Overshare

The term oversharing refers to someone who lets loose into the public sphere something that would be best left elsewhere. It doesn't necessarily mean information that isn't already public, as oversharing can be the result of taking something that is already public knowledge, but isn't really noticed by most people, and shining the light of public opinion on it. Examples of the first kind are common - for instance the person who puts their social security number up on facebook. Often this sort of thing happens by accident, or out of naivete. But in the latter case, that of attracting undue or undesired attention, is something much more grey as it's the kind of thing that is often done for laudable purposes. For instance, often folks like me will speak out about things that are common place in our own professions. In particular we like to highlight things that make us passionate about our work, stuff that's cool, or anything that gives the broader insight on what it means to be one of us. Done right, we call it E/PO which stands for Education and Public Outreach, and it's an invaluable asset in the sciences where much of our funding comes from government and demands public support. Despite this, there can sometimes be "oversharing" in which material may be posted which can be taken out of context.

A recent example of this kind of EPO gone awry was posted by the good folks over at the Online Engineer Blog (www.theonlinenegineer.org/theoleblog/) in the form of a youtube video entitled "Stairway to Heaven." The video showed a couple of electrical technicians (linesmen?) climbing up a 1768 foot guyed tower and antenna to effectuate work on the upper surfaces. Like all structural engineering (at least to me, a former engineer!), guyed masts like these are very neat. They can soar to incredible heights, even reaching above 600m to send out radio signals over thousands of square miles. We don't often get to see them from the perspective of the top and many of us have wondered exactly how you would go about fixing one, should it break. Thus, the video by showing technicians ascending to the top gives us a vicarious glimpse into their work and something they no doubt find to be a very cool part of the job.

Taken solely in this way, the video is a masterstroke piece of EPO. Heck, it even went viral on youtube! If only my martian wind or telltale animations had those kind of page-views! However, one issue with these sorts of things is that people often evaluate them out of context using what they know of their ordinary lives. And success always brings things out of the woodwork. In this case, the downfall of the video was showing the technicians free-climbing. Not something that I would want to do, but something that they are trained to do and something that helps them to do their job. The video even helpfully points out that this type of work is entirely legal and is permitted by regulations that have always been available for download from OSHA. But it didn't matter. People complained that there was no way this was legal. Two TV stations, sensing controversy and a story, asked to run the video. Finally, after much controversy, the video was ultimately withdrawn by the author.

In some ways this is a bit like the unexpected hubub surrounding the "demotion" of Pluto by the IAU back in the earlier part of this decade. To this day, we still get questions about that one at the observatory. I've often been told that the pluto controversy was a good thing for astronomy and planetary science - it provided a teachable moment which gave us all an in which we could use to engage the public. Still there are those who interpret it only as an affront. Why else would Pluto still be a planet when "within the skies of New Mexico and Illinois" by legislative fiat?

Both cases are a result of what is largely an internal point of interest leaking out into the public sphere in ways that were, perhaps, a bit counter-productive. What makes the "stairway to heaven" video different is that, unlike with Pluto (with apologies to Alan Stern and the New Horizons mission), there is serious money involved with the building and maintenance of radio towers. i don't know if the technician who shot the video had the permission of his employer or the operator of the tower to release the video. Probably no one would have cared, (heck, I bet the employer and owner would have enjoyed the exposure!) had it remained a simple point of interest amongst a group of technofiles like myself.

But when it first got popular and then got controversial the forces that be aligned against it. While the site of the tower is not explicitly given, a quick 15-minute google search reveals its location (I won't be more precise then to say that it's in Texas) and the owner. And from there it would be a short trip to the identity of the climber for those involved. That climber wants to keep working. The owner doesn't want a surprise OSHA inspection which a public outcry would demand, despite a lack of wrongdoing. And absolutely no one wants a crusade for an unnecessary change in legislation and working conditions. So there was no way the video could stay up, to the chagrin of many of us who want to experience the understanding (and vicarious thrill!) of watching a well-trained engineer at work.

As for planetary science and myself, this issue goes way beyond "Pluto" and other teachable moments. The mere fact that I write this blog openly (way to infrequently, I know, loyal reader!) is somewhat of a risk. Having no public opinions is always the safer path, but eventually all successful scientists, by virtue of the constituency we serve, need a public presence. While I try to keep things as positive as possible, there is the chance that I will insult or slight others in my industry with my words here. For that I apologize in advance. But I feel the risk is a justified one. I feel fortunate to do what I do for a living and I want to get the word out, good and bad. That's why I help out on public viewing nights at the York Observatory. That's why I write these words here. And maybe, just maybe, someday some future employer will read what I write here to get some measure of this man and something about what I've had to say will tip the scales in my favour in a close race. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Banting Fellowships: Growing Pains

The requirements for the much-ballyhooed Banting postdocs have finally been posted. These are the funding awards announced by the Canadian Government earlier this year which look like very fancy versions of the Australian Super Science Fellowship program. They appear designed to attempt to keep Canadian talent in Canada and are set to become the most prestigious fellowships in the Nation offered to young researchers. Yet, the first year of disbursements will likely feature a very shallow pool which could lead to mixed results for the program a few years down the road. As well a structural issue with eligibility threatens to keep the best candidates from the program.

