective immediately Al Gore is announcing a SuperNova Credits Exchange!
Taxes paid by every man women and child will stop the SuperNova's climate change effects!
It is illegal not to pay.
So you better not cheat on your SuperNova taxes or we will take away your Passport.
Oh yeah, we got ya covered.
-Hack
Not a long enough study. (Score:2)
Sometimes specialization causes worse effects than Adam Smith could have foreseen.
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Try again. The solar system's passes through the galactic plane do not line up with mass extinction events very well. And what do you mean "the same astronomical model?" The solar system being in a star forming region and passing through the galactic plane are not the same thing.
over-reaching? (Score:2)
The odds are 10,000 to 1 against this unexpected link between cosmic rays and the variable state of the biosphere being just a coincidence, and it offers a new perspective on the connection between the evolution of the Milky Way and the entire history of life over the last 4 billion years,’ Dr Svensmark comments.
So I Googled it and found this article [ossfoundation.us] containing a refutation and further examples of over-reaching. I leave it to /. to comment on the accuracy of these links.
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What do you find unscientific about that quote?
The "refutation" you link to is refuting Svensmark's claims about anthropogenic global warming. The current article is about climate change that happened a long time before there were humans, thus is completely unrelated to anthropogenic global warming. If you're wondering, Svensmark's hypothesis about cosmic rays and clouds (and thus climate) have held up pretty well in both his own studies and independent studies by groups including some at CERN. I think h
See also: (Score:2)
http://www.ann-geophys.net/30/9/2012/angeo-30-9-2012.pdf [ann-geophys.net]
Ann. Geophys., 30, 9–19, 2012
www.ann-geophys.net/30/9/2012/
doi:10.5194/angeo-30-9-2012
Cosmic rays and space weather: effects on global climate change
Insert socially engineered witticism here. (Score:1)
Regions with more radiation generate more mutations, allowing for faster exploring of the evolutionary gradient descent space. Interesting observation that this influence is not static.
BTW this is similar to "simulated annealing", a technique to help an organism trapped in a local minimum escape the well so it can find a deeper one.
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in the 90s she was goddess of all geeks
This ain't the 90s anymore, gramps.