Scientific problems in Snowpiercer

More thoughts on the movie Snowpiercer, which I commented on in Inuit Woman in Snowpiercer and Ending in Snowpiercer.

Snowpiercer had some plot and character problems, but I'm interested in the scientific and technical problems at the moment, so let's go.

** spoiler alert **

It would've been nice to say how Snowpiercer crossed the oceans in its round-the-world journey before the Earth froze.

It would've been nice to say what Snowpiercer's energy source was. I presume it was nuclear-powered, but I don't think it was ever stated.

An ice age wouldn't stop earthquakes or volcanic activity from happening. I imagine a worldwide system of tracks could go only a year or two, at most, before something jolted the rails out of alignment.

I think the movie gave some bogus reason why the train had to keep moving. Something about perpetual motion, maybe.

Even if we grant that condition, there's no reason it had to go at top speed. Going slower would use less energy and reduce the chance of accidents.

The train's rulers knew the outside temperature well enough to calculate that someone's arm would freeze in exactly seven minutes. Yet they didn't know the outside temperature was rising--enough so that people could survive outdoors. That's contradictory and therefore illogical.

In fact, the train's rulers should've had scientists monitoring the conditions outside. And they should've been glad to stop the train and send people outside--perhaps as punishment. Operating the train with ongoing social inequalities was like sitting on a ticking bomb. Eventually the system would explode.

The "tailies" had to use the last two matches in existence to start fires. FYI, you can start fires without matches or lighters. For instance, you can strike rocks or rub sticks together.

The stolen children

I forget about the kidnapped children for a while, which is a storytelling flaw. And I didn't buy the answer to their disappearance: that they were serving as manual replacements for broken parts.

I thought the children were being taken to provide food--the Solyent Green cliché--or perhaps as slaves or pets. The replacement-part idea was unexpected, to be sure, but unbelievable.

First, kids would last for only a few hours in those hot, cramped cubbyholes before they passed out. No way could they perform the same repetitive tasks for weeks or months.

Second, the train must have millions of parts and materials that would wear out or break. It inevitably would require fixes that a human child couldn't manage. Like other self-contained vehicles--a ship, submarine, or starship--it would need mechanical engineers, machine-shop facilities, and probably a "docking port" where it could stop for repairs.

To give a related example, suppose your car ran out of brake fluid, a spark plug broke, or the battery died. This isn't a Flintstones cartoon where an animal performs every function. No living creature could substitute for the mechanical failure.

Overall, though, I enjoyed Snowpiercer. It deserves some Academy Award nominations and I hope it gets some. For its bold subject and style, I give it an 8.5 of 10.

Review of Fossil Legends of the First Americans

Fossil Legends of the First AmericansThe burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils?

Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries.

Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees. Fossil Legends of the First Americans represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

From Publishers Weekly
Mayor, a folklorist and historian of science, continues the project of understanding what premodern peoples made of fossils that she started in The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. Surveying accounts of Native American tradition from the earliest Spanish conquistador and missionary records of Aztec and Inca lore up through present-day Indian oral histories, she correlates Native American myths with the fossils they are known or presumed to have observed. The results are unsurprising: giant fossil mastodon and dinosaur bones engendered myths about giants—giant elk, bear, birds, centipedes, subhumanoids and mysterious "water monsters"—who populated the earth until, in a nearly universal motif, they were killed off with lightning strikes by sky spirits. Indian notions of "deep time," changing landforms and climates, and the descent of contemporary species from fossilized ancestors anticipate the insights of present-day geology and evolutionary theory, she contends, while Inca legends of extinction by "fire from heaven" prefigure modern theories of extinction by asteroid impact. Her research makes for a competent if dry study in comparative folklore, but her claim that these myths "evince the stirrings of scientific inquiry in pre-Darwinian cultures" downplays the elements of animism and supernaturalism that are so radically at odds with the materialist and mechanistic thrust of modern science. Photos.

