I bring you some today examples of Articles of diffusion Scientific, that is, texts that make science accessible to the general public.
There are many books, films and television documentaries that can be categorized as scientific dissemination, which should never be confused with pseudoscience. Scientific disclosure requires that much of the complexity of scientific theories be removed so that the public can understand.
It requires months of lectures, review and exercises for a student dedicated to science to become familiar with the complexities of their fields and years so that the consequences of the theories they study become their second nature.
Mathematics often represents several of those barriers that scientific outreach must eliminate. In A Brief History of Time , For example, Stephen Hawking comments when he was told that each equation Which included in the book would halve its sales. That is why he only kept a brief mention of the formula E = mc2 in the introduction.
On the other hand, mathematics can sometimes be simplified, or introduced slowly. This simplification or trimming of finer details invariably leads to mixed results. Scientific disclosure, when done wrong, can be the source of many misconceptions about scientific theories.
Often a theory can be misinterpreted by a writer of scientific popularization who wants to overemphasize the sensational aspects of science. However, when done right, it can cement ideas and perceptions in the public mind.
Examples of articles of scientific popularization
1- Galileo and the dolphins
A quartet of dolphins caused astonishment when he rescued a group of fishermen from a shipwreck off the coast of France. The animals landed, lifted the boat out of the water and spent half an hour pulling the rocks toward where the wind blew. They finished their task, turned and swam to the sea.
The episodes did not surprise the scientists who study the dolphins and consider them as serious competitors for the title of the second most intelligent mammal on the planet.
Some dolphins are trained to protect Trident submarines from the United States Navy. There are also well-documented cases of dolphin sharks rescued from sharks. Others help in the treatment of children suffering from autism Y Down's Syndrome .
No one knows what a dolphin is really thinking. However, they can engage in complex conversations with each other for bodily noises and rhythms and have amazing memories. But the most extraordinary story of dolphins has nothing to do with their behavior, but with the politics and history of science.
It is said that a dolphin was responsible for the trial of Galileo . This theory, increasingly accepted by scientific historians, revolves around a fact that until now was hardly credible.
It is said that the inquisitors, obsessed with the printer's emblem of three dolphins on the cover of a book by Galileo, were convinced that the scientist was a Protestant political agent. It was the year 1632 and the Thirty Years War was at its height, with a paranoid feeling among Catholic religious bureaucrats.
The dolphins were associated with the sanctuary of the God Apollo at Delphi and in the Iliad of Homer. 'Dauphin' also means 'dauphin', the heir to the French throne. France, at that time, supported the Protestant cause. Therefore, for a Catholic, the image of a dolphin was equal to treason.
2- The odds of life
The existence of the human race is a much more improbable event than we imagine. In fact, the possibilities of its existence is of approximately of one of two billion.
The asteroid and the disappearance of the dinosaurs
The asteroid that crashed against Earth 65 million years ago killing the dinosaurs had no lethal effects from the impact itself, but from the region where it happened.
The 20-kilometer-wide object struck the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico at a place called Chicxulub, where it created a crater 300 kilometers wide under the sea, which explains how difficult it has been to find and examine the site from the first evidence Of the catastrophe.
Chicxulub, say the authors, is an area rich in sulfur. It is clear that the asteroid ripped off the sulfur, filling the atmosphere Lower with sulfur dioxide and creating a mist of sulfuric acid. This event, blocking the sunlight, probably triggered in an Ice Age of several decades.
It was believed that this phenomenon originated from the great volume of dust and soot flying towards the sky, remaining there for many years and producing a"winter". But now it is clear that this was not so.
The sky clouded for 30 years and created a dense fog that would have covered the planet. During all that time, temperatures would have fallen below zero, killing most of the plants that held the herbivorous dinosaurs.
Appearance of humans
The funny thing is that it is only because of the disappearance of dinosaurs, humans live on Earth. As the carnivorous dinosaurs roamed the planet, it was impossible for our ape apes to evolve.
