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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.
Methinks you might want to expand your range at the bottom a bit. I suspect it will be something along the lines of "We've discovered evidence that some precursor to life may have been present on this extraterrestrial body--or may not, depending heavily on your interpretation of some very ambiguous data."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If there is life swimming in a big ocean under the ice of Europa, the question becomes: how does it taste?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
they found that the astrobiology budget was cut
"NASA believes it has found vital clues that alien life does indeed exist on Titan, "
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978743812
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Did they find the ancient gene?
They want you talking about aliens instead of TSA Gate Rape and Wikileaks. Simple as that.
I am totally jaded. When I see something like this I read it as "NASA calls press conference to remind government and people they are still here and need money, because what they do is really, really cool". Of course, I agree too, but I would be surprised if there was really any kind of life found. Prove me wrong NASA! I, for one, would welcome our new alien-insect overlords!
One of the NASA guys got laid!
They found Jita, but their probe got ganked trying to dock with the docking station. $300m in PLEX were lost
http://www.google.com/search?q=grandstanding
Please help metamoderate.
Spectroscopy showing a celestial body (or bodies) is in a state of chemical disequilibrium considered to be suggestive of life.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
They found Fwiffo on Pluto.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Oh yeah, because that's one sure fire way of getting along with the stellar neighbours. Send them some "free" music today then, in a few weeks time, the RIAA sends in the lawyers and all their base belong to us...
Um, 3 - profit???
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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
Please let it be a black monolith on the moon. We're only nine years late.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Perhaps the Beatles will finally be available on the International Space Station?
Some word out on the web, including NASA funded astrobiology teams (there are fourteen), seem to indicate the possibility of them finding something strange here on Mother Earth, probably something in or around Mono Lake according to some people and its arsenic based life forms. Since the major announcement last June by NASA concerning 'Titan and the Case of the Missing Hydrogen'. In fact one of the ladies on the panel this Thursday is in fact the researcher who is studying possible arsenic based life forms in Mono Lake. I'd say that she found something. One thing for certain, with the embargo we won't know for sure until Thursday. :)
I only deal with meta-chicken. Not a metaphor, but instead, meta-fried.
Once, there was a murder of crows who were harassing some horses in the paddock near my barn. I yelled at them, told them that corral-ation wasn't caws-ation, but apparently they thought I was simply winging it.
Also:
Linux is forking good
And Windows is forking not.
I'm speaking of course
Of a call in the source
Just one of them has got
If you need your code
To go down both roads
When choice becomes a Y
Then Linux is better
The one to get her
Forking day and night
Fork, fork, fork, fork
Fork, fork, fork, fork
Forkety-fork
Fork-fork-fork.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this newly scheduled announcement is in some way related to the latest WikiLeaks release. Is NASA trying to get ahead of some potential situation with this announcement?
Not only alien life, they have a trove of hundreds of thousands of documents from the alien government! Describing advanced graft and corruption abilities that are centuries beyond our own!
If you look at the list of participants, it may provide a clue:
Participants are:
- Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
- Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
- James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe
If you follow up the connection of James Elser to NASA, it turns out to be a project called "Follow the Elements"
http://astrobiology.asu.edu/Astrobiology/Home/Home.html
So I'm guessing that they've found certain exo-planets in the Goldilocks zone that have the right balance of precursor elements/molecules for life.
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?
I wonder if this will be big enough news to distract people from the scandals arising from the Wikileaks thing.
Also, look for Octo-Moms to lead police on high-speed chases in Black SUVs over the coming days. Down a well.
-FL