Since the 11th of March, Oxford University Press has been running March Madness: Atlas Edition based on statistics drawn at random from Oxford’s Atlas of the World: 19th Edition. Mexico and Indonesia met in the finals while Madagascar and Turkey competed for third place.

To get to this point, we’ve asked:

Sweet Sixteen: 11 March              Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Round of 8: 18 March                     Which country has a higher level of endemism?
Final Four: 25 March                      Which country’s capital will be more populated by 2015?

To determine the winner, we asked: Which country has a larger industrial output (that includes mining, manufacturing, construction, and energy)?

For Third Place:                               Madagascar vs. Turkey                     WINNER: Turkey

For First Place:                                  Mexico vs. Indonesia

OUP is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2013 March Madness: Atlas Edition is Indonesia!

First place: Indonesia
Second place: Mexico
Third place: Turkey

Indonesia’s industrial output equals $389 billion (US dollars), 10 billion ahead of Mexico. Turkey beat out Madagascar for third place with an output of $209 billion. Indonesia, with its 136,000 islands of which 6000 are inhabited, exports oil, natural gas, tin, timber, textiles, rubber, coffee and tea (to name a few). Mexico, in second place, is largely agricultural, but oil and oil products are its chief export, while manufacturing is the country’s most valuable activity. Mexico is the leading silver producer. In Turkey, agriculture employs 21% of people, and textiles, cars, machinery and paper products are the leading exports. In Madagascar, fishing, farming and forestry employ about 80% of people, but population growth has stressed the region’s forests and the unique wildlife.

Thanks for playing along, either on the courts or in your atlas! May the madness continue…

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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Thousands of years after the last woolly mammoth died, some bioengineers dream of resurrecting the species. When I first heard their arguments, these folks struck me as the modern, high-tech version of snake-oil salesmen. The product they’re promoting is not what they lead people to believe it is, and it won’t do what people like to imagine it will.

Mammoths and mastodons once roamed throughout the Americas, as well as much of Europe and Asia. There were several species, but the best-known is the woolly mammoth, a creature of the far north. Well-preserved carcasses have been discovered melting out of the permafrost in Siberia and the Yukon. There’s been a lot of talk of ‘cloning’ a mammoth by using DNA recovered from bodies preserved in permafrost.

However, the genetic material in even the best-preserved mammoth specimens has been broken to bits, devoured by cold-adapted bacteria and shattered by thousands of years of freezing and thawing. No mammoth sperm cell holding intact DNA—a prerequisite for cloning—has ever been found. Using bits of ancient mammoth DNA, and referring to the genome of living elephants, researchers have pieced together much of the coding genome of the woolly mammoth—the segments that direct the building of proteins. But the vast majority of the genome, whose functions are little understood, remains unmapped.

Still, it’s now theoretically possible to create a pseudo-mammoth. This could be done by taking the genome of an Asian elephant, the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth, and splicing some sequences of mammoth DNA into it. This hybrid DNA could be inserted into an elephant sperm cell, which could then be used to artificially inseminate a female elephant. If the embryo developed and was carried to term, a mammoth-like animal would be born. This is a big ‘if’, because elephant reproduction is slow and complex. Even in efforts to clone living animals, there are often multiple abortions before a live infant is born. And those babies often don’t live long.

“We’d propose to make a hybrid elephant with the best features of modern elephants and of mammoths,” George Church said at a recent TEDx conference on De-Extinction.  A genomics pioneer based at Harvard, Church is a master of genetic manipulation. His motivation for trying to raise the mammoth is obscure.  When I spoke with him a couple of years back, he told me, “You can be very fussy and insist on getting the genome exactly right. Or you can go for something that has the main visible characteristics: the hair, the size, the tusk shape.” So, like many who imagine mammoths once again roaming the far north, Church was hung up on appearances.

Experiments using ancient mammoth DNA sequences have shown that these cold-adapted elephants had a different form of the blood protein hemoglobin compared to their modern cousins. Mammoth hemoglobin, which picks up oxygen in the lungs and offloads it in the tissues, was designed to release oxygen under cold conditions, a feat that modern elephant hemoglobin can’t perform. So a gene for cold-adapted hemoglobin is now on Church’s list of characteristics to splice into a mammothified elephant. But how many other subtle factors made the mammoth what it was?  To believe that human technology can fabricate an animal that will fill the lost niche of the mammoth takes a lot of blind faith—or hubris.

Mammoths lived in cold, dry prairies, an Ice Age habitat that Palaeoecologists call the mammoth steppe, and that once covered great swathes of the planet. Today, the mammoth steppe has vanished. So if bioengineers managed to produce pseudo-mammoths, they’d likely have no place to go. With a lot of luck, they might help to create their own habitat. Ecologist Sergei Zimov is running a long-term experiment in northeastern Siberia which he calls Pleistocene Park. His goal is to bring large herbivores into the soggy tundra in the hope that their grazing will transform the landscape back into the productive grassland that existed in the days of the mammoth. Large herbivores can shape their own habitats, a phenomenon that’s been observed in African savannas as well as in the Arctic. Zimov has seen some signs of success with horses and muskoxen. But whether mammoth-like animals could survive there is unknowable.

While some dream of raising the mammoth, living elephants are under siege. Poaching has reached a new peak; 62 percent of forest elephants in Central Africa were killed for their ivory over the last decade. (It’s worth noting that mammoth tusks were considerably larger: meaning a bigger pay-off of ivory for every animal killed). Elephants often die in clashes with subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia.  They need large stretches of habitat to survive, and land unoccupied by humans is becoming a rare and precious resource.

Even bringing back species that were deliberately wiped out in much of North America within the last century remains controversial. The reintroduced gray wolf population in Yellowstone National Park is by many measures a great success: the animals thrived, and have helped to restore an array of other creatures, from beaver to songbirds. Still, as the wolf population has expanded beyond the park’s boundaries, they’ve been met with outrage and gunshots. Yellowstone’s bison, the last free-roaming herd in the United States, gets the same reaction when the animals migrate out of the park in winters of heavy snow.

Conservation efforts for these living megafauna are chronically under-funded. So it’s hard to take the notion of raising a pseudo-mammoth, or any other long-extinct species, as a serious conservation move. The mammoth has been a favorite for resurrection, not because the idea is practical, but because the lost creature has such a strong hold on our imaginations.

Still, it’s probably not fair to compare all advocates of this idea to snake-oil salesmen. After watching a number of speakers at the TEDx De-Extinction conference passionately describe their dreams of raising not only the mammoth, but the thylacine and the passenger pigeon, I think many of these people are sincere. They believe they can raise dead species, and set them free to function in the wild. But they’re so focused on this vision that they seem disconnected from the reality of here and now.

Sharon Levy is a freelance science writer who specializes in making natural resource and conservation issues accessible for a broad audience. She is the author of Once and Future Giants, a book that introduces the idea that Ice Age megafauna extinctions hold important lessons for modern conservation. She lives in Humboldt County, California.

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Image credits: Smithsonian Woolly Mammoth. Photo by Kevin Burkett. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons; Woolly Mammoth. Photo by Flying Puffin. Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons.

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By Klaus Dodds

The last couple of weeks have been busy ones when it comes to news about the Falkland Islands. Or Islas Malvinas as Argentine and other readers might insist upon. For others, the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) is the preferred naming option — highlighting as it does their continued contested status.

We have had the Falkland Islands referendum. I was fortunate enough to be an accredited observer and spent a very interesting few days watching the voting and counting unfold in Stanley and the wider Islands. Shortly afterwards, an Argentine bishop was appointed the next Pope, Francis I, and this encouraged speculation about what the pontiff might have to say on the question of the Islas Malvinas. President Kirchner of Argentina was quick off the mark and paid her respects at the Vatican. Whatever special powers the Pope possesses, it won’t be enough to alter the sovereignty dynamic in the case of these South Atlantic islands. As Margaret Thatcher might have said the current UK government is not for turning — sovereignty is not up for discussion. And, most recently, new archival papers released in the UK revealed that members of the Thatcher government were divided over how to respond to the Argentine invasion of April 1982. For all the talk of an ‘Iron Lady’ and dispatching a ‘task force’ to recover the Islands, there was clearly the possibility at one stage or another of a deal being done. Raising in the process the enticing question of how British politics, let alone the fate of the Falkland Islanders, might have been different if war was avoided and some kind of settlement secured.

But that was April 1982 and things have moved on since then. Indeed, in the last two years, relations between Britain and Argentina have worsened and there is no reason to think that any settlement will be forthcoming. Whatever some newspaper columnists might think, the referendum was intended to send a clear message to Argentina and the wider world that the Falklands community is not looking to its nearest neighbor when considering future options. And, at the moment, it does not need to. The UK government has reiterated its support for respecting the ‘wishes’ of the Falkland Islands community and that other neighbours such as Chile and Uruguay are a benign presence. Brazil, while offering some rhetorical support to Argentina, is not unhelpful to the UK position. So the imbroglio continues.

At this stage, attention often turns to other kinds of options, beyond the continuation of the status quo i.e. the Falklands continuing as a UK overseas territory. While laudable, I think what continues to fascinate me about these islands is perhaps what insights they have to offer us more generally. As other geographers such as Alec Murphy note, territory continues to exercise an extraordinary ‘allure’ in our contemporary world. Noting all the claims made in the 1990s about globalization and border-free worlds, the idea of territory remains popular with political leaders and publics alike. For one thing, and perhaps other islands such as Cyprus animate this issue as well, territory helps to consolidate a view of political life being container like. Islands, with their apparently clear-cut distinctions between land and sea seem to lend themselves well to the containerization of political thought.

Second, we might think about territory as a flexible resource, which enables the socio-spatial education of citizens. In the case of the Falklands, there is a vast array of materials ranging from postage stamps, computer games and atlases to commemoration and museum displays that play their part in the geographical education of citizenry. They play their part in creating regimes of territorial legitimation and reinforce particular spatial commitments. The end result is to remind us perhaps that states rarely give up territory and usually only do so under extreme circumstances. Even when the territory in question was poorly understood and arguably neglected, as was the case of the Falklands in 1982, there was still sufficient allure in the territory itself combined with a sense of protecting the small resident community to ensure that the UK committed itself to resisting the Argentine occupation. The invading Argentine forces, on the other hand, while undoubtedly aware of the Falklands as a geographical component of Argentina, were remarkably ignorant of the English speaking community residing on the islands. Islanders still recall of Argentine amazement when they discovered that their first language was English and not Spanish.

What was striking, in the aftermath of the 1982 conflict, was the billions of pounds the UK was prepared to invest in the Falklands, and the wider commitment to bolster a presence in the South Atlantic and Antarctic. The idea of giving up the territory in question was now unthinkable, and if anything the Falklands is more embedded in UK stories about its extra-territorial scope and responsibities (as well as histories of war and commemoration). UK governments use the term ‘overseas territories’ to acknowledge that distance need not be any kind of barrier to their continued connection with the UK.

