On April 10, 1963 the USS Thresher (SSN-593)
was lost at sea with all hands, including civilian
workers assigned to observe her sea trials.

they must have known

those last few moments
those last few heartbeats
those last few breaths

they must have known it was the end

did they count them?
did they count each one?
wondering how many before –

the boat tilted sharply, bow up

mocking them

a desperate lunge for the surface

but science failed them

nature failed them

(failed them?  not hardly
they were the ones who
spat in the face of reality
expecting physics to
magically bend to
accommodate their
petty wants and desires)

later,  much much later,
men sitting safe and warm and
dry and miles away from the cold Atlantic

would harrumph and theorize and
decide there had been moisture in the emergency valves

and that freezing cold water and super compressed air allied

to form a perfect ice blockage that kept the crew from blowing the tanks

and resolutely dragged the doomed sub backwards backwards backwards

the crew must have known
they couldn’t have not known

this is one big goddamn clusterfuck
we are all going to die goddamnit

(don’t cuss, don’t cry, pray)

did their minds race ashore?

to family, to wives, to children?

did they ask what the fuck am I doing here?

oh, yeah, it’s good money, making subs for the navy

but did I have to take this job?

the car needs an oil job

shoulda told the wife

we were going to go shopping next week

we –

metal groans, creaks

it’s coming

now thoughts are less organized, less focused

the captain and crew tried everything they could to restart the reactor

power the engines
blow the tanks
drive the boat
back to the surface

there’s nothing left now

but impotence

one of them laughs hysterically

thinks:  “When it’s inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.”

no one asks why he laughs

why would they?

how could he explain it if they did?

the metal groans more loudly
rising in pitch until it becomes
a shriek

and the sub telescopes in on itself

as if God Himself had cupped
bow and stern in His mighty hands

and clapped

the bulkheads collapse on themselves

two high speed freight trains colliding head on

their actual end is mercifully swift

a wall of ice cold water hits them

as gently as a sleet slick sidewalk

after stepping off a skyscraper

in-rushing ocean pulverizes soft, frail flesh

like a spider caught between a concrete floor

and a ball peen hammer

not even time for a blink

and they’re dead

just food for the sea

 (c) Buzz Dixon

Left in the earth by an

Elegant and just cosmos

To see if we’re either

Too stupid to realize its danger

Or

Too greedy to stop using it if we do

Or

Both

It’s meant to kill us

And if we’re smart enough (i.e., far-sighted enough, unselfish enough)

To cut ourselves free of it

Well

Then maybe

Just maybe

We’ve got a chance

This may explain why
there is no intelligent life
found in the universe

[why am I posting this classic
(i.e., public domain) short story?
To use it to make a point later on...]

found via Shorpy, a great resource
for vintage / historical photographs

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I’ve posted before on the topic of the overlap between science and religion when describing the origin of life, the universe, and everything.

More proof for the pudding:

Physicists say they may have evidence that the universe is a computer simulation.

“Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.

“However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.

“But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.”

– Albert Einstein, on the question “Do scientists pray?”

To continue our look at cosmology, here’s a link to an article called New 1st-Time Discovery of Key Building Block for Life in the Universe.

Money quote:

A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has spotted sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young Sun-like star.  This is the first time sugar been found in space around such a star, and the discovery shows that the building blocks of life are in the right place, at the right time, to be included in planets forming around the star.  Sugar is the common name for a range of small carbohydrates (molecules containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, typically with a hydrogen:oxygen atomic ratio of 2:1, as in water).

The astronomers found molecules of glycolaldehyde — a simple form of sugar — in the gas surrounding a young binary star, with similar mass to the Sun, called IRAS 16293-2422.  Glycolaldehyde has been seen in interstellar space before, but this is the first time it has been found so near to a Sun-like star, at distances comparable to the distance of Uranus from the Sun in the Solar System.  This discovery shows that some of the chemical compounds needed for life existed in this system at the time of planet formation.

In short, the more we learn the more likely it seems that life is not an accidental by-product of the formation of the universe, but that the universe occurred so life could exist.

Remember this post from a few months back?

Well, turns out it may have happened more often than science cares to admit.

Money quote:

“…in 1984, geneticists finally discovered a mechanism wrapped around our DNA that made natural virgin birth in humans – and all mammals – an absolute impossibility.  Some of the genes that we inherit from our mother are locked so as to be unreadable, and these restrictions mean no female mammal could simply pass on all of her genes to create a child that was 100 per cent her own.

“But it is also intriguing to consider that the scientists had still discovered something extremely rare – something that would not be recorded again until 40 years later, when, in similar circumstances, a boy was identified who had his mother’s blood, but not her skin.

“The child, known in his medical records only as FD, had been taken for a blood test by his parents, to investigate a facial abnormality he’d developed.  When samples of his blood and skin were analysed, what DNA they contained intimated that a fascinating and highly improbable sequence of events had taken place around the time of his conception.  FD had originated from an egg that had broken the laws of nature.  Activated by some hormonal trigger, as Helen Spurway had speculated 40 years earlier, the egg had become an embryo without waiting to be fertilised.  Next, miraculously, along came a sperm from his father. It should have arrived too late to have any effect, since normally, after an egg is activated, a cascade of chemical signals tell the egg’s outer layer to harden.  But it found a way through.

“The unfeasibly rare process is known as ‘partial parthenogenesis’.  As a result, there were parts of FD that contained only his mother’s genes – when his blood was tested it contained only XX (female) chromosomes, whereas his skin had both X and Y chromosomes.  Were the intense similarities between Monica and her mother also the result of this process?  Although we shall never know definitively without DNA samples, it’s clearly a possibility.”

Remember this post where (among other things) I discussed panspermia?

Life on Earth could have grown from the broken remains of alien viruses that, although dead, still contained enough information to give rise to new life.