Life Discovered on Mars! Well, Not Exactly

We have only one way to study the surface of this tragically beautiful planet; advanced technology with a robotic arm and HD cameras for our eyes. In August of 2007, we launched the Phoenix mission to collect samples of both the Martian soil and atmosphere. Hopefully we can find water ice closer to the poles and analyze those samples with instruments on the deck of our spacecraft.

The lander we sent on the Phoenix mission will beam signals back from the Martian surface reporting the results of the remote soil and ice analyses. But before Phoenix even had a chance to make it off the launch pad a new wrinkle in the epic saga of Mars had revealed itself. Images sent back from the Viking orbiter circling the red planet show evidence of a very unexpected event. It appears that a liquid flow of some sort occurred within the last few years in a small gully at the edge of a deep Martian ravine.

In 2001 the orbiter took photos of the exact same spot with nothing of interest showing up in those shots. The new photos, on the other hand, showed a white residue in the gully. Residue seemingly left behind by a flow of liquid, possibly where water spurted from the ground and flowed for several hundred yards before transforming into vapor and vanishing. Scientists do not yet understand what might have caused such a flow. But many suspects that it's a result of an active core the planet must still contain.

Clearly, a volcanically active red planet indicates life. Not the life we were looking for, but the planet lives. It only needs inhabitants to call it home. We have found places on Mars where hydrothermal vents could be active. This is significant not just because we want liquid water. But because liquid water implies that this might be a new world waiting for us to come. Ironic to think of Mars as a living thing, but how can we not think of her this way now? And it is, of course, all about the search for life in when all is said and done.

The engine driving the astonishing scientific effort to explore the red planet is the burning desire of humankind to know if life exists elsewhere in the vast reaches of space. Mars seems to almost want to show us what we want to see. She displays to us her rich minerals. We want to see water so she displays plums of what could be water from her dry barren landscape. She has even shown us a face on her surface; a trick of lighting across her own scarred face to mirror our own.

Humans have since his dawning consciousness wondered why they are here and wonder what's up there and wonder if there's more. We seem to need to know the answer to this question to gain some kind of perspective. Finding life on Mars could also help us understand the origins of life here. Set aside your numbers and your data for a moment and peer up at that blood red spark in the sky with your own eyes. Have we not seen her face? Have we not seen her tears?

On our own planet, Mars could be a reflection of Earth and what we could bring about here. Scientists have even speculated that we could have perhaps arrived here on Earth on a celestial piece of Marsfloating in space. That is quite a leap even by scientific standards. To play devil's advocate, instead of asking, what wounded Mars so grievously? Perhaps we should ask, who did this to her? Perhaps in our search of life we should be mindful of what we may learn. As we continue to tax our own planet we may discover we humans are not life at all, but rather a universal contagion.

When a virus destroys its host does it not also kill itself? Does it not also seek a new host? As our numbers explode here like a virus, we may come to learn we are not a civilization at all, but a virus… and the death of worlds.

The Emerging Age of Nanotechnology

Graphene nanoparticle compared to Cobalt nanoparticle

The properties of graphene turned out to be so unique that scientists have not yet discovered the limitless potential uses. At only one atom thick this material has 20 or 30 superlatives to its name. It is the strongest material that has ever been measured. It is the most conductive material for electricity and heat ever discovered. It is the most impermeable material ever measured. In fact, this material is so different to anything we know it's hard to wrap our heads around quite how powerful it is.

Strength

Graphene is so strong that a 1 foot square meter of the material can sustain the weight of 1 kg. This would appear as if the 1 kg weight were suspended in mid air as the graphene is only one atom thick!The secret to the strength of graphene relates to the bonds between the carbon atoms. A model of the structure graphene indicates a tight formation of perfect hexagonal structures that vastly increases the overall structural strength.

Conductivity

Graphene is highly conducted electricity as a result of the bonds between its carbon atoms. The electrons within the carbon atoms behave as if they have no mass which allows them to move very quickly. The science behind the behavioral properties of these electrons ventures into the realm of quantum physics and is not completely understood by science today.

Practical Applications

Practical applications of graphene include replacing silicon in our electronics. Silicon has its limitations one of which is that we're quickly reaching a point where we cannot get silicon transistors any smaller or faster. Graphene does not have the same limitations so it is likely the next generation of electronics will consist of graphene-based transistors.