Finally, we should not under-estimate the power of territorially based world-views and the ease in which many territorial disputes seem unable to make much progress when it comes to promoting alternative imaginations — joint sovereignty, parallel statehood, cross citizenships, and other kinds of free associations. This does not mean such things are not possible or even desirable in the case of some of the most violent and apparently intractable disputes. But one should not under-estimate how keenly many people feel around the world about lines on the maps and barriers on the ground. Perhaps they offer a modicum of reassurance in a world, where to paraphrase Marx and Engels, all that appears solid melts into air. And this would apply to both Britain and Argentina.

Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London and a Visiting Fellow at St Cross College, University of Oxford. He is editor of The Geographical Journal and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is the author and editor of a number of books including the Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2007) and The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2012). He was a visiting fellow at Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury and has worked with national and international polar organizations including British Antarctic Survey, Antarctica New Zealand, International Polar Foundation, and the Australian Antarctic Division.

The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with Very Short Introductions on Facebook, and OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!

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Image credit: Wild Nature [public domain] via iStockphoto

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Last week we asked: By current estimates, which country’s capital is expected to be more populated in 2015?

Madagascar vs. Indonesia                                           WINNER: Indonesia
Turkey vs. Mexico                                                           WINNER: Mexico

Did you know Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is expected to have 21.5 million inhabitants by 2015, making it the fifth most populated city in the world? Mexico City is expected to have 19.1 million inhabitants by 2015. Even though Turkey and Madagascar didn’t fare as well on the population front, they still have the chance to compete for the respectable third place title.

For the Championship, we want to know: Which country has a larger industrial output (that includes mining, manufacturing, construction, and energy)?

For Third Place:                                Madagascar vs. Turkey
For the Championship:                Indonesia vs. Mexico

To determine the winners in this week’s round, select the country that has a larger industrial output. You can print out our Atlas bracket (below) and place your bets, or play along on our Facebook page. Check back on 8 April to find out who the winner is!

Tournament schedule:

Sweet Sixteen: 11 March                            Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Round of 8: 18 March                                   Which country has a higher level of endemism?
Final Four: 25 March                                    Which country’s capital will be more populated by 2015?
Championship: 1 April                                     This week: Which country has a larger industrial output?
Winner Announced: 8 April

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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Last week we asked: Which country has a higher level of endemism?
Check out the winners below! Did you get them right?

Madagascar vs. Burma (Myanmar)                      WINNER: Madagascar
Indonesia vs. Japan                                                    WINNER: Indonesia
Italy vs. Turkey                                                             WINNER: Turkey
Mexico vs. USA                                                             WINNER: Mexico

For the Final Four, we want to know:
By current estimates, which country’s capital is expected to be more populated in 2015?

Madagascar vs. Indonesia
Turkey vs. Mexico

The development of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago led to the clustering of communities in farming villages. From there, the world’s first cities appeared in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys 5,500 years ago. Cities cropped up in China 3,600 years ago, and now the majority of the world’s population live in cities. The pull of city life is only growing. By 2015, 28.7 million inhabitants are expected to live in Tokyo-Yokohama, the largest metropolitan area by that year. To determine the winners in this week’s round, select the country whose capital will be the most populated in 2015. You can print out our Atlas bracket (below) and place your bets, or play along on our Facebook page. Check back on 1 April to find out what will make it to the semi-finals!

Tournament schedule:

Sweet Sixteen: 11 March                                  Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Round of 8: 18 March                                          Which country has a higher level of endemism?
Final Four: 25 March                                           This week: Which country’s capital will be more populated by 2015?
Semi-finals: 1 April
Championship: 8 April

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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It is an interesting juxtaposition that World Meteorological Day should come immediately after World Water Day. World Water Day has been an event in the United Nations calendar since 1993, and the involvement of the international organisation and its topic for 2013 (‘Water Cooperation’) evokes the thought of ‘water wars’: arguments between nations over the use of this precious resource, efforts to actually map water resources, and of the extreme strife that can arise, even within developed nations such as the United States, over access to water.

For 2013, the World Meteorological Organisation has chosen their topic as ‘Watching the weather to protect life and property’ and is also celebrating 50 years of World Weather Watch, the coordinated, world-wide system that provides access to weather data to meteorological services around the world, so essential for monitoring weather systems and, in this context, rainfall, or as it is known to meteorologists in a broader context: precipitation.

Rainfall in excessive quantities or in an unusual location may give rise to flooding – as we have seen only too frequently in Britain in the past year – but quite apart from such problems and its many other uses, water is absolutely essential for agriculture – particularly in tropical countries where the onset and progress of the monsoon is anxiously awaited, and in regions where agriculture is utterly dependent on precipitation brought by the less predictable tropical cyclones – known as ‘cyclones’, ‘hurricanes’, or ‘typhoons’, depending on their location around the world.

Yet the source of the world’s water may be expressed in a single word: ‘Rain’. (To be pedantic, we should really use two words: ‘Rain’ and ‘Snow’.) It is a persistant urban myth that the Inuit have a vast vocabulary of different words for ‘snow’, and there may various sayings about the intensity of rain: ‘soft rain’; ‘raining cats and dogs’; ‘raining pokers’; and ‘raining stair-rods’ – I wonder how many people nowadays are familiar with stair-rods? – but ‘rain’ is just simply ‘rain’. However, meteologists do sometimes, slightly light-heartedly, refer to two types of rain ‘warm rain’ and ‘cold rain’. These have nothing to do with the actual temperature of the eventual raindrops, but are a form of shorthand for the way in which the rain originates.

The technical terms for these two processes are coalescence, or ‘collision-coalescence’ responsible for warm rain and the Bergeron process (the ‘Bergeron-Findeisen process’ or ‘ice-crystal theory’) that produces cold rain. Raindrops have a typical range of 0.1—9 millimetres in diameter, yet the cloud droplets from which many form are extremely tiny, with typical diameters of about 1–100μm (1μm – a micron – being one thousandth of a millimetre). Vast numbers of cloud droplets are therefore required to form a single raindrop. In ‘warm rain’ this growth occurs simply through collisions and the coalescence of two droplets. Such collisions occur only when clouds are the site of extremely vigorous convection and turbulence and are not subject to freezing (glaciation) in their upper levels. (We will come to glaciation shortly.) Convective clouds of this sort are very deep cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus, and such clouds, and the warm rain that they generate, occur all year round in the tropics. In Britain, the vigorous convection and other conditions required to create these deep clouds tend to be confined to the summer.

Deep, summertime cumulus congestus clouds over the English Channel, which shortly afterwards produced a slight shower of ‘warm rain’. Later in the day, convection had reached higher levels and glaciation set in, giving rise to heavier ‘cold rain’. © Storm Dunlop 2013, all rights reserved.

‘Cold rain’ by contrast, does involve freezing. But this is not completely straightforward. In the absence of any suitable nuclei on which to freeze, water may exist in a liquid state at temperatures well below 0°C. This condition is known as supercooling and such droplets may survive at temperatures as low as -40°C, before they freeze spontaneously. (Clouds, such as altocumulus that often consist of supercooled droplets form a major icing hazard for aircraft, because the droplets freeze instantly on contact with a solid surface.) When a cloud is in such a state, any ice crystals that may have formed on suitably shaped solid dust or other nuclei grow rapidly at the expense of supercooled water droplets. Eventually the crystals become so large that they begin to fall towards the ground, and may subsequently melt into raindrops, or else, if temperatures are sufficiently low, be deposited as snow.

Glaciation occurs in many different forms of cloud, with the ice crystals turning into raindrops on their descent, but is most clearly seen in operation in the tops of cumulonimbus clouds. Here the cloud towers turn from vigorously growing cells, like those seen in cumulus congestus to a form known as cumulonimbus calvus, with slightly softer outlines – a slight misnomer, because ‘calvus’ actually means ‘bald’ – before going on to become cumulonimbus capillatus, where striations are clearly visible. Both states are signs that freezing is taking place. If the cloud towers reach the tropopause they may flatten into an ‘anvil’ shape, known as cumulonimbus incus. Depending on the wind shear at altitude, such anvils may grow, often explosively, to cover large areas of the sky.

Glaciated, cumulonimbus incus clouds limited in vertical extent by a relatively low, wintertime tropopause. © Storm Dunlop 2013, all rights reserved.

Ice crystals may form in various ways and in different sizes, the largest of which may be regarded as the hail pellets that are created by repeated passage through freezing layers, with the pellets being carried up to higher layers in strong updraughts, before eventually becoming so heavy that they fall out of the cloud. The very largest raindrops result from the melting of individual hail pellets. Small droplets are approximately spherical in shape, but the larger ones become flattened as they descend, somewhat resembling buns in shape. The very largest recorded reached diameters of 10 millimetres, but large drops (over about 5 mm in diameter) normally fragment into smaller droplets during their descent.

A large cumulonimbus cluster over the Isle of Wight, over which rain was falling. The ice crystals in the glaciated anvil top were spread across a wide area of sky by the strong, upper winds. © Storm Dunlop 2013, all rights reserved.

Trails of precipitation that do not reach the ground (known as virga) may often be seen below a number of different types of cloud. When the precipitation (of whatever type) does reach the ground, it is known technically as praecipitatio.

A very shallow, precipitating cumulonimbus cloud over the English Channel in an extremely cold, winter air stream. © Storm Dunlop 2013, all rights reserved.

Storm Dunlop is the author of A Dictionary of Weather, which is also available online as part of Oxford Reference. He is a fellow of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Meteorological Society.

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Last week we asked: Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Check out the winners below! Did you get them right?

Madagascar vs. Democratic Republic of Congo             WINNER: Madagascar
Ethiopia vs. Burma (Myanmar)                                             WINNER: Burma (Myanmar)
Indonesia vs. India                                                                    WINNER: Indonesia
China vs. Japan                                                                            WINNER: Japan 
Italy vs. Greece                                                                            WINNER: Italy
Costa Rica vs. Turkey                                                                WINNER: Turkey 
Venezuela vs. Mexico                                                                WINNER: Mexico  
Australia vs. USA                                                                         WINNER: USA

For Round 2, we want to know: Which country has a higher level of endemism?

Madagascar vs. Burma (Myanmar)
Indonesia vs. Japan
Italy vs. Turkey
Mexico vs. USA

Endemic species, plants, and ecosystems refer to those which are unique to a specific country, such as the aye-aye lemur of Madagascar. It’s currently estimated that there are about 14 million species in the world, but only 2 million have been formally identified. Can you figure out which country has the higher level? To determine the winners in this week’s round, select the country with the highest level of endemism in each bracket. You can print out our Atlas bracket (below) and place your bets, or play along on our Facebook page. Check back on 25 March to find out who the Final Four will be!

Tournament schedule:

Sweet Sixteen: 11 March                                               Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Round of 8: 18 March                                                      This week: Which country has a higher level of endemism?
Final Four: 25 March
Semi-finals: 1 April
Championship: 8 April

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013 is in full swing, welcoming thinkers and writers from across the globe to our wonderful city of Oxford. We’re delighted to have over thirty Oxford University Press authors participating in the Festival this year! OUPblog will be bringing you a selection of blog posts from these authors so that  even if you can’t join us in Oxford this year, you won’t miss out on all the action. Don’t forget you can also follow @oxfordlitfest and check the event schedule here.

