If You're Born In The Sky, What's Your

Nationality? An Airplane Puzzler

Here's a puzzle I bet you've never pondered.
Imagine you are very, very pregnant. For the purposes of this mind game, you are a married
American woman (with an American spouse) and you are about to board a plane and, pregnant
as you are, they let you on.
Your flight, on Lufthansa Airlines, will leave Frankfurt, Germany, and travel nonstop to the
Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. Germany is cold, wet and unhappy-making, and you crave
the aquamarine waters, the balmy skies of the Maldives.
You take off. Then, hours later, just as your plane passes 37,000 feet above Karachi, Pakistan,
heading south, your baby, in an inconvenient act of impetuosity, decides she wants to be born
right then, right there and so in row 13, business class seat 13B, you give birth to a healthy,
somewhat surprised baby girl. The moment of birth happens as you are directly above Pakistani
territory. Karachi is passing below as she emits her first cry. Everybody's fine you, the baby,
the crew.
Now comes my question. We've got an American mom on a German airplane in Pakistani
airspace. What nationality is the baby?
Is she American? German? Pakistani? Maldivian? Or some combination of those? Baby's
choice? Mom's? Pakistan's?
I ask because the question comes up in a book I'm reading, Unruly Spaces by Alastair
Bonnett. It's a book that thinks a lot about place. In this case one of the pertinent questions is,
"Who governs the air?"
Theirs All The Way Up To Heaven
There is an ancient doctrine, enshrined in English common law, that saysCuius est solum, eius
est usque ad coelum et ad inferos, which means, "Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs all the way
up to heaven and down to hell."
That was the old rule, before the advent of air balloons, then airplanes, then V2 rockets, then
spy satellites. It's been seriously amended (at least in Britain) to a much more modest: You own
the airspace necessary for "the use and enjoyment" of your plot of land. So how high up is that?
Apparently, not that high. Clouds, for example, don't belong to you.
Nations have made bolder claims to owning the sky. Some countries say their territory
extends 43 miles up, some say 99. Everyone agrees there's an upper limit, but legal theories
differ. One notion says when there's no longer enough air in the atmosphere to lift a plane, that's
where outer (and shared) space begins. Others say the private zone must include the path of an
orbiting satellite. Eight equatorial nations, in the Bogota Declaration of 1976, bumped their
claims to 22,300 miles above earth where geostationary spy satellites can park and look
down.
The Airborne Baby Question
Whatever the reach of nations, most of the Earth is covered by ocean, and nobody owns the
seas; so when traveling above the oceans, you are geopolitically nowhere or everywhere. There
is, of course, a notion from admiralty law that says if your ship is French, then while onboard,
you are legally in France.
Which means, writes Alastair Bonnett, "that if your plane is registered in Norway, even when
you are in mid-Pacific, flying between Fiji and Tahiti, you are still in Norway and have to abide
by Norwegian law." And that gets him to the Airborne Baby question:
Apparently it depends. The national registry of the airline matters. The nation you are born
over matters too. Some nations grant citizenship to fly-by babies. Some don't.
According to Alastair, "If you are born over the United States, in a foreign plane with foreign
parents, you can still claim U.S. citizenship." Really? That's so generous! (Do Brazil, Russia,
Egypt grant a flyover baby the same option?)
I may be the only person on Earth fascinated by this legal puzzle, but I bet there are some of
you out there lawyers, airline attendants, maybe even a real life "flyover baby" who know
if there's a general rule governing sky births. Is there a practice followed by most nations, or does
every case turn on its details, on its particular who, when and where?
Whatever the current practice, I have a suggestion. If you step back from our planet, and see
that thin wisp of atmosphere girdling our big blue orb, it seems that air should have a special
legal designation, with extra privileges for anybody lucky enough to be born in the sky. If I were
king of the world, babies born in airplanes, balloons and blimps would, instead of choosing to be
German, Maldivian or American, all get special heavenly blue passports with a stork on the
cover labeled "Sky Baby" and they'd be allowed to come and go anywhere they please. But
that's just me talking.
Why Vegetables Get Freakish In The Land
Of The Midnight Sun
Everything in Alaska is a little bit bigger even the produce. A 138-pound cabbage, 65-pound
cantaloupe and 35-pound broccoli are just a few of the monsters that have sprung forth from
Alaska's soil in recent years.
