Category: Geeking Science

Geeking Science: A Leopard Never Changes Its Spots, but Life Might

Erin Penn Leave a comment

An annotated version of the image of “Cheyava Falls” indicates the markings akin to leopard spots, which have particularly captivated scientists, and the olivine in the rock. The image was captured by the WATSON instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on July 18, 2024.

Way back in July 2024, Perseverance found a rock with spotted with little circular discolorings in an old riverbed. Spots akin to leopard spots, a shape, which if found on Earth would mean life, microbial life but life none-the-less. Finding existence of previous life on Mars would be a HUGE thing.

Until life is proved to at least occurred once elsewhere, humanity doesn’t know if Earth’s living biosphere is a one-off fluke, or part of a possible larger web across the cosmos.

You would think scientists would be shouting this evidence of possible life from the highest mountains, but Mars isn’t Earth and the circles could mean anything. The first thing is to figure if there is any other way the rock could be discolored in this manner. Any rock formation process. Any geological process. Any weather process. Scientists have spent a year investigating.

And found nothing to discount their sacred search for life.

But still, to declare “life” (or even “compelling potential biosignature”) without examining the actual source isn’t part of a rigorous scientific process. If only the scientists could examine the rock directly…

Perseverance took a sample of the rock and stored it away in a little rock collection to be picked up and returned to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return program. Such a diligent little Rover; its beautiful rock collection all packaged up to return in 2033.

By Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech, Attribution,
Core Sample #22 – “Sapphire Canyon” is the one with the “leopard spots” – second from right on the bottom

Well, life on Earth has changed and is changing. The plan to return a bunch of rocks isn’t flashy for politics, so the program is on the cutting board. All the work by Perseverance, a collection of dozens of small samples, waiting to be shown off to its parental-creators is likely to sit waiting, maybe forever. Plans change.

A leopard never changes its spots, but life does.

Bibliography

Holt, Cassian. “Mars leopard spots just popped up, and they resemble life signatures.” MSN.com. 5 January 2026. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/mars-leopard-spots-just-popped-up-and-they-resemble-life-signatures/ar-AA1TCd5H – last viewed 1/15/2026.

Kuthunur, Sharmila. “’Poppy seeds’ and ‘leopard spots’ on Mars could hit at ancient microbial life.” Space.com. 14 March 2025. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/poppy-seeds-and-leopard-spots-on-mars-could-hint-at-ancient-microbial-life – last viewed 1/15/2026.

Morelle, Rebecca. “Life on Mars? ‘Leopard-spot’ rocks could be biggest clue yet.” BBC. 10 September 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd725pj0g9ro – last viewed 1/15/2026.

NASA/JPL-Caltech. “Perseverance Finds a Rock with ‘Leopard Spots.’” NASA. 25 July 2024. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/perseverance-finds-a-rock-with-leopard-spots/ – last viewed 1/15/2026.

Nye, Bill. “New Findings Underscore Why We Must Explore.” The Planetary Report: A magazine of the Planetary Society. December 2026 V. 45, N. 04.

Pearson, Ezzy. “These strange markings are the ‘clearest sign’ of aliens on Mars, say NASA.” BBC Science Focus. 21 September 2025. https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/leopard-spots-alien-life-mars – last viewed 1/15/2026.

Wikipedia. “NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA-ESA_Mars_Sample_Return – last viewed 1/15/2026.

Geeking Science: Tumbleweed Rovers

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Pink Lady in the Negev Desert, credit to OEWF/AMADEE20.

Exploring space is challenging, especially on a budget, but the challenge can bring innovations. For example, instead of robots landing on Mars under a controlled descent, they now bounce some of them, saving fuel and materials, devoting the weight to better things. If you want to learn more about landings on Mars, check out Nasa’s article on “How We Land on Mars”. ( https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/mars-exploration/mission-timeline/how-we-land-on-mars/ )

After landing, the next question is how to explore the planet. Ever present-telescopes and satellites provide a lot of information, but to really get to know a planet, you need to get in the dirt. The first Mars landers stayed in place. Next came the wonderfully determined rovers. Most recently humans have added drones, little hovercraft, atmosphere permitting – which Mars does have, as our eyes on planets far away. (9/21/2023 Geeking Science: Drone Ingenuity) Earlier this year, I talked about the development of wormlike rovers to explore ice planets (2/20/2025 Geeking Science: EELS) and a variation on space RVing, taking the laboratory with you. (4/23/2025 Geeking Science: T is for Toyota RV Lunar Life)

The most recent innovation – blowing in the wind. The “rover” is a tumbleweed with minor control having a weight encouraging the device to roll one way or the other in the wind. Instead of rovers measuring progress in inches a day, or even yards with the wonderful Ingenuity, these sixteen-foot spheres may average 0.22 miles per hour. Scientists say under optimal conditions, a tumbleweed rover may cover as much as 1,740 miles. (Mendenhall) Although, the expectation is to average 250 miles in the 100 sol life expectency.  To put this in perspective, hard-working Opportunity traveled 28.1 miles total (Beck).