Klaus Dodds will be appearing at the Oxford Literary Festival on Thursday 21 March 2013 at 1:15 p.m. to provide a very short introduction to the Antarctic. The event is free to attend.

By Klaus Dodds

When I wrote The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction, I wanted the book to be something of a provocation.  The aim, in short, was to highlight things that often get neglected in the midst of stories and images of past and present explorers, melting ice caps, tourists and the penguin. The reality is rather more disturbing.

The first inconvenient truth is that the Antarctic is a deeply disputed space. It is not a place where everyone co-operates straight forwardly just because there is no indigenous human population. We might be worried about the future stability of the polar ice sheet, but in the meantime a host of countries are busy cementing their sovereign claims. Britain has renamed a vast area of British Antarctic Territory Queen Elizabeth Land. The Chilean president visited the Antarctic in January 2013 to inaugurate a new research station to be manned by the Chilean air force. And Argentina believes that any resources lying off the Antarctic Peninsula belong to it and no one else. Alongside those three states, four other countries, Australia, France, New Zealand and Norway also believe that they enjoy sovereignty over large sways of the polar continent and surrounding ocean. The United States and Russia reserve a right to make a claim in the future while other members of the international community believe that the Antarctic is a global common.

The second inconvenient truth is that the parties to what is called the Antarctic Treaty System are struggling to manage resource exploitation. Fishing in the Southern Ocean is worth millions of pounds a year. Fish such as the Patagonian Toothfish are highly lucrative and the Commission for the Conservation on Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) struggles to get agreement on how best to manage such a fishery. And even then that does not even begin to address the problem of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in the Southern Ocean. Whaling, although addressed by the International Whaling Commission, is also a fractious affair. Australia and Japan are at loggerheads over whaling in the Southern Ocean, and there is currently a case pending in the International Court of Justice.

The third inconvenient truth is that some countries are perfectly prepared to investigate the Antarctic for its mineral potential. The Antarctic Treaty parties proudly announced to the world that the Protocol on Environmental Protection would ban mining in the Antarctic. The Protocol entered into force in 1998, and this was considered to be instrumental in reducing diplomatic and political pressure on the ATS from environmental organizations and members of the Global South who feared that an elite group of nations might exploit the continent for their own self-interest. In 2012, the Russian delegation submitted a paper to the 35^th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, which blithely mentioned that their scientists were interested in the ‘Determination of structure, geological evolution and potential mineral resources of the Antarctic lithosphere’.

The fourth inconvenient truth is that the Antarctic is heavily commercialized. As with the Arctic, the Antarctic supports a tourist industry involving multiple ships and planes transporting at its peak some 40,000 per year. The tourist industry is an important source of revenue for so-called gateway ports such as Christchurch, Punta Arenas and Stanley in the Falkland Islands. There have been accidents and emergencies in the Antarctic region caused in part because of poor sea conditions but another contributory factor might be the pressure on tour operators to go to ever more remoter parts in order to generate an ‘authentic’ expeditionary experience. A number of countries such as Chile are trying to cash in on this trend and establish hostels and other forms of accommodation to cater for wilderness holidays. It also helps to cement sovereign claims.

The fifth and final inconvenient truth is that there is a growing anxiety about the role of China in Antarctica. While everyone associated with the Antarctic Treaty System is eager to emphasize the consensual nature of decision making and scientific co-operation in the field, there is a worry that a new phalanx of countries led by China, and including Brazil, India and Korea, is going to challenge the political and scientific hegemony previously enjoyed by an alliance involving the United States, Europe and countries such as Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, the media has been full of stories about China’s growing polar footprint – bases, networks and place names. The Antarctic map is being changed as Chinese, Indian and Korean place names lie adjacent to Euro-American naming traditions.

So by all means enjoy the nature programs and continue to revel in the exploits of past explorers and their contemporary avatars but be aware that the geopolitics of the Antarctic is lively. This icy wilderness is being claimed, coveted, exploited by a growing numbers of nations.

Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is author of a number of books including Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (2007) and The Antarctic: A Very Short Introduction (2012).

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Meanwhile, as your eyes are glued to the television, action simultaneously takes place in workplaces, social circles, and online. Bracketology, the art and science of placing bets on which teams will advance, is one of the signs that spring is here. Individuals design their own bracket and get points based on the accuracy of how they place their teams. The March Madness bracket inspires spin-offs in all walks of life, from The Morning News’ Tournament of Books to this Vatican Sweet Sistine bracket.

Here at Oxford, we’re celebrating March Madness: Atlas Edition. We’ve selected and placed 16 countries at random for the first round of “Sweet Sixteen.” Each week, we will ask a question that will determine which teams will move forward in the bracket. These questions will be based on statistics drawn at random from Oxford’s Atlas of the World: 19th Edition, and can range anywhere from a country’s level of endemism to its average daily food intake.

Tournament schedule:

Sweet Sixteen: 11 March                                                This week: Which country has the highest GDP per capita?
Round of 8: 18 March
Final Four: 25 March
Semi-finals: 1 April
Championship: 8 April

The first round begins today with the following 16 countries.

1. Madagascar                                                                    9. Italy
2. Democratic Republic of Congo                              10. Greece
3. Ethiopia                                                                          11. Costa Rica
4. Burma (Myanmar)                                                      12. Turkey
5. Indonesia                                                                       13. Venezuela
6. India                                                                                 14. Mexico
7. China                                                                                15. Australia
8. Japan                                                                               16. USA

To determine the winners in this week’s round, select the country with the highest GDP per capita within each bracket. The eight winners from each bracket will meet next week, judged by a set of statistics pulled at random from the atlas. You can print out our Atlas bracket (above) and place your bets, or play along on our Facebook page. See you on 18 March for the Round of 8!

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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There are many policies around the world designed to encourage ethnic desegregation in housing markets. In Chicago, the Gautreaux Project (the predecessor of the Moving To Opportunity program) offered rent subsidies to African American residents of public housing who wanted to move to desegregated areas. Germany, the United Kingdom, and Netherlands, impose strict restrictions on where refugee immigrants can settle. Many countries also have “integration maintenance programs” or “neighborhood stabilization programs” to encourage desegregation. These policies are often controversial as they are alleged to favor some ethnic groups at the expense of others. Regardless of the motivation behind these policies, knowing the welfare effects is important because these desegregation policies affect the location choices of many individuals.

I am interested in one such desegregation policy in Singapore: the ethnic housing quotas. Using location choices, I analyzed how heterogeneous households sort into neighborhoods as the ethnic proportions in the neighborhood change. To do this at such a local level I had to assemble a dataset of ethnic proportions by hand-matching more than 500,000 names to ethnicities using the Singapore residential phonebook.

The ethnic housing quotas policy in Singapore is a fascinating natural experiment. It was implemented in public housing estates in 1989 to encourage residential desegregation amongst the three major ethnic groups in Singapore: Chinese (77%), Malays (14%), and Indians (8%). The quotas are upper limits on the proportions of Chinese, Malays, and Indians at a location. Locations with ethnic proportions that are at or above the quota limits are subjected to restrictions designed to prevent these locations from becoming more segregated. For example, non-Chinese sellers living in Chinese-constrained locations are not allowed to sell to Chinese buyers because this transaction increases the Chinese proportion and makes the location more segregated.

Using transactions data close to the quota limits and controlling for polynomials of ethnic proportions calculated using the phonebook, I documented price dispersion across ethnic groups that is consistent with theoretical predictions of the policy’s impact. The findings suggest a model where Chinese and non-Chinese buyers have different preferences for Chinese neighborhoods.

Indeed, my estimates show that all groups have strong preferences for living with members of their own ethnic group but the shapes of the preferences are very different across the three ethnic groups. All groups have ethnic preferences that are inverted U-shaped but with different turning points. This means that once a neighborhood has enough members of their own ethnic group, households want new neighbors from other ethnic groups. Finding tastes for diversity and differences in the shapes of ethnic preferences is consistent with previous research using data on racial attitudes from the General Social Survey in the United States and also surveys of ethnic relations in Singapore.

I used these estimates of ethnic preferences to perform welfare simulations. The seminal work by Thomas Schelling on tipping showed that externalities exist in a model with ethnic preferences because a mover affects the utility of his current and future neighbors by changing the ethnic composition of the neighborhood. Due to these externalities, Schelling showed that policies such as the ethnic quotas could potentially be used as a coordination mechanism to achieve equilibrium with integrated neighborhoods. My welfare estimates show that under the quota policy, about one-third of neighborhoods are close to the optimal allocation of Chinese, Malays, and Indians respectively.

Maisy Wong is Assistant Professor in Real Estate at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania. Her paper, ‘Estimating Ethnic Preferences Using Ethnic Housing Quotas in Singapore’ can be read in full and for free in The Review of Economic Studies.

The Review of Economic Studies aims to encourage research in theoretical and applied economics, especially by young economists. It is widely recognised as one of the core top-five economics journal, with a reputation for publishing path-breaking papers, and is essential reading for economists.

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Image credit: HDB flats at Tampines New Town. By Terence Ong. [Creative Commons], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Not long ago, I passed a roadside sign in New Mexico which read: “Es una frontera, no una barrera / It’s a border, not a barrier.” This got me thinking about the nature of the international boundary line separating the US from Mexico. The sign’s message seemed accurate, but what exactly did it mean?

On 2 February 1848, a ‘Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement’ was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo, thus terminating the Mexican-American War. The conflict was ostensibly about securing the boundary of the recently-annexed state of Texas, but it was clear from the outset that US President Polk’s ambition was territorial expansion. As consequences of the Treaty, Mexico gained peace and $15 million, but eventually lost one-half of its territory; the US achieved the largest land grab in its history through a war that many (including Ulysses S. Grant) regarded as dishonorable.

In recent years, I’ve traveled the entire length of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border many times, on both sides. There are so many unexpected and inspiring places! Mutual interdependence has always been the hallmark of cross-border communities. Border people are staunchly independent and composed of many cultures with mixed loyalties. They get along perfectly well with people on the other side, but remain distrustful of far-distant national capitals. The border states are among the fastest-growing regions in both countries — places of economic dynamism, teeming contradiction, and vibrant political and cultural change.

A small fence separates densely populated Tijuana, Mexico, right, from the United States in the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector.

Yet the border is also a place of enormous tension associated with undocumented migration and drug wars. Neither of these problems has its source in the borderlands, but border communities are where the burdens of enforcement are geographically concentrated. It’s because of our country’s obsession with security, immigration, and drugs that after 9/11 the US built massive fortifications between the two nations, and in so doing, threatened the well-being of cross-border communities.

