Slashdot Mirror
Microbes Survive Space Trip
An unnamed correspondent points to this Discover.com article; looks like the bacteria tested for space survival (in the short term) passed that test. From the article: "Two strains of microbes from extreme environments on Earth appeared to survive a short flight through the vacuum and searing radiation of space, researchers at the University of Maryland announced Sunday. The experiment lends credence to the theory that primitive life might hitchhike between Earth and other worlds aboard debris from meteorite impacts."
Like one of the posters said in the mars greenhouse thing a couple of articles ago. What about using bacteria as hardy as these to begin terraforming Mars.
Start creating an Oxygen atmosphere. Fill a canister, send it across and release it into the Mars atmosphere to spread across the planet.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
... who demonstrate why religion is such a bad thing.
But this is another example of the anti-Christian bias displayed by the technical community.
First, this is nothing compared to the anti-technical bias shown by the Christian community. The Amish have the most radical beliefs in this regard, sure, but there's an underlying anti-scientific, anti-technical, oppresive sentiment in all Christianity, and it just makes me sick to think about it.
Rather than accept the fact that we came from the Garden of Eden as told in the Bible, they would rather believe that we were created in some big explosion in space halfway across the Universe!
Which is easier to believe:
1. a big explosion started the universe
or
2. there's a big bearded guy in the sky who sends his son to get killed so that he won't have to punish all of us for what our great-great-great-great grandparents did?
I think that one's pretty obvious.
Any rational human being should be able to see this for the obvious lie that it is, since if we were created in an explosion, then how did the galaxies form?
It's called gravity. It's the same thing that holds the big ball that you're standing on together. Ever heard of it?
Oh, wait, I forgot. The Bible says the Earth is flat. Sorry.
No, whilst bacteria may be able to cross the vacuum of space this is merely another example of God's great design.
No, it's just another example of how the simplest and lowest things imaginable can always prevail. Why do you insist on putting all your mystical trappings on this sort of thing?
He is paving the way for our manifest destiny in the stars, where we shall eventually become angels ourselves and ascend to join His eternal light.
Oh. I always thought he was paving the way for religious leaders to impose their whims on the dupes who follow them. Guess I must be wrong.
To claim otherwise is to follow the bleak road to damnation.
Time to wake up and smell the reality, buddy.
this is true, but the rocks that are thrown up arent exactly very hospitible to life, theyre probably red hot by the time they leave the atmosphere if not from the actual impact and trauma of being torn from the surrounding strata than simply by atmospheric friction as it shoots out of the gravity well. Probably enough to sterilize anything. Of course the best way to test this is to find a big honkin asteroid, slam it into earth and see if any bacteria survive being flung clear.
"The proof is much too extensive for a Slashdot comment, I'm afraid." IOW: you have none.
Your theories rest on the existence of a god. The scientific theories don't. Science doesn't have to disprove god. If you want to bring in a god to fit your theories, you must provide the proof of its existence. Stating "god exists" as a base assumption doesn't work and there's nothing you can do to make it work.
Disprove the existence of God. When it comes down to it, your 'proof' has more to do with 'I can't see him, so he must not be' than anything.
Nope. I don't have proof. I have the conveniece of being on the side that doesn't need a god to explain things and therefore needn't prove the existence of said god in order to continue with the theories. It's really simple. I can't "prove" the easter bunny doesn't exist. It very well may exist. But I don't need to assume it exists, nor can I use its existence to provide support for further theories until I prove (or infer) it exists.
Using the improbability of evolution and abiogenesis is a very valid course.
Have you been paying attention? Obviously not. Sure, you can use it as evidence, but then you *MUST* explain how a necessarily more complex being came into existence. If you say "it just happened," then why can't less improbable things have "just happened."
Many things are proven wrong because of sheer improbability.
Not quite. They're proven wrong because of sheer improbability *AND* an different explanation that is less improbable. You have no similar explanation.
The origin of life is different because it affects the value that people place on their life. It also affects a person's outlook on the future.
Irrelevent. The moral/ethical implications of the origin of life are immaterial to how life originated in the first place.
So if one chooses to disregard any proof of God, which many scientists do, then one has to accept improbabilty as truth. Hence, our current situation.
What proof? I submit again, you have none.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Let us face down these raving loons!
Throw down the yoke of religious oppression.
Be a blasphemer!
Stand up for unbelief!
Take the lords name in vain today.
BTW, what's all this swearing on the bible stuff in court? I know for a fact that God and 'the human soul' don't exist so what meaning is it supposed to have for
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
Are you saying that this proves life on earth came from another planet? Just because a few bacteria can survive in space that isn't proof. Actually, bacteria being able to somehow get off a planet, survive in space, and survive re-entry doesn't prove that is how life got here -- only that it is possible.
