Bacteria From Beer Lasts 553 Days In Space

An anonymous reader writes "Some specific bacteria colonies from Beer (the place, not the beverage) left for several days outside the ISS actually survived extreme temperatures, UV and other radiations, lack of water and all the like. They were later brought back to Earth for examination: such resistant bacteria may be the base of life support systems or bio-mining on colonies off Earth, and of course for terraforming, eventually. No clue in the article about how dangerous those bacteria might have become after the exposure or when they'll start eating their examiners."

Comments

reading stuff like this

[circletimessquare]

i begin to think less about the idea that we can seed the universe with hardy bacteria

and i begin to think less about the idea that life on earth was seeded exobiologically

i begin to think less about sending life out there, or about how life got here, and i instead think more about the idea that it simply doesn't matter, that it's been a wide four lane two way street forever, and everywhere, that life is boringly common

i begin to entertain the notion that the reality that is most likely, as we explore more and more outside our planet (and eventually, our solar system), that we're just going to find that the basic chemical machinery of life everywhere, dormant or vaguely active, is on the surface of everything, waiting to seed and grow on anything it touches

that life is simply mundane and ubiquitous (although mostly hibernating and waiting and unable to realize its full potential)

and then the REAL story will be looking for and finding what i'll call "complexity magnifiers": special intersections of energy source and hospitality (like liquid water and a sun) where the machinery of life is allowed to turn into amazing agglomerations of increasing complexity... until things like us humans can become reality

and then the real search, the ultimate game of discovery, will be to classify, find, and otherwise make contact with other "complexity magnifiers," wherever they may be or whatever they are, across the universe. and that this will be our ultimate promise in existence, what you could call our purpose (self-discovered)

whether we choose to exploit and destroy those "complexity magnifiers" and whatever or whomever we find there, and grow like a virus, or whether we choose to communicate with whatever is there already, as take care to hold our darker nature in sober check: that will be the ultimate commentary on the entire existence of homo sapiens: tragic mistake or wise benevolence?