CONTACT 2012 ABSTRACTS
Penny Boston:
"The Persistence of Microbial Life in Geological Materials: Implications for Evolutionary Biology on Earth and Astrobiology"
How long can microorganisms remain viable in sediments, crystal inclusions, rock fractures, ice, or other geological materials? This is a question for which we have had little direct evidence, but great interest. Reports of long duration microbial survival and recovery from salt crystals and other materials have been greeted with skepticism because the standards of proof are so rigorous. Any hint of surface contamination undermines the ability to claim that recovered organisms are indeed survivors from past environments. However, as such instances slowly mount up in the scientific literature, the plausibility, indeed probability, of extremely long term survival and viability become strengthened. Work by several investigators on microbial survival in lab tests simulating the surface heating of impacting small bodies lends further credence to the idea that microbes could survive transplanetary journeys. Our recent work on sequenceable DNA and living microorganisms from fluid inclusions in enormous selenite crystals in a high temperature cave environment is a new entry in the list of potential long-term survival of microorganisms in geological time capsules. What is the current state of evidence for life's survival over geologically significant periods of time and how can this inform our ideas about the development of life on Earth, and astrobiologically significant processes like meteorite transportation of microbes, panspermia, and exoplanet life?
W.J. Clancey:
"Belief Systems and Cross-Cultural Communication"
Cognitive scientists are slowly learning about the social-psychological nature of belief systems. New insights about why communication is difficult and sometimes avoided among people could be relevant to SETI. If there is a diversity of "intelligences" possible, maybe we will only be contacted by or responded by those who are like us.
Bruce Damer:
"The EvoGrid and ChemoGrid: Genesis Engines Driving to a New Origin of Life"
The Biota.org project and conferences born out of CONTACT sixteen years ago have spawned yet another precocious offspring: the EvoGrid, a distributed computational molecular dynamics simulation aimed at the conundrum of the origin of life. Following successful prototype runs in 2010 and 2011 the project is moving on to a new phase: the ChemoGrid which will marry robotic combinatorial chemistry with computers to produce the first "Genesis Engine". A Genesis Engine will host thousands of chemical micro-experiments arranged in a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption to probe possible pathways from simple molecules to the first functional protocell. This presentation will provide CONTACT a review progress so far and the far reaching vision and consequences surrounding this effort.
Kathryn Denning York University, Canada:
"Unboxing Pandora"
Our expectations of contact between worlds are myriad. These expectations are of course highly influenced by our beliefs about the record of inter-cultural contact on Earth. But as this talk will suggest, these expectations may also be shaped by Western myths about the perils of scientific exploration and discovery Ð in particular, the often-invoked myth of Pandora's Box. This ancient tale has come, in the modern day, to signify a sense of trepidation about the risks of science and technology: many analyses about new technologies or pathbreaking scientific research programs, including SETI, mention Pandora's Box as a warning. But ancient stories like these aren't merely rhetorical flourishes which describe our modern concerns: they might actually structure our thinking about current and future experiences. The tale of Pandora's Box is used to tell listeners that for every major discovery there is a social catastrophe, and for every new knowledge there is a price. The message is that curiosity will cost us all in ways we never dreamed of, and that this cost will be visited upon us for generations to come. This paper argues that if we delve into the history of the potent Pandora myth, we find that it isn't really about curiosity or discovery at all... and that if we can put aside such influential stories, we might be better able to think logically and scientifically about complex, abstract, hypothetical scenarios like interstellar contact.
Donna Duerk
"Concepts for Moon Habitats"
I propose a visual presentation that describes the concepts for Moon habitats that NASA has been working on recently that include the ATHLETE robot, Lunar Electric Rovers, and various habitat configurations developed at JPL and JSC. It will also include my student contributions to the problem of what to do with hundreds of the Cargo Transfer Bags that will be used getting provisions to the Moon over time, after they are emptied.
Dennis Etler
"Chinese Visions of the Future."
China is rushing headlong into the future. Chinese visionaries are focused on four major themes:
1.Alternative energy and transportation systems
2.Sustainable living and a Green future
3.New visions for urban habitats
4.Off planet exploration and colonization
China is in a unique position to visualize and realize its own future. With a unitary form of governance, a technocratic meritocracy and a millennial history of innovation and sustainablility China can set long-term goals and work towards implementing them. While we in the West often think of China as a rigid totalitarian nation it is anything but. In actual fact China has traversed centuries of historic development in mere decades. They have advanced based on Deng Xiaoping's three pragmatic dictums, "Seek truth from facts," "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice" and "Cross the river by feeling for stones." This pragmatic approach to modernization combined with the ideological orientation of the 100 Day's Reform Movement of 1898 (take the best from the West but ignore the rest) is the basis for "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," that has transformed China since the end of the Cultural Revoluti on from an economic backwater into the second largest economy in the world. Will China lead humankind into the future? Only time will tell.