Well, Catholics anyway. Eating the body of christ, drinking his blood and all that. Disgusting.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
There is no need to have cosmic radioactive bacteria. That would indeed be a scary world to live in...
You can read my original warning on this here.
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
But isn't that the most reasonable and honest thing to do? Just about any wacky far-fetched idea is going to be a lot more believable, less sensational, and easier to confirm-or-disprove, than the idea that life was created by God.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
...but how do you explain how they got into/onto the meteorite?
With an E-ticket of course. All they needed was some form of ID... My question is, where did they get the ID?
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
...but only one of the organisms tested is actually a bacterium (D. radiodurans). The archaea aren't true bacteria.
We all know that the religious nuts will froth at the mouth at anything which remotely calls their beliefs into question.
You have to watch if you do it with Moslems though. They'll declare Fatwa and come after you with machetes, machine guns, scud missiles etc etc. OOh yeah, that'll make me a believer!
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
I recall that one of the Apollo missions, maybe Apollo 12, landed nearby an automated probe, maybe a Surveyor probe, and one of the astronauts, maybe Pete Conrad, cut a bit of the probe off put it in a back and took it back to Earth. On Earth a scientist found that there were microbes on the bit of metal. They speculated that a technician must have sneezed on the Surveyor probe before it left Earth. The scientist scraped a sample of snot from the scrap metal and put it in a dish to see what would happen. Surprisingly the microbes were alive.
Why dont you throw them *into* the sun, that would qualify under "anything the sun could throw at them"
While I, as a Christian myself, respect the princples of Jesus Christ and the words of the Bible, I must take offense at the way in which you abuse them through reference. You honestly think God will penalize humanity for paying attention to space exploration and questioning the sciences?
Indeed, for such things go against what the Lord has taught us and attempt to mislead humanity into believing such lies as the "Big Bang" and evolution. People like yourself shouldn't call themselves Christians, your liberal theology is no kind of belief at all in truth, and you are little better than the most limp-wristed of agnostics.
It is not being suggested that there is no God, and even if so, I hardly see fit to punish those who differ in our beliefs of the world.
Nonsense. It's for their own good - if you do not follow the path of righteousness then you cannot go to Heaven when you die. It's for the sake of others that true believers are sometimes forced into extreme measures. We are doing the work of the Lord, and in doing so we cannot do any wrong. There can be no sin in doing the Lord's work by saving the souls of heathens.
Our pope has revealed it that Christians may believe in evolution.
Aaah, now that explains a lot. If you are a Catholic then you are no Christian at all! Your worship of idols and the Virgin Whore is directly against one of God's Commandments, and means that you cannot be a Christian if you are a Catholic! All Catholics are bound by their "religion" for eternal damnation, and the pope as the head of this cult is second only to the Anti-Christ in the harvesting of souls for Satan!
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
OOG HAVE POWERFUL CAVEMAN IMMUNE SYSTEM WHEN STONED ON CAVE WEED!!! OOG FIND GREEN MICROBE AND BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!! BUT OOG NOT MIND BEING SENT INTO SPACE TO TEST COSMIC RAYS!!! OOG THEN GET FREAKISHLY BIG AND STRONG AND GREEN AND THEN BECOME LAME INCREDIBLE HULK PARODY WITH HIS OWN COMIC!!!
SPEAKING OF WHICH, OOG WANT OWN COMIC!!! SOMEONE GET JACK KIRBY AND STAN LEE TO MAKE SILVER AGE OOG COMIC!!! OOG BREAK LEADER'S HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!
OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN!!! OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!
Egads... More blind people spewing out their Christian Mythology.
Hah! I think it is obvious I see further than you my deluded friend.
For hundreds of years science has been chipping away at religion. The church was ready to execute Galileo in the name of a god. Only recently did the Pope apologize.
You are in error. The church did not execute Galileo because of his calculations, but instead because he was using them to attack religion. If he had just stuck with using them to obtain results he would have been fine. There's a fine distinction there, but an important one.
I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in ghosts, goblins, and invisible deities.
I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in quarks, gluons, leptons and invisible forces.
Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.
Nonsense. You have "faith" in science don't you? Whether or not you believed in science would make no difference to its objective truth. Similarly, whether or not people have faith makes no difference to the Truth. Faith is required for following the path of the Lord and being allowed into Heaven. It's not required, but the consequences of its lack is eternal damnation.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
No disrespect, but you do reply to things at some length, and very, very quickly.
