Slashdot Mirror

For all we know, life could be able to live at thousands of degrees hot. You just don't know.

Yes I do.

You'd be amazed at where life can exist. Coincidentally, just a week ago they found bacteria living 2.8km down in a mine, that also fueled speculation of 'life on Mars'.

Some really cool critters we've known about for a while exist in the Deep Sea ocean vents, and subsist off the chemicals coming through the cracks in the Earth's crust. Another one people didn't hear too much about were bacteria that lived on top of the Surveyor 3 craft that went to the moon and back with the Apollo 11 crew, and basically survived for 3 years in space on nothing. (I remember this stuff because I wrote a paper on the feasibility of life on a planet without a Sun.)

As a biochemist, you value experimental data. Many common earthly micro-organisms can survive under Martian conditions. Scientists have put samples of soil in containers called "Mars jars", where the atmospheric temperature, composition, pressure and dryness are close to those of Mars. Some of the micro-organisms in the samples always survive.

Consider the dry valleys in Antarctica, nearly as harsh except for the radiation, which you can avoid by living a few centimeters down.

origin of life

another source

millions of sources

Life doesnt "begin" on a meteorite, but the building blocks can be found on meteorites. Meteorites have been found to contain amino acids, protiens widely considered the building blocks of life.

There could still be free-flowing water under the ice with life swimming around in it.

Highly unlikely...scientists believe that there may be liquid water under the ice of Europa (I assume that's the parallel you're attempting to draw here) because of the heating caused by the tidal action of Jupiter's gravity (don't take my word for it...here's an informative link).

As far out from the Sun as this planet is, it is certain that it recieves an insufficient supply of either radiation or tidal friction to warm water ice to the melting point.

After a quick Google search, it appears that initial spark is suprisingly apt! Accident, it appears, was helped along...

Europa is one of the top candidates for supporting extra-terrestrial life in this solar system.

I don't find your assumptions reasonable at all.

Also, when I say evolution, I mean "The Theory of Evolution," and assume everyone else does, too. They should at least, because they often then go on about how it's "just a theory" and again are being sloppy about the definition of a scientific theory. You can't nitpick enough on this, since this is the kind of crap that shows up in school board meetings where someone tries to slip in some version of creationism as also "just a theory" when it isn't scientific and hasn't passed any tests. Nitpicking back.

The assumption of 1/10 of a bacterium is outrageous, for instance. The primitive Earth can make amino acids, easy, and other moderately complex organic molecules. From there you need merely the minimum self-replicating unit to get going, a piece of RNA perhaps, and there are scenarios to construct it that are plausible. Not necessarily likely, but much more plausible than the numbers you're slinging. You might check out this NASA page with more information.

Yer what??

"Flamebait is a message posted to an Internet discussion group, such as a newsgroup or a mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame")." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamebait

I'll admit that I can barely restrain myself from posting an angry response, but not to the post, which is well thought out and informative, and properly backed up with links to a serious article, and a relevant image.

..First I should note that if microbes exist then they should leave a trail... And that trail may be as big as to be visible from above: Life on Mars: Giant Fossils http://www.resa.net/nasa/mars_life_gifossil.htm

This isn't even slightly contentious. Bacteria do exist in huge colonies. Their secretions or their dead bodies can build up into huge structures, in much the same way that small creatures produce coral reefs. Huge fossil bacterial mounds are so common that there is a name for them, stromatolites. They can be seen from above, often from a great height. Anyone following the link would have discovered this. If Mars has followed a similar evolutionary path, stromatolites should be even more visible there than on Earth, because there has been little recent biological activity there that might cover them up or recycle them into something else like there has been on Earth.

Second there's the chemistry of rocks. The more deep we study them, the better we get into their evolution. In some cases the "phases" or "cycles" of processes around certain minerals can be done only with the help of microorganisms.

Again a perfectly valid point, in an informative post by a person who seems to have a good professional grasp of his subject.

..

http://cydonia.ksu.ru/parafossil/parafossilA.png

Is that a fossil? Well that thing has many things that point to organics. ...

and the writer goes on to point out those things. But he admits the object could be a tiny lump of stone that just happens to be nearly symmetrical, and just happens to have the other characteristics mentioned. On its own it is not conclusive.

But the worst this something has is the fact that is laying there lonely and unique. ..So until someone gets a better enhancement of that (there are six frames of that rock) or we find something similar, it will remain something.

But compare it e.g. to the dark object on the right hand side in http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20040323a/Dells_C-B058R1_br.jpg

- and spot the similarities. Two specimens of the same fossil species? It's hard to be sure because the parafossilA.png object is well eroded, but there's a definite similarity in shape. And there is a very large number of other fossil candidates in the Nasa images. Nothing is laying there "lonely and unique".

The planet is quite dead and you don't need microscopes to be sure of that.

