Regardless of the official definition, the word “habitable” is highly subjective. Extremophiles like tardigrades can survive being frozen and/or completely dehydrated. A planet with an eccentric orbit like this one could hypothetically support species capable of entering some form of extreme hibernation during part of their year.
And that's fine, but when communicating outside the speciality, I'd really like to see some other term used.
https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025... for example says "Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history", where "recorded history" is apparently the CDC's "term of art" for "since 1950", which isn't what a layperson hears.
The IAC is communicating outside the speciality here, via a press release.
That's why the article's breadcrumbs say "Home > Outreach > News".
We saw the same issue during COVID - scientists talking to the general public often talk like scientists instead of science communicators, and that causes people to misunderstand. Fauci's "no evidence" (yet) masking prevents disease incorrectly becomes evidence masking can't prevent disease.
Not many uninterested laypeople are going to be browsing the IAC website for astrophysics news. People that are interested should probably familiarize themselves with the terminology commonly used in astrophysics.
Once it makes its way to PBS Space Time, sure, maybe you avoid terms of art. Or explain the particular definition when it is first introduced.
That's just my opinion anyways. I always try to familiarize myself with the common terms of art when learning about a new discipline.
> Not many uninterested laypeople are going to be browsing the IAC website for astrophysics news.
But they will get linked to it, or read articles by reporters using it as a source without enough domain knowledge to make the distinction. I, after all, didn't seek this out - it just popped up on the HN home page.
> What seems weird to me is to be interested in a discipline, seek out news and conversation about it (from university press releases!) but then reject and/or argue about any terms of art that are established within that discipline.
I think science communication, post-COVID, needs to take a serious look at how to better explain things to the public. "Habitable zone" is simply one example of it.
I edited part of that out, because I actually do broadly agree with you regarding science communication, and realized my comment was a bit stronger than I intended. Looks like you were quick on the quote!
However, I think there's some serious slack to cut when you're viewing an article on the Institute of Astrophysics website, compared to reading Fox/CBS/whatever.
Edit: In my re-reading of the article, I see they define it! I'm no longer sure what all this back and forth is even about. "This orbit places it within the habitable zone of the system, _meaning it is at the right distance from its star to sustain liquid water on its surface_" Do you want them to not use the term even when they define the term?
> Do you want them to not use the term even when they define the term?
Yes, I do. I think it's a needlessly confusing term to use in stuff intended for public consumption.
For a similar example of the issue, I often get radiology reports in my healthcare provider's portal. My dad is a radiologist and they're still quite scary/bewildering to read - they frequently use various terms of art for "looks fine and normal" that sound terrifying.
That was all fine when the intended audience was other doctors, but these days I can pull them up myself. I at least know enough to not freak out and ask my dad; many don't.
I don't want to see NBC/BBC/NYT articles using the term, and that means being careful with the sources from which they receive their info.
While it's possible for conditions for life to emerge or sustain itself to be present beyond the habitable zone (e.g. there's likely a subsurface ocean orbiting the farthest plant from the Sun on Triton), afawk it is more probable that life forms in the habitable zone. That is the only one we have a data point for.
Someone could fine-tune a model on pairs of existing proteins and their misfolded prions and then ask the system to come up with new prions for other proteins.
ChatGPT found these 4 companies that will produce proteins for you just based on digital DNA that you send them:
Correct. IMO the official Claude app is pretty garbage. Sonnet 3.5 API + Open-WebUI is amazing though and supports STT+TTS as well as a ton of other great features.
But projects are great in Sonnet, you just dump db schema some core file and you can figure stuff out quickly. I guess Aider is similar but i was lacking good history of chats and changes
I’m a programmer with a degree in Agricultural Science so my opinion is oddly relevant to this subject. Please shut up and stop shitting on people’s dreams. Not everything is about profit and scaling. Anyone can and should learn to farm regardless of their background or education.
That was my point. That they should learn about it before committing to it. I was in no way saying someone shouldn't do it if they discover it's something they enjoy.
It's not a treatment here (vitamin A supplementation for people with deficiency is, and nobody argues against that), it's more like bulletproof vest in your example. Sure we could generalize bulletproof vest at the same time we're pushing for gun control, but it's not necessarily a desirable thing to do.
Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me!
But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency. And "let people grow this crop" is a much smaller social problem than "dramatically reduce poverty".
> Allowing people access to bullet proof vests sure seems desirable to me!
