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Scientists Look at Martian Salt for Ancient Life
eldavojohn writes "Is there life on Mars? Maybe not, but a better question might be whether or not it has ever existed on Mars? Scientists are claiming that the best indication for this will be in newly found evaporated salt deposits on Mars which they can use to check for cellulose. Here on earth, tiny fuzzy fibers have been found in salt dating back almost 250 million years making it the oldest known evidence of life on earth. Jack Griffith, a microbiologist from UNC, is quoted as saying, 'Cellulose was one of the earliest polymers organisms made during their evolution, so it pops out as the most likely thing you'd find on Mars, if you found anything at all. Looking for it in salt deposits is probably a very good way to go.'"
Here on earth, tiny fuzzy fibers have been found in salt dating back almost 250 million years making it the oldest known evidence of life on earth.
Earth cellular life evidence dates back to about 4 billion years if I remember correctly. Even some trilobite fossils date to around 530 million years ago. Perhaps they meant "250 million years since the formation of Earth"? Its a trick to make me RTFA to find out what they really meant.
Table-ized A.I.
Radioactive decay is a pretty well understood phenomenon. The strong force (and weak too) in the nucleus of radioactive elements isn't quite strong enough to contain all the protons and neutrons in there, causing alpha and beta particles to come flying out from time to time (causing decay to another element in the case of a proton, and another isotope in the case of a neutron). By measuring the ratio of isotopes, we can figure out when a rock was formed. And, it all fits quite neatly in our standard model.
So you are left with a choice, believe that the standard model is pretty much right, and thus the Earth must be ~ 4.5 billion years old, or deny the standard model. However, if you choose to deny the standard model, I would most sincerely enjoy your recaboobeling of quantum mechanics to explain this discrepancy.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
You've been watching too much sci-fi...It's unlikely that something from such a wildly different evolutionary line would even be infectious to us.
1. We don't know that with any certainty. It may end up being a "contest" to see which side can evolve an advantage over the other first before immunities are built up by both sides.
2. Mars life may be related. Studies suggest asteroids can blast spores betweens planets.
It's still pretty rare that diseases jump species here
But species jumpers also tend to be some of the deadliest. Livestock are notorious for producing whoppers.
Table-ized A.I.
The real reason we want to explore Mars?
Because we can
or, a variant after my favorite mountaineer (after the late Edmund Hillary):
Because it's there
Stopping us from dreaming will make humanity dull and suicidal. Even though none of us might actually come to live the day that humans walk on the surface of Mars, doesn't mean that it is wrong to dream about it and start planning humanities future today.
Don't hide in your house from wonderful things that could be. Embrace the future and help make dreams come true!
Well, the way it works for organic tissue and radio-carbon dating is that new higher isotopes of carbon are being created all the time, and have a generally equal distribution in the environment at large. When an organism is alive, it will continuously take in new carbon from the environment (food, CO2 for plants, etc) and thus maintain the same ratio of carbon isotopes. When it dies, however, it stops taking in new carbon, and thus slowly the existing radioactive isotopes will decay and not be replaced so the ratio decreases and you can calculate the age.
I only use the example of radio-carbon because I'm familiar with it. I'd assume it's somewhat similar with dating geologic formations, in that while say sediments are being deposited on a river it's being exposed to a constant influx of new material, but once the sediment is well buried it becomes 'fixed'. But like I said, that's an assumption.
The enemies of Democracy are
I don't think that's quite accurate either. Certainly banded iron formations predate all of this by a couple of billion years. I guess cellulose may be the oldest surviving organic materials, but the evidence of life leaving behind different materials is much older than that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
None of these, of course, are actually lifeless.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What's the probability that life on another planet evolved the same type of chemistry and the same type of macromolecules?
If they found cellulose, I'd argue that it is from organisms that originated on earth. Now if they found (micro)fossils that are completely different from anything we know I'd listen up.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
If the mars polar caps do contain water ice a human community on Mars is possible.
A self-sustaining human community would want to know about any possible infectious sources. A self-sustaining extraterrestrial human community is necessary to avoid probable pandemics, asteroid impacts, or other situations that would have extreme adverse effects on Earth-based population.
Therefore this research is in the public interest, and only pretentious, greedy twits with no concept of the future such as yourself can't see even the basic potential listed above. And there's lots more that can come out of such research, but, as with you, I'm not writing my doctorate thesis here.
P.S. Preview is your friend, as is .
Not a sentence!