At the annual Alaska State Fair, which opens Thursday in Palmer, the public will have the
chance to gawk at giants like these as they're weighed for competition.
It's "definitely a freak show," the fair's crop superintendent Kathy Liska, tells The Salt. "Some
things [are so big], you can't even recognize what they are."
Several state fairs have giant crop competitions, but Alaska is known for yielding particularly
big specimens that wind up setting Guinness World Records.
It's Alaska's summer sun that gives growers an edge, says Steve Brown, an agricultural agent at
the University of Alaska Fairbanks who also serves on the fair's board of directors. Basking in as
much as 20 hours of sunshine per day, Alaskan crops get a photosynthesis bonus, allowing them
to produce more plant material and grow larger. Brassicaslike cabbage do especially well, says
Brown.
The extra sunlight also makes the produce sweeter. "People often try our carrots here, and they
think we've put sugar on them," Brown says.
But many of the biggest ones the real monsters aren't flukes; they're a product of careful
planning.
Selecting the right seed varieties is just as important as the time spent in the sunlight, says
Brown, who teaches a class on growing giants. Top Palmer growers like Scott Robb, who Brown
calls a giant vegetables "Einstein," spend years experimenting with different varieties to get a
prize winner.
"Let's face it: You're not going to win the Kentucky Derby with a mule or a Shetland pony," says
Robb, who holds five current world records for his large vegetables. "If you don't have the right
genetic material, you're never going to achieve that ultimate goal."
Indeed, it took him 20 years to break the cabbage record in 2012, when he brought in a 138.25-
pounder.
Hopeful giant cultivators start their seeds in January, under grow lights in greenhouses. For
months, they transfer their plants into larger and larger pots until May when the ground is finally
warm enough for them.
Up until the fair, growers must protect their pedigreed vegetables. Robb said that when he
started, he would stay up all night to guard his veggies from hungry moose; eventually he put up
an electrified fence to keep them out. Brown also says serious growers may construct elaborate
watering and fertilization systems for their produce to ensure they get exactly what they need.
"It really reminds me of Frankenstein's laboratory," Brown says. "If you were to go visit
somebody who was growing a giant veggie for this fair, I think the thing that what would
impress you is how much science and technology goes into this."
Giants can sprout unexpectedly, too. Such was the case with Roger Boshears, a state fair herbs
judge and hobbyist gardener who once took a second-place ribbon for a large tomato he pulled
from his garden.
"It's not something that we're aiming for," Boshears says of his fellow amateurs. "It's something
that happens."
Not all fruits and vegetables thrive in Alaska. Watermelons and tomatoes, for instance, which
love the heat, have a tougher time. But "there are Alaskans that will grow watermelons in
greenhouses just to be able to say they did it," Brown says.
As the vegetable hotbed of Alaska, the town of Palmer has its roots in a New Deal-era program
to bring Midwestern farming families north to establish an agricultural colony.
The fair held there has two rounds of crop competitions along with separate competitions for
pumpkins and, the main attraction, cabbages (on Aug. 29). The winning specimens are donated
to the animals at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center when the fair concludes.
Robb says he has high hopes for winning the title for some rutabagas he's been cultivating, but
he's worried that fellow Alaskan and friendly rival Steve Hubacek could threaten his perch as the
cabbage record-holder.
"I'd hate to lose it right away," Robb says of his record. "Then again, if Steve beats me, boy, my
hat's off to him because I know how hard it is."

No. 1 Most Expensive Coffee Comes From
Elephant's No. 2
I s#&% you not: The world's most expensive coffee is now being produced in Thailand's Golden
Triangle, a region better known for another high-priced, if illegal, export: opium.
Canadian entrepreneur Blake Dinkin, 44, is betting his life savings that he can turn his idea into,
well, gold. Here's the catch: His Black Ivory Coffeeis made by passing coffee beans through the
not insubstantial stomachs of elephants and then picking the beans out of, well, yeah, that.
It's similar to Kopi Luwak, the civet coffee that was all the rage a few years back; Dinkin has just
supersized the idea.
He knows Kopi Luwak's image has been trashed because of concerns over counterfeiting, disease
and animal abuse. But he insists there's nothing fake or frivolous about Black Ivory
Coffee.
"I wouldn't spend 10 years and put my life savings on this if I didn't think it's for real, or I
thought it was just going to be an overnight gag."
