Panspermia is a theoretical solution in search of a problem it actually applies to.
That's one of the more polite ways I've heard of describing it.
The whole universe is now believed to be a little over 12 billion years old, whereas Earth is about 4.5 Billion years old.
Not untrue, but of very limited relevance. To generate enough "metals" (in the astrophysicist's sense - nuclei heavier than helium) you probably need to be onto your second if not third generation of stars burning stellar turds (light metals). There is a strong (not undisputed, but near consensus) opinion that that you couldn't have had enough planets forming with enough chemistry going on to have formed life... well much before the age of the universe at the formation of the Earth. This is not an argument that you hear from the panspermatics very often.
Stupid question: why don't they run the DNA test again if they think it was flawed?
Not a stupid question, a very good question. One plausible reason would be that there aren't sufficient samples to test - though since this study claims replication of the "extraterrestrial" organisms, then that shouldn't be a problem. Another common problem is for external scientists to get hold of samples ; I don't know if this is a problem in this case. A third common problem is that some people may not want to get a different answer to the one that's already in the literature (often under "some people"'s name(s) ; again, I don't know if this is a problem in this case. A fourth common problem, if samples are available, is lack of anyone willing to WOMBAT (Waste Of Money Brains And Time) on what is considered a dead subject. I certainly feel WOMBAT-ted after spending a day and a bit working through the paper (in amongst doing important things, like the washing-up) ; I'm not going to blame anyone else for thinking rude thoughts about the subject and moving on. It's been beaten to death for most people (who've heard of it) long since.
Isn't that the kind of thing that many undergrad applied genetics classes do for lab work?
In theory, an undergraduate could probably actually do the work... but would tie up so much lab space and resources that it would be quicker (and effectively cheaper) to hand the task to someone who actually knows what they're doing.
it won't pass the review process for a major journal.
It wouldn't pass the review process for an undergraduate term paper if I were marking it - and that's just on general presentation grounds (incorrect, inconsistent citations ; inappropriate or confusing changes in units and terms of comparison). As far as I can tell, there are gaping, unmentioned holes in the science too. Now, I could accept "this is a problem which requires further work" perfectly happily, but not mentioning gaping holes in the arguments... not adequate. Some of the authors of this paper need to take much more care over QC-ing things that are submitted under their names.
There are a number of clear flaws. Cells of some species will often show a characteristic doubling time. ... This odd behavior is consistent with micelles treated at high heat breaking apart into smaller micelles before reaching a stable size (which, assuming these data are not falsified, seems to be what is occurring here).
I had noted the same point in my analysis (incomplete at this moment ; maybe I'll get more time this afternoon), but hypothesised that this was a sign of some "limiting nutrient" being encountered. Though I think I like your concept better (I haven't finished reading the paper yet, but the imagery published would fit better to your suggestion). As you say - this hasn't been through any sort of review at all, let alone review by a peer specialising in the field. If two outsiders can see holes in the "research" almost as soon as they meet it, then the work hasn't been done well. I'm not suggesting that publication should be delayed until all possible sidelines have been pursued to a conclusion, but that problems should be noted, and possible alternative interpretations (within or without the overall hypothesis) noted if available.
Actually in this case it looks to me more like a summary of a conference paper/ presentation rather than a paper intended for publication as such. So apart from Arxiv and the proceedings of the conference, it's unlikely to ever see the light of thermonuclear radiation again.
But it's terribly written. An absolute mess. I'd have been ashamed to hand it in as an undergraduate ; the additional authors (Wickramasinghe, Wainwright and Gangappa?) really ought to exert more quality control over what goes out under their names.