Quickly, this year's Banting Fellowships would pay $70,000 a year (taxable) to those who graduated with a PhD between Nov 2007 and Dec 2010, i.e. 0-3 years post PhD. Departments would be permitted to supplement this extremely generous salary and would be encouraged to provide substantial research/travel funding to allow the chosen candidates to carry out an ambitious program. Since a significant commitment is required from individual universities and departments, they would be required to nominate only fellows they would be willing to support. Thus the position is somewhere between a traditional postdoc and a starting faculty position.

So far, this all sounds good, however, there is one clause which looks innocuous on the surface, but which has a significant impact on who would be eligible to apply in the first year of the program. (Complete eligibility requirements can be found here, as provided by UBC) Specifically, the eligibility requirements prohibit anyone who currently holds an NSERC, SSHRC or CIHR postdoctoral award which runs out after March 31, 2011 from applying. Since these awards may be cancelled by the applicant at any time, could you announce your intent to terminate the award on March 31st and still apply? The rules say no. Thus those of us who currently hold the most prestigious awards in the country are barred from applying.

You must be thinking that this is no big deal. After all, why would you want to provide awards to people who are already awarded? Better to spread the wealth around. Well, the danger here is in the timing. Since academic jobs and grants are scarce, PhDs often start looking for a job long before they need one. In fact, if your funding runs out less than a year from now, you are in hot water whose temperature will be slowly rising as you approach that cut off date. Making things worse, is the timing of the award to exclude next year's may graduates in contrast to NSERC's usual application cycle.

Here is what I mean by that last paragraph. According to the rules and regulations, only the following people would be permitted to apply:

(1) PhDs who have not yet graduated, but will do so before Dec 31 of this year, and were losers in the spring NSERC competition, or have not begun looking for a job.
(2) Postdocs that are less than 3 years out (mostly 2 years out, due to typical graduation in May) but have been unable to secure funding beyond next March.
(3) Canadians doing postdocs abroad who wish to return home.

There are issues with all these groups. For (1) and (2) either NSERC or their advisors have shown a lack of faith in their abilities, or they have been unlucky (due to the economy, for instance). But the situation is worst for (3). This is the group you would most like to attract, however, they would need to be well-known to a Canadian department in order to merit being nominated above that department's own. Experience has shown that a star of that magnitude is more interested in a faculty position 2 years out than a second postdoc, though there may be some who see this as a bridging position that would make them more attractive to a particular university. However, there is a reason that they left for greener pastures in the first place, and that reason is not likely to have been money.

This suggests that the pool of applicants for the fellowships will be exceptionally shallow this year, and the recipients may not be the top Canadian early career researchers due to the eligibility restrictions. This should be better beginning next year, however, there is one change I would make: extend the eligibility of graduation out to the middle of the next year from the end of March. This would align the fellowships with the NSERC cycle and allow applicants to apply to both simultaneously.

As awareness of the Banting fellowships grows, the program will improve. But it looks a bit rushed this year, almost as if the politicians who made the announcement are desperate to have recipients in front of the camera ASAP.

Some thoughts on Live at York U's Interview with Jim Whiteway

Last night, the Astronomy.fm program "Live at York U" had an interesting interview with my current postdoctoral supervisor, Dr. Jim Whiteway. In astronomical circles, Jim is best known as the Co-Investigator (Co-I, in the jargon of the business) of the Lidar and MET packages on board the Phoenix Lander, but he also heads the Centre for Research in the Earth and Space Sciences at York University. By way of full disclosure I've had the opportunity to collaborate with him on and off since 2006/2007 or so and have been working for him for nine months now. There are a couple of points that he mentioned or that came up in discussion between Paul Delaney (Director of the York University Observatory) and Host Robert Berthiaume that bear repeating or commenting.

First, there's the subject of planetary science in Canada. Jim mentioned that he had always wanted to go into planetary science when he was younger, but noticing that there was little planetary science work being done in Canada at the time, he elected to go into Optics/LIDAR work instead. While it remains difficult to find full time academic work in this field, he feels that things have improved significantly. Graduate students can now pursue planetary or space studies at places like the University of New Brunswick, the University of Toronto, York University and, of course, the University of Western Ontario where my future supervisor, Dr. Gordon Osinski, is deeply involved with both the Canadian Lunar Research network and the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration. There are also smaller projects available here and there from Memorial University to Dalhousie, to McGill to the University of Alberta. To enhance all of this the Canadian Space Agency has been developing our strength in hosting the world's researchers at planetary analog sites. The most famous of these is the Houghton Impact Structure up on Devon Island where NASA, CSA and the Mars Society (Amongst many others) have been known to test equipment. The astrobiological exploration and research at Pavillion Lake also got a lot of good publicity this year. To cap it off, NSERC has recently created a program to fund students and postdocs called CREATE, and the CSA is hopeful that several new research chairs in planetary and space science will be announced later this year.

So it seems that things are on the upswing in Canadian Planetary Science. One of Jim's comments in particular was music to my ears: that Canadian students should consider this field. After being told time and time again by academics in Canada that planetary science was a dying field and I'd best jump ship before my career sank beneath the waves, it feels good that someone is willing to be optimistic in a public way.

