I don't get this accusation of "forcing farmers to use" transgenic crops. Farmers want these things...and there are options. They just aren't as attractive.
It seems unlikely for one very simple reason...why would some one of another species (or subspecies, I suppose) be attractive to humans? Granted there are currently those few people who get into things like sex with farm animals, and most likely the prehistoric equivalents of them would have probably had no problem with Neandertal's, the vast majority would simply not been interested. Sexual attractiveness, while governed somewhat by cultural ideas, is pretty deeply rooted in biology, and the fact is that if a Neanderthal woman wouldn't do the trick for me or you, it probably wouldn't for Cro-Magnon man either. In general, people are considered more attractive the closer they are to average in various biometric measures...even the hottest Neanderthal chick in the world would not have even approached that. So while hybrids may have occurred if the two populations were in contact, and may have even been fertile (which seems possible, since despite not being directly related, the genetic relationship is really quite close), the resulting hybrid is still going to be ugly, by both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sapiens standards, and not really likely to contribute to the gene pool. Not to mention quite likely unhealthy to begin with.
The problem has less to do with the scientists and more to do with the people asking the questions. The media isn't real fond of publishing stories which basically say "no one really has more than a very slight idea what's going on with any of this." So scientists are encouraged to speculate, and that speculation is repeated as fact. Scientists are happy to speculate...that's kind of what the job IS, as long as you then attempt to back that speculation up with fact.
Not to say that there aren't scientists whose minds will never be swayed by any amount of evidence on certain subjects, but those people are rarer than it might seem.
The Bush administration's handling of science is pretty simple, and has absolutely nothing to do with scientific truth. It basically goes something like this:
1. Does the Christian Right oppose {insert issue X}?
If Yes, then research has demonstrated that {issue X} is dangerous, not to mention, morally repugnant.
If No, proceed to #2.
2. Does {issue X} imply the need for action which might result in any major corporation losing money?
If Yes, then there has not yet been sufficient research on the subject.
If No, proceed to #3.
3. Does any major corporation stand to make a great deal of money because of {issue X}?
If Yes, the research has indicated that it is vital that government give vast amounts of money to the development of {issue X}.
If No, then ignore and move on to next issue.
After running through the above process, observe public opinion. If it appears that opinion regarding {issue X} is sufficiently negative to possible cost you even a severely compromised election, immediately reverse your opinion, claim that's what you were saying all along, and that the research supports your current stance.
Yeah, but the easiest way to get something from Europe to east Asia is still by boat...think about where you have to go through to go overland: former Soviet states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, etc. Not places known for their impressive transportation infrastructure. Not to mention a decent risk that it won't arrive on the other end at all. Even with nutty terrorists in speed boats, the oceans are a hell of alot easier, safer, and cheaper of a way to ship things.
Plants already suck up arsenic from the ground. In fact, garden vegetables which have absorbed toxic levels of heavy metals are a common cause of chronic illness in areas with contaminated soils. The fact that plants do this in the first place make it relatively easy to crank the tendency up a few notches.
Toxic heavy metals already pervade our ecosystem, generally in concentration that make it difficult to remove them. As has already been stated, anything that can take these low concentration (but still dangerous) contaminations and turn them into high concentrations that can be safely removed somewhere is a good thing.
Arsenic can't find its way into the ecosystem in a "macro scale" unless its there in the first place...the soil and the groundwater are very much part of the ecosystem. But in this case, presumable some, in fact large amounts, of the arsenic has been removed when the plants are harvested.
If the test sites are heavily contaminated in the first place, you can bet local ecosystem poisoning has already happened.
As far as "mining" via plants...do you think really think that strip mining would be LESS hard on the environment? Unless the world magically reverts to the stone age, people are going to want metals, and until something better are is introduced, there's little incentive for them to stop doing what works for them already...
My wife, my sister, my mother, my father, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law use Palms (or Handspring Visors) on a daily basis. None of these people has any trouble entering data on them, and its been months since I've seen my wife make an error entering data. It's just not that hard to do. I use the things once or twice a month, and while I stumble once in a while, I find them perfectly usable.
My own PDA is a Newton MessagePad 120 (I have a 2100, but it's screwed up). No data entry problems there.
PDAs weren't intended to replace computers. If you use it as a word processor, you're going to be disappointed. If you use to replace an addressbook, to do list, notepad, etc, which is what they're really intended to do, they work great. I'm a graduate student, I keep all my research notes on my Newton, as well as deadlines and assignments. No problems so far.
Actually, species are pretty damn arbitrary...
on
Elephant DNA Studied
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· Score: 1
Many plants are completely interfertile within entire genuses (grapes for example...almost the whole genus Vitis will cross happily with everything else in the genus except Vitis rotundifolia, which probably should be there anyway)
Fungi, particularly ascomycetes, have a tendency to have two genus and species names.
Ultimately, you just have to admit that species (and genus and family, etc) are pretty much arbitrary, and that life and evolution are nowhere near as nice and orderly as taxonomists would like us to belive. Not to say that taxonomy isn't a useful tool, in its own right.