Whoever fed you that line of compost was being inexcusably slippery with the language. The theoretical analysis that is described takes no account of, for example, the fact that sunlight at the Earth's surface (or even at the Earth's orbit, assuming that we can put farms in space) has a finite intensity, and that is one limitation to the inputs of the system. Other, undescribed and unconsidered, limitations include that some minerals are essential elements, and they are only released from rocks at certain rates. The example that I was going to cite was molybdenum, which is an essential traces element involved IIRC in ATP handling in all organisms that use mitochondria, but for this discussion I think that the availability of magnesium might be better. A magnesium atom is present in every molecule of chlorophyll. If you want to increase your yield beyond a certain point (when all magnesium atoms are already in chlorophyll molecules, then you've either got to engage in aquatic-solution nucleosynthesis (which would make even Pons & FLeischmann blush), or you've got to put magnesium into the system. On Earth, that happens slowly by weathering of many rock types, and is nearly invisible to the casual observer. But in your orbital farm, the need to ship up lumps of dolomite on a rocket makes the dependency on external inputs obvious. Why would I think that magnesium makes a better example of a "limiting nutrient" than molybdenum? Because you can easily see the effects of magnesium deficiency in many farming areas and soil types. Deficiency of magnesium leads to plants that appear to be growing well, but are decidedly yellow compared to their non-deficient neighbours (because the green-reflecting magnesium complexes in chlorophyll are absent, though carotene associates of the photosynthetic chain are still forming along with the rest of the plant) and stunted. The deficiency can vary on a matter of metres in marginal soils - you may see lines of good growth associated with the slightly different soil chemistry along the tractor tracks, for example. It's quite impressive. I hope that I don't need to explain the limitation that the intensity of sunlight at a location puts on plant growth (and therefore on the growth of the rest of the ecosystem) ; I'm a caver, and it seems pretty obvious to me.
But to return to your "no theoretical maximum yield"... well it's true, if by "theoretical" you mean "theoretical (neglecting all the important and obvious limitations that I've not considered in my theory because I want a punchy punch line)". I'd re-examine everything else that this author has proposed to you through a much more sceptical magnifying glass, because if he pulls this sort of linguistic legerdemain once, he (or she) is likely to pull it repeatedly.
If you can find something that big, other people can. Finding something that big and sitting on yer arse while someone else publishes, probably doesn't feel all that good.
Firstly, the GP didn't suggest "sitting on yer arse" - he was talking about being very careful about the quality of your prepared publication, while being very careful about the other work that you carry out with other collaborators while you're continuing to prepare your work. That means that
the work has already been submitted for publication, so that at least the editors and reviewers have sight of it. (I know that this isn't full publication, but it does help with claims of priority that you had work "in preparation", "under review", etc)
you are continuing to work on it - for example the paper under discussion implies that they're also working on higher temperature experiments ; this will typically require further collaborators
there's nothing to stop you from citing this work (as "in prep." or "submitted to") in other publications that you make in the interim e.g. you write a review of panspermia for the science pages of the July Cardiff Herald and you cite this work as "Wickramasingh et al, SPIE 2010 (in prep.)"
In this more specific case, I suspect that Wickramasingh et al have got very little competition for publication on this subject, and in any case, they've got the samples so they can control who gets access to it. (I've not heard that Chandra and crew deny other researchers access to materials - but if they did receive a request and supplied material, they'd know who it went to, what their skills and lab capabilities are, what techniques they've used previously... all of which give you a pretty good idea of what The Competition likely to be doing.)
Even though it's an easy win, they still have to pay a lawyer to go into court.
What do you mean - "they still have to pay a lawyer to go into court"? I mean, it's probably wise to have a lawyer somewhere writing the scripts, but you can have a shaved baboon present your case for you, provided that the court (i.e. judge/ magistrate) can understand the baboon.
Who would design such a system? Oh, that explains it : the lawyers designed the system. 'Nuff said.
I used to cross swords regularly with Expanding-Earth kooks, and creationists too, on sci.geo.geology ; they're as bad as each other, and both equally prone to deliberate errors of logic, selective quoting, dodging and denying questions, etc. It's often been said about creation-critters that "you can't reason a man out of a position which he didn't arrive at through reason." The same can be said perfectly well of EE'rs.
Disgusting bunch of fucktards, both of them ; living arguments for retroactive birth control. Thermonuclear retroactive birth control, preferably out to relatives with quite a small proportion of shared genes. Not that I'm swimming in anyone else's gene pool, but I certainly wouldn't want to share a gene pool with such unpleasant hominins.
Interestingly enough natural agriculture systems designed using these principle have no theoretical maximum yield.