However, is Canada the best place for students to learn their craft? This brings me to a second point raised by Delaney and Berthiaume, that students do not seem to have been significantly involved on the Canadian side of Phoenix. Unfortunately this is largely true. There are, of course, exceptions but these are mostly students brought in after the fact to analyze data and not expected to participate in science team discussions or the mission operations. Contrast this with the attitude of the Americans. I (Arizona) worked as a Strategic Science Planner, as did my fellow grad students Doug Archer (Arizona) and Selby Cull (Washington). Many of the IDE/ISE's were also undergrad students for the SSI, in particular. These students gave presentations at the science meetings and helped to decide the course of operations. Some even put in long hours building and validating space hardware. One case in particular bears mention: Rigel Woida, an undergraduate in the Optical Sciences Department at the University of Arizona was the principal engineer on the organic-free blank used to test the TEGA instrument in flight! So obviously there were more opportunities to participate for those working south of the border.

Why the difference between the Canadian and American teams? Part of it has to do with the profile of the mission. I do get the impression that Phoenix was a bigger deal in Canada than it was in the USA, thus the Americans were able to take more of a "gamble" on using students in key roles. Even so there are several upsides to such a gamble. First, costs are lowered as you get a highly skilled workforce willing to accept little pay for the prestige of working on a space mission. Secondly, you are helping to develop the field and build a cadre of young researchers with mission experience who can go on to plan and operate missions of their own later on. In this sense, I feel that Canada missed out a bit on Phoenix.

This brings me to my last comment, a small piece of advice. After the interview, master's student Berthiaume expressed concern about graduate students who might base their entire thesis on a space mission that has yet to fly. Delaney felt that it's no different from researchers in other fields who might base their theses on experiments that have yet to run. Still, I feel there is a significant difference between the two areas. Rarely, in the case of a lab experiment, does a failure so spectacular occur that you cannot repair the equipment and try again. It may take a bit more time and a bit more money, but you aren't ruined. However, if the spacecraft you based your thesis on crashes, the mission it was to take on won't soon be repeated and you will have to start all over again. Thus, we were counselled at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory not to depend upon mission success for getting our PhD's. That piece of good advice has been followed by many, and with resources like the PDS making data from past missions publicly available there is no shortage of research topics to choose from. As Jim mentioned, one dirty little secret about space missions is that the science team can some times be so caught up in running a mission that they do not get to their data until years later (we're still publishing Phoenix data to this day). That means that there are lots of opportunities for significant and ground-breaking student projects to participate in if you talk to a team that has just finished with a mission.

Quantification of the Attention Span of Star Trek Internet Users vs Surfer Internet Users

Since we're coming up to the end of summer, and I haven't posted for a while (I admit I've been busy over at http://hn-review.blogspot.com ) I thought it might be time for a little fun. Here's a little "study" I conducted way back in 2007. It's based on the work of Rispin (2005) [1] who analyzes the propensity of surfers (as in the wave-rider kind) to write dude with multiple u's when posting online. I looked at those who wrote Khan with multiple a's and analyzed the differences between the two groups:

Introduction: Fun while waiting for a delivery - saw a news article on the "defection" of a Canadian MP named khan entitled "khaaaannn!!" [1] and it reminded me of a colleague's email in April about the work of Rispin (2005) [2]. Rispin contended that for a word with a vowel that is often extended by forum posters, such as "dude" as spelled with multiple u's, the number of repeated characters typed can be fit to a decaying exponential function ( N(n) = N0*exp(-tau*x), where N is the number of users who still have the u key pressed at time x, N0 is the number of users at time 0 and n is the number of u's ) which is related to the typical attention span of the group of users typing 'dude' with multiple u's.

I decided to expand upon this work and compare the exponential decay constant for people who typed 'dude' (more than one u) [1] and those who typed 'khan' (more than one a) and to determine what differences, if any, exist between the two groups. A total of almost 27 million dude writers and 68 million khan writers (according to Google [3]) participated in my study under natural conditions - no participant knew that their propensity for writing excessively long words would be used to determine their attention span.

Results: The frequency of Kh(a^n)n where n is the number of a's is plotted in figure 1:


Figure 1


Figure 2 shows the number of users who still had the a key held down after a fixed period of time compared to the number of users who used only 10 a's, plotted on a log scale to allow for easy calculation of the decay constant:


Figure 2

The time is based on my computer's character speed which is about 29.6 chars/s. Examining at points 20 to 40 (20 to 40 'u's) of dude [1] we get a decay constant of 4s-1 and points 10 to 50 (10 to 50 'a's) of khan, 3s-1. So half the folks typing 'dude' gave up after holding down the u key for 0.17s and half the 'khan' folks let go of the 'a' key after 0.23s (both after the initial wait for the computer to realize you want to type more then one character).

Conclusions: Possible explanations for the discrepancy include: (1) that the people who type dude have a shorter attention span then those who type khan or (2) that people who type 'khan' typically choose to type it on machines which deliver more characters per second.

References:
[1] Singh, K.N. (1982) The Voice of Khan. Internet Site. http://www.khaaan.com/
[2] Rispin, C. (2005) Duuuuuuuuude: like, an analysis, right. http://www.tropic.org.uk/~crispin/dude/
[3] Google Search Engine (2007) www.google.com

Getting the word out

[ Photo Credit: Flickr user Tanki (source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelrhys/40428909/) used under license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en ]

Today I canned my first pop science interview for Astronomy.fm (look for it next Monday, July 19!) with the good folks at the York University Observatory. I've never done anything quite like this before, with the possible exception of sitting in and offering a few comments on an interview that my PhD advisor and Phoenix Mission P.I., Peter Smith, had done with NPR (US National Public Radio). With luck, I picked up a trick or two from Peter, the consummate master of the science interview. So, hopefully I acquitted myself well, and didn't embarrass myself too badly.

