We need a heightened level of scientific awareness to restore and protect the environment that sustains us. The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters.
The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate. Meanwhile, the rise of the Internet has joined advancing tools of visualization to make possible new experiences and services for individuals across a borderless community. All of these imperatives and transformations support the sense of urgency and confidence that we bring to our mission: Awakening the human citizens of Earth to the power of the scientific perspective to heal the planet, to assure that its resources are more justly shared, and ultimately, to carry us to the stars.
He was one of the first people to understand the importance of biodiversity. He was really Everything was fine until Stalin took power and fell under the spell of a scoundrel named Trofim Lysenko, who was a pseudo scientist who sold Stalin a bill of goods about how Russia, eh, had starved on so many [inaudible ], eh, uh occasions in history, would have a winter wheat crop, which would end these terrible famines that had rocked Russia.
He wanted to sow wheat seeds in ice water, and somehow Stalin believed him. And as Lysenko took over Soviet science, uh, doing, i- uh, my Soviet [] biology for decades with this pseudo science, Vavilov knew that if he publicly took on, uh, Lysenko, he would be doomed.
Colleagues, friends had already been executed, arrested, disappeared, and yet, at a public scientific congress, he stood up and he said, "You can take me to the stake, you can set me on fire, but you can't make me lie about science.
There were hundreds of thousands of seeds and tubers collected from all over the world. They withstood a three years siege of what is now [] Saint Petersburg, one of the worst siege in history by the German forces, and yet they didn't consume any of the treasure of seeds that, that had been collected.
And, they all died of starvation at their death, and the question was, why did they do that? They did it because they believe there would be a future when the world would return to its senses, and these seeds would be vital to the world's food supply, as I write in the book, if only we cared about our own future as much as they do.
Mat Kaplan: There is so much more in the book, but we're on borrowed time now I mean, quantum mechanics, the brain, uh, something that you call a worldwide web that is actually a living thing, utterly fascinating. Your last chapter is titled, A possible world. It's very personal, even, even intimate.
Uh, eh, you describe the love [] that you shared with Carl, and the world that the two of you created, but it also has an optimistic vision of a, of a possible world as seen through the eyes of a 10 year old girl. It seems to be a fitting clothes for, for this book, that, um, is so, at least to me, so inspiring.
Ann Druyan: What I just ask everyone to remember is that Carl Sagan as a child living a subsistence life, dreamed of the unfolding of interstellar flight. And as a grown man, he was one of the leaders of our first mission to the stars. Think of how unlikely that is. And, I also believe that the great future that we can still have, may seem unlikely at this moment, but if we work for it as hard as he did, I think it can happen. Mat Kaplan: Ann, can we do this again, and I hope soon, when things quiet down a little bit?
I've, I've got lots more questions that [] I sure would love to ask you, and I think our audience would, uh, love to hear you answer. Ann Druyan: I'm happy to do it as soon as possible, Mat. I always enjoy talking with you. And, uh, please, please, let's do it again as soon as we can. Mat Kaplan: Thank you so much. The book is available everywhere great books are sold, and you'll have the chance to win it in minutes.
And, he's going to tell us about the night sky, but before he does, here's a message for you from our listener, one of our many listeners actually, in Sweden, Ola Franzen, can you please tell Bruce to stop hogging all the clear skies, I want to play with my new telescope. All you had to do is ask, poof. Uh, it may take a couple days, but it is now cloudy and rainy here in Southern [] California, so, good luck.
And a shout out to my third cousins in Sweden, who I haven't talked to in 30 years. Mat Kaplan: [laughs] There you go Ola. Uh, v- v- voila. Uh, that's not Swedish by the way. Mat Kaplan: Um, tell us, tell us, if we could see it, because it's cloudy and rainy down here too, what would we see up there? Bruce Betts: Oh gosh, such a wonderful cornucopia of planets, if, if that's a thing.
I mean, it is now. So, in the morning, East, pre-dawn, morning East, four planets, if you can actually see towards the horizon. So, going from upper right to lower left, you've got reddish Mars, bright, bright Jupiter, and then yellow is Saturn. And they're all quite close together. And then, much farther down to the lower left is Mercury if you've got a clear view to the horizon. Now, the three are going to be doing a little dance, and Mars is going to be getting closer to Jupiter.