Huh? That sounds pretty bizarre to me. It sounds like it should be a violation of an ecological analogy of the second law of thermodynamics - the ecological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Which sounds very wrong.
The Wikipedia article you cite doesn't make much about yields. So, where does this "no maximum yield" idea come from?
But don't worry : it's an 'Merican company spilling 'Merican oil into 'Merican water. We'll sue their asses to death here in Europe in the spirit of fairness. And then we'll doubly sue them for over-applying Korean rules where Korean rules don't apply.
Pass me the yard-arm, and a few metres more rope - then we can have a barbecue.
You say? As in - you say that well control is easy. Oh, shit, I take my non-well-control-certified-ass off the seat and pass you the hat of responsibility.
... little bitty bunnny wabbbitt children from any sort of outside influence. Cannot have trained killers running around with ideas in their heads from some source other than the officially approved sources. Killers with wrong ideas is just wrong.
The idea of solving problems without training killers is heresy. Burn the heretic(s)!
Do you think that it's that different here in the States?
Whats that thing called an SSN meant to do in America? Act as a State Security Number? Is it your passport number for getting access to government services? Or is it some other form of Unique Personal Identifier?
... to the anti-WikiLeaks hysteria : they must be doing something right to get such sustained vitriol. So I must convert from an occasional donor to a steady repeat donor.
What's that thing called? Oh yes, "Law of Unintended Consequences".
Sounds like an excellent case of evolution in action - or at least a creditable attempt at a Darwin Award.
The tricky thing is that the pupil didn't either kill himself (was it a him? I've closed the original article) or destroy his gonads, so the possibility still exists of his genes staying in the gene pool, which would preclude him getting a DA. But that can be taken care of with a welding rod and associated equipment, and only a minor amount of screaming and thrashing. If there were any justice in the world, the sued teacher would be allowed (required?) to do the meat-welding.
But this isn't a perfect world, so nothing much useful will happen. Not even stringing up the incinerated carcass in a gibbet, pour encourager les autres.
There's also the probability that many if not all "Nubians", including a number of Egyptian pharaohs, were dark-skinned to the point of being "black" by all modern meanings of the word.
"Nubia" is the Classical Egyptian (and hence, Classical Greek and Classical Roman) term for several not-very-well-defined kingdoms or regions further upstream on the Nile from Egypt. The area in question probably encompasses parts of modern Sudan and possibly as far upstream as Ethiopia.
Once people in central Europe got into brewing, they demonstrated empirical knowledge and use of of preservatives: The hops!
People in central Europe (and outside) were preserving the calorie content of grains by brewing them into beers (and incidentally producing safe fluids for drinking) for millennia before the use of hops was known, or they were widely grown as a crop.
The anti-biotic (i.e. killer of all life forms) in beers, wines and spirits is ethanol.
Solution : get the 4-year old kid pissed into unconsciousness. No problem.
Yes - this is a joke, but not that far-fetched. Certainly, getting the complaining children pissed and/ or stoned is a tactic with a long history. Look at the ingredient list of things like "gripe water" : you'd have the same effect and a bigger bill from drinking raw gin. And no shortage of other past "soothing treatments" were laced with opioids, heroin, hypnotics and or hallucinogens.
But manufacturing beer is relatively expensive - in raw materials, in storage vessels, in time and effort. Getting wailing kids pissed isn't going to be an efficient use of these resources. Though getting an injured wailing kid pissed enough to splint a limb, or reduce a dislocation is more credible.
Evidently they don't let you near the customers. I wouldn't, with spelling like that. Strictly an interchangeable code jockey, not someone whose contributions are going to be sufficiently valuable that I'd let my customers expect to see your face again.
Whoever administers the training programmes for your judicial service appears to have some answering to do. It could be worse and you might select your judicial authorities by popular ballot, as I believe some third-world countries do. Mind you - total consistency might not be so appealing in itself. To expect total consistency would be to implicitly claim that "we" (whoever that is) have perfect knowledge and understanding of the relevant legal system, of what the people want from it, and the psychology necessary to achieve those ends by acting on the variable persons who come into dispute with the legal system. That isn't going to happen some time soon. Not with humans in the system.