Even if I did, it's still a useful process. As I've mentioned in this space before, we Scientists have an obligation to share our knowledge, passion and enthusiasm with the public and I hope that I get more opportunities to do just that.

Additionally, it's interesting to get some behind-the-scenes experience, just to see how these interviews are done. For instance, we ended up recording two interviews since we couldn't use the first take as the result of technical difficulties. What was fascinating is that each take of the interview was completely different, despite operating from the same sheet of questions. In the first (which will not air) we talked mainly about Astrobiology as well as the motivations and philosophy of doing space exploration/planetary science. The second version (which will air) was more of a discussion of the technical aspects of exploring the solar system.

It was a fun experience, and I thank the York University Observatory for the chance to participate. In particular, I'd like to thank my host Rob Berthiaume. Rob, a complete natural as a host, knows exactly how to put an interviewee at ease. You end up simply having a conversation - I think we could have continued talking for hours. Hopefully they'll have me back again. If they do, I'd especially love to be able to answer questions from listeners.

The next step

So, I can now officially announce that I have accepted a new job starting at the end of my current 12-month contract with York University. It's an NSERC Fellowship, under the Canadian Astrobiology Training Program and I'll be working at the University of Western Ontario with Dr. Gordon "Oz" Osinski. Oz and I knew each other, briefly, when I was a PhD student at Arizona and he was there working as a postdoc under Jay Melosh (now at Purdue). It's a 2-year fellowship and I'm really looking forward to starting! But before that happens, there is still much work to be done here at York. Hopefully that will include some publications and perhaps even a first conference since I started this blog, 13 months ago.

This fellowship caps off a successful couple of months for me, as I also recently took home a prize from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) for my publication "Atmospheric Dynamics at the Phoenix Landing site, as seen by the Surface Stereo Imager."



I've never won anything like this before and it was a happy moment. A long-time friend and colleague on the Phoenix Mission told me that my smile said it all. (The complete list of winners at that banquet can be found here ).
The award I received is named after Roger Daly. It's an interesting coincidence that the biography highlights some of his early work in Newfoundland and Labrador, my home province. But beyond that, his is an interesting story and a testament to the twisting, turning path that led many of his era into careers in Science. I have to wonder whether this kind of a career path would be possible today.

So while the near future looks bright, I also have to begin looking past this upcoming fellowship. And there lie dragons...

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As a footnote, a great little website operated by musician John Boswell (www.symphonyofscience.com) has just recently put out a piece on my favourite planet, Mars which samples heavily from Robert Zubrin. While Zubrin has been criticized in the past, he is a tireless advocate for a rapid, near-term crewed mission to Mars. Two of his books, "The Case for Mars" and very especially "Entering Space" were significant influences on me as I first entered this field as an Aerospace Engineer and later as a Planetary Scientist.

Annual State of the Blog

To my great surprise, I've kept this blogging thing up now for just over a year. That means that now is as good a time as any to take stock of the year just past and look forward to the year ahead.

In the past year, I've posted 27 times (this is #28), which is an average of a little better then once every two weeks. So based on the every-other-week frequency I was aiming for at the beginning, I'm pretty much on target. However, things have slowed markedly in the last six months with only half as many posts in 2010 as there were in 2009. As such, I'm going to try and step it up a bit, especially over the summer!

In that time, I've held a pair of jobs, one at Environment Canada, and another at York University. I've also had interviews for postdoctoral positions, research scientist positions and space agency positions. All told, 29 applications were made (I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my extremely supportive and patient reference letter writers!) of which two remain outstanding and three were successful at least in part. None of these were faculty positions or short-lists for faculty positions, so I must conclude that I need more postdoctoral seasoning at this time.

Content-wise, it's been a bit of a mixed bag for the blog. Initially, I had planned to talk mainly about the trials and tribulations of a young academic trying to find work. Over time, however, things have morphed to include a bit of opinion and commentary on topics of scientific interest. From my initial post, this isn't an entirely unexpected development. Aside from that, I still have not posted topics for potential collaboration and have been reevaluating whether this blog is the right place for that material.

Part of that reason are the low numbers of page views (46 over the year, most of which I'm sure are my own, despite advertising topics on my twitter feed) and comments (only one, in response to this post - thanks Nikhil!). This blog wasn't intended to draw a large audience, and it doesn't particularly bother me that few, if any, people are reading. The initial purposes of being part public diary, part practice ground for me to develop my opinions and ideas and work on my persuasive writing, remain intact. And, of course, if my writing helps even a single other struggling young academic long after I've got a permanent job, it will have been worth it.

Looking forward, you may notice a redesign as of today. I've added a search bar at top on the right, and my twitter feed to the bottom of the sidebar. Additionally, a new background replaces the old flat colour. The mottled spheres floating in a reddish cloud is meant to be evocative. On one hand, the colour recalls the Martian surface and sky with swirling clouds of dust. On the other, the spheres recall planets floating in the ether of space at the same time as they resemble microorganisms. Since my interests will focus more strongly on Astrobiology going forward (More on that in a later post), this feels appropriate. As required by blogger, the image is stock, and can be found, somewhat surprisingly, under the "health and beauty" tab.

In any case, it's been a good first year, and I look forward to another one that's even better!