To be intelligent, animals must reach a certain size and, long before they reach the right size, humans would have been devoured.
Sulfur is now a relatively rare element. It is the ninth most abundant in the universe, and barely 0.06 percent of the Earth crust .
On the other hand, no one knows how often an asteroid 20 kilometers wide reaches the planet, but an estimate indicates that once in 100 million years could be reasonable. Let's say that if you hit, chances are you hit a sulphurous region are quite difficult.
The sulfur deposits are not caused by the volcanic activity , As many people imagine, but for a dead life that leaves traces of calcium sulfate. It is estimated that only one-twentieth of the 500-million-square-kilometer surface of the Earth, whether land or sea, has such deposits.
Therefore, to calculate the chances of a sulphurous winter, science multiplies one in 100 million by one in twenty. From this it is seen that the odds of it happening are about one in two billion.
The improbability of Chicxulub-like events may also help explain why we have not found signs of intelligent life in our galaxy.
No one knows what the chances are that dinosaurs will come into existence, but if the chances of their subsequent extinction are very low, then it is extremely unlikely that intelligence has sprung up on life-compatible alien planets.
3- The killer trees
All evergreens, generally seen as a pleasant part of nature, were once"killers"responsible for repeated mass extinctions that annihilated most of life on the planet. This occurred during the Devonian period, which lasted between 400 and 350 million years.
The Earth's history is full of mass extinctions, when all or most of the animals suddenly disappeared. The best-known case is the destruction of dinosaurs by the impact of a giant asteroid 65 million years ago.
But there were many older ones so far wrapped in mystery that do not seem to have had such a violent cause. It is almost as if a giant invisible hand had descended from the heavens or risen from the depths and extinguished our ancestors.
The Devonian period came well before the reign of the dinosaurs. The world was very different from today. The Moon was closer, causing the Earth to rotate so fast that the days lasted about 21 hours, which each year lasted approximately 400 days, a fact that significantly increased Earth's erosion.
Europe and North America had collided. The subsequent rise of the mountains, which also expanded by frequent volcanic eruptions, caused a great swelling of the oceanic waters that covered 85% of the planet, compared to only 70% of the current surface.
The cause of the Devonian"crises"was the evolution of tall evergreens, the earliest ancestors of today's pines, spruce, fir and larch. They proliferated on the shores of the vast oceans and above the shores of the rivers flowing toward them.
The problem came when they evolved from small creeping plants to tall trees. Its roots spread deep and colonized previously arid zones. They did not have the stabilizing influence on the soil that the roots of the trees have today.
The more deeply the roots floor , The more the surface and its rocks were broken, making the soil more vulnerable to erosion. The rain caused innumerable landslides.
When organisms died, their decomposition consumed oxygen in the deepest oceans and sea animals were literally quelled. This theory fits well with all that is known about evolution.
Each extinction was followed by an explosion of population of trees that led to the following extinction. Whenever you have a mass extinction, this allows life to spread, replacing habitats.
The same trees that had caused extinction were extended inland, making the most lush vegetation to colonize arid lands and appear all over the planet. This in turn created an environment in which large land animals Might eventually exist.
4- The other Big Bang
There is another Big Bang, not the physics event that started the universe, but the Big Bang biology that suddenly created advanced animals, including our own ancestors, about 500 million years ago.
Not only did the planet lack intelligent life during 99.9% of its history, but it was also empty of any more advanced life than the primordial one.
From the first appearance of life about 4 billion years ago until the arrival of complex life in the Cambrian era, there was a calm of 3,500 million years during which, biologically, nothing interesting happened.
Although Earth was at the correct distance from the Sun for life to be formed, a visiting spacecraft, it would have found nothing, concluding no doubt that all its theories about the omnipresence of advanced creatures were incorrect.
The biological Big Bang was apparently a very sudden event, very different from the gradual changes during periods of countless millions of years Charles Darwin Had anticipated.
All experts in the field now agree that the Cambrian"radiation"of advanced life began exactly 543 million years ago. Before that time there was only primitive life.
