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White House Briefed On "Potential For Life" On Mars
Veeoh writes "FTA: It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more 'provocative' than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of water in the Mars regolith on Thursday."
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/WH08018.xml&headline=White%20House%20Briefed%20On%20Potential%20For%20Mars%20Life&channel=space
The Viking lander checked for microscopic life on Mars back in 1971. It wasn't a very sensitive test; the lander shot out some "sticky strings" and wound them back in. The lander had a unit which tested whether anything collected assimilated any of a few simple compounds. It didn't.
This established that Mars isn't teeming with microorganisms, like Earth. That doesn't eliminate all possibility of life, or something like it, but it did establish that there's no pervasive ecosystem there.
My bet is on some kind of organic molecules, perhaps amino acids. Certainly interesting, probably not of interest to the non-scientist. Bush is probably not enjoying his briefing.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
He supports manned space explorations. Its one of his only controversial policies I agree with. Having all humans in one biosphere means that life and intelligence (so far as we know) could be wiped from the face of the universe by a single meteor impact. Manned space exploration is a necessary step in humanity's primary raison d'etra: the perpetuation of life.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Other than that, your post is accurate.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
The link you provided says the Senate passed the Telecom Immunity Bill. Not just Bush.
What's more, Obama voted the same way that Bush did. And had he voted, McCain would have almost certainly voted the same way, too.
Reminds me of a South Park episode...
Jiffy. The word is jiffy.
Moron. That WAS evidence. Bush quietly made a huge real estate purchase in paraguay. Presumably you missed it if you watch fox "news" or something, but he was acting like some movie Nazi war criminal planning to flee to South America. Only now, since the cover was blown, he probably isn't planning to use the paraguay compound anymore.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
They observed the same bacteria like structures found in the Martian meteorite discovered in the antarctic. Thus, proving that they came from Mars. But still not proving that they were ever alive.
according to the mars phoenix twitter feed (yes, it twitters), this did not happen. namely,
"Heard about the recent news reports implying I may have found Martian life. Those reports are incorrect."
and,
"Reports claiming there was a White House briefing are also untrue and incorrect."
If there is life on Mars, then the next question is whether it uses nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) for coding. All life on earth uses nucleic acids to encode genes. [Prions may be an exception to this rule but they are parasites that were originally encoded by nucleic acids and depend on nucleic acid-encoded 'hosts'.]
Core life functions are remarkably conserved on earth, e.g., human and pea (plant) histones, which are proteins that bind DNA, remain ~80% identical after a billion years or so of evolution. If extraterrestrial life has fundamentally different molecules and 'code' (e.g., non-nucleic acid genes, or different codes for amino acids, or the sequences of histone-like proteins, etc.), then life probably originated twice, independently. If instead the core functions are similar, then there was one common origin. These differences and similarities would change our estimates on the odds of life evolving independently elsewhere.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...