The Role of Secrecy in Science

For the first time that I can remember, a story about data embargoes for a space mission has made the New York Times. A data embargo is an agreement signed between a space agency and a mission science team which grants the science team exclusive rights to the data for a fixed period of time. The specific case in question involves the Kepler Mission, a NASA-led spacecraft in an earth-trailing orbit (at the L5 Lagrangian point) which is searching for earth-sized extrasolar planets. As first reported in Nature, the science team has identified about 700 potential exoplanet candidates which, under the terms of the agreement the team signed with NASA, must be made public within one year of discovery. But because of bad weather and launch delays for other space telescopes, they have been unable to confirm all those putative detections within that time. As such, they are seeking an extension on their data embargo. In a compromise have been granted the right to hold back their best candidates for one more year.

As space missions are funded by taxpayers, you might wonder why data embargoes exist at all. In fact, a case can be made that their presence can impede scientific progress since it limits new data to a small pool of people for a certain amount of time. If the entire scientific community could be brought in, progress would certainly be faster. Furthermore, many space missions excite the imaginations of the public who ultimately provided the funding that makes them possible. Sharing with these people is an obligation that will only help our future prospects. After all, a vociferously supportive public and scientific community increases the likelihood that more missions will take place in the future.

This desire for openness must be balanced against providing an incentive for the Science Team to participate. Mission planning can consume a great deal of a scientist's time for years before launch. This requirement will delay or supplant work that would lead to publications, the keys to career advancement. Furthermore, once the mission starts producing science, the team who put so much work in ahead of the mission is in the worst possible place to analyze their results. They must spend most of their time running the mission, making scientific decisions, and preparing the cleaned up and polished data for public release. This production of RDRs (Reduced Data Records) from the raw data received from the spacecraft (EDRs, or Experimental Data Records) is a long and tedious task, in and of itself.

If the data were freely available as soon as they were collected and anyone could publish immediately, why would anyone make the effort to join a mission team, knowing what it could cost? Without the carrot of a guaranteed first paper, possibly in a premier journal such as Science or Nature, it would be difficult to attract top talent and the quality of those scientists working on the mission and the decisions they make would be lower. Thus the collected data products would also suffer without embargoes.

A balance is required between the needs of the scientific community, the science team and the public at large. For Mars missions, typically EDRs of images are released within a few days and public release of data to NASA's planetary storehouse, the Planetary Data System (or PDS, as we typically refer to it) for dissemination to the scientific community occurs at the 6-month mark. This 6-month embargo is barely adequate to give the scientists a head start, and often in the course of a mission, you can see a gradual change over the first few months in the make-up of the operations team as the experienced scientists step back to write their papers and younger members of the team step into their roles. Often these younger scientists are graduate students, as I was when I worked on Phoenix.

This brings up the potential conflict that can exist amongst the members of a science team. As there are different levels of participation and different roles within the science team, there is also a method for determining how publishing rights will be meted out within the team. After all, a senior scientist who dedicated five years to a project and who has considerable duties during the science phase would not want someone who was added at the last minute and has more free time to write up a paper in Science or Nature. Thus, the the publications that will result are typically codified in advance of the beginning of the science phase in a document called "The Rules of the Road." This document lists the collaboration level of each science team member and what he or she is permitted to publish. For instance, for Phoenix, the main Science Paper announcing the results was restricted to the senior level of researchers, the Co-Investigators (or Co-I's). In the later JGR special issue, any science team member was permitted to contribute (Disclosure: I helmed a paper in the JGR special issue and contributed to one of the subsidiary Science papers for Phoenix).

The peanalties for the science team members breaking an embargo are serious. While not all missions require formal NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) as Kepler did, team members are well aware that infractions could result in the termination of their participation on the mission and their funding, and even disqualify their participation on future missions. Given the prestige of serving on a mission, this is usually incentive enough.

Embargoes can also affect those on the outside in the scientific community. For instance, publication of results in a peer-reviewed journal can take upwards of a year from submission to publication. Thus every day counts. Often, new discoveries will be announced, somewhat informally, at press conferences and at trade conventions. More then a few outside scientists attempted to publish in peer review the material released at these conferences and conventions for Phoenix while the embargo was still in effect. Mostly, the editors refused to accept these papers - after all, the authors did not collect the data they were reporting, and were not experts on its usage. However, unfortunately, at least one paper did get through and became the first record of one of our instruments to occur in the literature. It seems unlikely that the authors of this paper would be asked to participate in a mission in the future.

The public reaction to full disclosure can also be a source of worry. For instance, when I was on the Huygens Mission working for the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer in 2005, an accidental release of the image library resulted in internet bloggers providing the first processed versions, many of which made it onto the pages of newspapers. These bloggers did not have the calibration data from the instrument and thus could not eliminate many of the artifacts and properly balance the colour in the way that we could. Thus an incorrect record was widely disseminated. As you can expect, the P.I. of the instrument who had devoted almost 17 years of his life to getting these 3 hours of data from the surface of Titan, was not impressed.

Many, especially those on the outside, would argue that secrecy is anathema to good science. However, a certain amount is important if we are to keep the quality of mission data at its peak. Those who participate are giving up their time to use their talents to bring back the best data possible and are deserving, at the very least, of our respect. They also deserve the time needed to get it right. I do believe that the current state of affairs with respect to the public is very fair. In terms of the Scientific community, I believe we need to continue to work to make space missions as inclusive as possible. The more talent we have working inside of the embargoes, the better our results will be. At all costs, we need to avoid the impression of space missions as an exclusive club where who you know is more important then the quality of your work.