I call the spaces between Mexico and the US a ‘third nation.’ It’s not a sovereign state, I realize, but it contains many of the elements that would otherwise warrant that title, such as a shared identity, common history, and joint traditions. Border dwellers on both sides readily assert that they have more in common with each other than with their host nations. People describe themselves as ‘transborder citizens.’ One man who crossed daily, living and working on both sides, told me: “I forget which side of the border I’m on.” The boundary line is a connective membrane, not a separation. It’s easy to reimagine these bi-national communities as a ‘third nation’ slotted snugly in the space between two countries. (The existing Tohono O’Odham Indian Nation already extends across the borderline in the states of Arizona and Sonora.)

But there is more to the third nation than a cognitive awareness. Both sides are also deeply connected through trade, family, leisure, shopping, culture, and legal connections. Border-dwellers’ lives are intimately connected by their everyday material lives, and buttressed by innumerable formal and informal institutional arrangements (NAFTA, for example, as well as water and environmental conservation agreements). Continuity and connectivity across the border line existed for centuries before the border was put in place, even back to the Spanish colonial era and prehistoric Mesoamerican times.

Do the new fortifications built by the US government since 9/11 pose a threat to the well-being of borderland communities? Certainly there’s been interruptions to cross-border lives: crossing times have increased; the number of US Border Patrol ‘boots on ground’ has doubled; and a new ‘gulag’ of detention centers has been instituted to apprehend, prosecute and deport all undocumented migrants. But trade has continued to increase, and cross-border lives are undiminished. US governments are opening up new and expanded border crossing facilities (known as ports of entry) at record levels.  Gas prices in Mexican border towns are tied to the cost of gasoline on the other side. The third nation is essential to the prosperity of both countries.

So yes, the roadside sign in New Mexico was correct. The line between Mexico and the US is a border in the geopolitical sense, but it is submerged by communities that do not regard it as a barrier to centuries-old cross-border intercourse. The international boundary line is only just over a century-and-a-half old. Historically, there was no barrier; and the border is not a barrier nowadays.

The walls between Mexico and the US will come down. Walls always do. The Berlin Wall was torn down virtually overnight, its fragments sold as souvenirs of a calamitous Cold War. The Great Wall of China was transformed into a global tourist attraction. Left untended, the US-Mexico Wall will collapse under the combined assault of avid recyclers, souvenir hunters, and local residents offended by its mere presence.

As the US prepares once again to consider immigration reform, let the focus this time be on immigration and integration. The framers of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were charged with making the US-Mexico border, but on this anniversary of the Treaty’s signing, we may best honor the past by exploring a future when the border no longer exists. Learning from the lives of cross-border communities in the third nation would be an appropriate place to begin.

Michael Dear is a professor in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Why Walls Won’t Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide (Oxford University Press).

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Today, the Tube, as it quickly became known, is often an area of frustration in many commuters’ lives, though we have to admit that without it we would be stranded (probably somewhere near the M25). In honour of its longstanding service, here are ten little-known yet interesting facts about the locations in which underground  stations can be found today:

1. Bakerloo, the underground railway line which opened in 1906, had its name coined by the Evening Standard, because it ran from Baker Street to Waterloo. This portmanteau proved very unpopular when it was introduced, with many deeming it rather vulgar and undignified.
2. Piccadilly, from which Piccadilly Circus gets its name, stems from the nickname for a house belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor who made his fortune from selling piccadills or piccadillies – a term for collars fashionable at the time.
3. Maida Vale in West London has even more impressive beginnings than a well-known recording studio. The area (and tube station) gets its name from the Battle of Maida in southern Italy, where British troops were victorious over the French in 1806.
4. Pimlico, an area and station found in Westminster, is almost certainly a relic from native America. Richard Coates argues that the name is transferred from the Pamlico Indians of North America who lived alongside the Pamlico River, near to Sir Walter Ralegh’s Virginia, founded in 1585-7. It is thought the exotic sounding name of Pimlico returned with one of the colonists.
5. Rayners Lane station in Harrow opened in 1906. The name is said to come from an old shepherd who lived in a solitary cottage along the lane towards the end of the nineteenth century.
6. Marble Arch, from which Marble Arch station takes its name, was originally located in front of Buckingham Palace, until the new east range of Buckingham Palace was constructed in its place. The magnificent Arch now famously sits in the middle of a large traffic island.
   
7. Old Street was old in the thirteenth century! The street from which Old Street station takes its name was an important route into the city well before the introduction of underground railways.
8. Chalk Farm, a tube stop and area in North London, is not built on chalk, but rather clay. Called Chaldecotein 1253, meaning ‘the cold cottage(s)’ from old English, which may refer to inhospitable dwellings, the transformation of the original name of this area is simply due to phonetic changes.
9. Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs has absolutely nothing to do with the canary bird, and has much more humble beginnings than the impressive commercial property that it now comprises might suggest.  Canary Wharf was the name given to a fruit factory built there in 1937, processing fruit from the Spanish island of Canary (Gran Canaria), from the Latin Canaria insula, that is ‘isle of dogs’, referring to the apparently large dogs once found on the island.
10. Mile End, called so because it is approximately one mile east of Aldgate, is steeped in British history, being the location for the peasants’ revolt of 1381, when the men of Essex met Richard II and successfully acquired the abolition of feudal serfdom.

The information in this article is taken from A Dictionary of London Place Names by A. D. Mills, now in its second edition.

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Image credits: 1) The London Underground in motion. Photo by Jessica C, 2005. Creative Commons License. (via Wikimedia Commons). 2) Marble Arch. Photo by Stephen Mckay, 2007. Creative Commons License (via Wikimedia Commons). 3) Canary Wharf Tube stop. Photo by Mike Knell, 2006. Creative Commons License. (via Wikimedia Commons).

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We are all used to blaming things (rightly or wrongly) on the weather, but now it seems that this tendency has been extended to space weather. Space weather, for those who are uncertain, describes the effects that flares and other events on the Sun produce on Earth.

Consult many of the sites on the World Wide Web that are devoted to events on a particular day in history, and you will be told that on 16 August 1989, a geomagnetic storm caused the Toronto Stock Exchange to crash. The trouble is that this is an urban myth. The Toronto Stock Exchange did crash that day, but because of hardware and software failures, not because of a geomagnetic storm.

Why did they blame the Sun? Probably because 1989 did see a catastrophic event in Canada caused by a geomagnetic storm, which has even been described as ‘The Cosmic Wake-up Call’. Less kindly perhaps, it might be called ‘The Day Quebec Hydro’s Network Collapsed’, when 6 million people were suddenly plunged into darkness, left without electricity, stranded in lifts, woke to unheated homes, and went without a hot breakfast.

But what is a geomagnetic storm? Let’s take that disastrous event in March 1989 as an example.

On 6 March 1989, the Sun’s rotation carried into view a gigantic sunspot group, about 70,000 km across. (That’s big, very big. Sunspot groups don’t come any larger.) Between 6 and 19 March it was phenomenally active, with at least 195 explosive solar flares, with 11 of the most extreme ‘X-class’ flares. One that occurred on 6 March emitted a surge of charged particles and X-rays that overwhelmed the detectors on the Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellite 7 (GOES-7). But that was nothing compared with what happened on 10 March. There was a rare ‘white-light flare’ – only a few of which have ever been seen – of extreme intensity, and a coronal mass ejection (CME), directed straight at the Earth.

It takes time for the plasma ejected in a CME to reach the Earth, and the flood of charged particles began to arrive on 12 March. By the middle of 13 March, the magnetopause, the boundary that separates the Earth’s magnetosphere (where the Earth’s magnetic field is dominant) from the interplanetary region governed by the Sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind, had been compressed from its normal distance of about 55,000 km on the sunward side, to about half that amount. Geostationary satellites, orbiting at 35,500 km from the Earth, and normally protected from the solar wind, were exposed to the full blast of particles. These can severely damage detectors and computers on board satellites and sometime even render them completely useless.

Many Earth-observation satellites, including the meteorological, polar-orbiting satellites are much closer to Earth, in what are known as low Earth orbits (LEO), which are generally taken to be at altitudes of 160 to 2000 kilometres. The International Space Station (ISS) is in an orbit that carries it between 320 and 400 km above the surface. Satellites in LEO may still be damaged by the intense flux of charged particles occurring during solar storms, and there are often communications problems. (Some GPS signals were affected by the March 1989 storm.) But there is yet another effect, because, although low in density, there is some residual atmosphere at these altitudes.

The charged particles collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, giving rise to aurorae and, at the same time, cause heating of the upper atmosphere. This expands outwards, raising the density at satellite altitudes and thus slowing down LEO satellites, and causing their orbit to decay more rapidly. Some may even re-enter and burn up. In the March 1989 storm, the density increased to five to nine times its normal level. One satellite started tumbling uncontrollably.

Under relatively quiet conditions, aurorae are most frequently seen in two zones, known as the auroral ovals, roughly centred on the magnetic poles, but reaching lower latitudes on the midnight meridian. These auroral ovals may be regarded are roughly fixed in space as the Earth rotates beneath them. There is always a flow of charged particles, known as the auroral electrojet, in the ionosphere following the route of the auroral ovals.

When a major geomagnetic storm occurs, the particle influx into the ionosphere not only causes extreme changes in radio communications, but the electrojets become exceptionally strong and the whole system expands towards the equator.

Green aurora. © Denis Buczynski.

During the extreme geomagnetic storm of 13 March 1989, intense red aurorae were seen over the whole of the southern United States and as far south as Mexico, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands. (Red aurorae, rather than the more common green form, often accompany major geomagnetic storms.) The auroral oval around the south magnetic pole also expanded, and aurorae were seen in Australia and New Zealand, and even as far north as South Africa, where aurorae are extremely rare.

Red aurora. © Alex Cherney terrastro.com.

But that is not all. When the currents flowing in the electrojets strengthen, they create correspondingly strong electrical currents at the Earth’s surface. All electrical equipment, such as the major transformers used in high-voltage transmission lines, are ‘earthed’, that is, bonded electrically to the underlying ground. The immense induced currents created by a geomagnetic storm may find it easier to flow through man-made electrical connections and transmission lines than through the Earth’s surface. This is especially the case where, as in Sweden and (in particular) in Canada, the underlying rocks are granite or similar rocks, which have poor electrical conductivity. On 13 March, the immense currents surged through Hydro Quebec’s transmission lines, burning out some transformers and causing other fault-sensing equipment to disconnect whole sections of the transmission grid. The ‘knock-on’ effect caused damage to electrical equimpment as far south as New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. Quebec Hydro’s whole system failed, leading to a blackout over a large part of Canada and some of the northeastern United States. Blackouts also occurred in Sweden, and the grid in the United Kingdom was affected, but there no major interruptions took place.

Such major geomagnetic storms are infrequent, but even though lessons were learned from the storm of 1989, our dependence on satellites, long-distance communications, and electrical power has only increased, so these solar storms remain a major hazard today.

Storm Dunlop is a Fellow of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Meteorological Society. The second edition of his Oxford Dictionary of Weather was published in 2008.

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Image credits: Green aurora photograph by Denis Buczynski. Red aurora photograph by Alex Cherney. Do not reproduce without permission.

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Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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Image credit: From Atlas of the World, 19th edition. 