Gag. Right. Let's just dispense with the jokes here and now, shall we?
"Crappacino," "Brew No. 2," "Good to the last dropping" Dinkin has heard them all.
And while he's a good sport about it, it's clear he's tired of them, too. He'd rather talk about what
makes his brew different and better than Kopi Luwak. And it starts with the idea that
elephants, unlike humans or civets, are herbivores.
"They eat a lot of grass and a lot of green, leafy matter. A herbivore, to break that down, utilizes
fermentation to break down that cellulose," he says. "Fermentation is great for things like wine
or beer or coffee, because it brings out the sugar in the bean, and it helps impart the fruit from the
coffee pulp into the bean."
And that fermentation that helps remove the bitterness, Dinkins says, is what makes his coffee
unique.
"I want people to taste the bean, not just the roast," he says. "The aroma is floral and chocolate;
the taste is chocolate malt with a bit of cherry; there's no bitterness; and it's very soft, like tea. So
it's kind of like a cross between coffee and tea."
To get to that point, the coffee beans are mixed into a mash with fruit, then fed to the elephants
either by mouth, or hoovered right up the trunk. The latter pretty much sounds like a whole lot of
change being sucked up a vacuum cleaner hose.
Then you wait anywhere from one to three days for the elephant to offload its cargo, pick the
beans out of the elephant dung (if you can find it), lather, rinse, repeat. It's not always easy
finding "the result," which is one of the reasons it takes about 33 pounds of coffee beans to make
just 1 pound of Black Ivory Coffee.
And it's not just the slower cooker that makes the coffee different, Dinkin says. He sources his
Arabica beans from hill tribes in the north of Thailand near the border with Myanmar. The
drying process is long, and the roasting process is precise.
And then there are the elephants. Specifically, how do you go about finding willing vessels?
What would you do if some guy cold-called you and said he wanted to use your elephants as
slow cookers?
John Roberts, the director of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, remembers this.
"As long as we could prove that there was no caffeine or anything else harmful leaking out, then
it was worth trying, at least," he says.
Was Roberts worried about the elephants hitting the mash a little too hard? Not really.
"It's not necessarily elephants getting buzzed that I'm too worried about, it's elephants missing
their caffeine fix and having headaches and being bad-tempered. ... It's very dangerous. The last
thing you want is a cranky elephant," says Roberts.
So what does brew No. 2 taste like? I bought a serving five or six espresso cups for $70,
and sat on the terrace of the five-star Anantara Golden Triangle hotel to watch Dinkin prepare
the "experience."
First, he ground it lovingly. Then he brewed it, again with love. And then, after it cooled, I was
ready.
The first thing that came to my (admittedly) juvenile mind was a scenefrom an Austin Powers
movie where he says, "It's a bit nutty."
And, in fact, the elephant poop coffee wasa bit nutty, but also very flavorful and not at all bitter
just as Dinkin had promised.
I then went inside to pimp a few cups to hotel guests. As luck would have it, the first I met was a
Finn and the Finns drink more coffee per capita than anyone else in the world. That made
Juha Hiekkamaki the perfect subject as he sipped tentatively.
"Yes, that's very interesting, because usually I use sugar with coffee. But this is quite a gentle
taste, and, yeah, I quite like that," he noted.
Then it got better, because his wife, Claire, is a Brit, and she doesn't even drink coffee. Her
verdict?
"It's sort of fruity," she said. "Well, OK, it's raisin-y to me. I normally describe drinking coffee as
a bit like drinking puddle water. But it hasn't got that horrible muddy water flavor afterwards,
which is really nice. I really like it."
Don't expect Black Ivory in a Starbucks near you. Dinkin is selling an experience, limited for
now to five-star hotels and resorts in Asia and the Middle East and one tiny store in Comfort,
Texas, called The Elephant Story, where the profits go to elephant conservation.
"I'm not looking to produce a lot of this," Dinkin says. "I just want to keep it as a small, niche
business. I get to work with people I really enjoy being with, I can make a decent living from it,
and everyone's happy. That's what I want."
He's still not quite there, but he says he's close to breaking even.

When Venus Was Filled With Venusians
50 Billion Of Them
What a difference 180 years makes.