If you zoom in the screen reflections you will only get the *back* of the devices.
But if you look at the distorted images in the guys spectacles, then even without mythical enhancement, you can see what I think is his arm and the conventional laptop. So without firing up the Infinite Improbability Drive to power the image processor, there is visible information in the picture. Maybe the best way to avoid information leaking would have been to not take any pictures, then reassign the guy who suggested taking pictures to a few years in the Ulan Bator Sales Office. (Mongolian speakers will I hope forgive my spelling.)
Slashdot Mirror
That's one of the more polite ways I've heard of describing it.
Not untrue, but of very limited relevance. To generate enough "metals" (in the astrophysicist's sense - nuclei heavier than helium) you probably need to be onto your second if not third generation of stars burning stellar turds (light metals). There is a strong (not undisputed, but near consensus) opinion that that you couldn't have had enough planets forming with enough chemistry going on to have formed life ... well much before the age of the universe at the formation of the Earth.
This is not an argument that you hear from the panspermatics very often.
Not a stupid question, a very good question.
One plausible reason would be that there aren't sufficient samples to test - though since this study claims replication of the "extraterrestrial" organisms, then that shouldn't be a problem.
Another common problem is for external scientists to get hold of samples ; I don't know if this is a problem in this case.
A third common problem is that some people may not want to get a different answer to the one that's already in the literature (often under "some people"'s name(s) ; again, I don't know if this is a problem in this case.
A fourth common problem, if samples are available, is lack of anyone willing to WOMBAT (Waste Of Money Brains And Time) on what is considered a dead subject. I certainly feel WOMBAT-ted after spending a day and a bit working through the paper (in amongst doing important things, like the washing-up) ; I'm not going to blame anyone else for thinking rude thoughts about the subject and moving on. It's been beaten to death for most people (who've heard of it) long since.
In theory, an undergraduate could probably actually do the work ... but would tie up so much lab space and resources that it would be quicker (and effectively cheaper) to hand the task to someone who actually knows what they're doing.
It wouldn't pass the review process for an undergraduate term paper if I were marking it - and that's just on general presentation grounds (incorrect, inconsistent citations ; inappropriate or confusing changes in units and terms of comparison). As far as I can tell, there are gaping, unmentioned holes in the science too. Now, I could accept "this is a problem which requires further work" perfectly happily, but not mentioning gaping holes in the arguments ... not adequate.
Some of the authors of this paper need to take much more care over QC-ing things that are submitted under their names.
True.
But, but ... will nobody think of the poor starving writers of ridiculously hyperbolic headlines?
I had noted the same point in my analysis (incomplete at this moment ; maybe I'll get more time this afternoon), but hypothesised that this was a sign of some "limiting nutrient" being encountered. Though I think I like your concept better (I haven't finished reading the paper yet, but the imagery published would fit better to your suggestion).
As you say - this hasn't been through any sort of review at all, let alone review by a peer specialising in the field. If two outsiders can see holes in the "research" almost as soon as they meet it, then the work hasn't been done well. I'm not suggesting that publication should be delayed until all possible sidelines have been pursued to a conclusion, but that problems should be noted, and possible alternative interpretations (within or without the overall hypothesis) noted if available.
Actually in this case it looks to me more like a summary of a conference paper/ presentation rather than a paper intended for publication as such. So apart from Arxiv and the proceedings of the conference, it's unlikely to ever see the light of thermonuclear radiation again.
But it's terribly written. An absolute mess. I'd have been ashamed to hand it in as an undergraduate ; the additional authors (Wickramasinghe, Wainwright and Gangappa?) really ought to exert more quality control over what goes out under their names.
Whoever fed you that line of compost was being inexcusably slippery with the language. The theoretical analysis that is described takes no account of, for example, the fact that sunlight at the Earth's surface (or even at the Earth's orbit, assuming that we can put farms in space) has a finite intensity, and that is one limitation to the inputs of the system. Other, undescribed and unconsidered, limitations include that some minerals are essential elements, and they are only released from rocks at certain rates. The example that I was going to cite was molybdenum, which is an essential traces element involved IIRC in ATP handling in all organisms that use mitochondria, but for this discussion I think that the availability of magnesium might be better.