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The relentless heat of the sun waned quickly as it slipped below the horizon. All around, ochre, crimson and scarlet rock glowed, the brief burning embers of a dying day. Clouds of red dust rose from the unseen depths of the dry canyon — Mars? I wish! We were hiking in the Grand Canyon, on vacation in that part of our world so like its red sister. It was 5 August 2012. And what was a space lawyer to do while on vacation in the Grand Canyon that day? Why, attend the Grand Canyon NASA Curiosity event, of course!

Wait, what? Space lawyers? Have they got their grubby hands on Mars now?

Well, quite the contrary, and in a manner of speaking, space law has been working to keep any grubby hands off Mars. In the heady aftermath of the Soviet launch of Sputnik-1 in 1957, nations flocked to the United Nations to discuss — and rapidly agree upon — the basic principles relating to outer space. Just a decade later, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty was concluded, declaring outer space a global commons, and establishing that the “exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on for the benefit and in the interests of all mankind”. Today, more than half of the world’s nations are Parties to the Outer Space Treaty, and its principles have achieved that hallowed status of international law — custom — meaning that they are binding on all States, Party or not.

More specifically, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty affirmed that outer space, including the Moon, planets, and other natural objects in outer space (such as Mars!), were not subject to appropriation, forbidding States from claiming any property rights over them. Enterprising companies and individuals have sought to exploit what they saw as a loophole in the Treaty, laying claim to extraterrestrial land on the Moon, Mars and beyond, and selling acres of this extraterrestrial property for a pretty penny. One company claims to have sold over 300 million acres of the Moon to more than 5 million people in 176 countries since 1980. The price of one Moon acre from this company starts at USD$29.99 (not including a deep 10% discount for the holiday season) — potentially making the owner of said company a very rich man. Other companies have also started a differentiated pricing model: “The Moon on a Budget” – only USD$18.95 per acre if you wouldn’t mind a view of the Sea of Vapours — vs. the “premiere lunar location” of the Sea of Tranquillity for USD$37.50 per acre. The package includes a “beautifully engraved parchment deed, a satellite photograph of the property and an information sheet detailing the geography of your region of the moon.” Land on Mars comes at a premium: starting at USD$26.97 per acre, or a “VIP” deal of USD$151.38 for 10 Mars acres.

Indeed, the USD$18.95 may be a good price for the paper that the “beautifully engraved parchment deed” is printed on. And that is likely all you will get for your money. Although the Treaty does not also explicitly forbid individuals or corporate entities from laying claim to extraterrestrial property, it does make States internationally responsible for space activities carried out by their nationals. Despite these companies’ belief that the Treaty only prohibits States from appropriating extraterrestrial property, it is disingenuous to say that on Mars and any other natural object in outer space, “apart from the laws of the HEAD CHEESE, currently no law exists.” International law does apply to the use and exploration of outer space and natural extraterrestrial bodies, including Mars. And that international law, including the prohibition on the appropriation of extraterrestrial property, applies equally to individuals and corporate entities through the vehicle of State responsibility in international law, and through domestic enforcement procedures.

Now, that’s not to say that the principle of non-appropriation is popular. It has been questioned by a caucus of concerned publicists, worried that it would stifle commercial interest in the exploration of Mars. Some other publicists — myself included — have come up with proposals for “fair trade/eco”-type uses of outer space that they contend should be an exception to the blanket ban. But the law at the moment stands as it is — Mars cannot be owned. Or bought. Or sold. For many private ventures into outer space, that is a “big legal buzzkill.” These days, it seems, NASA may even land a spacecraft on the asteroid you purport to own and refuse to pay parking charges — and the US federal court will actually dismiss your case as without legal merit. What is the world coming to?

On the bright side, international space law has meant that there has been a lot of international cooperation in outer space. This has mostly kept the peace in outer space (no Star Wars!) and has ensured the freedom of the exploration and use of outer space for the benefit of humanity. International space law has also contributed towards keeping the Martian (and outer space) environment pristine. And in a world where we worry about the future of our own blue planet, maybe having international law keep our grubby hands of her sister Red Planet isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Dr. Gérardine Goh Escolar is Associate Legal Officer at the United Nations. She is also Associate Research Fellow at the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University, and has taught international law and space law at various universities, including the National University of Singapore, the University of Cologne and the University of Bonn. She was formerly legal officer and project manager at a national space agency, as well as counsel for a satellite-geoinformation data company. She is currently working on her fourth book, International Law and Outer Space (Oxford International Law Library, OUP: forthcoming 2014). All opinions and any errors in this post are entirely her own.

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law is a comprehensive online resource containing peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of public international law. Written and edited by an incomparable team of over 800 scholars and practitioners, published in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and updated through-out the year, this major reference work is essential for anyone researching or teaching international law. Articles on outer space law, free for a limited time, include: “Moon and Celestial Bodies” ; “Astronauts” ; “Outer Space, Liability for Damage” ; and “Spacecraft, Satellites, and Space Objects”.

Oxford University Press’ annual Place of the Year competition, celebrating geographically interesting and inspiring places, coincides with its publication of Atlas of the World – the only atlas published annually — now in its 19th Edition. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price. Read previous blog posts in our Place of the Year series.

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Image credit: Valles Marineris is a vast canyon system that runs along the Martian equator. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS. Image has been altered from the original with the addition of a “FOR SALE” sign.

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With our announcement of Place of the Year 2012 and NASA’s announcement at the American Geophysical Union on December 3^rd, and a week full of posts about Mars, what better way to wrap things up than by pulling together information from across Oxford’s resources to provide some background on the Red Planet.

Of Gods and Men

While the planet been subject to study since humans first gazed into the sky (as one of the few planets visible to the naked eye), the English name for the planet comes from the Roman god of war, Mars. Latin marks many astronomical names, such as mare, which refers to the dark areas of the Moon or Mars. Sol (Latin for Sun) refers to a solar day on Mars (roughly 24 hours and 39 minutes). However, be careful not to mix up martialists, those born under its astrological influence, with martians, aliens from the planet. (Not that it always had that meaning.) The Romans, as usual, stole their planet-naming scheme from the Greeks. Ares, the Greek god of war, provides a pre-fix for a number of Mars-related words: areocentric, areˈographer, areo-graphic, are-ography, are’ology. Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos (those mythological names again!). It’s important to remember that these names reveal how people related, and continue to relate to the sky.

The Martian People

What has fueled our fascination with Mars all these years? Everyone from scientists to poets has kept it in our thoughts over the centuries.

Almost all ancient world cultures closely observed its pattern through the sky, although this was often a confluence of gods, astrology, and astronomy. Aristotle and Ptolemy were among the ancient theorists. The Renaissance saw new discoveries from Brahe, Kepler, and Cassini among others, made possible by the telescope and advanced mathematics, as we moved from a geocentric to a heliocentric view of the universe (although Mars’s eccentric orbit caused considerable annoyance).

In the 19^th century, Giovanni Schiaparelli was the first to create a detailed map of Mars. Percival Lowell (1855-1916), who saw himself as a successor to Schiaparelli, searched for signs of intelligent life on Mars and made numerous invaluable observations, even if many of his speculations have now been dismissed. Moreover, his legacy, the Lowell Observatory, continues to watch the stars. Astronomer Richard Proctor (1837-88) researched the rotation period of Mars and rightly dismissed the canals as an optical effect.

Scientific breakthroughs naturally inspired artists throughout the ages. In the Renaissance, writers struggled to make sense of a new vision of the universe; in the 19^th century, science fiction emerged and it has grown and adapted to every medium in the 20^th. H.G. Wells (1866–1946) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) built on scientific discoveries with novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Princess of Mars. In 1938, Orson Welles’s (1915-1985) famous dramatization of The War of the Worlds led many Americans to believe that Martians had invaded New Jersey. The story was adapted to film in 1953 and again in 2005. One of the masterpieces of Soviet cinema, Aelita, is based on an Aleksey Tolstoy science fiction novel. In television, Mars has provided the backdrop or villians for numerous programs, such as the Ice Warriors, one of the great monsters of Doctor Who. UFOs still capture the imagination.

The planet has also provided ideas to musicians as diverse as Gustav Holst and David Bowie, and populated the night skies of artists. And we cannot forget those with the surname of Mars, most of all confectioners Frank C. Mars and Edward Forrest Mars (1904-1999). Mars, Inc. and the famous Mars Bar are often associated with the planet although the origin of their names is distinctly earthly.

A History of Martian Space Exploration

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS), and the European Space Agency (ESA) have all been involved in the exploration of Mars, from probes to rovers. In 1962 the Soviet space program began lanching Mars probes, the last of which was Mars 96 (in 1996). In 1975, NASA sent two Viking probes to Mars. In 1996, NASA begins a series of missions called Mars Surveyor and has sent numerous probes, rovers, and more to the Red Planet in the past 20 years, including the Mars Pathfinder (and the rover Sojourner), the Mars Odyssey, the Mars Global Surveyor, and two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

But space exploration is not without its setbacks. The Soviet Union failed in its Phobos missions in 1988, and NASA lost communication with the probe New Millennium Deep Space-2 in 1999. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe continues to provide valuable information although the Beagle 2 lander was lost.

The Mars Curiosity Rover landed successfully at 10:32 pm PST on 5 August 2012. But is it physically possible for us to send a human there? And how long would it take to get there and back?

Areography

There has been much speculation about the geography and geology of Mars, with new theories arising as our technology improves.

Mars is a terrestrial planet with numerous montes (mountain ranges), valles (valleys) , rima (long narrow furrows), and cave systems. Its most famous geographical features are the Olympus Mons (giant volcano) and Valles Marineris (system of canyons).

In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, people speculated about Martian canals, faint markings of the surface that once led people to believe the planet had flowing, liquid water. (The word canal actually comes from a mis-translation Giovanni Schiaparelli’s work; canali (Italian) actually means channels.) Wrinkle ridges further added to the mystery.

Without a thick atmosphere to burn up descending asteroids, Mars is pockmarked with impact craters. The Mars Curiosity Rover landed in the Gale Crater, just south of Mars’s equator. Previous rovers have attempted to measure Marsquakes, the Martian equivalent of earthquakes, as the Red Planet may have its own system of tectonic plates.

The Long Arm of Outer Space Law

In space, no one can hear you scream, but that doesn’t stop the lawsuit.

It began with the UN Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space in 1963 and the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies in 1967 because of the need to regulate competing claims on the shared space of outer space.

Who can claim land or natural resources in space? What are the health and safety provisions for astronauts? Under whose jurisdiction do they fall? Are you liable when your telecommunications satellite scrapes the International Space Station? Exactly who’s in charge of the space up there anyway? These are only a few of the questions legal scholars are grappling with.

What would we call our Red Planet lawmen? Marshals of course — although martial and marshal aren’t actually related. And be sure to check back tomorrow to hear from our space lawyer!

Recommended resources from A Dictionary of Space Exploration

The Mars Climate Database
The Mars Exploration Program
Views of the Solar System
Space Ref

And remember: Stay curious!

