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Despite the recent whinging about whether or not the maps on the Pioneer and Voyager space probes might have been a big mistake that might lead to Earth being invaded by hostile aliens, it turns out that the pulsar maps included on these probes are actually worthless for determining the location of our Solar System. Pulsars were first discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, and at the time they were believed to be unique and stable landmarks suitable for that purpose. However, subsequent discoveries have shown that they are not actually as stable and reliable as they were first believed. Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang has an article on this:
[...] While fear-mongers foolishly claim that hostile aliens could follow the Voyager maps back to Earth, the maps themselves are actually among the most useless information aboard Voyager. According to Frank Drake, who worked on the Voyager message with Carl Sagan:
"We needed to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was traveling... There was a magic about pulsars ... no other things in the sky had such labels on them. Each one had its own distinct pulsing frequency, so it could be identified by anybody, including other creatures after a long period of time and far, far away."
Although these identifiers were thought to be unique and stable, we now know that long-term changes will render this map useless. If you tried to identify Earth by the presence of Pangaea, you'd be sorely disappointed. By sending the messages we did with Voyager, we actually delivered a much more challenging problem to any aliens "lucky" enough to come upon it. The idea to send pulsar positions and frequencies was a brilliant one, but by the time anyone receives it, they'll only encounter one of the most difficult-to-decipher riddles we could have possibly imposed.
In summary, it turns out that pulsars are far from being as unique, rare, and stable as they were believed to be in the 1970s when they came up with the idea. There are an estimated one billion neutron stars in the Milky Way, and almost all of these will look like pulsars somewhere in space because their spin and magnetic axes aren't perfectly aligned and so they will beam radio waves in some direction. The pulsar periods are also not as unique as they were at the time believed, so any extraterrestrial finding the Voyager plaque will have a hard time figuring out which fourteen pulsars out of a billion are described. Second, the properties of a pulsar can change in unpredictable fashion. Pulsars have since been observed to appear and disappear as the orientations of their spins relative to Earth change due to various factors, such as their motion in space and events internal to the pulsar itself such as starquakes and pulsar speedup. If one really wanted to tell aliens were we were it would have been better to give them a description of the Solar System, with the astronomical properties and description of our sun and the planets. It is, after all, how we identify exoplanet systems today.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:35AM (14 children)
Keep in mind that each and every space faring race that originated on a planet is either the apex predator, or has defeated the apex predator on it's home planet.
For example - mankind.
Perhaps an intelligent race that developed in space could be different, but that's unlikely, IMHO.
Oh, wait, some of you silly people thought that predation was unique to earth life? ROFLMAO
(Score: 1) by Virindi on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:52AM (9 children)
This is a bit circular.
What allowed humans to build civilization is not that we were the biggest, baddest predator on the planet. In terms of raw brawn we rank somewhere in the middle.
The fact that we are NOT the biggest and baddest meant there was an evolutionary advantage to developing clever tricks and good ability to cooperate, which is the intelligence which led to civilization. It seems perfectly plausible that a physically weak species could develop intelligence and build a civilization given the right conditions. And, of course, once they had developed technology they would then be "apex" in the sense that their technology, like ours, would allow them to be safe from any predator on the planet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:40AM (6 children)
In the middle of what?
A naked human is nowhere near parity with any other animal in the same weight class.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @03:07AM (4 children)
A naked human can survive and recover from injuries that would send most other wildlife into shock/stasis and certain death.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 19 2017, @05:52AM (3 children)
Other answer was better. We're larger than most other animals. Definitely not all.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 19 2017, @07:09AM (2 children)
We are larger than most animals that are not yet extinct. There were plenty more large animals in the early times of humans.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 19 2017, @04:40PM (1 child)
Well *plenty more* isn't exactly quantifiable but you need that wiggle room.
There were mammoths but they weren't too different from elephants we still have today. The bulk of species, then and now, were tiny thing - insects, rodents, small birds etc.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:32AM
Elephants are only still extant because we decided to protect them as a society. Let the ivory poachers alone and they'll disappear right quick.
Same for everything else. Whales, etc.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @04:10AM
In the middle, between, say, a gerbil in the throes of bloodlust, and any fair-sized canid or feline?
GP didn't say anything about weight class.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:17AM
Um, that's impossible considering evolution is just a theory, the Earth is only 6,000 years old and the Bible clearly states that we "have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." That pretty much makes us the apex of apexes. /s
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:33PM
There is strength in the herd. Hominids are pack animals. Before we tamed fire, before we invented the wheel, before any technology, we learned how to protect the herd. When we had nothing more than some sticks and stones that we found laying about, we were putting the hurt on creatures much larger than ourselves, not to mention succulent little critters. Youtube is filled with videos of various apes and monkeys acting in concert. One of the more fascinating videos showed baboons domesticating dogs. Pretty cool, huh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2lSZPTa3ho [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:20AM (3 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:29AM
Sasquatch
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @08:19AM
Glaciers. They've been retreating ever since modern man showed up and they're still on the run.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:21PM
All of them, of course. Wolves and coyotes and all their brethren. Mountain lion, cougar, lion, and all of their kin. Bears, wolverines, badgers, and related critters. The deadliest snakes try to avoid man - there are only a couple in the world that can consume a smallish human, and they have no other use for mammals. We have NOT displaced those creatures that we consider "vermin". Rats, roaches, mice, houseflies (among other species of flies, like bot flies), mosquitos, spiders - size works in their favor as much as anything.