The key to the Cambrian"explosion"is in the geological period that immediately preceded it, the Vendian. It was then that oxygen began to appear in large quantities in the oceans, apparently created by tectonic disturbances that caused the carbon compounds to divide into oxygen and carbon.
Only with oxygen can animals develop many Cells And grow. But no cause has been found for tectonic turbulence. For science, there are three great mysteries in the history of the Earth.
The first is why primitive life appeared. The second is the Cambrian explosion, and the third is the late appearance of intelligence.
Because of these 3,500 million years, it may be argued that the second, at least, was very unlikely to occur and without it, the third could not have been possible, suggesting that intelligent advanced intelligence must be extremely rare.
5- Our cousins
We are not the only animals involved in war, politics and medical research. Chimpanzees have been recognized for doing this as well.
After thirty years of observing chimpanzees in Tanzania, scientist Jane Goodall witnessed how two rival chimpanzee tribes systematically stalked and killed each other.
What most astonished him in this conflict, in which more than ten adults and all the young people lost their lives, was professionalism: apparently the warriors who made an attack or prepared for an ambush moved through the forest in A single row, her hair bristling with fear and excitement.
Goodall and his colleagues have observed striking features of chimpanzee behavior:
- Clothes . They have learned to use twigs as"sandals"to protect their feet from thorns.
- Psychology . A chimpanzee named Faben had a brother named Figan. When Faben disappeared, Figan began to imitate the behavior and body language of his missing brother to persuade others that their personalities were to identify. Faben got the leadership of his group and held it for ten years.
- Medicine . Some chimpanzees swallow the leaves of Aspilia, a plant that relieves stomach pains and kills internal parasites.
- Manufacture of tools . Cut leaves of thick grass and introduce them into termite nests to deceive insects.
- Fear and wonder . They perform a ritual dance in front of a high waterfall, apparently exhibiting the emotions that may have led the first humans to religion.
- Marriage . A man and a woman, Evered and Winkle, lived alone to raise their own children. Throughout their lives they showed a clear knowledge that their son Wilkie was his.
- To be unpleasant . A chimpanzee named Frodo kicked a reporter, grabbed him by the ankle, and threw him to the ground. None of this is surprising, since 98% of the genetic material of chimpanzees is identical to ours.
An ape that lived nine million years ago, called Dryopithicus laietanus , Learned to sway in the branches and to run through the woods in the manner of Tarzan, a habit still enjoyed by children who climb trees.
6- The Neanderthals did not mix
What happened to the Neanderthal man, the breed that populated Europe and the Middle East ago from 100,000 to 40,000 years ago? His total disappearance is one of the most profound enigmas in history.
The Neanderthals were not like us: they were slightly smaller and more bulky than our ancestors of the time, the man of Cromagnon.
Neanderthals named after a skeleton found in a cave in the German Neander valley in 1856, were heavy-looking and strong, their foreheads bent and probably very hairy.
It is believed that all living beings Descended from a single woman (generally known as"Eve") who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. She, of course, had her own ancestors, but the whole descent passes through this female individual.
Between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, Eva's descendants emigrated to Europe and Asia. Their travels led them to direct contact with the Neanderthals. These were cousins of the modern man, but descended from a much older branch of the race.
What happened when the two remote branches of humanity met? According to the evidence, absolutely nothing. It would be expected that the two races would make love or war, and did neither.
The extraordinary truth seems to be that our ancestors coexisted with Neanderthals for 50,000 years and never had sex with them. The reason for this is that they were not of the same species.
They were sexually and socially ignored. They were considered simply uninteresting animals. A female of one species could hear the call of the male from another, but from her there would be no answer.
References
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- Definition of Disclosure Article (s.f.). Retrieved from.
- Outreach articles. (S.f.). Recovered from sea-astronomia.es.
- Top Stories. (S.f.). Recovered from popsci.com.
- The Most Popular Science Stories of 2016. (s.f.). Retrieved from scientificamerican.com.