:)
You can't catch this fish any more, though
--
Peter
Neither group of microbes came out of the trip unscathed. Even Deinococcus radiodurans, the species known for radiation endurance, lost 99.9% of its numbers. Clearly this isn't the stuff of interplanetary colonization yet. What we need to do is take these cultures, grow them back to strength, and send them up again. Maybe next time we'll only lose 99%. So we do it again. And again... Eventually, we may evolve something that can actually survive long space trips. Bear in mind that this might be much more similar to the natural bacteria on a non-magnetic, low-atmosphere planet, so it's a perfectly valid way to investigate the question.
Or, we might find that no matter what we do, there's a physically-imposed limit on how much radiation any bacterium can handle. This would mean that space-bacteria would have to exist inside rocks, under better shielding. Or that they couldn't exist at all -- but that possibility is welcome too, since it gives the theory falsifiability...
- Michael Cohn
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Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
Microbes surviving solar and Van Allen radiation is one thing; surviving re-entry in a flaming meteor instead of a nice, cushy spacecraft is another. Most rocks don't make it to the ground, never mind microbes. The impact into Earth at several thousand miles per hour would probably have some detrimental effect, too.
The religeous texts already have a lot of stuff in them that is very far removed from human experience. Anyone who believes in that faith will have already made their peace with the inconsistencies, and (most of them, anyway) accept that at least some of the book is the result of a ... uh .. creative process. (I've heard of Christian pastors who don't even believe that Jesus literally came back to life after he was killed.)
One more minor inconsistency between the book and real life isn't going to disturb anyone.
Also, even on purely logical grounds, where no faith is involved, you could disprove every single assertion in the bible and it still wouldn't disprove the existence of the god described therein.
For example, if Linus says, "Linux exists" and also says, "Penguins live on the moon" and you disprove his penguin statement, that doesn't mean he's wrong about Linux.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
At first, I was truly amazed to see that the cells survived.
:)
Then I noted that they were exposed for only 10 min. with a 1000-fold reduction.
So, assuming exponential decay - that is, the number of microbes killed is proportional to the number in the colony - and solving
Q[t] = Qo Exp[r t]
Qo = initial amount of microbes
r = rate of death
t = time
Q = number of microbes at time t
Using Q[0]=Qo & Q[600] = Qo/1000 the rate r is found:
r = -Log[1000/600] ~= -0.011.
Solve Q[t] = Qo/2 the half life is found:
t ~= 60 sec.
So then, class, what have we learned?
Well, if the population drops by half every minute in space, that doesn't bode well for any realistic transit (i.e. Earth to Mars). After one week (604800 sec) , the population drops to 10^(-3024) of it's starting value. That is too say, after a week it will all be dead.
Granted, this is extremely simplified with gross assumptions. Still, it looks like there are real troubles for "Microbes In Space".
ShoutingMan.com
follow this link for some interesting stuff from nasa about astrobiology, including the "life evolved on mars and flew here on a comet" theory IIRC
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
But we knew this. This is really how they sent all those baddies on that crystal in Superman to earth. If it wasn't for this, we would ave been safe.
We also would have been safe from the "Share the software song". My guess is that's how RMS found it - it's clearly an alien microbe kind of tune.
Maybe from a meteorite or comet impact on a planet. That could very possibly lift the bacteria that can survive extreme conditions (like a powerfull impact)
I think a bacteria can survive the space travel,
but how a bacteria can go outside a planet ?.
Thats the question. There is no way a bacteria can
go up, outside the atmosphera by a natural mechanism.
Bacteria has survive in the lens of some
of the first cameras dropped in the moon.
Ovelord
Not to start a holy war, just a thought.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
OK, so the bacteria could survive a few days in outer space (barely?). So, I suppose it follows that they could also survive for thousands to millions of years in outer space, which seems to be a more realistic time frame? Admittedly, testing that hypothesis is next to impossible, but forgive me if I don't take this as proof that life originated on Mars or something. (And what's the deal with everyone wanting to prove _that_? Earth not good enough for you?)
Wouldn't it be hell, that after surviving the heat and intense radiation of space, they land on earth only to die because some fool spilled soap on the thing?
The fact that you won't post answers to questions shows that you are a wrong. Go ahead get the last word. I don't care. I've exposed you as being ignorant and a liar. I'm happy.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Saying that life came from Mars conveniently tucks away the issue of how life started, so no one has to address it, doesn't it? Think about it. Mars has (had) terrible conditions for synthesizing life. It would also have to survive launch into space, travel through it for years, and somehow end up on earth, which would have to be right near Mars at the time, then life on Mars would become completely extinct. The alternative, and logical theory is that life was created on earth and remained there. Use intelligence and you can deduce which one probably happened.
No. The Surveyor spacecraft carried television cameras, not film cameras. They transmitted their pictures back to Earth via radio.