From Booklist
Centuries before modern paleontologists began scouring the western badlands for dinosaur skeletons, a dozen Native American tribes had already discovered hundreds of ancient fossils. Through remarkably wide-ranging research, Mayor has recovered the fascinating story of how various tribes encountered and interpreted dinosaur bones and other remains of early life. As she did in her landmark study of Greek and Roman responses to fossils (The First Fossil Hunters, 2001), Mayor illuminates the surprisingly relevant views of early peoples confronting evidence of prehistoric life. But in this investigation, Mayor must also rescue these Native American musings from generations of neglect and derision. By interviewing numerous tribal folklorists and probing neglected chronicles of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century explorers, Mayor has reconstructed the way Native Americans converted fossils into the substrate for powerful myths. Though tribal myths actually anticipate key Darwinian concepts of species change, Native American traditions have too often been dismissed as mere superstition by orthodox scientists. This pioneering work replaces cultural estrangement with belated understanding. --Bryce ChristensenRob's review

Fossil Legends of the First Americans offers many interesting tidbits. For instance, that buried skeletons inspired the idea of animals and people emerging from underground. Or that legends of previous worlds dying in fire or ice or floods came from the geological record.

The Publishers Weekly review above is a little harsh. Natives believe that giant prehistoric animals roamed the earth--something they could've surmised from seeing bones. Euro-American Christians believed that animals never went extinct--that the animals seen today had always existed. Anything God created was perfect and therefore endured forever without change.

Well, Natives were much closer to the truth. And that may be because they actually observed the bones while Westerners were getting their "science" from the Bible. In short, Natives understood the natural world better--a point we shouldn't overlook.

As for the writing style, "a competent if dry study" describes it pretty well. The book probably won't appeal to you unless you're already interested in the subject. Rob's rating: 7.5 of 10.

Science-fair star inspires movie

'Junkyard Genius' inspires a movie

By Cindy YurthAfter appearing in multiple newspapers, on TV ("Extreme Home Makeover"), being written up in Oprah magazine and being profiled in a book (Judy Dutton's "Science Fair Season"), Garrett Yazzie thought his 15 minutes of fame may be coming to an end.

But there was still one medium that hadn't tackled Yazzie's compelling story of making it all the way to a national science competition with a device made out of scraps from the rez: film.

Now he can cross that one off his list too.

For two weeks, a crew led by promising young writer/director Eliza McNitt was holed up in Pinon, Ariz., Yazzie's hometown, filming "Without Fire," a 15-minute short film based on Yazzie's 2005 invention of a solar device that heats both water and air, made almost entirely of things he found lying around.Comment:  For more on Navajo science, see Navajo Nation Science Fair and Navajo Engineers Receives Presidential Award.

Below:  "Misty Upham, playing the mother of the young scientist in Eliza McNitt's short film "Without Fire," reacts as she realizes the radiator of her truck is missing as a film crew records the scene. Upham's character is based on Georgia Yazzie, mother of national science fair entrant Garrett Yazzie. Believe it or not, the truck was towed in from Albuquerque." (Cindy Yurth)

Cheyenne River student is NASA Ambassador

Uses Knife wins NASA Internship, becomes NASA Ambassador

By Christina RoseWinning singing contests, art contests, being a model and an accomplished hoop dancer might be enough for some, but not for Delaena Rae Uses Knife, 27, of Eagle Butte, SD, who fully intends to reach her dream of becoming an astrophysicist. Uses Knife is looking forward to a summer internship with NASA and she has also been named one of five of South Dakota’s NASA Ambassador. “It’s a surreal moment for me,” Uses Knife said.

“A NASA Student Ambassador is an honor offered to selective internship/fellowship students,” read an email from NASA headquarters. As an Ambassador, Delaena will have access to employment opportunities and educational experiences that will increase her skills while she continues to work towards her degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, or STEM.

Before she graduated from her reservation high school, Delaena was told by her guidance counselors that she should not attempt to reach her goal of attending Harvard. “Everyone told me I should be a painter,” Delaena said with a wry smile.

Struggling with low self-esteem and being told she wasn’t capable of going to Harvard, Delaena didn’t apply. “At that age, we are so accepting of what the counselors tell us we can be,” she said.Comment:  Another example of how people--the poor, women, minorities--are told their place in society. In other words, another example of how racism and sexism holds people back. Overcoming these obstacles requires these people to be stronger and more determined than the average white male who has centuries of advantages behind him.

For more on Native science students, see Navajo Nation Science Fair and Native Students in Science Bowl.

