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How An Andromeda Strain Might be Strained
An anonymous reader writes "For the world-record holder as the longest surviving bacteria in space [6 years, Bacillus subtillis], it turns out that among the multitude of dangers [cold, vacuum, UV, lack of nutrients, etc.] the greatest stress of all is intense ultraviolet radiation. In the next two years, new space station experiments are slated to test the panspermia hypothesis--also popularized in Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space", but dating back at least 150 years in the scientific literature. Recent balloon experiments, have rekindled alot of the controversy, but NASA Ames scientist, Rocco Mancinelli, concludes: "In my opinion, for a spore, it's quite likely.""
It's been a long standing standard that one of the most effective antibacterial/antiviral measures one can take today is UV irradiation, it's one of the few things most movies even get correct. Hell, even most of the studies done about UV irradiation on humans in space is inconclusive. Or has all the hype in the past (Anti-Anthrax measures in post offices) been just optimistic public placating?
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
So we could have all originated from something blown out of an Alien's nose - that sure explains a lot.
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Another prime example of bacterial space survival was found by Apollo 12 when it brought back parts of the unmanned Surveyor 3. Conrad's quote here has been censored, incidentally; his original quote was a little pithier...
Jeff
stty erase ^H
In other news, an invading alien race has left us for health reasons. Apparently we are the descendants of their common cold.
I'm sheltering a strain of politically persecuted plant seeds in my fridg - keep 'em cool, dry and dark. Some have been in there over 10 years and will sprout in a week of warm, damp and dark.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
50% of the planets we've actually checked out are inhabited.
The other 50% have been visited by human beings who have left artefacts behind
So why do we expect the rest of the universe, including the non-large rocky bits,to be life-free?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
...is how said information would be useful to us, since we already know what stresses bacteria. I mean, are we looking for an advancement in medicine or something, that will, say, extend the shelf life of certain helpful cultures or anything like that? Or is this just for the pure science of it and the satisfation of having knowledge?
I don't care either way. It's interesting to follow stuff like this, but it makes it a lot more interesting for the spectator when one knows what the goal is...
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
The scary thing about the Andromeda Strain was that it wasn't a bacteria. It wasn't even a virus. It wasn't even organic, moreso a complex molecule that happened to reproduce using heat.
In other words, some journalist is looking at how long life forms we know and love(?) can survive the harsh conditions of outer space and finding an opportunity to use the term "Andromeda Strain"?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that there are micro-(or even macro-)organisms drifting through space feeding on UV radiation.
After all, we thought a lack of light would doom the sea floors to lifeless oblivion only to learn that life had adapted to feed on the what was available. Why should we assume that bacteria drifting through the void of space haven't evolved in a similar fashion?
With aloe vera, of course.
"Deinococcus radiodurans is the most radiation-resistant organism known. Deinococcus radiodurans were discovered in 1956 by Arthur W. Anderson at Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station in Corvallis. Among the many characteristics of Deinococcus radiodurans, a few of the most noteworthy include an extreme resistance to genotoxic chemicals, oxidative damage, high levels of ionizing and ultraviolet radiation, and dehydration. "
- http://deinococcus.allbio.org/
Well this is not exactly about panspermias but it may be an interesting note about the possibility of life in outter Space.
I would risk to say that we may already have some evidence (not proof!) that something alive may thrive in Mars surface. Nearly two years ago I got hand in a frame where one could see both light and dark dunes among a rugged Mars landscape. It was interesting to note that dark dunes formed mostly opposite to the general pattern of winblow that could be inferred from light dunes and the erosive processes in mounds and cliffs. Besides, on several places, under certain mounds, one could see how "dark sands" covered one side in a weird manner. They would concentrate over the base of the mound's side and swiftly dissipate the farer they would be from the mound.
MSS scientist claimed that these pattern was the result of light dunes being "pertified" and that dark dunes being "active". However, in several places, one could be pretty sure that the light mounds were still very active, was they "cut" a dark dune with their edges. Moreover, in one section of this regon, dark dunes would always "hide" behind the bigger and larger light dunes.