The article says that bacteria can encase themselves inside "armored shells of semiconductor". Could this also mean that bacteria could encase themselves inside other minerals, such as the rock in meteorites and survive for an indefinite peroid?
Now I think this story is really interesting. Here's a list of Internet coverage about the story:
The research is being done by the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. Here's their press release on the subject.
To shoot the bugs into space, they used a NASA sounding rocket. Information on the rocket launch facility is located here.
Here are some links to the Discovery.com article, as well as a few others:
And, of course, my own coverage on Universe Today:
Fraser Cain
Publisher, Universe Today - http://www.universetoday.com
Told to children to keep them in line.
I find it odd that supposedly rational adults continue to believe in such ridiculous tales. I would expect people like that to be locked up as unfit for society.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
They need a crutch to live their lives. That simple.
You should really feel sorry for them. These people go through their entire lives limping from emotional crisis to emotional crisis as their belief system crumbles around them.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
And learn Hebrew. There is a word for "ball" in Hebrew. The term "chuwg" doesn't mean "sphere" but "rounded." To quote from what you obviously ignored:
God "sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth [chuwg], whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the skies [shamayim] like a curtain, he spreads them out like a tent to live in...[Isaiah 40:22]." Chuwg literally means "circle" or "encompassed." By extension, it can mean roundness, as in a rounded dome or vault. Job 22:14 says God "walks to and fro on the vault of heaven [chuwg]."
Let's even assume that chuwg means sphere or circle. So we have either a flat earth and a flat heaven, or a spherical earth and a flat heaven, or a flat earth and a spherical heaven, or a spherical earth and a spherical heaven. Or, we have what it really means here, a flat earth and a domed heaven. That's the only combination which geometrically makes sense and allows for a someone to sit above the earth and see all of the earth at once.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Didn't you see South Park last week?!?
:^)
One argument against yours (which is a form of Pascal's Wager) is that you may have chosen the wrong religion and displeased the God(s) . Then you would end up in the unpleasant afterlife just like the non-believer, even though the non-believer is also incorrect. Furthermore, you would have wasted all of the time it takes to follow your religion, whereas the non-believer would have that time to do other things.
So which religion is the right one? According to South Park it was the Mormon religion. So do yourself a favor and make sure you don't miss any more episodes!
-----
Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness. -- Bertrand Russell
Thanks for the correction, my understanding from another article was that the reason for retrieval was for the images.
Is it me or is the idea that life on our planet actually came from somewhere else a bit silly? What ever happened to KISS and Occum's? In simple and brief terms, it suggest that biochemical reactions on Earth are responsible for the start of life not some extraterestial source(although some say that it was an extraterestial event that may have helped trigger it).
For some microcellular organism to do this fantastic voyage it must...
- survive the initial impact (devistating in magnatute since stuff was thrown back into space) of a cestial body somehow not be blown apart by the event
- survive in the extreme vacuum and radiation of space
- survive in the extreme heat and destructive force of reentry
- survive another impact and again not be blown apart by the event
- and then take shape on a primordial Earth enviroment hostile to areobic life to begin with (did I remember the eras correctly? was there enough O2 in the atmosphere during the dates they are throwing around?)
I find it interesting that everyone is going gaga over this "evidence" like this yet no one is willing to suggest the idea that life started here and hitched a ride to Mars which is possibly just as "plausable".
The little bugs just get blown off the meteorite. Then they drift down slowly and land in a nice nutrient-rich puddle.
And they lived happily ever after...
I don't know much about this type of science, so I'd really like someone to answer this question.
I've heard that there was a large meteor that started a chain reaction that killed off the dinosaurs. Could it be possible that WE were that meteor? That human life's building blocks were on that meteor sent from another place?
I sound like a bad sci-fi plot, but it begged the question.
Why do scientists feel the need to deliberatley complicate matters?
Maybe they finally came to the realization that there are too many factors against life forming spontaneously.
In that case, just say it came from another planet. Even though that doesn't solve the whole equation, sensationalists would camp on that idea and forget about the question of how life formed. It also allows them scenarios that are/were impossible on earth. Since we don't know where exactly it came from, we can't prove them right or wrong.
Most microbes die in earth's atmosphere.
Ah! The atmosphere!
Ahhhhhhhhh, the atmosphere...!
Ahhhh.............................
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
solus popcornius,
a lesser known bacteria discovered in the ruins of atlantus,
it has the key chariteristics that it produces a stickey substance not too dissimilar in taste and texture to jelly beens that have been left in a cup of wate infrom of the fire.
this sticky substance jb973e strange property that when in contact with hihg levels of super hot dense plasma it turns into popcorn, thus protecting solus popcornius from and hamfull effects of the sun.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
This is essentially Pascal's Wager (or, IIRC, the standard interpretation of what Pascal was rabbiting on about). In essence, the argument goes that the penalty for being a wrong non-believer is a heck of a lot worse than being a wrong believer.