A magnesium atom is present in every molecule of chlorophyll. If you want to increase your yield beyond a certain point (when all magnesium atoms are already in chlorophyll molecules, then you've either got to engage in aquatic-solution nucleosynthesis (which would make even Pons & FLeischmann blush), or you've got to put magnesium into the system. On Earth, that happens slowly by weathering of many rock types, and is nearly invisible to the casual observer. But in your orbital farm, the need to ship up lumps of dolomite on a rocket makes the dependency on external inputs obvious.
Why would I think that magnesium makes a better example of a "limiting nutrient" than molybdenum? Because you can easily see the effects of magnesium deficiency in many farming areas and soil types. Deficiency of magnesium leads to plants that appear to be growing well, but are decidedly yellow compared to their non-deficient neighbours (because the green-reflecting magnesium complexes in chlorophyll are absent, though carotene associates of the photosynthetic chain are still forming along with the rest of the plant) and stunted. The deficiency can vary on a matter of metres in marginal soils - you may see lines of good growth associated with the slightly different soil chemistry along the tractor tracks, for example. It's quite impressive.
I hope that I don't need to explain the limitation that the intensity of sunlight at a location puts on plant growth (and therefore on the growth of the rest of the ecosystem) ; I'm a caver, and it seems pretty obvious to me.
But to return to your "no theoretical maximum yield" ... well it's true, if by "theoretical" you mean "theoretical (neglecting all the important and obvious limitations that I've not considered in my theory because I want a punchy punch line)". I'd re-examine everything else that this author has proposed to you through a much more sceptical magnifying glass, because if he pulls this sort of linguistic legerdemain once, he (or she) is likely to pull it repeatedly.
Damn, I mouse-o-ed and hit the submit instead of the preview. Should have closed the ordered list.
And that bloody stupid "Speed Up, Cowboy!" filter blocks me from making the correction!!
Firstly, the GP didn't suggest "sitting on yer arse" - he was talking about being very careful about the quality of your prepared publication, while being very careful about the other work that you carry out with other collaborators while you're continuing to prepare your work. That means that
In this more specific case, I suspect that Wickramasingh et al have got very little competition for publication on this subject, and in any case, they've got the samples so they can control who gets access to it. (I've not heard that Chandra and crew deny other researchers access to materials - but if they did receive a request and supplied material, they'd know who it went to, what their skills and lab capabilities are, what techniques they've used previously ... all of which give you a pretty good idea of what The Competition likely to be doing.)
What do you mean - "they still have to pay a lawyer to go into court"?
I mean, it's probably wise to have a lawyer somewhere writing the scripts, but you can have a shaved baboon present your case for you, provided that the court (i.e. judge/ magistrate) can understand the baboon.
Who would design such a system? Oh, that explains it : the lawyers designed the system. 'Nuff said.
I used to cross swords regularly with Expanding-Earth kooks, and creationists too, on sci.geo.geology ; they're as bad as each other, and both equally prone to deliberate errors of logic, selective quoting, dodging and denying questions, etc.
It's often been said about creation-critters that "you can't reason a man out of a position which he didn't arrive at through reason." The same can be said perfectly well of EE'rs.
Disgusting bunch of fucktards, both of them ; living arguments for retroactive birth control. Thermonuclear retroactive birth control, preferably out to relatives with quite a small proportion of shared genes. Not that I'm swimming in anyone else's gene pool, but I certainly wouldn't want to share a gene pool with such unpleasant hominins.
Huh? That sounds pretty bizarre to me. It sounds like it should be a violation of an ecological analogy of the second law of thermodynamics - the ecological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Which sounds very wrong.
The Wikipedia article you cite doesn't make much about yields. So, where does this "no maximum yield" idea come from?
Situation
Normal
All
Fucked
Up
But don't worry : it's an 'Merican company spilling 'Merican oil into 'Merican water. We'll sue their asses to death here in Europe in the spirit of fairness. And then we'll doubly sue them for over-applying Korean rules where Korean rules don't apply.