In the whole, it seemed that dark dunes ran away from light and wind, what was quite weird. As the region presented lots of data on how wind acted, the pattern was clear and perfect.
On other section of Mars I saw an even more weird picture. There, dunes would have clear and well visible "bridges" between themselves - patches that united dunes well far away from each other. In one place, such "bridge" was rising over a mound, going down through a small cliff and uniting two dark dunes quite far apart from each other (maybe more than a few hundreds of meters).
These strange and weird dark dunes are a mistery in Mars, many of them are clear and pure dunes, only its dark pattern gets quite weird as they don't have a clear origin. However some places show dunes that are only slightly similar to natural dunes. They are more compact, smaller than light dunes, Besides they present a "water drop" pattern rather than presenting the usual crescent shape of most dunes.
This is not the only weird thing in Mars about "dark lands" There are many more. However this is the most widespread weird feature in the planet. One can see this from pole to pole. However they are not in every place. They are quite localized in certain regions, while others lack them completely.
As I kid, I'd read a story, by Stanislaus Lem IIRC, in which the Earth seeks admission to a Galactic Congress of sorts. After reviewing Earth's pedigree, we are denied memberships on the grounds that the primordial ooze from which we're descended was actually the result of illegal dumping by some aliens. The specifics of the story escape me, but I recall that after purging their septic system on the young and lifeless Earth, the aliens responsible added insult to injury and stirred the pool of waste with a stick, in a clockwise direction, which imparted onto our DNA a right-handed chirality, which is apparently considered mongrel by everyone else in the galaxy.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
that there is life on Earth, but we don't know if there is any elsewhere in the Universe.
The four steps to necessary for Abiogenesis are:
Inorganic Molecules to Organic Monomers
Organic Monomers to Organic Polymers
Formation of membranes from the polymers
Acquisition of a means of reproduction
Maybe the asteroids instead of seeding the earth provided the energy required for the first step.
Simpler things are sometimes harder to kill. The Andromeda Strain was hard to kill because it was a simple thing which had adapted to an extremely harsh environment.
Similarly, prions -- the deformed proteins associated with Mad Cow and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies -- survive autoclaving. Bacteria break down in an autoclave, but not prions, which are much simpler things. Very worrisome, because autoclaving is the standard procedure for sterilizing surgical instruments.
Contrast this with complex things -- e.g. human beings -- which can be killed in a thousand simple ways.
More complex, more vulnerable.
I'm reminded of the "trans-warp drive" from one of the Star Trek movies, I forget which: Scotty shuts down the drive by heisting a few chips, and says with a smile: "The more they tinker with the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the works."
-kgj
The correct spelling is 'subtilis' A non-pathogenic (except for a few odd-ball cases) gram-positive, sporulating prokaryote. So it acts as a model system for all sorts of nasties including anthrax.
:-)
The B. subtilis spores are *extremely* hardy and were very close (genetically) to the bugs that the one group claimed to have extracted from amber.
And the japanese eat a fermented soy product made by this guy (natto).
I worked on that damn bug for my PhD so it's a love/hate relationship.
The second evidence was from growths observed from using potato dextrose agar as medium and the microorganism could be identified as staphylococcus pasteuri. Rod-like bacillus and fungus (engyodontium albus de Hoog) were also found.
I have no problem with the idea that microorganisms can travel through space, if we find evidence for it.
However, these claims strike me as dubious: these are organisms adapted to earth environments. Staphylococcus pasteuri is grown at body temperature and isolated from human vomit, and Engyodontium album is a eucaryote. Neither of them seems like a good candidate for a space bug, and both of them seem like somthing you would easily get if someone doesn't handle sterile samples carefully. You'd also expect big differences in sequence data.
If space is full of spores for organisms highly adapted to earth environments, that's a much, much stronger claim than merely claiming that space is full of spores. If they are extraterrestrial, where are these supposed to be coming from?
The most plausible explanation for these particular results is terrestrial contamination. If they want to prove anything more, the experiment really needs to be repeated many times and under different conditions. And they really should find some differences in the DNA sequences.