I think the argument is a red herring - it says absolutely nothing about whether God actually exists or not - but then again, my personal view on the matter is "unconvinced atheist" (I don't believe that there is a God, but I don't absolutely discount the possibility of one). Anyway, can somebody please explain whether this argument is relevant to the question "does God exist?", and why?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well, yes.
But any event with a non-zero probability will occur sooner or later.
What you describe has a non-zero probability, and we're sitting here talking about it.
Who'da thunk, 4.5 billion years ago, that the flaming ball of molten rock that was the embryonic Earth would one day spawn a bunch of people who spent all day sitting around talking about how unlikely it is that we came to be here at all and therefore we probably don't exist and are making it all up anyway?
--
Peter
* Stop trying to force your lack of religion on me.
Riiiight... "Take the red pill" You may not like living without your religious crutches, but at least you living in The Real.
Trolling is a art,
How come it's always Christian extremists who post this crap? How come there's no Budhist extremists posting here? Why don't we have people screaming about Allah? Or Baal or Ra, or even Thor? Oops, my apologies. Some might feel that I'm trivializing someone's religion by saying 'even Thor'. I'd go back and correct that, but I already hit 'Submit'.
/.? I demand religious rants by other groups, even if someone (someone who is not me, that is) has to write a Bot of some sort to get things started!
Where's the religious equality and representation on
You're in for one hell of a surprise.
* But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.
Based on your statement I would suggest that religion is the coward's path. You don't want to take a stand you you embrace god(s) as an insurance policy.
Regardless, from my side of the fence you "lose" more than I. We're both dead, but you've wasted countless hours on your knees talking to a non-existant god.
Trolling is a art,
Which, of course, begs the question: "Where did God come from?"
My point wasn't that life didn't form, but that it didn't form in the way everyone wants to believe.
Actually, that's not your point. Your point was that God created life because it's improbable that life created some other way and evolved to this point. Fine. Back it up. Prove the existence of God (necessary in your theory) and then disprove evolution and abiogenesis. But using the improbability to do that is not valid because if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be here.
Then we'll talk.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
In related news, an old man and a crying baby were the only survivors of a mysterious die-off in a small town. Its believed this die-off is related to the reentry of this bacteria experiment.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
There were rodents on Earth during the time of the Dinosaurs, and we can trace ourselves back to them, so no - it's not our fault.
However, much, much earlier in Earth's history, it was subject to a much more massive collision. It involved a planet-sized (Mars sized) body termed Morpheus (IIRC) and resulted in the formation of the Moon.
There is speculation that there was already some primitive life on Earth at that point, but there was scarecely any dry land. The collision effectively terminated EVERYTHING that was there before - since the entire planet deformed and resolidified. We could be whatever little bits of protoplasm survived a brief orbital trip - or maybe we rode in on Morpheus.
My source for this is "What if we had no Moon", a recent show on the Discovery Channel.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
From reading the article it basically states that two types of bacteria were sent up. One is simple household stuff. The other is a bacteria reknown for its ability to withstand radiation. The common bacteria was killed, the resistant bacteria resisted although if saw a 1000 fold reduction in numbers.
Now here is my problem. The rocket wasn't even orbital. It basically only scratched the surface of space for a short time. Even doing that caused a three order of magnitude drop in the hardiest bacteria on the planet. It killed the weaker one, the one that would have most likely been the representative of our evolutionary ancestor. Does this really prove that life could have been seeded from somewhere else? Shouldn't the flight at least be orbital so the long term survival of the bacteria can be examined? All I'm saying is that a millenium in space is very different from the hour (ish?) the experiment used.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
That would mean your prescious Jesus is the son of a whore... :)
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
If life didn't form, be it from spontaneous generation, abiogenesis, or quite literally "the hand of god," we wouldn't be here talking about it. Using the improbability of life forming as evidence against any one of the above is simply pointless.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Don't sell yourself short by suggesting it's thanks to a supreme being floating in the sky
:)
:)
First, my current mental health is mostly of my own doing. Without any help I still managed to drag myself out of quite a few severe depressions. You can't imagine how many times I shouted at that supposed God people told me about who was supposed to help people - why wasn't he helping me? I did it all myself, and then found my faith.
nailed up on a cross
I'm not Christian.
If someone were to suggest that the cat I had in my lap didn't exist I would think they need glasses or a mental examination. Not unlike those that believe in gods.
First you compliment my mental health, then you say I need a mental examination. 'tSeems you're contradicting yourself
Religion is keeping a good chunk of humanity in the dark ages. Turn your back on the controlling lies religion teaches and free your mind.
