The most dangerous place in the world for scientists to go is right in between fact and fiction, where the superstition meets the science, where the conspiracies become consensus.
Granted, being that the purpose of science is to advance the perimeter of ignorance, all cutting edge science, all "new" science, exists in this liminal zone. Maybe this should be revised - it's not a scary place to be for the scientist, actually I'll bet it's pretty exciting. But it's a scary place for the person who has to explain said science to the general public, because it is confusing as hell. The truth is hard. Simple explanations for the fundamental rules of the universe are like military strategy - no plan survives first contact with the enemy. There are so many contingencies, that only the most deeply-steeped genius can tease them apart. And there's also the 'paradox of knowledge' to contend with, something about how the more you know about a thing the less able you are to talk about it in plain language, yet the less you know and the more you can talk about it easily, the lower the quality of your information. (I think nowadays we call that "low credibility information".)
And speaking of which, you've never had so much fun at a science lecture:
Sasquatch Distribution Modelling: Investigating patterns of Bigfoot sightings in North America
Annual Halloween lecture by Prof Joss Wright at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oct 31 2024
So here we are - the origin of the word "lunatic" comes from "lunar" - suggesting to us, from generations long before we were even calling "science" "philosophy", that the moon makes us crazy. Yet behavioral scientists, neurologists, biologists, etc., all say that's ridiculous. The truth is between the two, and as usual it's complicated.
Gravitational action of sun and moon influences behavior of animals and plants
Jan 2022, phys.org
Gravitational cycles do not only affect the simplest organisms. Scientific studies have found that humans kept in the dark tend to establish a cyclical fluctuation lasting 24.4 - 24.8 hours, in harmony with the lunar cycle. This tendency has also been noted in people who spend long periods in caves. It conditions the alternation of sleep and wakefulness, meal times, and other metabolic functions.
via University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil: Cristiano de Mello Gallep et al, Are cyclic plant and animal behaviours driven by gravimetric mechanical forces?, Journal of Experimental Botany (2021). DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erab462
Image credit: Who am I kidding, this has become futile.
As for the rest of this post, just moon things in general:
Moon cave discovered that could one day house humans
Jul 2024, BBC News
Scientists have for the first time discovered a cave on the Moon.At least 100m deep, it could be an ideal place for humans to build a permanent base, they say. Countries are racing to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but they will need to protect astronauts from radiation, extreme temperatures, and space weather.Humans could potentially be living in lunar pits in 20-30 years.They found the cave by using radar to penetrate the opening of a pit on a rocky plain called the Mare Tranquillitatis. It is visible to the naked eye from Earth, and is also where Apollo 11 landed in 1969.
Moon landing live: US spacecraft Odysseus begins Moon landing descent
Feb 2024, BBC News
Odysseus successfully landed on the surface of the Moon, officially making Intuitive Machines the first commercial company to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
Odysseus is also carrying 125 tiny sculptures made by US artist Jeff Koons, making them the first artworks land on the lunar surface.
Researchers figure out how to keep clocks on the Earth, Moon in sync
Aug 2024, Ars Technica
So, the International Astronomical Union has a resolution that calls for a "Lunar Celestial Reference System" and "Lunar Coordinate Time" to handle things there. On Monday, two researchers at the National institute of Standards and Technology, Neil Ashby and Bijunath Patla, did the math to show how this might work.
The Astronomical Journal, 2024. DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ad643a
Post Script:
1. We put reflectors on the moon, which you can still see from Earth.
2. The lunar calendar has 354 days, and the Egyptian calendar has 365. This averages to 360, which is coincidentally the number of degrees in a circle. (Is it really a coincidence?)
--via University of Glasgow: An Improved Calendar Ring Hole-Count for the Antikythera Mechanism. Graham Woan, Joseph Bayley. The Horological Journal, July 2024. bhi.co.uk; https://phys.org/news/2024-06-gravitational-antikythera-mechanism-mystery.html
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