Navajo Nation Science Fair

Chicken nuggets, magnetic nail star in science fair

By Shondiin SilversmithHow far would you have to run to burn off the calories contained in 10 Chicken McNuggets?

Answering that question earned a Tuba City student a first-place medal and computer tablet at the Navajo Nation Science Fair, where kindergarten through fourth-grade students from schools across the Navajo Nation came together to share their creative scientific minds at Red Rock State Park on Feb. 26.

"I'm glad something like this is happening where our students are able to use their creativity to explore," said Leandra Thomas, Miss Navajo Nation. "There is so much to learn, and I'm impressed with all the little projects here."

Over a hundred cardboard displays were set-up at the Red Rock Convention Center, and each of them contained a topic discussing different scientific matters related to eight science categories.

Those categories included biology, chemistry, animal science, environmental science, physical science, computer science, engineering, and behavioral and social science.

Some of the topics and questions presented by students included how to make a battery out of a few nickels and dimes, which liquid dissolves this food fastest, Is Big Foot real?, why kids are naughty or nice, making noise from a straw oboe, the science of paintball, and even a display on what part of a sheep people enjoy the most.
Comment:  For more on Navajo science, see Navajo Engineer Receives Presidential Award and Navajo Engineer Helped Develop Curiosity.

Below:  "Fourth graders Mia Haceesa, left, and Makeesha Clah, at Dzil hna-o-dith-hle Grant School pose next to their 'Long Lasting Food in Liquid' booth Tuesday during the Navajo Nation Science Fair."

CSKT company wins NASA contract

CSKT company wins NASA contract worth up to $50M

By Vince DevlinNASA is changing the way it does business, and a Polson firm will help it make the transition.

S&K Global Solutions LLC will soon announce it has been awarded a federal contract worth as much as $50 million to “consolidate contractor support into an integrated infrastructure approach” for the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Or, as Mike Monahan, vice president for S&K Global business development, put it, “We’ll help the directorate put robots in space.”

NASA will deal with the robotics as it moves away from manned spaceflight, Monahan emphasized. The company he works for, which is owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, will provide the expertise for putting NASA scientists and engineers on the same page when it comes to using common infrastructure, common processes and common tools.Comment:  For more on the subject, see S&K Aerospace Gets $975 Million Contract.

Navajo engineer receives presidential award

Native Engineer Receives Top Award From President Obama

By Lucinda Hughes-JuanAs a young child, Stanley Atcitty, a member of the Navajo Nation from Shiprock, New Mexico, recalls taking toys apart and building them back together. He was always fascinated by how things worked, and even built his own bicycle out of salvaged parts he retrieved from an old junk yard.

Today he continues to excel as in innovative engineer, and was recently honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). At a White House Ceremony on July 31, Atcitty accepted the PECASE, one of the highest honors given by the U.S. government to individuals in the science and engineering professions in the early stages of their independent research careers.

“Discoveries in science and technology not only strengthen our economy, they inspire us as a people… and the impressive accomplishments of today’s awardees so early in their careers promise even greater advances in the years ahead,” President Barack Obama stated in a White House press release.

President Obama named 13 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded researchers as recipients of the award. Dr. Atcitty, a principal member of Sandia National Laboratories’ technical staff in New Mexico, was one of 96 researchers chosen nationally for the award in 2012.Comment:  For more on Navajo science, see Navajo Engineer Helped Develop Curiosity and Navajo Undergrad Studies Climate Change.

Navajo engineer helped develop Curiosity

Aaron Yazzie Plays Major Role In Curiosity’s Mars Exploration

By Linda KorAs the Mars Science Laboratory made a successful landing on Martian soil this week, a resounding cheer went up throughout the world. The landing of the rover Curiosity brought together years of work by scientists and engineers, and gave the world a first-hand look at the landscape of the planet, whose distance from Earth can range from 36 million to over 250 million miles.

Among the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists and engineers who made this event come to fruition is a name familiar to many in Holbrook. Aaron Yazzie, a 2004 graduate of Holbrook High School, is a mechanical engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories. He played a significant role in the development of the Curiosity’s ability to collect samples from the planet.
And:After graduating from Stanford in 2008, Yazzie was immediately hired by JPL as a mechanical engineer and for the past year has been working on the Mars Science Laboratory. His job was to design equipment that would allow the Curiosity to collect the surface samples needed for scientific analysis.