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Oxford University Press’ annual Place of the Year, celebrating geographically interesting and inspiring places, coincides with its publication of Atlas of the World – the only atlas published annually — now in its 19th Edition. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price. Read previous blog posts in our Place of the Year series.

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The new discoveries of the Mars rover Curiosity have greatly excited the world in the last few weeks, and speculation was rife about whether some evidence of life has been found. (In actuality, Curiosity discovered complex chemistry, including organic compounds, in a Martian soil analysis.)

Why the excitement? Well, astronomy, cosmology, astrology, and all matters to do with the stars, the planets, the universe, and space have always fascinated humankind. Scientists, astrologers, soothsayers, and ordinary people look up to the heavenly bodies and wonder what is up there, how far away, whether there is life out there, and what influence these bodies have upon our lives and our fortunes. Were we born under a lucky star? Will our horoscope this week reveal our future? What is the composition of the planets?

Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences, but it was the invention of the telescope in the early 17^th century that advanced astronomy into a science in the modern sense of the word. Throughout the course of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and others challenged the established Ptolemeic cosmology, and put forth the theory of a heliocentric solar system. The Church found a heliocentric universe impossible to accept because medieval Christian cosmology placed earth at the centre of the universe with the Empyrean sphere or Paradise at the outer edge of the circle; in this model, the moral universe and the physical universe are inextricably linked. (This is a model that is typified in Dante’s Divine Comedy.)

Authors from John Skelton (1460-1529) to John Evelyn (1620-1706) lived in this same period of great change and discovery, and we find a great deal of evidence in Renaissance writings to show that the myths, legends, and scientific discoveries around astronomy were a significant source of inspiration.

The planets are of course not just planets: they are also personifications of the Greek and Roman gods; Mars is a warlike planet, named after the god of war. Because of its red colour the Babylonians saw it as an aggressive planet and had special ceremonies on a Tuesday (Mars’ day; mardi in French) to ward off its baleful influence. We find much evidence of the warlike nature of Mars in writers of the period: Thomas Stanley’s 1646 translation Love Triumphant from A Dialogue Written in Italian by Girolamo Preti (1582-1626) is a verbal battle between Venus and her accompanying personifications (Love, Beauty, Adonis) and Mars (who was one of her lovers) and his cohort concerning the superior powers of love and war. Venus wins out over the warlike Mars: a familiar image of the period.

John Lyly’s play The Woman in the Moon (c.1590-1595) also personifies the planets and plays on the traditional notion that there is a man in the moon. Lyly’s use of the planets is thought to reflect the Elizabethan penchant for horoscope casting. The warlike Mars versus Venus trope is common throughout the period, and it appears in the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton, Gascoigne, and most of their contemporaries. A search in the current Oxford Scholarly Editions Online collection for Mars and Venus reveals almost 300 examples. Many writers of the period also refer to astrological predictions; Shakespeare in Sonnet 14 says:

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;

This is thought to be a response to Philip Sidney’s quote in ‘Astrophil and Stella’ (26):

Who oft fore-judge my after-following race,
By only those two starres in Stella’s face.

Thomas Powell (1608-1660) suggests astrological allusions in his poem ‘Olor Iscanus’:

What Planet rul’d your birth? what wittie star?
That you so like in Souls as Bodies are!
…
Teach the Star-gazers, and delight their Eyes,
Being fixt a Constellation in the Skyes.

While there is still much myth and metaphor pertaining to heavenly bodies in 17^th century literature, there is increasing scientific discussion of the positions of the planets and their motions. To give just a few examples, Robert Burton’s 1620 Anatomy of Melancholy discusses the new heliocentric theories of the planets and suggests that the period of revolution of Mars around the sun is around three years (in actuality it is two years).

In his Paradoxes and Problemes of 1633, John Donne in Probleme X discusses the relative distances of the planets from the earth and quotes Kepler:

Why Venus starre onely doth cast a Shadowe?

Is it because it is neerer the earth? But they whose profession it is to see that nothing bee donne in heaven without theyr consent (as Kepler sayes in himselfe of all Astrologers) have bidd Mercury to bee nearer.

The editor’s note suggests that Donne is following the Ptolemaic geocentric system rather than the recently proposed heliocentric system. In his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions of 1623 Donne castigates those who imagine that there are other peopled worlds, saying:

Men that inhere upon Nature only, are so far from thinking, that there is anything singular in this world, as that they will scarce thinke, that this world it selfe is singular, but that every Planet, and every Starre, is another world like this; They finde reason to conceive, not onely a pluralitie in every Species in the world, but a pluralitie of worlds;

There are also a number of letters written in the 1650s and 1660s between Thomas Hobbes and Claude Mylon, Francois de Verdus, and Samuel Sorbière concerning the geometry of planetary motion.

William Lilly’s chapter on Mars in his Christian Astrology (1647), is a blend of the scientific and the metaphoric. He is correct that Mars orbits the sun in around two years ‘one yeer 321 dayes, or thereabouts’, and he lists in great detail the attributes of Mars: the plants, sicknesses, qualities associated with the planet. And he states that among the other planets, Venus is his only friend.

There are few areas of knowledge where myth, metaphor, and science are as continuously connected as that pertaining to space and the universe. Our origins, our meaning systems, and our destinies — whatever our religious beliefs — are bound up with this unimaginably large emptiness, furnished with distant bodies that show us their lights, lights which may have been extinguished in actuality millenia ago. Only death is more mysterious, and many of our beliefs about life and death are also bound up with the mysteries of the universe. That is why we remain so fascinated with Mars.

Marilyn Deegan is Professor Emerita in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College, University of London. She has published widely on textual editing and digital imaging. Her book publications include Digital Futures: Strategies for the Information Age (with Simon Tanner, 2002), Digital Preservation (edited volume, with Simon Tanner, 2006), Text Editing, Print and the Digital World (edited volume, with Kathryn Sutherland, 2008), and Transferred Illusions: Digital Technology and the Forms of Print (with Kathryn Sutherland, 2009). She is editor of the journal Literary and Linguistics Computing and has worked on numerous digitization projects in the arts and humanities. Read Marilyn’s blog post where she looks at the evolution of electronic publishing.

Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) is a major new publishing initiative from Oxford University Press. The launch content (as at September 2012) includes the complete text of more than 170 scholarly editions of material written between 1485 and 1660, including all of Shakespeare’s plays and the poetry of John Donne, opening up exciting new possibilities for research and comparison. The collection is set to grow into a massive virtual library, ultimately including the entirety of Oxford’s distinguished list of authoritative scholarly editions.

Oxford University Press’ annual Place of the Year, celebrating geographically interesting and inspiring places, coincides with its publication of Atlas of the World – the only atlas published annually — now in its 19th Edition. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price. Read previous blog posts in our Place of the Year series.

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By David Seed

Although there had been interest in Mars earlier, towards the end of the nineteenth century there was a sudden surge of novels describing travel to the Red Planet. One of the earliest was Percy Greg’s Across the Zodiac (1880) which set the pattern for early Mars fiction by framing its story as a manuscript found in a battered metal container. Greg obviously assumed that his readers would find the story incredible and sets up the discovery of the ‘record’, as he calls it, by a traveler to the USA to distance himself from the extraordinary events within the novel. The space traveler is an amateur scientist who has stumbled across a force in Nature he calls ‘apergy’ which conveniently makes it possible for him to travel to Mars in his spaceship. When he arrives there, he discovers that the planet is inhabited.  Since then, the conviction that beings like ourselves live on Mars has constantly fed writings about the planet. The American astronomer Percival Lowell was one of the strongest advocates of the idea in his 1908 book Mars as the Abode of Life and in other pieces, some of which were read by the young H.G. Wells. Mars had the obvious attraction of opening up new sensational subjects. Greg’s astronaut modestly describes his story as the ‘most stupendous adventure’ in human history. It also resembled a colony.

It’s no coincidence that the surge of Mars fiction coincided with the peak of empire, so by this logic the Red Planet is sometimes imagined as a transposed other country. Gustavus W. Pope’s Journey to Mars (1894) describes the voyage of an American spacecraft to a utopian world of sophisticated civilization and technology. The Martians encountered by the travelers are immediately identified as allies and one of the climactic moments in the novel comes when they fly the American flag during a naval parade. The narrator is almost moved beyond words by the spectacle:

My eyes filled with tears of joy when I thought that, the banner of liberty which waves o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, honoured in every nation and on every sea of Earth’s broad domain, should have been borne through the trackless realms of space, amid that shining galaxy of orbs that wheel around the sun, and UNFOLD ITS BROAD STRIPES AND BRIGHT STARS OVER ANOTHER WORLD!

Pope’s description is unusual in presenting the Martians as so similar to the travelers that they project hardly any sense of the alien and, even more important, seem quite happy for America to take the lead in the course of civilization.

The most famous Mars novel from the turn of the twentieth century, H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898), takes the British treatment of the Tasmanians as a notorious example of brutal imperialism and then simply reverses the terms. The invading Martians simply direct against the capital city of the British Empire the same crude logic of empire: we are technologically able to conquer you, so we will do so. What still gives an impressive force to Wells’ narrative is the journalistic care that he took to document the gradual collapse of England. Despite its army and navy, the state is helpless to resist the Martians and they are only defeated by the germs of Earth rather than by its technology.

Cover of “Edison’s Conquest of Mars”, from 1898. Illustration by G. Y. Kauffman.

This story of collapse did not please the American astronomer Garrett P. Serviss, who immediately wrote a sequel, Edison’s Conquest of Mars.  Rather than waiting passively for the Martians to return, as Wells warns they might in his coda, Serviss describes an expedition to conquer them on their home planet. Two steps have to be taken before this can be done. First, the American inventor Edison discovers the secrets of the Martians’ technology and devises a ‘disintegrator’, which will destroy its targets utterly. Secondly, the nations of the world have to chip in to the expedition with large donations. Serviss describes an amazingly unanimous global cooperation: “The United States naturally took the lead, and their leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad.” Put this narrative against the background of the USA taking over former Spanish colonies like Cuba and the Philippines, and Serviss’s narrative can be read as an idealized fantasy of America’s emerging imperial role in the world. Of course no conquest would be worthwhile if it came too easily and Serviss’s Martians aren’t the octopus-like creatures described by Wells, but instead represent human qualities and characteristics taken to inhuman lengths.

Empire was only one way of imagining Mars. It also offered itself as a hypothetical location for utopian speculation. This is how it functions in the Australian Joseph Fraser’s Melbourne and Mars (1889), whose subtitle — The Mysterious Life on Two Planets — indicates the author’s method of comparison. Similarly, Unveiling a Parallel, by Two Women of the West (1893), written by the Americans Alice Ingenfritz Jones and Ella Merchant, describes two alternative societies visited by a traveler from Earth. All Mars fiction tends to take for granted the technology of flight and the vehicle in this novel is an ‘aeroplane’, one of the earliest uses of the term. When the narrator lands on Mars he has no difficulty at all in adjustment or with the language, quite simply because Mars is not treated as an alien place so much as a forum for social change.

