Science Topics beginning with ‘A’:
Alien:
Alien Behaviour
You may think that the third of our science topics, Alien Behaviour, may not be scientific. After all, we haven’t found any aliens yet. However there has been some scientific conjecture on this subject.
For example, an article on the Smithsonian Magazine web site considers whether aliens would be friendly or threatening: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/science-aliens-part-i-would-they-be-friendly-or-threatening-180977432/
Another example from Oxford University’s web site discusses how evolutionary theory can be used to support alien predictions and better understand their likely behaviour: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-31-aliens-may-be-more-us-we-think
What are some of the questions?
So what do you think is the probability of the evolution of advanced technological civilizations from extraterrestrial life? Is there a natural tendency for such advances to be inhibited? And even if a species managed to survive to create an interplanetary civilization, what would it look like? How would it be structured? How would it govern itself? And how would it behave towards other species it encountered?
What do you think? Send us your comments.
Alien Language
Where will humanity first encounter an alien language? Perhaps we will not need to look further than our own Earth’s biosphere for a non-human language.
CETI
CETI, or Cetacean Translation Initiative, is a huge research project that is using AI and deep neural networks to process big data. This whale data is derived from a network of hydrophones, underwater video cameras, and other sensors. The aim is to associate whale sounds with aspects of the whales’ lives: their companions, activities, journeys, feeding habits, etc. The neural network will make associations between the patterns of sounds being made by each individual whale and that whale’s activities and things that are taking place around it at any moment. By looking at a very large number of these associations it is hoped that the software will be able to make deductions that enable it to construct a language map from the associated data.
Antikythera Mechanism
Antikythera Mechanism
Origins of the Antikythera Mechanism
The Mechanism was believed to have been built in the second century BC by Greek craftsmen. Experts who have studied the complex mechanism believe that its designers would have possessed knowledge of inner solar system astronomy. Also, many believe that the design of the mechanism evolved from several earlier prototypes.
There is some evidence suggesting that the design of the Mechanism may have been influenced by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes who lived in the 2nd century BC.
Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the Antikythera Mechanism. You will find excellent references within and listed at the end of the Wikipedia article.
Archaeology:
Archaeology
Archaeology is the study of humanity’s past by the application of the scientific method to the analysis of material remains of human activity. For other definitions of Archaeology and related information, the following sites, amongst many others on the internet, may be of particular interest.:
Some References:
http://www.archaeologychannel.org/
http://www.archaeological.org/
http://www.australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/
https://www.britannica.com/science/archaeology/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology
https://www.saa.org/about-archaeology/what-is-archaeology
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/archaeology