Slashdot Mirror
ESA's Scientist Suggests A Noah's Ark On the Moon
13.7BillionYears writes "Many are familiar with a supermarket tabloid (whose name eludes me) offering ridiculous headlines, one of the most famous being 'Noah's Ark Found on the Moon!' In an ironic twist, that one may yet come to pass. The BBC reports that the European Space Agency's chief scientist, Dr. Bernard Foing, has said that there should be a Noah's Ark on the Moon consisting of a repository for the DNA of every single species of plant and animal, in case the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or nuclear holocaust. One wonders how you'd go about indexing every life form including undiscovered species and how you'd protect the DNA from radiation."
One wonders how you'd go about indexing every life form...
Two-by-two, of course!
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
It's not that illogical. It's just a little odd. I mean, so we get a bunch of earth DNA up there. So what? Personally I think it makes more sense to populate the moon and mars and beyond with people, instead of just sending DNA. Who's gonna be able to replicate it and recreate the living earth if we're all dead or bombed back into the stone age? Or what if it gets destroyed in the 2112 moon vs. earth war? Seems like more reasons NOT to do it than to do it. And any ET's that happen upon a DNA stash would probably be very wary of bringing it back to life.
Moo.
This is the ultimate off-site backup!
I wish that they would publicize the things that the ESA does well, such as the upcoming Herschel mission, the upcoming Planck space satellite (the successor to WMAP and COBE), etc. Instead all we hear about in the US is a disappointing garbage idea like this (with no scientific merit) and the disaster of the BEAGLE 2. Come on, people. Don't take this seriously (and if you have the power, don't support this) -- this is basically a time capsule. Whatever we do to our Earth, I'm still sure it will provide a better record of life on Earth than whatever we might drop on the moon.
Wouldn't a location (or several) underneath the surface of the earth be better. The rock would protect against a lot of radiation (and getting lead down there would be easier than getting it to the moon) and there are places where the digging has already been done. Any event that can destroy a number of sites located around the world would probably also have a serious affect on the moon wouldn't it?
Decode these
That Dr. Foing was watching the animated film TITAN A.E. while half asleep and upon waking, thought he had some amazingly original idea.
Think again Docta Foing!!
(wow that's fun to say out loud)
Just get a bunch of mosquitos, and a bunch of tree sap...Then we just need someone to extract them in 65 million years!
I would like to nominate myself and Anna Kournikova as canidates to re-populate the earth. Once funding has been approved the practice sessions can begin.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
DNA by itself does not a creature make. You still have to have a cell to put that DNA in, and that cell has to be able to repsond properly to the protiens that that are transcribed from that DNA, and also be able to produce the proper chemical signals to cause the correct parts of that DNA to be transcribed at the right time.
Until bringing back the Dodo and the Passenger Pigeon becomes feasible, I fail to see how sending DNA from every animal to the moon is any better a way to spend research money than sending a box full of the covers to every O'Reilly book ever publshed tot he moon.
It's no good to just throw a sample of DNA up on the moon. We must have some kind of way to represent the genetic diversity within a species. The diversity itself is the mark of a species and its ability to prosper.
There've been recent articles that indicate that climate change is causing an overall loss in diversity among the world's species. Once the diversity decreases to a certain point, the populations will crash (I've read about computer simulations done on Atlantic salmon populations that bear this out.) In short, simply saving the DNA, either the actual molecules or a printout, will not do anyone any good in the future. Not only will it be impossible to resurrect the species, they future researchers will have only the very limited insight into just one example of a creature that once numbered in the thousands, millions, or billions with the genetic diverity to match.
The project, conceived this way at least, is doomed to failure. The best way to preserve what we've got is to reduce the threat of mass extinction with proper management of the planet we have now.
And the real purpose would be?
...
Say the Earth is destroyed or afflicted by one of the things mentioned, then WHO is going to take advantage of that repository?
Say somehow some people survive. The next question is HOW are they going to use that to rebuild?
Interesting idea but I think just a *little* bit early for its time
A
P.S.: If the Sun goes then that was pointless anyway. I say make it hang-out a nova-safe distance somewhere in space
Fourty-two!
The unicorns thought the original was a foolish idea, too.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."