Statement from members of the earth and space science international community.

We are Earth and space scientists, science communicators, and educators dedicated to the discovery of and solutions to societal challenges. We issue this joint statement to call on world governments and global leaders to do everything possible to expedite the end to the brutal Russian assault on Ukraine. We welcome other professional scientific communities to join our appeal.

1. The Earth and Space Community is an ecosystem of researchers working together and supporting each other. At this moment, our colleagues in Ukraine are being shelled with missiles and many have been forced to escape with their families from the war zone. We salute “Science for Ukraine” grassroots efforts and urge world governments to support Ukrainian students and science professionals.

“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe,” observes physicist Michio Kaku. The neocortex, observed Carl Sagan is where “matter is transformed into consciousness.” Located deep in the brain’s center, the subcortex, the most evolutionarily ancient part of our brain, processes everything from our basic senses to long-term memories.

“Most Perfectly Organized Part”

Noble Prize laureate Roger Penrose suggest that the human brain and its cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper, is more complex than our Milky Way Galaxy. “If you look at the entire physical cosmos,” Penrose says, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they’re the most perfectly organized part.”

Odd radio circles, or ORCs, are so massive that they measure about a million light-years across — 16 times bigger than our Milky Way galaxy. Now, astronomers have captured the best image yet of these strange celestial objects.