It'll be closest right [] around March 20th, and then Mars will slip between Jupiter and Saturn. So, all very tightly clustered, but wait, don't order yet, the crescent moon will join the gang on March 18th, uh, one night only, and, uh, it will be a lovely grouping. So, that's the pre-dawn East. In the evening West, we've got super bright Venus, very high up, easy to see. It is actually coming into a nice line with a couple o' bright stars, so, it will line up with Aldebaran, the bright star in Taurus, and Betelgeuse in Orion, and then the crescent moon will join them on March 28th, with the Pleiades also, the star cluster Pleiades, hanging out between, a little above and between the crescent moon and Venus.
So, it's just, it's a festival of planets. Onto this weekend space history; , Vanguard one was launched. It holds the details [] distinction of being the longest thing still in Earth orbit. Stopped working a long time ago, but it's still on Earth orbit. And then, , Messenger went into orbit around Mercury. Pretty amazing feed first time that was done.
We move on to Random Space Fact. Mat Kaplan: Wow. Pavarotti called, he wants to know if you're available this weekend. Bruce Betts: I'm a little uncomfortable with that. So, anyway, Triton, moon of Neptune, dominates the Neptunian moon system. How much does it dominate? It has over It may have actually done a little bit o' nastiness after it got captured by Neptune, increasing those numbers by, uh, eliminating some of [] Neptune, Naptune's, Neptune's original satellites.
Bruce Betts: Uh, we move on to the [crosstalk ], to the trivia contest, and I asked you a, in a another serious question, what was Rusty Schweikart call sign during his extra vehicular activity on Apollo nine? How'd we do, Mat? Mat Kaplan: This was really fun.
And I'm gonna let, Dave Fairchild, our poet laureate in Kansas, his first line response with what we got from a whole bunch of people, and it was stated exactly this way, "Red rover, red rover, let Schweikart come over.
He flew on Apollo, that's nine. Although he was sick, he performed it just slick, and his EVA worked out just fine. Mat Kaplan: Red rover, I mean, at the time, he still had very red hair. Although, uh, John [Bi-ri-li ] says that no doubt if Rusty did the EVA [] today, he'd be using white rover, which is, which is true.
Mat Kaplan: And here's our winner, because none of those people, I'm sorry to say, were chosen by random. If you could stretch it out, so can I. Mat Kaplan: Congratulations, Tim, uh, and, we're, we're very happy for you. A lot of people, fair number of people, are confused, Rusty's call sign with the unofficial call sign for the lunar module that Rusty worked with. It was called spider.
So, this from Benton, uh, Baki in Minnesota have the spider in Apollo nine been fully loaded in standard configuration, [] it would have weighed about 90, times as much as the largest spider, the Goliath bird eater. Mat Kaplan: It really does, doesn't it? It eats birds, which is like, I, eh, don't ever, ever want to see this even, if it's jetted behind glass.
It's true, I looked it up. Eh, what a great bit of trivia. Rusty's, you knew this, Rusty's helmet was red. Bruce Betts: Yes. Now there's a great picture, as I'm sure you saw, from the command module of him poking out of the lunar module with the, with the red helmet.
Mat Kaplan: It's great. And it didn't, it wasn't hard to search for. Maybe we'll put it on the, uh, show page, uh, this week. The other thing is our technological capability to simulate nature on the grandest scale has grown by leaps and bounds since For instance, the cosmic calendar of the original series, which I think was very effective, did have some cardboard dinosaurs in there.
This new cosmic calendar There are moments like that I think Carl would have absolutely loved with the original series. The voyages we take in the ship of the imagination to other worlds and other universes, I think he would have just loved. He would be thrilled that this new Cosmos is going to be the largest roll out of a television series in planetary history.
He'd be proud his flame is still burning so brightly. I don't know what to wish for. At this point, what I'm really excited about is going home after being in L. I hope it's a success because the industry is so slavishly imitative that, if it's a success, every network is going to want to do their own science series. That would be so good for our society.
Main Menu U. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Emmy and Peabody Award—winning science writer, producer and director Ann Druyan talks about Cosmos: Possible Worlds, the next installment of the Cosmos series.
She co-wrote the original Cosmos series with her late husband Carl Sagan. The second season, called Cosmos: Possible Worlds, premieres tonight on the National Geographic channel. Druyan visited Scientific American recently and spoke with our space editor Lee Billings and me. And now mostly Lee Billings and a little bit of me, talking with Ann Druyan. Get your science news at our Web site, www.
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