The most surprising characteristic of early Mars writing is its sheer variety. Sometimes the planet is imagined as a potential colony, sometimes as an alternative society, or as place for adventure. One of the strangest versions of the planet was given in the American natural scientist Louis Pope Gratacap’s 1903 book, The Certainty of a Future Life on Mars. The narrator’s father is a scientist researching into electricity and astronomy with a strong commitment to spiritualism. After he dies, the narrator starts receiving telegraphic messages from his father describing Mars as an idealized spiritual haven for the dead. It is typical of the period for Gratacap to combine science with religion in narrative that resembles a novel. Before we dismiss the idea of telegraphy here, it is worth remembering that the electrical experimenter Nikola Tesla published articles around 1900 on exactly this possibility of communicating electronically with Mars and other planets.

All the main early works on Mars are available on the web or have been reprinted. They make up a fascinating body of material which helps to explain where our perceptions of the Red Planet come from.

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Image credit: War of the Worlds’ 1st edition cover.

The post The discovery of Mars in literature appeared first on OUPblog.

By long tradition, sweet Venus and mystical Neptune are the planets astrologically connected with music. The relevance of Mars, “the bringer of war” as one famous composition has it, would seem to be pretty oblique. Mars in the horoscope has to do with action, ego, how we separate ourselves off from the world; it is “the fighting principle for the Sun,” in the words of famous astrologer Liz Greene. Michel Gauquelin, who conducted a statistical test for the validity of astrology, found that Mars near the ascendant or midheaven in a person’s chart correlated heavily with choosing athletics or surgery as a career: it connects to physical competition and knives. Mars also rules everything military, and thus in music it is associated mainly with percussion. Most composers have egos, but musicians are not generally a physically aggressive bunch, and fighting isn’t our area. Many a famous composer sat out World War II playing in the Army band. (In high school I was thrilled that my simply taking music classes exempted me from the gym requirement — under the institutional assumption that all music students would get enough exercise in the marching band. I was a pianist.)

Claudio Monteverdi

Despite Monteverdi’s continued advocacy in some subsequent Madrigali guerrieri of 1638, the stile concitato did not establish itself as a broad genre. In the centuries following Il combattimento, depiction of martial action is rare enough in music for the well-known instances to be easily enumerated. The first of Johann Kuhnau’s Biblical History sonatas (1700) purports to describe David’s conflict with Goliath, once again with a profusion of quick repeated notes; also with “martial” rhythms such as streams of dotted eighths followed by sixteenths, or the snare-drum rhythm of an eighth and two sixteenths. The Battalia a 9 (1673) of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber is for only strings, but it too makes a fetish of chords in repeated notes. Its “Der Mars” movement, in addition, brilliantly asks for a piece of paper between the fingerboard and strings of the cello to make the instrument’s rhythmic drone sound plausibly like some kind of drum. Michel Corrette’s Combat Naval from his Harpsichord Divertimento No. 2 (1779) likewise starts off with repeated notes in snare-drum rhythms, and climaxes with forearm clusters that quite effectively signify cannon blasts. In Mozart’s and Haydn’s generations, even the presence of drums and cymbals was enough to suggest Turkish and thus military connotations (since what were the Turks there for, except to make war with?), as in Haydn’s “Military” Symphony, No. 100.

The advent of Romanticism, though, marked a turn at which war became demoted as a subject for serious musical treatment. Two of the 19th century’s most high-profile musical depictions — Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory (1813) and Liszt’s Hunnenschlacht (1857) — are considered among their most embarrassingly literal and superficial works. Bruckner did claim that the Plutonian finale of his Eighth Symphony (1887) depicted two emperors meeting on the field of battle, but that was rather after the fact, since he was trying to throw his lot in among the programmaticists. All this suggests, I think, distinct unease among classical musicians with things military or violent. Of course military music is sometimes appropriated to good effect, as in Berlioz’s Rakoczy March from The Damnation of Faust (1846). But despite Monteverdi’s heroic attempt to establish a martial mode, in retrospect classical attempts to depict battle tend to become anomalous oddities from history (Corrette, Biber) or humorous superficialities (Beethoven, Liszt).

Carl Nielsen

The massive War Requiem (1961-2) by the pacifist Benjamin Britten, however — perhaps its century’s grandest anti-war musical protest, filled with snare-drum march rhythms and trumpet fanfares suspended in uneasy irony — seems to close a curved trajectory that opened with Monteverdi’s Il combattimento. Whereas musicians once thought the military mode in music could be innocently brought up with historical interest or patriotic pride, today we invoke it only to condemn it. The Vietnam War era may have rendered any non-pejorative expression of Mars verboten for the foreseeable future. In recent years the pianist Sarah Cahill commissioned anti-war pieces from many composers (Frederic Rzewski, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, and Meredith Monk among them) for a project called “A Sweeter Music”; my own contribution, War Is Just a Racket, uses a 1933 text by General Smedley Butler, lamenting the army’s too-close ties to corporate interests.

Yet perhaps because Mars and Neptune were conjunct when I was born, I’ve written one un-ironic piece of battle music myself. Aside from the “Mars” movement of my own Planets (yes, I was foolhardy enough to compete with Holst, but my “Mars” is more complaining than belligerent), I depicted the battle of the Little Bighorn in my one-man electronic cantata Custer and Sitting Bull (1999), replete with sampled gunfire. The Sioux warriors are in one key, the US Cavalry in another a tritone away, and as they take turns the music jumps between two different tempos. But there’s something so peculiar about the expression of Mars in music that I have to wonder if, a couple of centuries from now, that battle scene will survive only as a curious anomaly, like Battalia a 9 or the Combat Naval or the battle of David and Goliath.

Kyle Gann is a composer who writes books about American music, including, so far; The Music of Conlon Nancarrow; American Music in the Twentieth Century; Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice; No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33”; Robert Ashley; and, coming up in 2015, a book on Ives’s Concord Sonata. His music explores tempo complexity and microtonality. He writes the blog, Postclassic and teaches at Bard College.

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Oxford University Press’ annual Place of the Year, celebrating geographically interesting and inspiring places, coincides with its publication of Atlas of the World – the only atlas published annually — now in its 19th Edition. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price. Read previous blog posts in our Place of the Year series.

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The planet Mars might initially seem an odd choice for Place of the Year. It has hardly any atmosphere and is more or less geologically inactive, meaning that it has remained essentially unchanged for millions of years. 2012 isn’t much different from one million BC as far as Mars is concerned.

However, here on Earth, 2012 has been a notable year for the Red Planet. Although no human has (yet?) visited Mars, our robot representatives have, and for the last year or so the Curiosity rover has been beaming back intimate photographs of the planet (and itself). (It’s also been narrating its adventures on Twitter.) As a result of this, Mars has perhaps become less of an object and more of a place (one that can be explored on Google Maps, albeit without the Street View facility).

Our changing relationship with Mars over time is shown in the development of its related words. Although modern readers will probably associate the word ‘Mars’ most readily with the planet (or perhaps the chocolate bar, if your primary concerns are more earthbound), the planet itself takes its name from Mars, the Roman god of war.

Drawing of Mars from the 1810 text, “The pantheon: or Ancient history of the gods of Greece and Rome. Intended to facilitate the understanding of the classical authors, and of poets in general. For the use of schools, and young persons of both sexes” by Edward Baldwin, Esq. Image courtesy the New York Public Library.

From the name of this god we also get the word martial (relating to fighting or war), and the name of the month of March, which occurs at a time of a year at which many festivals in honour of Mars were held, probably because spring represented the beginning of the military campaign season.

Of course, nobody believes in the Roman gods anymore, so confusion between the planet and deity is limited. In the time of the Romans, the planet Mars was nothing more than a bright point in the sky (albeit one that took a curious wandering path in comparison to the fixed stars). But as observing technology improved over centuries, and Mars’s status as our nearest neighbour in the solar system became clear, speculation on its potential residents increased.

This is shown clearly in the history of the word martian. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most common early usage of the word was as an adjective in the sense ‘of or relating to war’. (Although the very earliest use found, from Chaucer in c1395, is in a different sense to this — relating to the supposed astrological influence of the planet.)

But in the late 19th century, as observations of the surface of the planet increased in resolution, the idea of an present of formed intelligent civilization on Mars took hold, and another sense of martian came into use, denoting its (real or imagined) inhabitants. These were thought by some to be responsible for the ‘canals’ that they discerned on Mars’s surface (these later proved to be nothing more than an optical illusion). As well as (more or less) scientific speculation, Martians also became a mainstay of science fiction, the earth-invaders of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) being probably the most famous example.

A century on, robotic explorers such as the Viking probes and the aforementioned Curiosity have shown Mars to be an inhospitable, arid place, unlikely to harbour any advanced alien societies. Instead, our best hope for the existence of any real Martians is in the form of microbes, evidence for which Curiosity may yet uncover.

If no such evidence of life is found, perhaps the real Martians will be future human settlers. Despite the success of Martian exploration using robots proxies, the idea of humans visiting or settling Mars is still a romantic and tempting one, despite the many difficulties this would involve. Just this year, it was reported that Elon Musk, one of the co-founders of PayPal, wishes to establish a colony of 80,000 people on the planet.

The Greek equivalent of the Roman god Mars is Ares; as such, the prefix areo- is sometimes used to form words relating to the planet. Perhaps, then, if travel to Mars becomes a reality, we’ll begin to talk about the brave areonauts making this tough and unforgiving journey.

Richard Holden is an editor of science words for the Oxford English Dictionary, and an online editor for Oxford Dictionaries.

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By David Rothery

So Mars is ‘Place of the Year’! It has the biggest volcano in the Solar System — Olympus Mons — amazing dust storms, and the grandest canyon of all — Valles Marineris. Mind you, the surface area of Mars is almost the same as the total area of dry land on Earth, so to declare Mars as a whole to be ‘place of the year’ seems a little vague, given that previous winners (on Earth) have been islands or single countries. If you pushed me to specify a particular place on Mars most worthy of this accolade I would have to say Gale crater, the location chosen for NASA’s Curiosity Rover which landed with great success on 6 August.

This was chosen from a shortlist of several sites offering access to layers of martian sediment that had been deposited over a long time period, and thus expected to preserve evidence of how surface conditions have changed over billions of years. Gale crater is just over 150 km in diameter, but the relatively smooth patch within the crater where a landing could be safely attempted is only about 20 km across, and no previous Mars lander has been targeted with such high precision.

Perspective view of Gale crater. Curiosity landed in the ellipse within the nearest part of the crater. Image Credit: NASA

The thing that makes Gale one of the most special of Mars’s many craters is that its centre is occupied by a 5 km high mound, nicknamed Mount Sharp, made of eroded layers of sediment. To judge from its performance so far, the nuclear powered Curiosity Rover looks well capable of traversing the crater floor and then making its way up Mount Sharp layer by layer, reading Mars’s history as it goes. The topmost layers are probably rock made from wind-blown sand and dust. The oldest layers, occurring near the base of the central mound, will be the most interesting, because they appear to contain clay minerals of a kind that can form only in standing water. If that’s true, Curiosity will be able to dabble around in material that formed in ponds and lakes at a time when Mars was wetter and warmer than today. It will probably take a year or so to pick its way carefully across ten or so km of terrain to the exposures of the oldest, clay-bearing rocks, but already Curiosity has seen layers of pebbly rock that to a geologist are a sure sign that fast-flowing rivers or storm-fed flash-floods once crossed the crater floor.