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As a note, the JPL planetary photojournal provides thousands of images that have been publically released. These images have been processed by the best and should be your first stop when exploring the solar system or looking for something to include in a presentation.

Planetary Parks System

Almost a year ago, I wrote an entry on the benefits and issues of the current Planetary Protection regime. Clearly there is a necessity to require that the stricture of decontamination procedures be proportional to the biological interest of the destination. You certainly do not want to bring a false positive along with you, or forward contaminate an area to the point of making it unsuitable for future study. However, I was troubled by the trend towards avoiding areas of high interest because of strict decontamination procedures. After all, reducing the amount of decontamination is an attractive descope option for spacecraft on a tight budget as it does not degrade functionality. This is the route that Exo-Mars intends to follow.

But what if there could be a compromise? I spoke with a colleague yesterday who suggested that perhaps what was necessary was a planetary parks system. Under this scheme, some sensitive areas would be set aside for preservation while others could be opened up to study. It's an intriguing idea. You could, for instance, restrict landings to some gullies on Mars, but not all gullies. That way, you could begin to study the gully ecosystem today with cheaper, ready-to-go technologies, while preserving much of the occurrences of this land form for future study or complete preservation.

This is not dissimilar to the way in which returned samples are curated. Current protocols divide any such sample into four pieces, one of which remains untouched, awaiting more sophisticated future analysis. In the context of a park system, similar gradations could be applied. This would lead to a multi-tiered system in which concentric boundaries could mark areas in which landers with successively more stringent decontamination could be placed. This would allow for early and cheap study of these interesting regions, while preserving areas for future study.

In the process we could learn more about the potential for life in these areas. If these early spacecraft show a high astrobiological potential, this increases the chances that an adequately sterilized, expensive and highly sensitive mission will be sent to the parks area. In contrast, today's system of restricting all landings on type-IV special regions, actively discourages missions from visiting these areas.

My colleague also suggested an added benefit of such a policy. Defining the limits and extent of the areas would become a mission objective in and of itself. A good parallel is the scientific bonanza which has resulted from Canada's desire to map the arctic continental shelf for economic and political reasons. As a former engineering student, I see no issue with doing Science in support of a practical goal.

Unfortunately, the parks scheme doesn't solve everything. The liquid water subsurface of Europa, which likely mixes, is not easily subdivided into park-like zones. Thus areas like these should still be off-limits to all but the most sterile spacecraft. However, the parks system strikes a good balance between an open free-for-all, and complete preservation.

The two-body problem

Let's face it, becoming a scientist is an oft-times thankless job. Once you decide to go for it, you'll have a long road ahead of you. You start with a four-year undergraduate degree, and by the time you finally have a PhD, you're often in your late twenties or early thirties. Next comes postdocing, which typically lasts about four years in Planetary Science. Then, if you are very lucky, you might make assistant professor and get tenure by the time you are 40 or 45.

Neglecting the long hours, many PhD programs expect you to have moved from your Undergraduate institution. Likewise, tradition has it that at least one of your two 2-year postdocs should be in a different place. I've been told here that the wider you travel the better. Ideally, you want to have experience in both the US and in Europe, and dabble a bit in Asia if you have the time. Finally, when that professorship comes beckoning, you may not have the luxury of choosing where you work, and may need to move again in order to get that coveted tenure.

But what happens if you meet someone? What if you want to start a family. Well, to put it mildly, you've got a challenge on your hands. Each time the end of a position comes up, you'll have a choice to make: who controls the move? And worse, do you even stay together? This in a nutshell is what is typically called the two-body problem. The resolution of the problem can be a sticky one. But, from what I've seen there are few different solutions which can work.

The simplest resolution is to eliminate from consideration as a wife or husband anyone who does not have a transferable job. Fields like medicine, law, information technology, grade school teaching, and artistic crafts, as examples, are in demand in almost any location where you are likely to find a university. Thus, the academic spouse controls the moves and the spouse with the transferable job follows along. This is the method followed by, perhaps, a little over 50% of couples I know. It works especially well in more traditional families, typically if the academic is male. It also works well when the non-academic spouse is an interested lay-person or enthusiast on the subject that the academic spouse pursues.

But what if your spouse is an academic also? After all, you will typically be working day in and day out with other academics, and there is a certain attraction to shared suffering. In this case, things become a bit more troublesome as academic postings don't come in pairs. Thus you have two ways you can go. First, you can try to negotiate a job offer for a spouse as a part of your academic offer. Almost always, in the rare case where this is possible, the spouse would be offered a position at a lower rank. For instance, one of you would be an Assistant Prof, the other on soft money as a Research Associate. As well, unless your research is "all that and a bag of crisps," you may have to go well down your preference list to find an institution willing to deal. Even if you can make it happen, this can lead to tension as to who is sacrificing for whom by accepting a lesser position. We academics are a competitive breed, after all.

Second, you can do the long-distance relationship, and each of you take your best individual offers. Take it from someone who has been there, that this is not a whole lot of fun. At best, you will need to put off any family aspirations. And at a minimum, you will need to work hard to keep the relationship from falling apart. Sacrifices will need to be made to stay together in terms of time, effort and airfare. Naturally, the closer together you are located the better, and the degree of difficulty goes up exponentially as the number of separating time zones increase. Still, this could be a good solution for those who travel frequently for work. As well, if you prove yourself to be a valuable asset to the hiring department, it might be possible to arrange a spousal hire and a happy ending for all. Even so, this method is clearly a gamble and fails more often then it works out.

