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Curious NASA Pre-Announcement
CrtxReavr was one of a small avalanche of readers to let us know about a
press conference NASA scheduled for Thursday at 2pm to discuss an "astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." I've heard rumors ranging from "proof of life on Titan" to "first contact," depending on how optimistic/crazy you are.
"NASA believes it has found vital clues that alien life does indeed exist on Titan, "
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978743812
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It probably has to do with the recent discovery of oxygen on Saturn's moon Rhea.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
He's now updated his post with a tweet from someone at Nasa that the press conference is not about proof of life:
I'm sad to quell some of the @kottke-induced excitement about possible extraterrestrial life. I've seen the Science paper. It's not that
One of the individuals in the scheduled press announcement has a website and based on her work my bet is that they may have found some indications that there is life on earth that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
It probably has to do with the recent discovery of oxygen on saturn's moon Rhea.
Doubtful, for two reasons: (a) that has already been announced, and (b) the oxygen there has a plausible nonbiological origin (energetic particles in Saturn's magnetic field interacting with water ice on the surface).
The smart money says this press announcement will be disappointing to most people. Not unlike like the whole Apple/Beatles thing.
Extra doubtful that it's about Rhea because Carolyn Porco, the head of the Cassini project, isn't on the list of participants.
Doing a few minutes' worth of work in Google comes to the following information about the listed participants in the press conference:
Mary Voytek -- director, NASA Astrobiology program
Felisa Wolfe-Simon -- evolutionary biology including metallic enzymes, specifically the potential role of arsenic in DNA
Pamela Conrad -- biogeochemistry and organic chemical signatures of extremophiles
Steven Benner -- geobiology of RNA, including detection of DNA and RNA
James Elser -- the influence of nitrogen and phosphorus in biological processes including ecosystems, speciation and RNA
Since the announcement of the press conference says that the finding will impact the "search for evidence of extraterrestrial life," chances are they've found some potential signature of a metabolic process. Notwithstanding what I said above about Carolyn Porco, Cassini flew within 100 km of Rhea earlier this year (March) to "determine what is coming off Rhea" according to NASA's site on the flyby. The timing (March to December) fits well with the amount of time it takes to do data analysis, write a paper, and have it accepted for publication for something that gets fast-tracked. Science is published on Fridays. Nature is published on Thursdays. It would seem like the paper is going to appear in Nature no matter what the exact announcement is.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.