The design includes a turret at the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm that holds five devices, including a percussive drill for collecting powdered samples from rock interiors, a dust removal brush device, another device called a Mars Hand Lens Imager, an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, and a multi-purpose device named Collection and Handling for Insitu Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA). The CHIMRA includes a soil scoop and a set of chambers for sieving, sorting and portioning samples of rock powder or soil for delivery to analytical instruments. The purpose of these instruments is to determine by the samples collected whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes.Comment:  For more on Navajo scientists, see Navajo Undergrad Studies Climate Change and Navajo Science Nerds.

Below:  "Aaron Yazzie poses in front of a Curiosity rover mock-up at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratories where he works as a mechanical engineer. Yazzie’s skills played a role in the development of the rover that is collecting surface samples on Mars."

Native students in Science Bowl

Madison American Indian students take second trip to National Science Bowl

By Gretchen MironA group of five students from the Madison Metropolitan School District’s (MMSD) American Indian Science and Engineering Society is headed to Washington D.C. this weekend to compete in the National Science Bowl.

The team earned the opportunity by defeating nine other teams at the Intertribal Middle School Science Bowl in Albuquerque, N.M. on March 22 and 23. This is the second year in a row they will compete in the National Science Bowl.

The National Science Bowl is a fast-paced competition to test middle school students’ knowledge of math and science, ranging between pre-algebra, algebra, earth science, physical science, life science, and the history of science. Difficulty levels vary depending on the round.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Ruel Wants Indigenous Nerds and Lakota Teams Compete in Robotics.

Ruel wants indigenous nerds

"Jim Ruel, a standup comic with a degree in electrical engineering, describes the value of science–as well as the importance of being a well-rounded person–during the 40th Annual Symposium on the American Indian."

Ruel wants more natives on TV

By Betty Ridge“Native Americans don’t get on TV very often or in the media very often,” Ruel said Friday, during the 40th annual Symposium on the American Indian at Northeastern State University.

Ruel’s speech, “Indiginerd—A Presentation on Indigenous Nerds,” was sponsored by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). Among the audience for Ruel’s message was a group of students from Sequoyah High School.

“One thing you don’t see on TV is Indian nerds,” Ruel said. “It would be nice to have [Indian] characters on TV shows who aren’t stoic or overly romantic.”

While studying electrical engineering at Stanford University, Ruel was active in AISES and has worked with the organization since then. His most current project, filmed the week before his Symposium experience, was recording the ideas of American Indian scientists around the country. He showed a rough cut of part of that documentary during the speech.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Lakota Teams Compete in Robotics and Sioux Student Earns Physics Degree.

Lakota teams compete in robotics

Native Sun News: Lakota teams in robotics competition

By Karin EagleFor the first time ever, two Native American teams participated in the FIRST Lego League and South Dakota Robotics Association competitions. The association is the local affiliate of U.S. FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

The first-year teams are made up of middle school students from both the Pine Ridge Reservation and Rapid City.Comment:  For more on Native students and science, see Sioux Student Earns Physics Degree and Native Science Nerds.

Inuit students talk with astronaut

Cosmic-Minded Inuit Chat with NASA Astronaut in SpaceInuksuk High School went cosmic on February 8 when nearly 700 students, elders and community leaders packed the auditorium to snych with astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).

The Nunatsiaq News reported on the event, organized by the group Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), a NASA educational program whose volunteers link schools with the orbiting astronauts. The idea is to get students to think about careers in science, technology, engineering and math, the newspaper said.Astronauts tell Iqaluit students to work hard, dream big

“Go after your dream. No one is going to come and say here is your job”

By Dean MorrisonAbout 50 Inuksuk High School students submitted questions about life in space, from which 20 were selected.

The students were then connected to NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, who arrived on the space station Dec. 12 for a six-month stay.And:Omole said she’s now thinking about becoming an astronaut herself.

“At first I wasn’t, but now I am definitely interested in becoming an astronaut and going into space,” Omole said.Comment:  This is literally how far away from reality the Suzuki dog-sled commercial is. Inuit students are talking to astronauts via computer and thinking of becoming astronauts themselves.