Now I would say that really is contentious. But it's hardly flamebait in the context of this site, because it agrees with the scientific consensus.

Well there people here thinking on searching for microbial Life. Many may think they need a microscope for that. First I should note that if microbes exist then they should leave a trail... And that trail may be as big as to be visible from above:

Life on Mars: Giant Fossils

Second there's the chemistry of rocks. The more deep we study them, the better we get into their evolution. In some cases the "phases" or "cycles" of processes around certain minerals can be done only with the help of microorganisms.

Third there are fossils. Even if Mars would be only populated by minuscle bacteria, that would not forbid them of creating colonies or produce large-scale deformations on rocks.

However to have a clue, no one can be sure of it even if it gets right in his face a something following Knoll's criterium the harshest criteria to find fossils that NASA stands for (and maybe correctly). For example I saw something that nears that criterium:

http://cydonia.ksu.ru/parafossil/parafossilA.png

Is that a fossil? Well that thing has many things that point to organics. It has a interachange of structures looking like sections or segments of our animals. The bent structure in the middle of the rock suggests some kind of elasticity of the strcture. those holes are cavities and suggest very thiny walls, what excludes a mineral origin, through crystallization. The structure seems to have a bifurcation. If you see well then that zone has something looking much like the structure of the muscles in animals venous systems...

Is that a fossil? Well maybe, so I call it a pseudo/para fossil or, as some name it fossiloid. But this could be a trick of nature. No it is not a trick of JPEG as that picture is a composite with perliminar blur, besides two originals already show those lines without enhancement. So it is SOMETHING (no it is not a stupid bunny or a Message of Mars to Earth in Maori). But the worst this something has is the fact that is laying there lonely and unique. It could be a vent of hot mineral waters. It could be a sequence of events that lead to such a unique structure. We had once Faces there, remember? Truly quite fussy. So until someone gets a better enhancement of that (there are six frames of that rock) or we find something similar, it will remain something.

In fact the only way to find life there is to accumulate evidence. Even if it is only with the help of a microscope. But using ONLY a microscope, that will be like finding a needle in the haystack. The planet is quite dead and you don't need microscopes to be sure of that. So where they were/are is also a pretty serious question

The first computer I learned to program was a Cosmac ELF, which had an 1802 CPU and 256 bytes of RAM. No ROM or disk drive of any kind, but it also had a low-res black-and-white video chip and RF modulator that let it be connected to a TV. Programs had to be entered directly into memory as machine language, using a hexadecimal keyboard. I got to the point where I could enter -- from memory -- a program to play 'Greensleeves' on the built-in speaker. The first original program I wrote generated dial pulses. I hooked the ELF to the telephone line using a relay, and used it to call my sister, who was sadly unimpressed with my new-found hacking skills.

1802 had 16 registers, but it was a really awkward architecture. Z80 is probably a more powerful chip. I think the only reason the 1802 was popular in space probes was because it was the first CMOS CPU, and one of the few available in a radiation-hardened version. I can only imagine writing error-correcting code in 1802 assembly language (shudder).

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2948/or gel.html

http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html

http://www.resa.net/nasa/origins_life.htm

W e l l , I 'l l l e t y o u d e c i d e f o r y o u r s e l f .

I was briefly annoyed when I saw this article, but fortunately the scientists were smarter than the blurb made them sound. Of course throwing some random bacteria into space won't prove anything about the long-term space-endurance of their entire form of life. Bacteria, thanks to their rudimentary life-support needs and short generations, can undergo some truly striking mutations. The extremophiles are a group of bacteria that have evolved to live in ridiculously inhospitable extremes of heat, cold, and toxicity. Some species grow optimally at >100C and pH1.0 -- a hundred times more acidic than stomach acid and hot enough to boil water! In fact, the project appears to be using something similar, a bacterium which was discovered in an extremely hot geothermal spring.

Even then, Earth bacteria aren't necessarily going to have the right stuff. Bacteria that evolved on a planed without a magnetic field to block harmful high-energy particles and an ozone layer to absorb UV might have tolerances to radiation that would be stupidly excessive for anything in our relatively lax biosphere. Like bacteria from our own poles, life from a very cold planet might have a metabolism slow enough that traveling through space for 10,000 years wouldn't be a big problem (and if not, we always have spores). If you had some bacteria initially living on the interior of a chunk of ground that became a meteor, it's even conceivable that they could gradually evolve specifically to survive on the surface of a spacefaring rock.

If this fails, biologists might turn to trying to engineer bacteria that can survive in space. Creating selection pressure for radiation, vacuum, etc. isn't so hard...

- Michael Cohn

I've read all 3 Mars books through twice, and didn't get bored at all. I now feel like I know the geography of Mars better than that of the Earth. Antarctica was good too, but Robinson didn't dwell on Mars analogies. The Dry Valleys sound like a fairly close analogue to Mars, except for the atmospheric pressure, which makes all the difference.