Ring Around the Sun

Some of us can smell a good bargain from the other side of the store, to others, shopping is a rational, well thought out process. Very few of us are aware that many stores actually try to manipulate our sense of ‘rational’ by visual, audible and, now olfactory cues. In addition to soothing music, attractive lighting and changing room mirrors that make you look ten pounds lighter, many retailers have been experimenting with smell in the hope that it may make you loosen your grip on your wallet. New Scientist reports:

Exactly how scent exerts its effects is only beginning to be understood. When odour information travels from the olfactory bulb and reaches the primary olfactory cortex it activates the limbic system at an earlier stage of processing than do the other senses, says Pamela Dalton, who studies cognitive and sensory psychology at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This triggers an almost instantaneous emotional response in mammals. It is this initial reaction that marketeers hope to exploit by using scent in products or stores.

The articles includes a chart that details the emotional responses to various smells. The smell of Melon, somehow, is associated worldwide with happiness and youth. No surprise that Samsung uses a subtle melon fragrance in its stores. Target audience: the young impressionable buyer of cellphones and sundry electronic goods.

So next time you ‘really’ like something at the store and cannot explain why…it may be your nose. Note: No one ever   forgets what a new car smells like. Car sales people are eager to get you to take a test drive… because the moment the  smell hits your nose, your ability for rational thought falls by a few points.

Scientists and astronomers have long known that Saturn’s moon, Titan consists of an eco-sphere dominated entirely by Methane - the largest component of what we know as natural gas. The surface temperature of methane stay quite close to the triple point of methane, -183 degrees Celsius. This is a surprising  (albeit extreme) analogy to the temperature on the earth’s surface which stays around the triple point of water (Zero degrees Celsius).

While the most obvious planetary climate comparisons are made with our nearby gas-shrouded neighbors, recently we have focused our attention a billion miles farther from the sun, on Titan, an icy moon orbiting Saturn. Titan is the only body in the solar system, other than Earth, with an atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen (N₂). The surface temperature is -180°C—remarkably warm for its distance from the sun. The atmosphere is also roughly 5 percent methane (CH₄), a potent greenhouse gas. Titan is completely shrouded in brown haze, which turns out to be a rich smog of organic molecules created by the action of sunlight on methane. Organic sludge rains down on the surface, evoking visions of young Earth, where a similarly fecund, organic goo self-assembled into our earliest ancestors.

The presence of water is the overwhelming ‘moderator’ for earth’s climate, preventing the surface from getting too hot or too cold. Heat hastens the evaporation of water, causing clouds to form and block out sunlight. When it gets too cold, ice forms on the surface of the oceans. The unique property of ice is that its crystalline structure allows it to float on the surface of water (ice is lighter than water - that is why icebergs float rather than sink to the bottom of the ocean). This is how life in th ocean survived the ice ages on earth. It is the sole reason you can still find fish under the Arctic.

This property is unique to water but I do not know if it is shared by methane also. A web search on the density of solid methane did not yeild any useful information. Indeed if solid methane were to float on the surface of pools or lakes of liquid methane, it would not be surprising to find isolated organics (dare I say life??) that are isolated from the rest of the eco-system on the surface of Titan.

The Huygens probe, which entered the upper atmosphere of Titan on January 14, 2005, snapping pictures and sniffing the air as it plunged toward the icy surface, was even designed so that it would float if it landed in liquid. Huygens landed not with a splash but with a slightly squishy thud, in moist sand composed of ices and organics and suffused with methane and ethane. Off in the distance, Huygens observed eroded cliffs carved by river valleys. Cassini and Huygens have discovered that Titan is full of familiar-looking features and processes: rivers, clouds, lakes, and storms, all using methane instead of water. We see all the signs of a complex “methalogical” system that resembles Earth’s hydrological system, complete with evaporation, rainfall, seasons, and monsoons.