Back in the 1830s, a Scottish minister and amateur astronomer namedThomas Dick tried to
calculate the number of intelligent creatures in the universe. He assumed that all heavenly bodies
supported intelligent life, maybe not exactly like us, but similar to us in size and habits of living.
Then he took population figures for Great Britain and, assuming that space aliens lived just as
densely, he projected populations onto various planets.
There are, he decided, 50 billion Venusians living on Venus.
Mars, he thought, had 15 billion Martians.
22 Trillion Times 31
Jupiter? Seven trillion Jupiterinos or whatever you call them. He even thought that Saturn's
rings were totally occupied by 8 trillion inhabitants on the rings alone! In the end, he figured
our solar system was home to 22 trillion individuals, and that, he said, did not include the
sun. The sun, he thought could support an additional 31 times as many creatures because it
only seemed sensible that every celestial orb was, in effect, a floating shelter for somebody.
Everything you could see in the sky was a home.
A generation earlier, the brilliant astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus)
felt pretty much the same way. In 1794, he also said the sun was probably inhabited, "like the
rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast
globe." Somehow, sun-dwellers had learned not to boil.
Itty Bitty Life
That was then. Today we are in a very different mood. We have ceased to expect any life form
that's intelligent (or even large) in our solar system, other than life here on Earth. We spend our
exploratory dollars painstakingly searching for little bits of microbial life or, failing that, we
hope to turn up a rare fossil remnant of a life that blinked out hundreds of millions of years ago.
Instead of Thomas Dick's universe jampacked with creatures, we are even imagining the radical
alternative, that there is nobody anywhere except for us.
If that's too depressing (or improbable), then there's the thought that if intelligent life exists
elsewhere, it is so remote, so hard to find, we may never make contact. In the end, we may never
know for sure if we are unique, extraordinary or commonplace. We just won't know. Ever.
That's a sad falling off from the exuberance of the 1830s. But stick around. The mood, says
Columbia University astrobiology professorCaleb Scharf could change and soon. In his new
book, The Copernicus Complex, he addresses the riddle of life in the universe and says, "We are
much, much closer to an answer than we have ever been in the history of the human species; we
are on the cusp of knowing."
Whoa!
What's changed? Professor Scharf says we now have the tools we need though I suspect they
will have to be refined to spot life's true colors. And when we look across the universe, that's
what we should be looking for, he argues: colors. Telltale colors.
Given the "right instruments," he writes, we will soon be able to target a planet, and look at the
light reflecting from its atmosphere (if it has one) and, by reading a spectrograph that tracks
colors, we will see, in effect, signs of life.
To oversimplify, let's pretend we see a planet that looks like this ...
And let's say the presence of yellow (I'm making this up) is evidence of oxygen, while the
presence of pink is evidence of methane. So this planet has both oxygen and methane floating in
its air. So?
So, says Scharf, oxygen and methane are not usually found floating in an atmosphere. They
normally combine with other elements and disappear from the air. "Detecting both of these
gasses in an atmosphere ... tells us that something must be continually replenishing them, and
one of the best sources is life itself." So this planet now has a "biosignature" essentially a
chemical exclamation point that says, "Check me out! I may be a Carrier of Life."
With 1,700 planets already discovered (700 just in the past year), biosignatures give us
something specific to look for.
We already use color spectrum technology to map changes on Earth. Satellites use reflected light
to track growing and shrinking lakes, deserts, forests, meadows, parking lots, beaches. Low-level
plants reflect 10 times the usual near-infrared light. What's happening low on the ground sends
different reflections back up to space, and there's hope, writes Scharf, "that as we get better and
better at capturing the light from distant worlds ... we may spot these biosignatures."
If a tinge of blue, a hint of green, a splash of infrared catches our eye, that doesn't mean we're
glimpsing anything intelligent. After all, for most of Earth's history, the only beings around were
(to quote New York Timesreporter George Johnson) "unicellular slime." Slime may leave a
signal, but it isn't fun. Saturnal Ring Beings by the trillions? That's a party.
But once we see slime's telltale colors, then we can narrow our search, look closer, and maybe,
just maybe, improve our chances of finding E.T.
If E.T. is out there, he, she, it is probably inhaling, exhaling, creating waste, making noise,
building, buzzing about, leaving, as Caleb Scharf says, "a filthy fingerprint" of color which
points straight back to its home like a rainbow landing in what would truly be a pot of gold
the secret address of our nearest neighbor.