So why bother gambling at all? Some chose to end relationships at the time of moving instead. This selection of career over family seems to be especially prevalent amongst more successful academics.

That begs the question: do you have to put your career first in order to be successful? Or can you have both a family life and a professional life? Luckily, more and more institutions are willing to help in trying to balance these two spheres. Flexible work schedules, telecomuting, and spousal job assistance are being offered. Since these institutions tend not to be the top institutions in their field, perhaps they spy that by offering a solution to the two-body problem, they can access a better pool of talent then would be available to them otherwise. I, for one, applaud their efforts, no matter the motivation. After all, a more well rounded and happier set of academics makes for a better learning and collaborative environment.

The Benefits of Health Care

As those of you who read this column regularly know, I'm not one given to posting my initial response to events. I prefer to let things percolate for a bit and try to flesh out all the implications. The recently passed health care legislation in the United States is no different. First of all, I would like to congratulate the US Congress for their work. They have made the health system much more fair, and took a stab at trying to slow the growth of costs, something that will benefit all in the long term. Universal health care is something we have enjoyed in Canada now for many decades. In recent years this has proved to be a boon for private industry; they do not need to spend as much out of pocket providing coverage for their employees located here as for those in the US.

Thus, this provides an excellent place to talk a little bit about the benefits that one might expect working as a postdoc or undertaking a PhD. In Canada, things are pretty simple: with few exceptions postdocs and PhD students are left to fend for themselves. In the US there is more variation. Typically, as university employees (RAs and TAs), PhD students and postdocs are entitled to some basic health care, subject to reasonable co-pays ($5-25 for a doctor's visit, $100+ for emergency rooms, in-network). In many ways this replicates the Canadian health care system, so long as you remain a student in good standing and continue to work a certain minimum number of hours per week. Rare indeed is the postdoc or PhD that covers regular preventative care, such as dental visits, or provides it to spouses and that goes for both countries.

While this all sounds good, make no mistake, as Robert Heinlein once said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." (TANSTAAFL) If you work in the US, the cost of providing benefits with a position is passed on to you in the form of lower salary then you might earn otherwise. In fact, I have heard of positions that have a "marriage penalty" of sorts in which a pay cut is the price of adding a spouse to a coverage plan. These losses can be significant, totaling thousands of dollars over the course of a year.

Still, the situation is more complicated. For cultural reasons, Postdocs and PhD students in the USA tend to make significantly more then their Canadian counterparts (for instance, US$25k is not an unusual 1/2-time Science RA/TA, whereas the most lucrative NSERC PGS-D pays only C$21k and does not come with a tuition waiver, like the US counterpart; likewise US postdocs typically start around $50k and go up from there, whereas C$40 is much more common here), even factoring in the higher cost of providing benefits. Thus any reductions in cost associated with the new legislation will only widen this gap and make US Positions more attractive.

Astrobiological Disparity: A Commentary on the International Year of Biodiversity

From left to right: Deinoccocus radiodurans, a hardy extremophile capable of life in nuclear reactors, middle, the strange body plan of the now-extinct cambrian animal Opabinia Regalis (As envisioned by Nobu Tamura), an afican wild cat (as photographed by Wikipedia user Sonelle). General Sherman, a sequoiadendron, the tallest tree in the world at 275 feet.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, following up 2009, the International Year of Astronomy. This makes it a particularly good time to discuss the field that links these two subjects, Astrobiology. Much of astrobiological work today occurs along two linked themes. The first is assessing habitability and the potential for life elsewhere in the Universe. This is what we are trying to do by following the water on Mars. However, this endeavour cannot proceed without input from the second theme, understanding the origins of life and its early development on the earth.

Unfortunately, both of these themes face a fundamental problem. Even though there is great diversity between extant forms of life on Earth, there is remarkably little disparity, from a cosmic perspective. This difference is a subtle, but important one. While diversity is a measure of the number of different forms in a collection of organisms (usually taken as the number of different species, or non-reproductively mixing groups), disparity is an expression of the degree of differentiation between these forms often in terms of body plans and survival strategies. So a collection of 500 species of shrimp is more diverse, but less disparate then a collection of 100 species made up of plants, fish, crustaceans and plankton. Notably, neither measure takes into account any measures of the success of a particular species in terms of number of organisms, range, species longevity, etc.

Since we only have one example of a planet with life, it is worth asking: how disparate is life on Earth? While there may be as many as 100 million different species present on the planet today (most remaining as yet undiscovered), these can be divided into just three domains of life based upon the form of their constitutive cells. These domains are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. Yet even these large meta-groups have inter-relationships. Eucarya, the domain of which we and nearly all other macroscopic life are a part, is thought to be the result of a beneficial symbiosis between an Archaean and a Bacterium at some time between 1.7 and 2.7 billion years ago. More fundamentally, all three domains are based on the replicative abilities of a single polymer, DNA and share a common ancestor. Thus in terms of strategies for propagation, the disparity of life on Earth is zero!


The three domains of life with Archea in Green, Eucaryotes in Red and Bacteria in Blue. Note that all three domains share a common ancestor which would be located at the center of the tree. The close relationship between the Archaea and Eucarya is shown as a larger subgroup before linking back to the last universal common ancestor.