Undiscovered Potential

However, applying graphene to its full potential requires a new way of thinking about how we build our electronics. Thousands of researchers around the world are working with graphene to understand both its unique properties and potential applications. Hundreds of scientific papers on the properties of graphene are being written every week each proposing new ideas for its use in future technology. At the moment, baffled scientists admit the practical applications could be limitless in terms of what we know about technology. Infinitely smaller electronic components within our devices as well as infinitely faster computers rank among just a fraction of potential applications. Yet again, science fiction has become science fact and the age of nanotechnology is upon us.

Downsizing Technology

Graphene is Graphite on the atomic scale.

Perhaps taking somewhat of a backseat in headline-making technological advancements of our machines, are the materials we use to make them. The world of materials defines our technology from the mass-produced iron of the Industrial Revolution to the complex alloys of the jet age as well as the silica that underpins the information age. Now we may be on the verge of a new age, based on our ability to manipulate matter on the smallest scale.

Nanotechnology

Not all invention results from identifying a need and coming up with a solution. Sometimes scientific discoveries are so radical and unexpected they can take a while to realize their potential for practical applications. For years it has been widely assumed the technology required to advance us into nanotechnology was decades away. However, the biggest step towards nanotechnology has already quietly been developed earning its discovering scientists the Nobel Prize.

Rapidly Advancing Technology

Science and technology are advancing so rapidly that it's quite understandable that even we do not know where we empirically stand in the evolution of our technology. And such innovations often rely on the mavericks of invention who tend to look at the world in a very different way. While we dream of expected new advancements, these mavericks blindside us with the discoveries we could not have imagined in our wildest dreams.

Physicist Andre Geim

Physicist Andre Geim attributes most of his inventions to sheer luck, stating, "The more you try the more you get lucky". Andre is the man who made tomatoes, strawberries and even frogs levitate by focusing and manipulating strong magnetic fields. He also designed a sticky tape based upon the design of the feet of geckos. Andre Geim shared the Nobel Prize for discovering one of the strongest new materials in the world, Graphene.

Graphene

The journey that led Andre to the Nobel Prize began with pure scientific curiosity about the world of the very small. As a scientist he was always interested in what happened to the materials when they became thinner and thinner. Eventually you reach the point where the material is only as wide as its individual atoms and molecules. Graphite is composed of thin sheets of material tightly stacked together. Andre discovered that by simply using adhesive tape, graphite could be separated down to its atomic structure called Graphene. On this level materials behave in a completely different matter than they typically do at larger scales.

The practical applications of atomic materials radically change the game of technology because materials at the atomic level can literally defy the laws of known physics. As of yet, even the scientist who designed this material are hesitant to speculate its potential to alter the face of our technology. Until now, they had not even conceived the possibility of machines this small even in the realm of nanotechnology.

Are We Advancing Too Fast?

This speed at which ideas now move around the world is one of the defining characteristics of invention today. But another is the degree of specialization it takes to make these advancements in the first place. When you think about all the science that lies behind innovation today, it is so complex and so advanced it does not seem possible to stay on top of everything that's happening. And so to keep the pace of invention scientists have to work in a very different way from that of the lone scientist in the past.

Specialized Sciences

Certain sciences have become so specialized that is impossible to be an expert in all areas. Once upon a time, there was just one science journal today there are over 1000. Among the scientists of the world not many of them are aware of what the others are doing. Many have some basic idea and background information but there's no possible way they could all keep up with each other. Even we as writers researching new advances in technology are taken by surprise at new scientific advancements being made almost every day. Look at the Nobel Prize, when you read the citation for something that's been done in the scientific community it very often is totally alien to anyone not working in that field.

Alien Technology

Indeed, the simple categories we learned in school have now multiplied into a complex web of interconnected fields each with their own highly specialized subject areas. Brand new emerging fields of science include Quantum optics, Photonics, nanotechnology, genomics, quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography, Neuro-electro-dyametry, transcriptonics and bioelectrochemistry. Could this be a true definition of alien technology when our own intelligence outpaces us at a phenomenal rate?

Inevitable Obsolescence

The science of these fields was not even discovered yet when many of us were in school, yet they will be staples in the coursework of our emerging young scientists tomorrow. By the time those college students graduate, new emerging fields will have been discovered rendering many of their specialized degrees obsolete. What remains clear in our highly specialized and technological world is that scientists must collaborate if they ever hope to stay ahead of the next generation of advancements.

In a seemingly endless wellspring of information where no question seems far-fetched, perhaps what we should really be asking ourselves now is where all of this is coming from. And even more frightening, where will this blinding pace of rapid technologically-based intelligence ultimately take us?