But That's Just Peanuts To Space

Conditions: Meh

More Trouble With Travel.

In doing some medical checks of it's astronauts, Nasa stumbled across another surprising medical issue: the eyeballs of the people who spent time in space had flattened a little bit, which indicates another problem with sending fragile humans into space for long periods of time. What do you think, Dr Kramer?

Dr. Kramer said he suspected increased pressure was at the heart of the problem for the astronauts, too. Without the downward pull of gravity, fluids in the body shift higher in the body, including inside the skull. (It is, however, too early to rule out other causes, he said, like the increased radiation that astronauts experience while in orbit.)

The flattening of the eyes is easily compensated for by eyeglasses, and nearsighted people become less nearsighted. But the M.R.I. scans also revealed little ripples in the back of the eyes of some of the astronauts, distorting their vision in a way that “would be more disconcerting to us,” Dr. Kramer said.

The swelling, if untreated, could damage vision, possibly even leading to blindness. The astronauts who had spent longer time in space exhibited more abnormalities, although some of those who had floated in space for less than a month also had eye changes.

- nytimes.com/

Now of course, we can be fairly clever, and could potentially come up with some kind of solution before we actually have the funding to try traveling long distances in space (probably about a decade away) but what with this and the deadly radiation that lies outside Earth's magnetic field, it's looking more and more to me that we're just not physically not meant to travel that far.

Related: How Big Is Space: A fun graphic from the BBC demonstrating just how big our galaxy is.



Film Review: John Carter

The poster didn't really make a lot of sense. Some guy, presumably Carter, chained to a giant rock while two Kong-sized creatures charge at him. Looked like the ultimate foregone conclusion, so you knew there had to be a twist. And there is, thanks to the words they removed from the name of the movie: "of Mars". And on Mars, apparently humans have like four times the strength they have here on Earth.

A wildly imaginative film, John Carter is a captain in the America Confederate army who is sick of war, mostly due to having lost his wife and child. Rebellious to a fault, all he wants to do is find a fabled cave of gold. However in finding it he accidentally triggers an alien device that transports him to Mars - a planet that not only has an atmosphere but also three warring races of aliens. It's one of these, the Tharks, that Carter gets captured by. Impressed by his ability to jump huge distances, thanks to Earth-conditioned muscles and bones, he is befriended by the Thark king. The two other races are in the last stages of their war, the evil side are winning thanks to some mysterious ...guys, who shape shift and possess way better technology than anyone else, and who have decided to help the evil side win the war (because the evil guys are thugs and therefore easier to control). Carter, therefore, drops in the middle of this as a total wild card, rescuing Princess Dejah. Together, along with a Thark called Sola they set off to find a gateway John can use to get back to Earth. But will he turn his back on the Princess and her people to return home to Earth, leaving her to have to marry the evil king?

As you can no doubt tell, we're deep into the realms of fantasy here, so far in that we can't even ridicule a crazy eight-legged dog that runs at about mach 2. Well, maybe a little sniggering, but these kinds of films can work if they take themselves seriously, and this one tries so hard. But it doesn't work. Oh, it tries it's damnedest, with great swooping deserts, tribes of aliens, crazy flying machines and a Warrior/Scientist/Princess to fall in love with, but it stumbles in a number of places, despite the Disney polish. Based on a famous book written 100 years ago, this story has inspired practically all the great movies that have gone before. So unfortunately now Carter has finally got his turn, it's to the feeling of deja-vu. It's a spirited film, to be sure, but the needlessly-complicated plots, and the odd characters (including Carter himself, who is difficult to figure out), and the truncated ending leaves you with a bit of a mash.

You want to like it, it is a bit of a hoot. But really, you can't overlook the disjointed issues and plot holes, and I guess the overall cheesiness that the film contains. And yet... And yet... It is a pretty grand adventure, in a world growing less adventurous by the day. Three jumps out of five.

- Peace out