Wrong. You're confusing rigid dogma with religion. I did exactly what you advise here. I let no-one tell me what to believe, opened my mind, and figured it all out for myself.
Maybe YOU should take your own advise and open your mind. Stop piling all theists on one big biased heap.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
I can't believe I'm actually replying to this, because most of the time it's a useless waste of time, but here goes anyway :)
:)
Claiming something doesn't exist because you've never seen it is indeed a logical thing to do, but it isn't always the right thing. You might not see the carton of milk in the fridge when you're looking for it while it's right in front of you. You might not see that car approaching from the right, but it is definitely there.
I have personally experienced, and am constantly experiencing the Divine. I feel the Divine Energy, Breath of Life, Chi, Force, whatever you'd like to call it flowing through me, and through everything that surrounds me. And there you are telling me it doesn't exist.
Say you're holding a nice fluffy cat. You can feel its warmth in your lap, hear its purrs, feel its fluffy fur as you pet it, and then along comes somebody who claims cats do not exist. He seems to look right through the cat as if it truly doesn't exist, he just doesn't notice it somehow. Wouldn't that be weird? Well, I think you're just that weird
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
unlikelihood (<snip>)
n.
1. The state of being unlikely or improbable; improbability.
2. Something unlikely.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
I can understand the idea of microbes landing on a planet, but how do you explain how they got into/onto the meteorite?
First link, now a quick summary: The early unmanned space probes contained cameras. This was the mid 1960's, the only way to retrieve the images was to pick up the cameras, which our intrepid astronauts did. They returned to earth with a colony of the bacteria, these bacteria survived launch, radiation, 3 years on the moon, launch from the moon, more radiation and re-entry.
At first I was about to disagree with you arguing that some of the bacteria they launched on the rocket was found in the hot springs of Yellowstone national park. These Archaea bacteria could easily survive the heat however the radiation is a much bigger concern. The article says there was a 1000-fold reduction in cells and this was only from a suborbital (10 minute or less) flight! If these cells were to travel to another planet they'd be in space for a number of years! The mutations involved would be tremendous and the chance of any cells surviving would be scant at best. I think this article is almost proof against cells surviving in space. The one chance the cells would have would be to survive in the depths of a meteor potentially in a pocket of rock. The odds would still be slim but with infinite space and infinite celestial bodies I guess anything can happen... as it did.
Ahhh! I'm a bastard, I made a redundant post:
Comment #74.
Ahhh! And I've even wasted more bandwidth being concerned about it...
Sorry about that...
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
You only have to look at the crusades, The Spanish inquisition amongst others to see the truth deep within most religions. I.e. its not about what we believe in, its about you not believing the same as we do.
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
There is a big issue about how the first cells formed. And this does nothing whatsoever to help it.
In fact, it all sounds a bit flukey to me. Microbes evolve on Mars, hitch a lift to earth, love it here and thrive and become higher life until Slashdotters are born. Over on Mars, meanwhile, everything goes pearshaped, they don't become multicellular and the planet dies.
Surely, Microbes evolving on Earth, with all the right conditons for sustinance of Carbon-based life, is more likely. Why do scientists feel the need to deliberatley complicate matters?
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. -- Homer Simpson
well there's a bateria(D. radiodurans) that can survive the levels of rad's that you get when you drop a nuke,
somthing like 1.5 million rads..
heres a good link with lots of other nutty bugs
i'm sure a few of them could survive anything that space d the sun can throw at them.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
but their luggage was lost.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I want them to send up a can of Spam (or Spam Lite if fat content is a concern).
When the can of Spam (or Spam Lite) makes it back to earth it can be tested for microbial growth and then consumed by the scientists. No waste[0]!
-g
[0] no waste if you don't count the hundreds of tonnes of fuel needed to get the can of Spam (or Spam Lite) into orbit in the first place.
Trolling is a art,
While I, as a Christian myself, respect the princples of Jesus Christ and the words of the Bible, I must take offense at the way in which you abuse them through reference. You honestly think God will penalize humanity for paying attention to space exploration and questioning the sciences? I must say I have to wonder if you learned your Christianity straight from Jonathan Edwards :P
Not only do you give us a bad name with your condemnations, you draw inaccurate conclusions from reading the article. It is not being suggested that there is no God, and even if so, I hardly see fit to punish those who differ in our beliefs of the world. The way I see it, the big bang may have occured, but if so it was forseen by God himself as part of his plan. I'd like to know how sending microbes in space will get you sent to hell, sir. As a modern Christian, I am ashamed to count extremists like you in our ranks. Our pope has revealed it that Christians may believe in evolution. I believe in evolution, and I believe that microbes have their own place in the niche of the world.