Because of the small, light size of the design, the Tumbleweed Mission doesn’t plan to drop one or two rovers, but a swarm of ninety of them. (Kingsnorth) Some will be dropped randomly providing maps for future explorations and settlements. Some may be dropped in “hill country”, places where rovers can’t climb, but look like water has flowed. Plans are still being formed.

These designs have been in the works over fifteen years. (Discover) They have reached the concept testing point of wind tunnels and live tests (under Earth’s gravity and wind). Next trip out to Mars, funding permitting here in America or in one of the other National space agencies like EU or Japan or China, might scatter this wind-blown explorers.

Isn’t science amazing?

 

Bibliography 

Beck, Kellen. “Every rover, rankled by distance traveled on the moon and Mars.” Mashable.com. 2021 August 14. https://mashable.com/article/moon-mars-rover-distance-driven – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Cooper, Keith. “Tumbleweed-inspired Mars rovers could be blown across the Red Planet.” Space.com. 2025 September 30. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/mars-rovers/tumbleweed-inspired-mars-rovers-could-be-blown-across-the-red-planet – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Discover. “Tumbleweed Rovers Could Explore Mars.” 2010-ish (says 15 years ago). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JQyPKLCYPQ – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Europlanet. “Press Release: Tumbleweed Rover Tests Demonstrate Transformative Technology for Low-Cost Mars Exploration.” https://www.europlanet.org/epsc-dps2025-tumbleweed-rover-tests-demonstrate-transformative-technology-for-low-cost-mars-exploration/ – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

JPL. “Tumbleweed Rover Concept for in situ Martian Exploration.” Nasa.gov. (undated) https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/what-we-do/research-tasks/tumbleweed-rover-concept-for-in-situ-martian-exploration/ – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Kingsnorth, James, et. al. “A Swarm of Wind-Driven Tumbleweed Rovers for in-situ Mapping of Radiation, Water‑Equivalent Hydrogen and Magnetic Fields on Mars.” Europlanet – Division for Planetary Sciences. https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025/EPSC-DPS2025-1779.html – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Mendenhall, Brooks. “The wind-driven future of Mars exploration.” MSN.com. 2o25 October. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-wind-driven-future-of-mars-exploration/ar-AA1NOXYu – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Nasa. “How We Land On Mars.” Nasa.gov. undated (likely updated after each new landing on Mars). https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/mars-exploration/mission-timeline/how-we-land-on-mars/ – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Team Tumbleweed. “The Next Generation of Mars Exploration.” Website. https://www.teamtumbleweed.eu/mars/ – Last viewed 10/9/2025.

Other Cool Blogs: Elle Cordova

Erin Penn Leave a comment

You have seen her battle as the Grammarian, trade veiled insults as fonts, rap about science, follow her stolen iPhone across the glove, host book clubs,  and so many other things. Elle Cordova is witty, wonderful, and worth watching. Befriend her on at least one of her platforms so you are never without her humor.

Her patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/ellecordova?utm_source=campaign-search-results ) gives you access to her book club and has monthly levels of $4, $12, and $20 (if you want to and are able to support her creativity). It does look like she has enough people (at the moment) to produce content full-time which provides us with entertainment as she can devote a few days to craft amazing ditties like “Monster Slash” (it’s a short and doesn’t copy and paste into websites.

I have subscribed to her both on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/@ElleCordova/featured ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@elle.cordova ). She also has a facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/ellecordovamusic ), and likely other social medias platforms. Her name is unique enough that if she is there, it will show up in a search.

From YouTube, here is one of the many conversations Fonts have had:

 

Geeking Science: Not not wrong

Erin Penn Leave a comment


ID 36641551 @ Mohammed Anwarul Kabir Choudhury | Dreamstime.com

“She’s not not wrong.”