Gus Frederick
"Graphics of the Gilded Age--The Original Steam Punk Art"
How does technology impact art? Prior to the advent of effective photoreprographic technology, most mass media relied on "line art" for its illustrations. This of course was made possible by even earliertechnology that allowed for something other than type on a broad sheet,and the "Illustrated Weeklies" appeared. It also allowed for thedevelopment and refinement of the political cartoonist and mass mediaillustrator. Focusing on the last quarter of the nineteenth century, thepresenter will discuss with graphic examples, how the development ofreprographics technology encouraged the creation of some of the most powerful political cartoons ever.
Jim Funaro:
"On the Origin and Future of Love"
Roberta Goodman:
"Learning Cetacean Languages"
Ulrich Winter and I continue to work on developing neural networks for voice and pattern recognition in cetaceans, using robotics technology in learning to learn their languages. We will have finished winter 2011 with the humpback whales & dolphins in Hawaii, gathering sound recordings and other data and analysis. I would be happy to tell more dolphin behavior/intelligence/culture stories and update the group on our "Universal Translator."
Albert Harrison
"American Cosmism"
Russian cosmism was a philosophical and popular movement that originated around 1900, peaked in Bolshevik Russia in the 1920s, and extended forward into the space age. Powered by boundless faith in technology and the belief that through social solidarity humans can achieve perfection in outer space, this movement mixed science and technology with characteristically Russian forms of spirituality, mysticism, and fascination with the occult. Many of the ideas of the Russian cosmists, modified and embellished by the German rocket scientists and reshaped by American political and religious values influence our thinking about space exploration today. American cosmism places liberal democracies over totalitarian socialist states, is less interested in social solidarity than in individual initiative and accomplishment, and finds parallels between space exploration and westward migration across the US. Both forms of cosmism were shaped by and influence literature, art, and the cinema, appeal to both sophisticated and unsophisticated audiences, may speak more to imagination than to science and technological feasibility, and can be characterized as religious quests.
Randall Hayes:
"Preview of Alife 13"
A lot of predictive, quantitative mathematical modeling has been done on the evolution of cooperation, both in virtual life forms and in living organisms on Earth. I will review some highlights of this work for its implications to increasing cooperation in future human cultures, and offer some parameters along which to examine nonhuman cultures, when we find them.
Jeroen Lapré
"Arthur C. Clarke's Maelstrom II: A Case Study for Digital Production in the Cloud"
Jeroen Lapré will present work-in-progress on his science-based mini drama Maelstrom II, based on the short story by the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, to which he acquired the short film rights.
He is researching into cloud-based technologies to expedite the completion of Maelstrom II, as a crowd sourced project. This includes comparing and contrasting infrastructures such as Google App Engine and others, distributed file access, and the challenges unique to a distributed work environment. A 3D application core to this research is Houdini by Sidefx, with it's integrated Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)-based renderer. He will also touch on how Semantic Web technologies could be applied to semi-automate some tasks germane to the digital production field.
Jeroen will conclude his talk by posing his findings as a re-usable infrastructure for others to produce their own science-based digital media.
Rob McCann, Ames Research Center
"Kepler Mission Report"
Rob McCann will make a presentation on the most recent results of the Kepler mission's search for Earth-like planets, at least 50 of which are found within the "habitable zone" of various stars--where water can be a liquid on the surface of the planet. Most are relatively Earth-size. Many of the stars are not sun-temperature but the planets are closer. These are just some of the results to be presented from this important NASA mission.
Gerald Nordley:
"Interstellar Commerce."
CONTACT with intelligence about other stars, whether alien or diasporate humans, will involve the exchange of information, perhaps certain special material, or even beings, accross interstellar distances between cooperating parties. What are the constraints, real and imagined. How might commerce be accomplished? How would it affect the long term. If intersteller commerce is already going on, would we know? Does it already involve us?
Jim Pass:
"Medical Astrosociology: A Combination of Space Medicine and Social Science"
In space, social, cultural, and behavioral patterns Ð the definition of astrosocial phenomena, a concept that serves as the central definition of astrosociology Ð exist in the social fabric of any social group or larger settlement, and they make the practice of medicine much more complex. The existence of these patterns will demand a combination of a biomedical and social-scientific response, i.e., the practice of space medicine with a keen eye on the social and cultural conditions that will inevitably alter seemingly straightforward medical decisions.
Douglas Raybeck
"Sex and the Spanning Spacefarer"
NASA and affiliated organizations have lavished time, money and research on solving or reducing several of the problems that accompany long-term space flight. Among the problems addressed have been calcium and muscle depletions, stress, interpersonal issues, privacy and the basic drives of thirst and hunger. Curiously (or given our Puritan heritage, not so curiously) our third most powerful drive has not been addressed by NASA, despite external exhortations to do so. With the increasing likelihood of travel to Mars, and the possibility of extended periods of travel beyond our solar system it seems likely that planners will no longer be able to ignore the issue of sex. It is past time that disciplines such as biology, psychology, and anthropology examined the implications of sex for long-term space voyaging. This paper attempts to start that examination and includes suggestions for mitigating some of the problems arising from sex drives in prolonged confined situations.