Yet the media constantly shows them living in igloos, wearing parkas, and driving dog-sleds. The idea that they use computers--or cellphones, or cars--is inconceivable to most people.

For more on the subject, see Eskimos: The Ultimate Aborigines.

Sioux student earns physics degree

Yankton Sioux Student First in Tribe to Earn a Physics DegreeCharee Peters wasn’t expecting to break any barriers when she made the decision to change her major from theater to physics while an undergraduate student at the University of Denver, but that’s exactly what she did.

When she was handed that bachelor’s degree in 2011, she became the first member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe to earn a degree in physics.

“It was very unexpected. It’s very surprising that in all the generations and people that have been in the tribe, none have done what I have done,” she said. “It’s a bit distressing to know that I am paving the way for others like me, but I’m pushing through to represent my tribe and to show the world what Native Americans can do.”

Over the next five years she plans on having her master’s, wants to be working toward a doctorate in physics or astrophysics and would like to have a couple research papers published.Charles Trimble: Indian youth share an important lesson with usThe youth on the reservations give us hope, even despite the prevalence of drugs and gangs and suicides. For example, a December 22, 2011, article from the American Indian Graduate Center heralded the following amazing fact:

“In the minds of many Americans, the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux Tribe embodies all the problems of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Yet on this, one of the nation’s largest Native American Reservations, four American Indian scholars have set a standard virtually any town or city in the United States will find it very difficult to match. In 2011, four scholars who were raised in the historic village of Oglala, pop. 1290 (2010 Census), were honored for their work at the graduate level, one of whom is pursuing a Ph.D. degree and three having received Ph.D. degrees during the year. Some experts have speculated that, at least this year, it may be the highest per capita number of Ph.D.s of any municipality in the nation.”

These are the facts that need to be heralded throughout Indian Country and in the general public, for they help dispel the impression that our tribal youth wander the reservation countryside, hollow-eyed and disparaged, haunted by ghosts of our tragic history. It is often said that our youth have no Indian role models, yet those role models are everywhere, but need to be pointed out.

There are Native Americans in the White House and on Capitol Hill in Washington, in state offices, and many are unheralded in jobs of great responsibility in offices and factories across the country. And indeed there are many role models on the reservations–special people who stayed home precisely to develop the homelands and provide education and opportunity to future generations of our tribes.Comment:  For more on Indians and education, see Native Science Nerds and Inuit Graduate Student in Accounting.

Asteroids named for Indians

With an asteroid almost crashing into the earth Tuesday, Indian Country Today reviewed the asteroids named for Indians:

Asteroids with American Indian Names, and Video of YU55Yesterday we brought you three of them—Navajo, Hopi and Pocahontas—and a subsequent search turned up a few more.

“In keeping with astronomical tradition, discoverers of minor planets are accorded the privilege of proposing names for their discoveries,” said Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union, the Paris-based organization that oversees the naming of such things. ”I’m not sure how many names are derived from Native American sources, but I can add 5460 Tsenaat’a'i, which is (supposedly) the Navajo word for ‘flying rock.’”

The others that Williams unearthed:

Asteroid 2270, Yazhi, the Navajo word for ‘little one’

Asteroid 3307 Athabasca, ancestors of the Navajo and Apache

Asteroid 10039 Keet Seel, prehistoric cliff-dwelling, occupied by ancestors of the Hopi

Asteroid 19407 Standing Bear, Ponca chief, the first American Indian to be granted the rights of a U.S. citizen, and a legal advocate for Natives

Asteroid 145475 Rehoboth, a school that primarily serves Native American families

Comment:  ICT missed the names noted in Asteroids Given Luiseño Names.

For more on Indians and astronomy, see Kitt Peak Observatory on Tohono O'odham Land and The Constellation Indus.

Native science nerds

National science group strives to break barriers for Latinos, Native Americans

By Joe RodriguezWhere are the Latinos and Native Americans in science?

On paper, they hardly exist statistically. But anyone walking or driving through downtown San Jose this week will see about 3,600 Hispanic and American Indian lab rats, nerds and geeks crossing the streets from hotels to convene at the McEnery Convention Center.