I stare at the sentence in the middle of my edit. A double-negative – kill, burn with fire!!!

Except…it’s in dialog. Rules are different there. They need to match the character and how they talk. Also, well, the scene, … the woman isn’t right, but she’s also not wrong. Can she be only “She’s not wrong.”? Or is the impact of the double negative “not not” needed to get the shade of meaning just right?

How does that work? How does the mind twist the meaning between halves of negative? Or is it three negatives? Is “wrong” a negative?

If double negatives are so frowned on, why does each generation use them? Other things have worked their way out of our language, but double-negatives refuse to die.

A 2024 study might give some insight to the problem. They are studying negation for AI programming purposes. AI hates negations because, even with the simpler “She’s not wrong”, it isn’t an absolute but this shade of gray depending on the people involved, what is happening, and the present cultural circumstances. “She’s not wrong.” isn’t “She’s right.” and, at this time, AI programming cannot handle it. Running into a negative makes the large-model language-processing computer flip everything to the opposite meaning, and that is NOT the case. (Devitt)

What happens, scientists have discovered is “not” mitigates the adjective. “Not hot” doesn’t mean cold, but, depending on the circumstance, meanings vary anywhere from “it won’t catch on fire” to “it won’t burn your tongue” to “room temperature.” Basically, “not” is letting you know that the normal things a HOT version of “this” (whatever “this” is) is not what will happen with this object. The firewood isn’t going to reignite, the pizza isn’t napalm on your tongue, and the coffee might need a run through the microwave before you drink it.

The test monitored reaction time to words on a screen as well as brain function. Negations slowed things down, forcing further engagement from the reader. The connections had to be processed and weighed to consider how “not” is the “not.” And while they didn’t cover double negatives, I bet these logical nightmares force even further engagement.

How does this apply to writing and editing?

Well, while we want the reader engaged with the reading, we don’t want them to work for understanding. Clarity is the ruler of the fiction world, and double-negatives (and it looks like normal negatives as well) decrease clarity. Shades of meaning: nearly, only, almost – add tension to the storytelling. “Not” adds tension as well. But too much uncertainty releases tension; the story just isn’t almost there.

For the publication community, the recommendation would be sharpen clarity and certainty in the narrative. The narrator voice should be trustworthy and easy to understand. The reader should breeze through the narrator voice, not stumbling on words and cutting shades of double-negatives to figure if the not-not-wrong is dark, light, or medium gray.

Dialog, though, can slow things down. Usually a dialog page has less words, but more character reveal. The words on the page are both part of the forward motion of the plot and the character development. Shades of gray, figuring what the character knows by what they are saying and what they are hiding and what they are misdirecting.

Negation should be in every writer’s toolbox, and every editor should hone the tool for best use within storytelling.

Who would have thought Negation is where “philosophers, psychologists, logicians, and linguists” (Zuanazzi) overlap with writers, editors, and readers?

Bibliography

Devitt, James. “How does the word ‘not’ affect your understanding of phrases.” Futurity.org. 2024 June 3. https://www.futurity.org/negation-language-interpretation-brains-3226342-2/ – last viewed 10/13/2025.

Zuanazzi, Arianna, et.al. “Negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representation of adjectives.” PLOS Biology. 2024 May 30. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002622 – last viewed 10/13/2025

 

Other Cool Blogs: Sky and Telescope

Erin Penn Leave a comment

3i/ATLAS is hurdling our way, the third confirmed and recorded interstellar object, believed to have come from much closer to the Milky Way core on its way out to the infinite.

David L. Chandler on July 28, 2025 did an article for Sky & Telescope “Interstellar Comet 3i/ATLAS: What We Know Now”. Lots of cool details about this fleet-footed visitor. What I enjoyed most about the article is the section on “Capturing the Comet at Perihelion”. Timing is crucial to see Comet 3i/ATLAS closest approach to the sun, and for Earth observation, it’s not happening. We will be on the other side of the sun. But because we have machines scattered throughout the system, there is a chance for the satellites we have around Mars and Jupiter to see what happens when this unique comet is at its warmest. It will take some finagling and cooperation. What sends me Geeking is we have OPTIONS, even when Earth isn’t in the right spot. This is what science does. It gives so many options.

If Sky & Telescope publishes stuff that is your jam, you might want to go over to that Other Cool Blog, read up on 3i/ATLAS and other astronomy news. – full URL: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-what-we-know-now/