Wow.
DIF, thanks for the excellent link, which led to a great site entirely about rods.
I am eager to read the whole content of that site. I’m specifically curious on whether rods have mass to them, and if so, why can’t we feel them when (if, I suppose) we run into them (if they’re all around us).
Brando
Well, assuming the evidence of the photographs and videos is reliable, then I’d say it’s pretty certain they have mass, since flight is an adaptation to gravity.
It would seem most amazing that they haven’t been seen before in countless high-speed photographs, but then – maybe they have, but they’ve always been written off as film defects or reflections/lens flares. After all, human society existed for thousands of years completely oblivious to microbes until van Leeuwanhoek (sp?–some Dutch guy, anyway) invented the microscope. We’ve only had photography for about 200 years, and really high-speed photography for about 75, so perhaps it’s not all that incredible that we could have overlooked a form of life that’s literally to fast for the eye to follow . . .
Yes, it’s off-topic, and should be in another thread. It probably is; I got this URL someplace here (maybe the kangaroos?)
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
When the Smithsonian has a specimin in a glass jar filled with formaldihide, then I’ll believe in your ‘flying rods’. Not before.
Life almost certainly exists ‘out there’. Possibly some intelligent life, but rarer.
But let’s not rush to meet them. 6 Billion Humans may be all they need—to feed everybody at an alien Octoberfest.
Saurkraut, anyone?
We have met the enemy, and He is Us.–Walt Kelly
Carl Sagan’s computation of the Drake equation put the probable number of civilizations capable of of being as “advanced” as we are in this galaxy over the life of the universe at seven. He thought that such a small number over aeons would almost guarentee that no two civilizations would exist at the same time.
That does not rule out other life forms, just the ones we’d ever hear from.
Therealbubba
And the other factor at work is that distance attenuates signals, and it doesn’t take much distance (on a galaxy-sized scale) before our puny little non-directional signals would be undetectable through the noise. IIRC, the ones detectable out to the largest range are military radars, which are both reasonably directional and strong. I forgot the exact numbers, but I seem to recall the theoretical detection range for TV signals and so on is tiny (some tens of LY, IIRC, but that’s just from memory, so I might be way off on that).
BTW, I don’t really buy the “it’s a scale problem” argument for a number of reasons. OTOH, the “they tried phoning 5 million years ago but we weren’t home” argument seems perfectly plausable, if you assume there’s some other intelligent life in our general vicinity.
peas on earth
Re: “Rods” (and their bothers, the Cones?), color me skeptical unless some unambiguous evidence shows up. You have to go through all sorts of gyrations to explain away why we never find any bodies, why they never run into anything, why they never stop to rest or slow down to eat, and especially why they’ve only shown up on video, but not film. And one first has to rule out all the mundane explanations: hoaxes, video artifacts, out of focus insects blurred between frames due to shutter speed, etc.
Would it be way cool to find some ultra exotic new species? You betcha. It’d make somebody’s career, to prove it. Would I bet on this being such a thing? Nope.
(Yes, I know the web site says they have video of insects that does not match the appearance of the “rods”, but this in no way implies insects are not responsible for them). If I had to place a bet, I’d say: an insect can move a reasonable distance in a single video frame, and flapping wings could produce the ripply fins “attached” to them. That’s just my own guess - could easily be wrong - but there are a whole host of such mundane explanations that need to be ruled out before leaping to wild conclusions. Getting one simultaneously on video and ulra-high speed film is probably the first order of business.
peas on earth
Therealbubba writes:
Yes, but Sagan also assumed (apparently a priori; I’ve never seen any rationale for the assumption) that no industrial civilzation would ever expand significantly beyond its original physical limits.
That assumpton has always seemed bogus to me. In a very small fraction of the time available to it, such a civilzation could easily occupy the entire galaxy, even assuming relativity to be strictly true. Indeed, I believe that I have read an article asserting that it would be possible to make a profit trading in some commodities at sub-relatavistic speeds (I’ll see if I can find a reference; it’s been a while.), if we assume that industrial civilizations must be capitalistic.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
The Drake “equation” is nonsense. Study it and you will find that it is completely devoid of information save for the term regarding the rate of star formation in the galaxy. Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins agree that if evolution were replayed, we would not be here. That implies that intelligence is rare. Whether it bestows a survival advantage is arguable. We just got here, so it remains to be seen. We think of dinosaurs as a failed species, but they were around for a couple of hundred million years.Their stupidy didn’t do them in. It was a comet, meteor, volcanic activity, climate change take your pick, that did it. My feeling is that the Universe may well be teeming with life, but intelligence is rare. Even Sagan said there maybe as little as ten E.T civilizations in our Galaxy. Looking for a needle in a haystack would be child’s play in comparison.
Of course, there was the time I was abducted by the Vegan She-Devils…never mind. My therapist said I shouldn’t talk about it.
You are unique - Just like everone else.
RJK…yep, it was the kangaroos.
Wally, I ran into a quote recently, I think from Duncan Lunan, that hit me hard: “The Drake equation is a measure of our ignorance.” You cannot argue with the basic concept of the equation (well, on this board you can argue about anything), just on the values to be assigned.
RJK said (by way of signature):
–Great: you have all the makings of an expert theologian!! 
And why haven’t any abductees mentioned the glowing raccoons? 
Well, yeah, I guess you have a point, Polycarp. The equation tells us what we don’t know, which is the beginning of an intelligent inquiry. My complaint is that many people have been charmed by this little string of squiggles. I’m no mathematician, but any equation that requires you to insert arbitrary quantities by hand, term after term…well, you get my point. I think we should consign it to the flames, along with the Anthropic Principle( you know, the thing that goes “We’re here because we’re here”)
You are unique - Just like everyone else.
Err, that’s not quite what it says.
There are two forms of it (weak and strong). The strong AP is a bit silly, but the weak definately is not. A failure to understand the weak anthropic principle is usually behind the argument, “Think of all the possible universes that couldn’t sustain life, e.g. if various physical constants were different; since ours does, there must be intelligent design behind it and therefor god exists”. The weak anthropic principle debunks this line of reasoning. It is not a tautology as you state above.
–
peas on earth
Hmmm…do the strong and weak anthropic principles have any correlation to strong and weak atheism?
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. - Calvin & Hobbes
Ooo. How come nobody’s brought up…yanno…my point I always make when lured into these convos?
Y’see, what we consider life…isn’t always life. Hmm? An’…well, what about life on computer chip kinda things? Silicon-based critters? Or ones like, that live in 2 dimensions instead of 3? Or what about ones that live in like…equivalent of (Warning! Exaggeration in progress!) 1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit or almost at absolute zero? Or perhaps live in the depths of space without having any qualities we know to be “living” as we know it? I mean…maybe the planets themselves are alive, just not the way we think of things being alive. And in the same sense, they wouldn’t consider us alive and so wouldn’t go looking for us. Eh? That’s my theory.
Snappy, The Crazy Toddite - Friend of Skippy
Actually, that’s not as crazy as it sounds, Snappy.
The “Gaia Hypotheses” states the our planet can be viewed as a super-organism. There are some well regarded scientists that support this view.
My opinion on this is neuteral because I don’t know enough.
But the idea doesn’t strike me as outrageous.
If you’re an optimist, you haven’t been paying attention.
Please name a well-regarded scientist who believes this. While you’re at it, please point me to a peer-reviewed journal where this theory is justified.
Shiningnight
Lynn Margulis champions this theory.
If you’re an optimist, you haven’t been paying attention.
You mean the Earth has produced intelligent creatures?
oh, the dolphins mabey?