Maybe, but I'm not sure law enforcement would agree with you, for their own very good reasons.
> But also I think the "treating the gunshot wound" analogy is a better fit. A crop that produces vitamin A is a treatment for population suffering from vitamin A deficiency.
No, it's not a treatment, it's a prevention measure, and its effect is very slow (the population must accept the reinforced food, and incorporate it in sufficient fashion in their diet, and it can take decades before the entire population is positively affected). “letting people grow this crop” is only the very beginning of a very complex social process that you are oversimplifying.
I don't have a particular opinion on the use of Golden Rice nor on GMOs in general, but believing that it will instantly solve the social problem at stake is delusional, and such delusion is exactly part of the lobbying campaign from GMOs industrial, which, unlike GMOs themselves, is a problem.
The only way for such a technological solution to be as effective as advertised, is with strong political support and regulation allowing its very quick generalization (that's what we did with iodized salt) but one must be careful with such an approach, because its effectiveness itself is a danger if things have hidden side effect (see the adverse effects of added fluorine in tap water to prevent dental cavities).
I don't know of anyone who thinks any idea can solve any problem instantly. And I don't see where I've expressed any view of the complexity or simplicity of anything. The discussion I thought we were having is whether it is wise to try a technical solution.
Iodized salt is a good example of a technical solution success story, and the one that was top of mind for me too. I don't think anyone thinks we should have waited for the underlying social problems to clear themselves. It certainly points out that these solutions need to be implemented well and have government support in order to be successful, but that's exactly why people are so upset about the political setbacks to golden rice.
You are philosophically correct but the flaw with this argument is time and $$$. With each passing year millions of people around the world die or go blind from vitamin A deficiency. Most of these cases are due to an over-reliance on white rice in particular, making golden rice essentially a drop-in solution for much of the world’s poorest. The goal is (or should be) to stop the bleeding with golden rice while also investing in and providing education around more diverse agricultural production.
They're not just philosophically correct but probably correct in practice as well. Golden rice - especially the original version of it - is not just an easy drop-in solution. It requires the development of specific variants suited to the climate where it's grown, the original version didn't supply enough vitamin A even in an ideal scenario and had pretty major yield reductions which made the rice more expensive (which is a huge problem when poverty is one of the major reasons people are so dependentt on rice in the first place), and this was compounded by licensing restrictions which blocked both cross-border sales and most growing in countries which were self sufficient for food production.
Those licenses made it effectively unavailable both to most countries which imported their rice and most countries that were self-sufficient. I think the two countries that had early trials may well have been the only two that were both eligible to make use of it and able to do so, and in at least one case that was a result of an error which resulted in them being counted as eligible when they weren't. They mostly seem to have been a PR stunt, something big biotech could point to and claim that they'd given the world a free solution to vitamin A deficiency that was being blocked by evil anti-GMO campaigners that wanted kids to go blind.
It should be obvious that golden rice must be more expensive than traditional rice, otherwise it would not be promoted by whichever company has invented it.
Therefore it would take $$$ from the pockets "of the world’s poorest" to the pockets of that company.
Correct education is the "drop-in solution" for the poor, not convincing them to buy a more expensive "IP-protected" product, so that their lives will become dependent of the new exclusive supplier.
Golden rice want IP protected - it was part of the deal that targeted use was not too be encumbered.
The biggest "IP protections" on golden rice came from... Greenpeace and other anti-GMO activists - who wanted prevention against "accidental contamination" of non-gmo with gmo.
Been furious about this one for years. When the alternative is death and/or going blind who the fuck cares if there’s side effects? No one is saying it should end up in American grocery stores without proper testing but it could save and improve millions of lives around the world. For those who don’t know Greenpeace is essentially leading the campaign against GR via millions in “Zero GMO” funding. That kind of mindset won’t last long once wealthy nations start experiencing crop shortages caused by CC. Maize production will be first.
I don't know about you, but there is significant competition in the vitamin A space. Carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, etc. Nothing prevents anyone from promoting those today. The fact that you are myopically focusing on a single solution really tells me that the people going blind are just a side show for you.
That’s an odd and hurtful statement to make towards a stranger online. Trust me none of this is a side show for me. I’m an agricultural scientist who deeply cares about global food security and part of that is going to have to be GMOs. The fact that we can’t even try supplementing certain developing markets with golden rice because of a NGO in America where food security is mostly an afterthought is criminal.