Layers at the base of Mount Sharp that Curiosity will analyze. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The geologist in me wants to study the record of changing martian environments over time, because I like to find out what makes a planet tick. However the main reason why Mars continues to be the target for so many space missions, is that in the distant past — when those clay deposits were forming – its surface conditions could have been suitable for life to become established. Curiosity’s suite of sophisticated science instruments is designed to study rocks to determine whether they formed at a time when conditions were suitable for life. They won’t be able to prove that life existed, which will be a task for a future mission. If life ever did occur on Mars, then it might persist even today, if only in the form of simple microbes. Life probably will not be found at the surface, which today is cold, arid and exposed to ultraviolet light thanks to the thinness of its atmosphere, but within the soil or underneath rocks.

Finding life — whether still living or extinct — on another world would offer fundamental challenges to our view of our own place in the Universe. Currently we know of at least two other worlds in our Solar System where life could exist — Mars and Jupiter’s satellite Europa. It has also become clear that half the 400 billion stars in our Galaxy have their own planets. If conditions suitable for life occur on only a small fraction of those, that is still a vast number of potential habitats.

So, are we alone, or not? We don’t know how common it is for life to get started: some scientists think that it is inevitable, given the right conditions. Others regard it as an extremely rare event. If we were to find present or past life on Mars, then, provided we could rule out natural cross-contamination by local meteorites, this evidence of life starting twice in one Solar System would make it virtually unthinkable that it had not started among numerous planets of other stars too. Based on what we know today, Earth could be the only life-bearing planet in the Galaxy, but if we find independent life on Mars, then life, and probably intelligence, is surely abundant everywhere. As the visionary Arthur C. Clarke put it: “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”  Terrifying or not, I’d like to know the answer. I don’t think Mars holds the key, but it surely holds one of the numbers of the combination-lock.

David Rothery is a Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences at the Open University UK, where he chairs a course on planetary science and the search for life. He is the author of Planets: A Very Short Introduction. Read his previous blog post: “Is there life on Mars?”

The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!

Oxford University Press’ annual Place of the Year, celebrating geographically interesting and inspiring places, coincides with its publication of Atlas of the World — the only atlas published annually — now in its 19th Edition. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price. Read previous blog posts in our Place of the Year series.

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The post Mars: A geologist’s perspective appeared first on OUPblog.

Warming Island was a new addition to the Atlas and conveyed how climate change is altering the very map of Earth. Kosovo’s declaration of independence not only caused  lines on the map to be redrawn, but highlighted the struggle of many separatists groups around the world. In 2009 and 2010, we looked to the year ahead — as opposed to the year past — with the choices of South Africa and Yemen. Finally, last year was an easy choice as South Sudan joined us as a new country.

We took a slightly different tact with Place of the Year this year. In addition to the ideas of our Atlas committee, we decided to open the choice to the public. We created a longlist, which was open to voting, and invited additions in the comments. After a few weeks of voting, we narrowed the possible selections to a shortlist, also open to voting from the public.

Four front-runners emerged in both the longlist and shortlist: London, Syria, Burma/Myanmar, and Mars. These places have changed greatly over the years, but 2012 has been a particularly special year for each. London hosted the Queen’s Jubilee and the Summer Olympics, as well as the Libor scandal and Leveson Inquiry. The Arab Spring has spread across the Middle East and North Africa, but after the toppling of dictators in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, civil war threatens to tear Syria apart. On the other side of the globe, the government of Burma (also known as Myanmar) is slowly moving to reform the country and only two weeks ago President Barack Obama made a historic visit to Rangoon. And finally, this August the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars. Although you can’t find Mars in our Atlas of the World (for obvious reasons), it captures the spirit of cartography: the exploration of the unknown and all that entails.

It was these four front-runners that we asked Oxford University Press employees to vote on and our Atlas committee to consider. Mars won the public vote, the OUP employee vote, and the hearts and minds of our Atlas committee.

Once we made our final decision on November 19^th, we began contacting experts on Mars from around Oxford University Press to illuminate different aspects of the red planet. Inevitably, the first response we received asked us whether we had heard about the rumours surrounding NASA’s  upcoming announcement. We took that as a good sign — and we’ll bring up An Atlas of Mars at our next editorial meeting.

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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It’s a city! It’s a state! It’s a country! No — it’s a planet! Breaking with tradition, Oxford University Press has selected Mars as the Place of the Year 2012. 

A close-up of Mars by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA

Mars, visible in the night sky to the naked eye, has fascinated and intrigued for centuries but only in the past 50 years has space exploration allowed scientists to better understand the Red Planet. On 6 August 2012, NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars’ Gale Crater, and by transmitting its findings back to Earth, Curiosity has made Mars a little a less alien. Among many other accomplishments, Curiosity has swallowed Martian soil and discovered an ancient stream bed. Today, NASA is expected to make a possibly mars-shattering announcement at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Mount Sharp, Curiosity Rover's goal. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

With an eye to the future of scientific discovery, Oxford University Press has chosen Mars in celebration of the place that has kept Earthlings excited and engaged this year. Your votes, combined with the votes of OUP employees, and the opinion of our expert Atlas of the World committee, easily led to Mars’s victory, outperforming Syria, London, Calabasas (California, USA), Greece, Istanbul, CERN, Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, Artic Circle, and Myanmar/Burma. 

Here are some of the many reasons why we’re so excited about Mars:

1. While scientists have been mapping Mars from afar since the 19th century, it still represents the new and unknown — the fascination of cartographers and atlas-makers.
2. Space exploration! Astrophysics! Astronomy! Geophysics! Astrobiology! There’s much to know about the universe and Earth’s place in it, and Mars is just one fascinating piece in the puzzle.
3. Mars is home to the highest peak in the Solar System (Olympus Mons), but no life forms (as far as we know).
4. Space exploration poses problems for traditional international diplomacy. The Outer Space Treaty is only the beginning of a complex legal framework.
5. Although named after the Roman god of war, Mars acts as a muse to some of the great writers and artists, including H.G. Wells and David Bowie.
6. Did Mars Curiosity steal your iPod? Curiosity wakes up to these tracks and premiered will.i.am’s Reach for the Stars by beaming the song back to earth. Even Britney Spears wants to know more.
7. Mars continues to inspire new generations to study, to dream, and to stay curious.

We’ll be looking in depth at various facets of Mars on the OUPblog this week. You can check back here for the latest posts. We invite your comments and hope that you continue to stay curious!

Curiosity Rover takes a self-portrait, reminding you to stay curious, OUPbloggers. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only geography articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post And the Place of the Year 2012 is…… appeared first on OUPblog.

• London, UK 1897

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Queen-Victoria-Jubilee.jpg

  Queen Victoria photographed for her Diamond Jubilee. She and Queen Elizabeth II are the only British monarchs to celebrate a 60th anniversary on the throne. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

• London, UK 2012

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Mosaic-Picture-of-Elizabeth-II-of-the-UK-produced-by-Helen-Marshall-e1353519963660.jpg

  Mosaic Picture of Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, produced by Helen Marshall using more than 5000 photos at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, England. Photo courtesy Abuk Sabuk, Creative Commons License

• Mars 1980

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Sagan-and-Viking-e1353520727886.jpg

  Dr. Carl Sagan poses with a model of Viking lander, the first NASA Mission to land on Mars, in Death Valley, Calif. Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

• Mars 2012

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Curiositys-Location-During-First-Scooping-e1353520986883.jpg

  Curiosity Rover's location during first scooping. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechMars

• Istanbul, Turkey, 1422

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Map-of-Constantinople-modern-Istanbul.jpg

  Map of Constantinople, now Istanbul, designed in 1422 by Florentine cartographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons and Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

• Istanbul, Turkey, 2012

   

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  The city at night © NASA

• CERN 1954

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/First-digging-at-CERN-1954-e1353523008605.jpg

  First excavation on the Meyrin site in Geneva, Switzerland, soon to be home to the European Organization for Nuclear Research. © 1954 CERN

• CERN 2012

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Higgs-Press-Conference-7.4.12-e1353523540437.jpg

  Press conference announcing the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle that gives mass to elementary particles (c) 2012 CERN

• Myanmar/Burma ca. 1890-1923

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Burmese-women-one-smoking-a-cigar-e1353524013463.jpg

  Burmese women, one smoking a cigar. Image courtesy of The Library of Congress.

• Myanmar/Burma 2011

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hilary-and-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-e1353524029299.jpg

  U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hugs Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at her house in Rangoon, Burma. In April 2012, the Burmese opposition leader was elected to the Burmese Parliament. State Department photo/ Public Domain

• Syria 1911

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Damasus-Syria-1911-e1353524289512.jpg

  Rooftops of Damascus, Syria. Image courtesy of The Library of Congress

• Syria 2007

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/View-of-Damascus-2007-e1353524395475.jpg

  View of Damascus from Mount Qassioun. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

• Arctic Circle 1913

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Diana-Arctic-exploration-e1353524871784.jpg

  Diana [MacMillan's ship] just before sailing off on an Arctic expedition, 2 July 1913. Image courtesy of the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress.

• Arctic Circle 2003

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/800px-Polar_bears_near_north_pole-e1353524691633.jpg

  Polar bears approach the USS Honolulu while it surfaced 280 miles from the North Pole. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Yeoman Alphonso Braggs, US-Navy

• Calabasas, CA 1960

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Miguel-Leonides-home-Calabasas-e1353525110105.jpg

  The Miguel Leonis Abode, a Monterey-style mansion home to Leonis, "The King of Calabasas" and a real estate mogul, and his wife Espiritu Chijulla, the daughter of a Chumash chief, at the end of the 19th century. Image courtesy of The Library of Congress.

• Calabasas, CA 2012

   

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  The current kings and queens of Calabasas. Image courtesy of E! Entertainment

• Athens. Greece ca. 1910-1915

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Old-Praliament-Building-Athens-e1353525481367.jpg

  The Old Parliament House which served the Greek Parliament from 1875 to 1932 and currently the National Historical Museum. Image courtesy of The Library of Congress

• Greece 2011

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Syntagma-Square-in-front-of-the-Hellenic-Parliament-e1353525594254.jpg

  Syntagma Square, facing the modern Hellenic Parliament building, has been the site of riots regarding proposed austerity measures amidst Greece's economic collapse in 2012. Photo by Tango7174. Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons

• Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands 1933

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Tokara_and_Senkaku_Islands_Map-e1353525850850.jpg

  Map of Tokara Islands and Senkaku Islands, issued in Japan. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

• Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands 2012

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Anti-Japan-demonstrations-over-Senkaku-Islands-e1353525782917.jpg

  Anti-Japan demonstrations over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute in Hong Kong in September 2012. Image courtesy of Voice of America