If I had any problem with the article, it would be that devoting time to microbe research lowers the value of life and humanity to a raw artificial level which strips out the magic of life itself.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
I have always thought we needed to send more stuff into orbit to taste cosmic radiation. There just aren't enough invisible microbes, stretchy microbes, or rock microbes. But whatever you do, don't get that green one angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
"Archaea SMASH!"
This is an interesting theory about how life could have come to Earth, but it only solves the n+1 part of how life came to exist. The base case, or how the very first life came to exist is still an open question.
Zapman
We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.
For the sake of the argument, let's assume your beliefs are right. I was born in 1974, I'll probably die somewhere around 2065. By 2100, we're both dead. End of story.
On the other hand, here are my beliefs. I believe there is a God, I believe that there's life after death, and I believe that I didn't evolve from a radiation-immune microbe. (These are my closely-held, personal beliefs. I'm neither attacking anyone or forcing them on anyone, so I'd appreciate if everyone doesn't jump on this.)
Now let's assume that I'm right. We both live, we both die. But that's where our paths diverge. I go into the afterlife, while you experience your "end of story." So if I don't believe like you do, but you turn out to be right, I lose nothing. But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.
Somehow, this all relates to space microbes and NASA and all that good stuff. Somehow. ;-)
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Hi!
Sorry to disapoint you but the Bible do not state that the Earth is flat(at least to my knowledge). Instead there is a part (Job's book) where God is talking to the Satan and he (the Satan) says (Job 1:7) that he was wandering "about on earth" (let me translate it for you: around the earth.)
Leater on (again) in the same book (Job 26:7) says that the earth is hanging on nothing. An interesting tought at that time, many thousand years before Christ don't you think ? If you read a little in this book you will be surprised about how many things are described (about earth) by such simple men like Job who lived in the desert.
If you know a place in bible wich states that the Earth is flat (in the context of a plannet) let me know about it.
Do not let the technical things blind you from the truth. It's written (in the bible) that those who seek their own wisdom will ruin many other peoples who are following them. So let everyone believe what they want, but if you state something at least be documented about it.
Oh. I always thought he was paving the way for religious leaders to impose their whims on the dupes who follow them. Guess I must be wrong.
This is a very common thought. Nobody sais that you must follow ANYBODY, just follow God's word. Even Jesus said that you must pray to God and God only, not to somebody else. So you felt that right that there is something wrong....
(now back to my own mistakes, I got carried away...)
Thanks,
Just another coder...
"There is no shot you can take that I cannot simply deny." - Ertai, wizard goalie
Nobody loses.
If I believe in life after death, and there isn't, so what? I'm dead. I'm not in a position to be disappointed about it.
If I don't believe in life after death, and there is, then I get pleasantly (or unpleasantly, if all I wanted was some peace and quiet at last) surprised.
Life after death (or not) has got nothing to do with which god you choose to worship. It'll either happen or it won't, in common with everything else in the universe. No amount of wishing (which is what prayer is) will change that.
Where does your belief system leave the Hindus? The Sikhs? The Moslems? The Zoroastrians?
In the final analysis though, we'll find out all too soon.
--
Peter
Having fun with genomics::
The entire genome of Deinococcus radiodurans is freely available at TIGR.
Enjoy!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Here's a start
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
* I have personally experienced, and am constantly experiencing the Divine. I feel the Divine Energy, Breath of Life, Chi, Force, whatever you'd like to call it flowing through me, and through everything that surrounds me. And there you are telling me it doesn't exist.
Divine was a transvestite that ate dog feces in John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" Regardless, the "Divine" you feel flowing through you is a sign of good mental health. Don't sell yourself short by suggesting it's thanks to a supreme being floating in the sky or the sandalled kook that was nailed up on a cross claiming to be the son of the invisible man.
If someone were to suggest that the cat I had in my lap didn't exist I would think they need glasses or a mental examination. Not unlike those that believe in gods.
Religion is keeping a good chunk of humanity in the dark ages. Turn your back on the controlling lies religion teaches and free your mind.
Trolling is a art,
So maybe all the aliens we meet out there will turn out to be humanoids after all!
You very, *very* nearly got a bite out of me...
Have a biscuit! Good troll!
--
Peter
Egads... More blind people spewing out their Christian Mythology.
For hundreds of years science has been chipping away at religion. The church was ready to execute Galileo in the name of a god. Only recently did the Pope apologize.
I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in ghosts, goblins, and invisible deities.
Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.
We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.
Trolling is a art,
This reminds me of the Discovery channel commercial with the meteors. Picture microbes doing this instead of meteors.