Part of the reason for this could be the surprising observation that while diversification increases in time, disparity actually tends to decline. For instance, Stephen J. Gould observes that the number of different body plans (loosely equivalent to the classification level of phyla) in animals present just after the Cambrian Explosion is significantly greater than today. Analogously, it has been hypothesized that several different biopolymers, including RNA, PNA and TNA might have been able to perform functions similar to that which is played by DNA today. All may have been present on the early earth, but DNA, having advantages, outcompeted all of these other forms. The history since has been written by the victorious molecule.

However, this also suggests that even on the earth there may have been greater disparity in the past and that had conditions been different, then the balance could have been tipped in favour of other forms or strategies. As a result, we are left contemplating not just where in the Universe we might find life that has been successful on Earth, but where other kinds of life, as yet unknown, might be possible. There are some theoretical bounds we can put on such a problem; however, I expect that this is an area in which we will be surprised by discovery in the future. As many prognosticators are aware, it is always a dangerous proposition to define the limits of the possible.

Instead, we can proceed by determining what factors will tend to improve the odds of life beyond the earth, based on our limited earthly experience. For instance, liquid water certainly helps the chemistry that we require to function. The presence of certain elements in particular Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous and Sulphur (collectively referred to as CHNOPS) are also helpful, allowing for systems that can replicate and store energy. Similarly the presence of an energy source to power cellular reactions is critical; both chemosynthesis and photosynthesis, in which energy is gained from chemical disequilibrium or radiation, are practiced on the Earth. This has led to the hypothesis that the powerful oxidants found in the martian soil by the Phoenix Lander could represent a power source for a martian biochemistry.


Above: a soil sample is collected for analysis. On Mars, solar UV causes oxidants to form in the soil, building up to as much as 1 percent by weight of the upper layer. Perchlorate, discovered by the MECA instrument aboard Phoenix represents a potential power source for chemosynthesis, if there is an organism available to metabolize it.

But the most important factor seems to be time. Over time, organisms evolve to move into new habitats that were previously empty. To illustrate this, consider that despite the incredible biodiversity on the Earth, certain niches remain unfilled. Why do the deserts or the summits of mountains not flower with plants and animals? Turn the question around and ask why the continental surface was barren half billion years ago? And why, before that, no animals, plants or larger creatures beyond bacterial colonies filled the seas?

It is worth keeping in mind that all of these biomes, including the terrestrial abodes not filled today, are far more clement locations for the kind of life we know then exists on Mars, Enceladus or Europa. That these are the leading candidates for life elsewhere in our Solar System underscores not only the difficulty of our Astrobiological quest, but also the fragility of life on our planet. It requires that we protect something so rare in all its diverse forms. This is the realization that is at the foundation of the year of Biodiversity.


From left to right: Earth, Mars, Europa and Enceladus (showing water plumes)

As a final thought let us consider what the evolution of intelligence on the Earth has meant for the survival of life on Earth. The fragility of life relates directly to three factors: environmental variation, diversity/disparity and range.

The effects of the first two factors are simple to grasp. The greater the frequency and magnitude of the variation in environmental conditions, the more difficult it is to maintain a stable system. Likewise, the more diversity and disparity there is amongst organisms inhabiting a particular region, the more likely that one or more species will be able to deal with the environmental variations that do occur.

Range, however, is the most crucial. By spreading itself over a large territory, life cannot be extinguished easily by isolated events. This is the advantage of large animals. We cannot tolerate the extremes that bacteria can, but we can deal with inclement conditions by adapting or moving on. Migration is a particularly good example of an adaptation unavailable to simpler life which allows the organism to derive benefits from a much larger range.

Intelligence is by far the best known means of increasing the range of a species. Through our use of tools and clothing, human beings now inhabit the entire planet and can claim a range in pressure, temperature, salinity, pH, you name it - larger than that of any other organism, bacteria included. As such, the Intelligence habitable zone (IHZ) for a solar system housing intelligent life is limited only by the availability of raw materials and energy; aside from politics and economics, there is no reason why humans could not establish a permanent presence on Europa or even further out in the solar system.

As such, we are the first organism produced by our planet with the capability to outlive the death of our Sun, four billion years hence. Thus spaceflight represents the most important adaptation ever produced by life on Earth, and it is an adaptation that we must not lose if we are to preserve life in our corner of the universe.


With the emergence of intelligent life, the habitable zone (HZ) increases in size. This larger Intelligence Habitable Zone (IHZ) shows how through the use of spaceflight and nuclear energy generation, it is possible to spread life to any location with sufficient raw materials, mainly water ice. Discarding waste heat is a difficulty which corresponds to the left edge of the purple trapezoid, but the right edge has no well-defined boundary.

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For an interesting introduction to some of the central questions posed by Astrobiology, I highly recommend the book Rare Earth (most recently, 2003) by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. For a more advanced read, try Lunine’s Astrobiology (2005), a tome well-worth close study. Those looking for background on questions surrounding the initial emergence and diversification of animals (more generally “complex metazonans”) are advised to consider Stephen J. Gould’s Wonderful Life (1990). As a note on the images, I have selected NASA or Wikipedia media wherever possible and have made an effort to attribute the base images. If I have missed something, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me and I will fix it! With the exception of the Phoenix and planetary images, assume all image content is covered under: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License.