Tag: Discoveries

A New Source of Oxygen

On By robstroudIn C.S. Lewis, Education, Family, Modern Life, Nature8 Comments

Most of us have a basic affinity for oxygen. And, air quality being what it is in many places, it is probably good news that there is a newly discovered source on the bottom of the sea.

This morning I asked my ten year old grandson what I should blog about. I said it could be even something like a new discovery (since C.S. Lewis was such a renaissance man that I can find some link to diverse subjects in his writings).

Since it’s summer, and school’s on hiatus, I was surprised when he said something of which I was unaware. “I think they found oxygen coming from some minerals in the ocean.” Odd, I thought, but since he often surprises me with his knowledge, I checked it out. 

It’s true. Not only does the ocean produce huge amounts of oxygen via algae and the like, but they have recently discovered a source of “dark oxygen.” According to Smithsonian Magazine,

Twelve thousand feet under the ocean surface is a world of eternal midnight. No sunlight can penetrate to this depth to promote photosynthesis, so no plants are producing oxygen there.

Yet, the life-supporting gas is abundant in this darkness-cloaked region, thanks to an unlikely oxygen factory: potato-sized, “battery rocks” on the seafloor.

Those eager to learn more about this wonder can read the entire study, “Evidence of Dark Oxygen Production at the Abyssal Seafloor”  for free in Nature Geoscience.

The necessity of ready access to oxygen is obvious to everyone who knows basic biology. Actually, it isn’t the oxygen molecules [O], which we require, it is actually dioxygen [O2]. We also recognize our primary partners in this gloriously balanced process of exchange (where we trade off our carbon dioxide [CO2] in exchange for the O2) are the various plants God has distributed throughout our world. 

Curiously, oxygen only makes up a small portion of our atmosphere. According to the National Institute of Medicine,

The composition of environmental air is approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, and trace percentages of other gases, such as carbon dioxide, neon, methane, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xenon, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, iodine, carbon monoxide, and ammonia.

I’m no scientist, but personal experience with pneumonia, and with training in a military Hypobaric (Altitude) Chamber, have taught me not to take the availability of oxygen for granted.

This fact was reinforced for C.S. Lewis during the final days of his life, as is true for many people. American Nathan Comfort Starr (1896-1981) was an Arthurian scholar. He would later write an Introduction and Commentary for Lewis’ Till We Have Faces in the Religious Dimension in Literature series. Shortly before Lewis’ death, Starr asked if he might be up to a visit from a friend. Lewis’ response evidenced a peaceful resignation to his own passing.

Term will never again begin for me. Last July I was thought to be dying, oxygen-tent and Last Unction and everything en règle.

I am now retired and immobilised on one floor of this house. But glad to be visited (an hour or so) if such an extinct volcano as I now am is worth visiting (4 September 1963).

In Out of the Silent Planet, the first volume of C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy, the protagonist travels to the planet Malacandra. Philologist Edwin Ransom is kidnapped before the voyage and his captors refuse to answer any of his questions.

“Don’t talk,” he said. “We have discussed all that is necessary. The ship does not carry oxygen enough for any unnecessary exertion; not even for talking.”

After landing, Ransom escapes and flees as far as his air lasts in the planet’s thin atmosphere. Nearing the end, a member of one of the intelligent species (Hnau) inhabiting Malacandra, rescues him. Presumably other races also sometimes require supplemental oxygen.

Stretching back into the cave, it took from the wall what looked like a cup. Then Ransom saw that it was attached to a length of flexible tube. The sorn put it into his hands.

“Smell on this,” it said. “The hrossa also need it when they pass this way.” Ransom inhaled and was instantly refreshed. His painful shortness of breath was eased and the tension of chest and temples was relaxed. . . .

“Oxygen?” he asked; but naturally the English word meant nothing to the sorn.

Oxygen is a precious gift to us from our Creator. So too is the scholar and atheist-turned-apologist, C.S. Lewis. 

Just as the revelations of natural creation are ceaselessly amazing, the lessons learned from C.S. Lewis’ life and works continue to inspire others. And, sometimes a little child’s awareness of recent news will lead others into new knowledge.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

On By robstroudIn Animals, C.S. Lewis, Likely Useless Trivia, Narnia, Writing25 Comments

platypusI have a twitter account I’ve never used. I had attended a ministry conference where the featured speaker encouraged all of the pastors to harness the power of this cutting edge technology.

I dutifully returned home, established an account, and realized there were very few things I wanted to say in 140 characters or less. One hundred and forty words . . . now you’re talking. But a mere seven score letters . . . I don’t think so.

I know there are many positive things about brevity. In our hectic world, it’s become an absolute necessity. Still, some things—to be expressed more clearly and (dare I say it, “entertainingly”)—demand more than two and a half sentences.

I was recently reading an article entitled “Tweets Before Twitter,” and it gave me cause to reconsider the prospect of using twitter to share worthwhile ideas. It described “ingenious brevity inspired 150 years ago by telegrams. . . . when people had to pay as much as $1 per Morse-coded word to dispatch a cable overseas, only a robber baron could afford to be loquacious.”

Now, that’s a sobering thought, especially since one of the dollars of that era would likely translate into about $214.17 today (by rough estimate). With that incentive, many telegraphs employed cryptic shorthand similar to the increasingly familiar terminology of the tweetworld.

However, one example they cited was different. It did not rely on learning a new language of contemporary abbreviations. Instead, it appealed to a much older language, Latin. Here’s the example they reported.

Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic.

Translation: In the 19th century one of the greatest scientific debates was whether the platypus laid eggs, a fact that zoologist William Hay Caldwell was finally able to confirm in 1884. Here he uses Latin to cable his discovery from Australia to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Since Latin had words for high-level scientific concepts, Caldwell could condense an entire paper into one brief sentence, letting colleagues know that platypus embryos develop like birds instead of mammals.

If I could remember the Latin I studied back in high school . . . And, if the people I was tweeting could read what I was saying . . . I just might reconsider my decision not to tweet. But I regard that event highly unlikely.

For now I’ll remain more than content to post a couple of times a week to Mere Inkling, in the hopes that a few of my words prove helpful or entertaining.

Finally, although the great unknown of platypus parenting was discovered in 1884, I’ve been pondering another mystery of the Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Why was it, that C.S. Lewis failed to include these wondrous creatures in Narnia? Perhaps it was because their semi-aquatic nature meant they would be of little value in the battles that marked the events recorded in the Chronicles? I have little doubt that despite the absence of their mention, Narnia’s waters teemed with their frolicking duck bills, otter feet and beaver tails.