"On the Discovery channel I learn all about everything, including how to make everything from French pastries to nuclear explosives"
"I learned that meteors burn up in the atmosphere"
"AHHH, the atmosphere! The atmosphere!"
Poor microbes. They should test reentry. That would prove a lot too (not that this didn't).
Eh...
All this means is the possibility of the microbes hitched a ride to earth. It still does not answer how are they formed.
All this means is that they could have. If single celled organisms can survive be created else where why not earth.
Also there are theories out there that state that micro oraganisms are formed from with in the a planet. So for all you know we could have came from below.
Whilst the 4 microbes did survive, mummy & daddy microbe have lost a large amount of hair from having the kids in the back.
NASA not only failed to provide proper entertainment for the children but neglected to provide seatbelts capable of withstanding the huge impact.
This is what we call one of the more subtle and successful forms of flamebait folks, and all of the folks above fell for it.
But using the improbability to do that is not valid because if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be here.
Actually, your point is not valid.
I believe that there is more than sufficient evidence for the existence of a supernatural being who created every living thing. The proof is much too extensive for a Slashdot comment, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say, that when one looks at science for years and years, and also takes into account genuine prophecy and the fulfillment of those prophesies, along with unbiased historical accounts, one can easily see that there is a supernatural presense that is quite powerful and capable of creating life.
Disprove the existence of God. When it comes down to it, your 'proof' has more to do with 'I can't see him, so he must not be' than anything.
Using the improbability of evolution and abiogenesis is a very valid course. Many things are proven wrong because of sheer improbability. The origin of life is different because it affects the value that people place on their life. It also affects a person's outlook on the future. So if one chooses to disregard any proof of God, which many scientists do, then one has to accept improbabilty as truth. Hence, our current situation.
What is more, we demand mandatory labelling of all space craft so as to be able to identify those NOT involved in this inhuman, cowardly experimentation.
As Slashdot poster laborit notes, "Neither group of microbes came out of the trip unscathed." Well, neither will the University of Maryland. Look out for the "I multiply and infect and I VOTE" bumper stickers - show your support for the brave work done by PETM.
Jeez some moderators.
An obvious troll (And I wrote it) and it gets marked insightful...
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
You need locked up mate!
Prime candidate.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
Just some fairy tales in a set of books which have been mistranslated for thousands of years written by a bunch of self flagellating (ooer) delirious, hallucinating madmen.
Think random chaos people. That's about it.
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Karma!
Though I am fairly sure you are a troll, as a Christian I won't judge you and will reply. I also assume that you must have meant something besides "if we were created in an explosion, then how did the galaxies form?" If that is what you meant, then here is the answer: Lots of matter at center of universe. Explosion. Particles expand outward really fast. Some collide. The joint particles have stronger gravity. They attract other particles which spiral toward the center in the same way things orbit the Earth. The particles grow into bigger chunks called stars. They fuse. Galaxy is born.
I assume what you meant to ask was "if we were created in an explosion, then how did the stuff that caused the explosion get there?" This is a reasonable question which can be answered partially by quantum physics. It can also be answered by "God did it," and variations on that, which is what seems most reasonable to me.
Reporting on a test of a theory does not imply support of that theory. Any good news source should post all the stuff that happens without bias.
Rather than accept the fact that we came from the Garden of Eden as told in the Bible...
Have any evidence to support that? The Big Bang theory looks fairly possible so far - evidence such as the distribution of elements formed in the universe tend to agree (although you could obviously have a long theological debate over evolution).
The technical community like logical explanations. Creationism does not look like a logical explanation (to me at least).
As interstellar clouds of gas and dust drift around, they begin to gain sufficient mass to contract from graviational force, and a core forms. As matter is pulled toward the core, it gains kinetic energy and heats up. Convection currents keep the heat in, and fusion begins at 10^7K. This protostar can then evolve into the main sequence of stars. Galaxies can then form from large systems of stars being held together by mutual gravitational attraction.
Ahem. Troll.
I would never try to force my religion on you. If you asked to know why I believe what I do, I would tell you. I did not ask why you believe what you do. Stop trying to force your lack of religion on me.
I believe Martin Luther revealed long ago that the pope was nothing more than a figurehead in the largest religious scam of all time. It's no surprise that a misguided follower of that so-called religion would believe the liberal lies of evolution and "microbes".
And furthermore, I challenge anyone to show me even a single "microbe", before or after being sent into space. Sure, you can show me fancy photos, supposedly taken through electron microscopes or whatever, but they look more like the scribblings of a washed-out hippy on acid, if you ask me.
Frankly, I think that the scientists are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. They get billions of dollars to send "microbes" into outer space, when really, all they are doing is relaxing in the sun, laughing all the way to the bank. And you people eat it all up...