The Society for the Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, or SACNAS, was born almost four decades ago to break down barriers and increase their numbers in the so-called STEM fields--science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Aside from brainy speeches, research presentations, workshops and mentoring, a highlight of the four-day conference figures to be the closing powwow. Imagine biologists and physicists stepping to some of the oldest spiritual dances in the world.

"As you can see, we'll have a lot going on," said Judit Camacho, SACNAS executive director.Comment:  For more on Native science, see Chippewa Inventor Has 35 Patents and Navajo/Zuni Astronomer.

Native meteor lore

Orionid Meteor Shower and the Great Leader TecumsehThe great Shawnee leader Tecumseh’s very name means Shooting Star, or literally, The Panther Passing Across, due to the brightness of a meteor that streaked across the sky as the newborn cried out.

Indigenous shooting-star legends abound, from the Hopi tale of a boy and his mother who hitched a ride on a meteor to the Sun’s house so that the boy could find out who his father was, to the Mi’kmaq tale of Feather Woman and her son, banished from the sky by the Morning Star and sent back to earth as a shooting star.

Meteor showers, or shooting stars, have many meanings in indigenous lore. Meteors have also brought bad omens, cured illness and fought off demons.

“Different Native American tribes had different explanations for what things like these were,” writes a blogger at the Ohio State University College of Engineering. “Some thought that meteors were omens of sickness and death, others believed that they were spirits on their way to the afterlife. One belief that I found particularly interesting was the Kiliwa belief that meteors were the urine of the constellations Xsmii.”Comment:  For more on Native astronomy, see Navajo/Zuni Astronomer and Wolf Moon in Teen Wolf.

Chippewa inventor has 35 patents

Native American inventor proud of his past, focused on the future

By Dick YarbroughRaised in Atlanta, he is a renowned inventor in the area of energy conservation and communications and the holder of over 35 patents in the United States. He was recently invited to the White House when President Barack Obama signed legislation to overhaul the U.S. patent system. Gov. Nathan Deal has appointed him to the Georgia Council on American Indian Concerns.

Petite is best known for his work in developing wireless mesh technology, which has led to the Smart Grid. At the risk of giving you eye-glaze, this technology will allow the operation of remotely monitored and controlled systems within a home or business and let us see how much energy we are consuming and adjust our consumption habits accordingly. Smart grids will allow utilities to better manage demand and home owners to cut their monthly energy bills by having real-time information on how much energy they have used.

Petite says the day in coming when two-way connected smarter meters will be installed in every home, and in the not-too-distant future, we will drive home, plug our electric car in and pay for our energy through a smart grid in lieu of waiting in line for gas.

Petite is also founder of the Native American Inventors Association. One of Petite's passions is to enable more young Native Americans to use their creative abilities as he has done. He is also a founder of the Independent Native American Intellectual Property Council, a nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to provide assistance for getting the ideas of Native American inventors through the patent process and into full commercialization, creating new markets and new jobs.Comment:  For more on Native inventors, see Alaska Natives = "Ingenious Inventors."

Navajo/Zuni astronomer

The Native Astronomer

By Michelle TiradoAlthough the job of the astronomer is a lot less lonely than it used to be—they spend far fewer long nights looking into telescopes in remote observatories and far more days in laboratories and research centers crunching numbers, analyzing data and collaborating with other astronomers—Dennis Lamenti (Navajo/Zuni) has had to deal with a different kind of loneliness: being one among too few Native American astronomers. In fact, as far as he knows, he is the only one in the contiguous United States with or working toward a Ph.D. in astronomy.And:There are a couple of programs out there created to attract more into the field. One is the Navajo-Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program at Lowell Observatory in northern Arizona. The program, started about 15 years ago, pairs astronomers with elementary and secondary school teachers at tribal schools. The astronomers go to the schools several times during the year to discuss astronomy topics and engage the students with hands-on activities. Five schools participated in the program last year, and three are on board this year.Comment:  For more on Native astronomy, see Kitt Peak Observatory on Tohono O'odham Land and Asteroids Given Luiseño Names.