Pass me the yard-arm, and a few metres more rope - then we can have a barbecue.
You say?
As in - you say that well control is easy.
Oh, shit, I take my non-well-control-certified-ass off the seat and pass you the hat of responsibility.
Enjoy your responsibility.
... little bitty bunnny wabbbitt children from any sort of outside influence.
Cannot have trained killers running around with ideas in their heads from some source other than the officially approved sources. Killers with wrong ideas is just wrong.
The idea of solving problems without training killers is heresy. Burn the heretic(s)!
Whats that thing called an SSN meant to do in America?
Act as a State Security Number?
Is it your passport number for getting access to government services?
Or is it some other form of Unique Personal Identifier?
... to the anti-WikiLeaks hysteria : they must be doing something right to get such sustained vitriol. So I must convert from an occasional donor to a steady repeat donor.
What's that thing called? Oh yes, "Law of Unintended Consequences".
Reading the F-ing Summary?
You must be new here!
Sounds like an excellent case of evolution in action - or at least a creditable attempt at a Darwin Award.
The tricky thing is that the pupil didn't either kill himself (was it a him? I've closed the original article) or destroy his gonads, so the possibility still exists of his genes staying in the gene pool, which would preclude him getting a DA. But that can be taken care of with a welding rod and associated equipment, and only a minor amount of screaming and thrashing. If there were any justice in the world, the sued teacher would be allowed (required?) to do the meat-welding.
But this isn't a perfect world, so nothing much useful will happen. Not even stringing up the incinerated carcass in a gibbet, pour encourager les autres.
A person from Nubia. Didn't you know that?
There's also the probability that many if not all "Nubians", including a number of Egyptian pharaohs, were dark-skinned to the point of being "black" by all modern meanings of the word.
"Nubia" is the Classical Egyptian (and hence, Classical Greek and Classical Roman) term for several not-very-well-defined kingdoms or regions further upstream on the Nile from Egypt. The area in question probably encompasses parts of modern Sudan and possibly as far upstream as Ethiopia.
People in central Europe (and outside) were preserving the calorie content of grains by brewing them into beers (and incidentally producing safe fluids for drinking) for millennia before the use of hops was known, or they were widely grown as a crop.
The anti-biotic (i.e. killer of all life forms) in beers, wines and spirits is ethanol.
Solution : get the 4-year old kid pissed into unconsciousness. No problem.
Yes - this is a joke, but not that far-fetched. Certainly, getting the complaining children pissed and/ or stoned is a tactic with a long history. Look at the ingredient list of things like "gripe water" : you'd have the same effect and a bigger bill from drinking raw gin. And no shortage of other past "soothing treatments" were laced with opioids, heroin, hypnotics and or hallucinogens.
But manufacturing beer is relatively expensive - in raw materials, in storage vessels, in time and effort. Getting wailing kids pissed isn't going to be an efficient use of these resources. Though getting an injured wailing kid pissed enough to splint a limb, or reduce a dislocation is more credible.
Evidently they don't let you near the customers. I wouldn't, with spelling like that. Strictly an interchangeable code jockey, not someone whose contributions are going to be sufficiently valuable that I'd let my customers expect to see your face again.
Whoever administers the training programmes for your judicial service appears to have some answering to do. It could be worse and you might select your judicial authorities by popular ballot, as I believe some third-world countries do.
Mind you - total consistency might not be so appealing in itself. To expect total consistency would be to implicitly claim that "we" (whoever that is) have perfect knowledge and understanding of the relevant legal system, of what the people want from it, and the psychology necessary to achieve those ends by acting on the variable persons who come into dispute with the legal system. That isn't going to happen some time soon. Not with humans in the system.
But if you look at the distorted images in the guys spectacles, then even without mythical enhancement, you can see what I think is his arm and the conventional laptop. So without firing up the Infinite Improbability Drive to power the image processor, there is visible information in the picture.
Maybe the best way to avoid information leaking would have been to not take any pictures, then reassign the guy who suggested taking pictures to a few years in the Ulan Bator Sales Office.
(Mongolian speakers will I hope forgive my spelling.)