[#PHOTOS] Makeshift inukshuk, #Toronto

Makeshift inukshuk, Toronto, a photo by randyfmcdonald on Flickr.

This artistically arranged collection of small concrete slabs in a friend's driveway has always caught my attention. It does look rather like an inukshuk, one of the signature stone landmarks signalling something built by the Inuit, since become almost a signature art form of Canada. What does this inukshuk represent, I wonder?

[BRIEF NOTE] On the import of water on the Moon

The unexpected discovery of large amounts of water on the Moon has scientists quite surprised.

There’s a lot more water on the moon than previously thought, a discovery forcing re-evaluation of the current theory on how Earth’s satellite was formed.

Study of moon samples retrieved nearly four decades ago revealed as much water as can be found in places beneath the Earth’s crust, according to a paper published Thursday in Science Express.

Most scientists believe that the moon was created through the accretion of material thrown out by the impact of a huge object hitting Earth. The moon’s once-presumed dryness was thought to have been caused by the dispersion of hydrogen through that catastrophic event. Finding water in such quantity as described in the new research casts a question over this prevailing theory.

James Van Orman, an associate professor of geochemistry at Case Western Reserve University and member of the team behind the new discovery, said that finding the water does not invalidate the overall creation theory. But he said there will have to be new work done to understand the chain of events following such an impact.

The surprising discovery came by looking at moon samples retrieved by the Apollo 17, a lunar mission dating to the time when scientists believed the moon was nothing but a dry expanse. Dr. Van Orman said in a phone interview that getting funding and permission to re-examine these old samples was no easy task. But the findings were dramatic. Samples showed 100 times as much water as had been thought.

[. . .]

With these new findings in hand, geochemist and team leader Erik Hauri, who could not be reached Thursday, was arguing for the retrieval of more such materials.

“We can conceive of no sample type that would be more important to return to Earth than these … which have been mapped not only on the moon but throughout the inner solar system,” Dr. Hauri, with Carnegie’s department of terrestrial magnetism, said in a statement.

Three years ago the team behind the latest discovery announced that they had found ice at the lunar poles. This new discovery raises the possibility that the ice did not come from comets and meteorites, but from long-ago eruptions on the moon.

As The Australian's article observes, this much-increased amount of water may also make the establishment of moon bases more viable, since insufficient water supplies are a serious problem for plans of lunar colonization. I myself wonder whether or not the presence of substantial amounts of lunar water might provide a suitable environment for life. But then, the water has to be usable, and insofar as lunar colonization is concerned you need an economic rationale first. (No, mining helium-3 at unnecessarily great expense for the fusion reactors we won't have for another generation is not a suitable rationale.)

[CAT] "Researchers track the secret lives of feral and free-roaming house cats"

Found via 3 Quarks Daily, I was interested to discover a report analyzing the territories and movements of outside cats. Radio transmitters are always helpful.

Researchers (and some cat-owners) wanted to know: What do feral and free-roaming house cats do when they're out of sight? A two-year study offers a first look at the daily lives of these feline paupers and princes, whose territories overlap on the urban, suburban, rural and agricultural edges of many towns.

[. . .]

The study used radio telemetry and a sophisticated activity-tracking device to capture the haunts and habits of dozens of owned and un-owned cats living at the southern edge of Champaign and Urbana, neighboring cities in Central Illinois. Together, the 42 adult cats originally radio-tracked for the study ranged over a territory of 2,544 hectares (6,286 acres).

[. . .]

As expected, in most cases the un-owned cats had larger territories than the pet cats and were more active throughout the year. But the size of some of the feral cats' home ranges surprised even the researchers.

One of the feral cats, a mixed breed male, had a home range of 547 hectares (1,351 acres), the largest range of those tracked.

Like most of the feral cats, this lone ranger was seen in both urban and rural sites, from residential and campus lawns to agricultural fields, forests and a restored prairie.

[. . .]

The owned cats had significantly smaller territories and tended to stay close to home. The mean home range for pet cats in the study was less than two hectares (4.9 acres).

"Still, some of the cat owners were very surprised to learn that their cats were going that far," Horn said. "That's a lot of backyards."

The outside cats faced serious health issues, and caused serious environmental issues, too.

In an earlier study, co-author Richard Warner, an emeritus professor of natural resources and environmental sciences at Illinois, followed the cats of about two-dozen rural residences over several years.

"Two of the leading causes of cat deaths in that study were other cats and disease," Warner said. "And both of these leading causes of death are sitting here waiting for these owned cats outdoors."

Cats also get diseases from wildlife or other cats, Mateus-Pinilla said, and can bring them home and infect their owners and other pets.

"For example, Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite spread primarily by cats, may cause neurological, reproductive and even respiratory problems in humans, cats and wildlife, depending on the species affected," she said. Rabies, cat scratch fever, feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus are also of concern to pet owners whose cats encounter other cats outdoors, she said. Vaccination of pet cats will reduce but not eliminate the threat of disease transmission, she said.

Even though pet cats have relatively small ranges and are active only in short bursts, Warner said, their impact on wildlife in the immediate vicinity of their homes is likely much more intense than that of a feral cat that wanders over a larger territory.

Unlike other feline predators, such as bobcats, that are native to the Midwest, domestic cats are invasive species that have a disproportionately damaging effect on wildlife – either through predation or disease, Horn said.

Wild animals that have adapted to ecosystems that are already fragmented, such as the prairies of Central Illinois, are even more endangered because domestic cats are disrupting the ecosystem by hunting, competing with native predators or spreading disease, he said.

[DM] "The problems with sub-national immigration policies"

I've a post up at Demography Matters commenting on the idea of sub-national jurisdictions controlling immigration. It has potential, but it also has many potential downfalls.

Go, read.