Tobacco seeds on space shuttle

Back to the Stars

By Laura Waterman WittstockThe NASA space shuttle Atlantis landed on July 21, ending a 30-year program of space exploration and experimentation. One massive payload it carried was called the “Raffaello Multi-purpose Logistics Module,” a container filled with five tons of supplies and spare parts for the space station (ISS). Now dubbed Leonardo, the module will stay at the space station for the duration of its useful life. Its large size will provide much needed space for the astronauts who visit the station in the future.

That is the big component of the flight. But also nestled in the payload was a very tiny experiment: American Indian tobacco seeds in a microgravity environment. This was the first and only plant experiment involving native seeds cultivated only by American Indians from the Western Hemisphere using native agricultural science over millennia.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Foods Changed the World and Egyptian Mummies with Tobacco and Cocaine.

Wolf Moon in Teen Wolf

Exclusive:  Producer Jeff Davis and Director Russell Mulcahy Talk TEEN WOLF

By Christina RadishAs the creator and executive producer of the MTV series Teen Wolf, Jeff Davis has developed a re-imagining of the iconic ‘80s film that is darker, sexier and edgier than the original.

At the show’s press day, Jeff Davis and Russell Mulcahy talked to Collider in this exclusive interview about bringing this show to life for MTV, how important it was to establish the look of the werewolves, developing their werewolf mythology, the fact that Season 1 will have many twists and turns, all the behind the scenes features they already have planned for the DVD release, and their excitement to take the series to Comic-Con in San Diego.The key point for us:Were there things that you specifically wanted to make sure that you kept with werewolf mythology, and were there things that you wanted to add that were new?

DAVIS:  Absolutely! Shape shifter myths are pretty much found in every culture and every society. It’s pretty extraordinary. The pilot we actually named “Wolf Moon” because the cycles of the moon are actually all named from Native American history. In January, wolves would howl outside of the villages because they were hungry. So, January was named Wolf Moon.More information on the so-called Wolf Moon from FarmersAlmanac.com:

Full Moon Names and Their MeaningsFull Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full Moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the Moon names, but in general, the same ones were current throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names. Since the lunar month is only 29 days long on the average, the full Moon dates shift from year to year. Here is the Farmers Almanac’s list of the full Moon names.

• Full Wolf Moon--January Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.Comment:  At least the Farmers Almanac attributed the moon names to a particular region rather than all of Native America. That's more than Davis and Mulcahy did.

But I doubt the Farmers Almanac has the slightest credibility when it comes to Native lore. I'm guessing it's been repeating these "moon" stories for decades or centuries since someone made them up.

Here's a list of American Indian Moons from 29 tribal cultures. The cultures include half a dozen in the Almanac's New England to Lake Superior range, and specifically the Algonquin. So how many used the term "Wolf Moon"?

Answer: Zero. The Algonquin name for January is squochee kesos, meaning "sun has not strength to thaw." The only January name that even mentions wolves is the Sioux "wolves run together." The Cheyenne use this as one of their names for December.

What "Wolf Moon" tells us

"Wolf Moon" seems to be a myth, perhaps concocted by the Farmers Almanac. It continues because most people think Indians have one continent-wide culture. And it apparently involves a lot of wolf worship. When Indians aren't running or dancing with wolves, they're soaring like eagles or hawks. Or running like buffalo.

This bit of stereotyping sends a lot of messages. Native religion is nothing more than animal worship. Indians have a mystical connection with nature. Indians are more animal-like than "real people." Indians lead romantic lives of following their hearts and their "spirit guides." No mentions of smallpox, broken treaties, or genocide here!

The image below kind of says it all. The Wolf Moon concept, supposed used in the East, is represented by a Plains chief. It doesn't matter whether the term is accurate or where it's used. It's all about homogenizing and romanticizing Indians, which is part of denying their modern-day existence and diversity.

No doubt Davis and Mulcahy didn't intend these messages. But I bet they didn't do anything to contradict them, either. I bet there's no Indian in Teen Wolf to explain "Wolf Moon," say it's limited to a certain region or made up by the Farmers Almanac, and give an authentic Native term instead. Because it's easier to keep Indians invisible and contribute to the problem.

For more on the subject, see Twilight Ruining Indians' Reputation? and Differeing Views of Wolves.

P.S. This posting is not to be confused with Moon Wolf in UNCANNY X-MEN.