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Possible Signs of Life Detected On Venus
MoThugz writes "This article from the The Houston Chronicle discusses the discovery of mysterious swirling patches on the surface of the planet which may be communities of bacteria. These bacteria might be a genetically-enhanced version of the thermophiles which are known to survive in extreme temperatures. The article suggested the bacteria could be using ultraviolet light from the sun as an energy source, which would explain the presence of strange dark patches on ultraviolet images of the planet."
Not on the surface of Venus, 50 km up in the atmosphere, where the temperature is not too extreme. Their being lifeforms is inferred from the presence of gases that should recombine over time (like oxygen on Earth, which wouldn't stay in the air if life wasn't there to produce it).
The original paper in question here was called "Reassessing the Possibility of Life on Venus: Proposal for an Astrobiology Mission" and published in a journal called "Astrobiology."
Please note that the title of the damn paper is not "Merchants of Venus Discovered, Are Selling Us Meat," but, it appears to me to be an optimistic proposal for another venusian probe.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Ummm, Viruses aren't generally considered alive untill they infect something. When the virus isn't infecting a cell it's just a protein coat with some nucleic acid inside. It doesn't need to "do" anything, so is it alive in the air? As far as the scientist's comments, I'm not sure that we can apply our terrestial bound understanding of biology to other worlds: Sure on earth the creation of life probably involved large amounts of liquid water, but that's not to say all life will be like earth life. Perhaps life on venus started as self replicating clouds of gas, or any number of other things
It could be possible that carbonyl suphide might be made by non-biological processes, but it is highly improbable given the time scale of such a reaction. A lot of organic compounds (like carbonyl suphide) can be made without biological processes, but the energy and time requirements are too extremely high to be produced in the AMOUNT that was found on Venus. However, if you add biological catalysts (protiens), you can get these compounds extremely quickly. So, when someone sees a large amount of one of these compounds, he can safely say that some sort of catalyst is causing this reaction. Since carbonyl suphide is a common compound produced by life on Earth, it isn't a giant leap to say that it might be produced by life on Venus.