Atomic Surgery

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Spookman by Pat Boyette

Charlton Premiere V2, #1 (Sept. 1967). The Spookman by Pat Boyette & © Charlton Comics

Showing the influences of both Alex Toth and Steve Ditko by way of Milton Caniff, the late Pat Boyette continues to be an underappreciated artist, probably due to the fact that much of his work was published at Charlton.

According to the editorial in the first issue of Charlton Premiere, “The Spookman is Pat Boyette’s brain child and it too was mulled over and put aside until the advent of Charlton Premiere”. Despite a the poorly chosen name, The Spookman had an interesting shtick of time traveling to investigate what promised to be problems of the mystical variety – although his first story has him (or rather his assistant) indirectly responsible for the burning of Rome, all for the original desire to make a fast $10,000!

As far as I can tell this was The Spookman’s only appearance.

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The Demon © DC Comics

It’s interesting to note the similarity between The Spookman’s alter ego, Aaron Piper, and that of Jack Kirby’s The Demon, Jason Blood, right down to the white streak through their hair, even though Kirby’s creation was published a full five years after Boyette’s story.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Life On Mars Indicated by High Levels of Methane

Planet Comics #33M (1944); © Fiction House. Art by Murphy Anderson

Scientists have ruled out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, raising fresh hopes that the gas might be generated by life on the red planet

Methane has a short lifetime of just a few hundred years on Mars because it is constantly being depleted by a chemical reaction in the planet's atmosphere, caused by sunlight. Scientists analysing data from telescopic observations and unmanned space missions have discovered that methane on Mars is being constantly replenished by an unknown source and they are keen to uncover how the levels of methane are being topped up.

Researchers had thought that meteorites might be responsible for Martian methane levels because when the rocks enter the planet's atmosphere they are subjected to intense heat, causing a chemical reaction that releases methane and other gases into the atmosphere.

When quantities of gas released by the laboratory experiments were combined with published calculations of meteorite in-fall rates on Mars, the scientists calculated that only 10 kilograms of meteorite methane was produced each year, far below the 100 to 300 tonnes required to replenish methane levels in the Martian atmosphere.

This leaves only two plausible theories to explain the gas's presence, according to the researchers behind today's findings. Either there are microorganisms living in the Martian soil that are producing methane gas as a by-product of their metabolic processes, or methane is being produced as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water. link

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Ref.: Investigating the contribution of methane produced by ablating micrometeorites to the atmosphere of Mars. 2009. Richard W. Court & Mark A. Sephton. Earth and Planetary Science Letters: 288: 382-385.

Life On Other Planets: Space Police by Murphy Anderson (1949)

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Planet Comics #58 (1949) © Fiction House

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Murderous Plants & Vegetable Carnivory

Batman © DC Comics

ABSTRACT [edit]: Darwin's interest in carnivorous plants was in keeping with the Victorian fascination with Gothic horrors, and his experiments on them were many and varied, ranging from what appears to be idle curiosity (e.g. what will happen if I place a human hair on a Drosera leaf?) to detailed investigations of mechanisms.
Mechanisms for capture and digestion of prey vary greatly among the six (or more) lineages of flowering plants that have well-developed carnivory, and some are much more active than others.

Passive carnivory is common in some groups, and one, Roridula (Roridulaceae) from southern Africa, is so passively carnivorous that it requires the presence of an insect intermediate to derive any benefit from prey trapped on its leaves.

There is no clear way to discriminate between cases of passive and active carnivory and between non-carnivorous and carnivorous plants – all intermediates exist.

Ref.: Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory. 2009. MARK W. CHASE, et al. Botanical Journal of The Linnean Society 161: 329 – 356.