Acetylene Based Life on Titan?

mindpixel writes "Astrobiology Magazine's Leslie Mullen has a fascinating interview with funky science dude David Grinspoon about the possibility that there may exist a whole new biology on Titan where the extreme cold slows normally explosive reactions to a biologically useful pace." From the article: "What's really new in our paper is that we go into the question of energy sources. If there's life there, what's it going to eat? What kind of food is there? And it turns out there's abundant food because of all this photochemistry in the upper atmosphere, where methane is being turned into other organic molecules. Some of those organic molecules are very energy-rich, and one that we consider in the paper is acetylene. We know it's being made in the atmosphere, we know it's raining down on the surface, and it's been detected at the surface with the Huygens probe. We calculated that, if acetylene is reacting with the hydrogen gas to turn it back into methane, quite a bit of energy is being released. So that's our basis for saying there is something to eat on Titan. We don't know if there are any customers, but there's something on the menu."

Comments

Re:Further study needed?

[Ivop]

It's exactly the scientific and philosophical question a born again christian wouldn't want to be answered.

Re:What is life, anyway?

[killjoe]

"It would be wrong to teach evolution in schools as though it were fact. It would also be wrong to teach the theory of universal gravitation or Newtonian Physics as fact, since they have been proven to be untrue on very small scales, or at very high velocities."

What an odd thing to say. First of all you yourself said that evolution does happen. Anyway....

If it's "very wrong" to teach evolution as though it was fact why is it OK to teach that some super intelligent being designed the universe? Where is your body of evidence for that?

This is the problem with you religious fundamentalists. To you all theories are equally valid. If I claim that the universe was created when a giant turtle shit that's just as valid as a super intelligent being in the sky created it which is just as valid as evolution right?

How come you guys don't want to teach my giant turtle shit theory though? I mean evolution is just a theory, it's not a fact and my theory is just as good as evolution or your bearded white guy in the sky theory.