Reed Riner, Anthropologist NAU
"Turning Hindsight into Foresight"
This presentation continues the author's exploration of how the methods, the findings, and the theories of Anthropology contribute to the development of a more social-scientifically grounded and holistic study of alternative futures. A pair of complimentary ‘perspectives’: the archaeological and historical, cultural-materialist, evolutionary strategy of timelining, and the complimentary ethnographic-linguistic strategy of ethnographic futures research are described and brought into binocular conjunction, an integration that proposes a four-dimensional perspective within which the things to come in time, in space and in the possibility of alien contact may be more systematically and plausibly anticipated.
Chad Rohrbacher
"A Curriculum Guide for Using SF to teach Science"
STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) infuses arts-based techniques into the learning and retention of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) concepts. We are developing a series of curriculum guides to be used with science fiction stories about evolution. By using science fiction stories to teach science, specifically evolution, we combine the processes of critical reading and thinking with the learning of creative and scientific concepts. One question explored is: does critical reading of science fiction assist with scientific reading? Further, if the generally "controversial" concept is approached in narrative form, how does it the change way a reader processes the scientific information? It is our contention most scientific papers are generally not written to be engaging or aesthetically pleasing. We recognize that in the professional scientific community, style of writing is of lower priority than content; however, if content is poorly written, who will read it? How does one communicate scientific findings in an interesting way that assists people in remembering material and in making dynamic, interdisciplinary connections? Many scientists may think they don't have time for creativity in the classroom, but that creative engagement may be what gets students to put in the time to learn complex content and possibly remember it long term (as most memories are tied to strong visual and emotional experiences). It is our hypothesis that students may be more motivated to work hard on the complicated content if they enjoy what they are doing.
David Sanborn Scott
"Always Begin with the End in Mind: Hydricity"
"Hydricity," means the twin energy currencies, hydrogen and electricity, which in time will be manufactured solely from sustainable, non-carbon energy sources. This is the "end we must keep in mind"--if civilization is to survive an ever-increasing climate volatility which could be catastrophic to the orderly development of civilization. Hydricity could provide all the energy services civilization will want, now and in the future, without CO2 emission and is arguably the only plausible energy transmission strategy that will do so.
Which of the many pathways to hydricity are the best? The answer will differ among nations and regions--and depend upon the capital, intellectual, cultural and material resources available. Today, no jurisdiction has placed hydricity as its "end in mind." This, in part, explains why energy policies have become a mixture of band-aid solutions and expensive populist initiatives--unchallenged by systemic numeracy.
This talk and discussion will select from among many examples of "end in mind," or not, including:
• Cap & Trade Legislation: Threatens to be a sandbox for lawyers, with little stimulus for innovation...
• Carbon Capture & Sequestration: Probably expensive and restricted to stationary settings. Numeracy is missing on the relative quantities of CO2 produced compared with the resources harvested...
• Nuclear Power: In spite of the negative publicity, the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushima NPP may actually demonstrate that nuclear is the safest of energy sources...
• Biofuels: The US biofuel program--now sustained by agri-lobbies--was initiated in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Current biofuel efforts offer little net reduction of CO2 emissions and frequently cause power-train problems.
"Changing the process to stop making a pollutant is almost always cheaper and more effective than adding a collector to catch the pollutant." This theme runs though Scott's book, Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense Against Climate Catastrophe (Enhanced Edition). Historically, it is also how civilization has resolved most of its environmental challenges. In contrast, today far too much emphasis is placed on countervailing geoengineering tactics--like seeding the skies with sulfuric acid and our seas with iron dust. Attacking an old environmental intrusion with a new environmental intrusion has a very bad track record--and may encourages delaying action on the causes of climate change. Rather, "keeping the end in mind" while employing economically stimulating and practical strategies should take us to a sustainable hydricity age.
Michael Shermer
"UFOs, UAPs, and CRAPs"
From Unidentified Flying Objects to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to Completely Ridiculous Alien Piffle, Skeptic magazine publisher and Scientific American columnist Dr. Michael Shermer considers the best and the worst cases for alien visitation, why we should still be skeptical that ETs have come here, even while remaining optimistic that not only are ETs out there but that we will soon make contact. And when we do make contact, contrary to what Stephen Hawking argues about aliens being evil and exploitative, Shermer reasons that based on the last thousand years of human history, any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence will be indistinguishable from God and thus be more god like than demon-like.
Seth Shostak
"Broadcasting Into Space: Recipe for Catastrophe?"
Stephen Hawking has recently said that any deliberate broadcasts into space -- either in response to a SETI signal detection, or simply as a well-intentioned "ping" to stir interest from possible cosmic neighbors -- could expose our society to existential danger. This suggestion has led to heated discussions on the advisability of any such transmissions. But is it really dangerous to make an interstellar shout-out, and what -- if anything -- should the science community do about someone keen to actively seek contact?
Melanie Swan:
"Human Body 2.0: Redesign, Democracy, And Next-Generation Intelligence"
Redesigning biology may be man's ultimate artistic and scientific exploit. For all its amazement, the human body is an evolutionary relic. Redesign of the human system is already underway via regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies. Next steps could include targeted receptors, organ obsolescence, neural implants, and nanorobots.
