You may not have known that you can hear whales singing jazz, or that you can tune in to a big bang with a small transistor. That the world no longer shines like it used to, or that the songs have become sadder since we started listening to them in MP3 format. These are just some of the amazing stories it contains. whales sing jazz (Ariel), the first book by science journalist Mario Vichios.

Turned to Alice – an alien – an earthling named Bob is responsible for telling stories with wonder and wonder, over and over again, whether they will be understood from space. Because Visiosa has no doubt that somewhere, some form of life is waiting to be discovered. “It is statistically unlikely that there is life anywhere else,” he explains. Independent“I almost absolutely believe it; the fact that we can communicate with them is already more difficult.”

Difficult, despite the fact that we have tried for half a century, as a journalist who has published many of his videos in Independent. The Voyager space probes that were supposed to traverse the solar system carried the first disks of information engraved on gold to try and deliver a message into outer space. Visiosa is more reluctant that this link could ever be established: “With current technology it is unlikely, with future technology it is possible, but it is already more difficult to share the link code. Moreover, it is possible, as Dimitar Saselov says, that we found life somewhere, but did not realize it.”

It is to identify the life that we can find outside that humanity has been trying to create life since the middle of the last century. “This is a bit like the starting point of Dr. Frankenstein trying to create a living being from inert elements. This is less literary, but brings us closer to a kind of primordial soup, a nutrient medium in which a series of chemical elements, subjected to certain conditions of pressure, temperature, and possibly electricity, begin to organize in such a way that they generate molecules that can subsequently be obtained in DNA. And from there you have an instruction with which you can create things that are reproducible and therefore approach the idea of ​​life,” explains Vysiosa.

And that, perhaps, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpeople’s lives is “biased”. “That’s why it’s interesting to try to create it on earth, or at least find out what the main ingredients of this original soup are necessary for life, which may not be so many and they are not so special.” However, the author of Whales Sing Jazz fears that this life is not the one dreamed of and projected in books and films. “We may be somewhat disappointed when we find life that is somewhat similar to bacteria, but it will be just as revolutionary. This will show us that we are not unique or exceptional.”

In addition to this life laboratory, people also produce stardust and do so in Madrid. A world-unique machine, stardust, which was previously located in the basement of the Autonomous University, is capable of producing stardust, as Vichiosa revealed in Independent.

“Using a range of raw materials, it is subjected to temperatures, pressures and radiation to recreate the chemical reactions that take place in stars and in interstellar space. It’s actually a set of tubes insulated with white paper… something so mundane that it works so effectively,” explains Vysiosa.

As far away as these stars, there is still an echo of the Big Bang, the moment when the first stars were formed. An echo that can be heard from a transistor radio or television. “Very little of that white noise or snow that we saw on analog television or heard on the radio is the reverberation of that first explosion,” Visiosa explains, “because the most distant objects in space emit radio signals.” In fact, there is a transistor in the desert in Australia, which, at a frequency closer to our commercial FM, has a dot on the dial that was able to tune not to a big bang, but to the moment when the first stars lit up. up. We are in harmony with our past and history.”

Many centuries after the Big Bang, people still have much to discover, and it has recently been revealed that coral bowhead whales sing jazz. The study that gave Vichiosa’s book its title dates back to 2018 and was conducted by a University of Washington researcher. “She found rhythmic and singing patterns, which she then improvised. That is, they have bases, and from there they build repertoires of songs that they modify. They are reminiscent of jazz and especially songs like Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man.”

Bob also wants to warn Alice that the earth no longer shines like it used to. “Perhaps they figured it out because the outside of the earth is looking worse and worse, literally, because it is losing its luster due to climate change. Since much of what reflects sunlight, such as ice, has disappeared, it causes the light to reflect less and therefore shine less for several years.

Another story that Bob wants to convey to Alice is that time no longer passes the way it used to on earth. “It’s curious because we thought the Earth was slowing down, which made sense. When the earth was young, the days were shorter. But in recent years, it has been measured that the Earth has picked up a bit of rhythm again,” Visiosa explains. “The Earth doesn’t have a precise rotation time, which has to do with how the Earth is built internally and with its own dynamics.” This meant that a few years later had to add seconds, as in 2016, something has already been done, explains Mario from San Fernando (Cádiz). “There is an observatory of the Royal Navy, a place where time is measured in Spain. At Tres Cantos, a series of atomic clocks and masers are guarded, which are very precisely coordinated, because time flows differently near the sea than at altitude, because the closer to the center of the Earth, the faster it flows. And they are coordinating their actions internationally.”

As a science communicator, author of Whales Sing Jazz believes the pandemic has been a great moment for his industry. “I think it was noticed that it was done better than we thought, it was done better and with more expert opinions than ever. There were also hoaxes, but the result was favorable, especially in Spain, where this was evident, for example, in vaccination rates.

Whether this will surprise the aliens we don’t know, although Vicious thinks Alice would be scared of how we treat the earth. “I think he would not like the way we are treating our own planet because of this zoonotic pandemic, which was probably related to the devastation of ecosystems in which certain reservoirs of animals lived. And for sure the next viral pandemic will be caused by something like that.”

Vicious also wonders, smiling, if the aliens would be interested in her letters. “Or, even worse, if we haven’t heard from them, because they have already heard from us and are not interested in dialogue. Because in this case it would be an exercise in people, that is, we tell them what they already know and they are not interested in anything. It would be dramatic to discover it, but it is possible,” he states with a laugh.