I've got to agree with you here. The simple fact that there are certain chemicals floating about which would very complicated and unlikely to be produced inorganically by no means implies that the presence of life is likely. Remember, by most calculations, life itself is one damn unlikely and complicated chemical reaction (at least at the initial stages...we seem to muddle along quite well at this point). So what's more unlikely...the weird chemical maneuverings required to make this stuff inorganically, or the weird chemical maneuverings required to create the life to create it organically?
Actually, though, I think they are talking hybrids. They are talking about multiple generations, gradually yielding a nearly 'pure' mammoth. That's not cloning, it's breeding.
And, of course, interactions in utero are only an issue if they're genetically compatible in the first place, which I would say is hardly a given. Even if they are capable of creating viable offspring, the odds of that offspring being fertile itself I'd say are approximately nil (this based on my fairly minimal knowledge of elephant genetics, mind you). African and Asian elephant hybrids are exceedingly rare, and the only one I know of did not survive long after birth ("Motty", born in England in the 1970s). Keep in mind that African and Asian elephants are not only two different species, but different genuses (Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus). Hybrids between different species within the same genus virtually never give rise to fertile offspring (think mules), and very VERY rarely happen between different genuses.
Mammoths (and I may be wrong here...if so some one correct me) all belong to the genus Mammuthus (clever, eh?), and I think there are three main species, Colombian, Jefferson, and Woolly (don't ask me for species names...)
Granted, taxonomy is, in the end, a completely arbitrary thing, but the fact that taxonomists have placed the mammoth in a genus seperate from Elephas suggests to me that they feel there are enough differences to justify it and if there are enough such differences, sexual compatibility is unlikely.
Why should we believe it, when we're already lied to once? It's strongly implied, both in ads and the included documentation, that iTools came as part of the package when I bought the computer. As far as I'm concerned, I bought iTools when I bought my iBook. What's next....is my iBook going to pop up a window in a second, requesting a credit card number so I can pay $100/yr to continue using the computer I already bought.
I, personally, don't care how much it costs them...no one forced them to make the offer in the first place. It's lame, and people will notice. Apple's users are very loyal...but we don't like getting dicked over any more than the next guy, and this is a dick-over if I ever saw one.
1. Apple's main market has always been primarily current Mac users.
2. This is an expensive electronic toy.
Who buys expensive electronic toys? The same people who spend a lot on their computers. Every Mac shipped in nearly two years has had FireWire, and iTunes is a free download and has been around a while. The sort of people who have $400 to spend on an extremely cool walkman, tend to replace their computers every couple of years anyhow.
Will they sell a million or two of these? Nah. They don't have to. Apple's goal is to make Mac users happy they're Mac users, and they do that well. This is just another good reason (for some people) to own a Mac. If non-Mac users like something Apple makes, I'm sure they're happy to sell it to them, but they're not the target audience.
This thing is priced high because they can right now...the thing's not even shipping, and the rumor is that supplies are low at the moment...they'll let the people willing to spend $400 on it spend $400 on it until they A) exhaust that market, and B) get caught up on production, and then they'll lower it to $300, and get the people who are willing to spend $300. Why sell it to people willing to spend $400 at $300? And after a while at that price, I suspect we'll see it go a bit lower, and a new, souped up one will appear to take the $400 slot. It maximizes profit and spreads demand out so that they can meet it.
People also need to realize that Apple isn't saying "CRTs are bad and no one should use them." They're saying "We no longer choose to make CRTs...we're going to leave that to other people." An awful lot of computer users, particularly those who know what they need/want, buy monitors from brands other than the computer maker's. Standard CRTs from other companies still work with Macs, and most likely will for a very long time. Apple is not a huge manufacturer of monitors (it's not small, but there are lots bigger) and the differences in CRTs are, while real, fairly small. Apple has simply decided to let other companies fiddle with that stuff, and move into an area where there is more room to innovate and produce cutting edge equipment. And whether or not you admit it, and clearly a large number of you don't, Apple is, in general, a considerably better innovator and risk taker than 99% of the Wintel world. Even when the PC universe comes up with a good idea, they hesitate to use it, because in their world, compatibility is paramount. The Macintosh has always been primarily compatible only with itself, and so Apple doesn't have to fret about those sorts of things. Look at USB... PC makers were free to incorporate it for years before Apple took the plunge...and they might never have done it if Apple hadn't. Apple made the leap of faith and the result was the development of lots of USB devices which encouraged the PC makers it was safe to try it themselves.
Examination of both genetics and physiological traits indicate that Ainu have more in common with early prehistoric Japanese, while modern Japanese are actually pretty similar to ancient Chinese. Both, however, have Mongoloid ancestors.
The fact is that race is a pretty poorly defined concept as it is, and ascribing a particular trait to one race or another is unlikely to hold up particularly well.
Australoid peoples actually have a number hair traits ascribed mostly to Caucasoids, such as facial hair, blonde hair (in children), and wavy hair and body hair. Despite questionable science claiming they are descended from "primitive Caucasoid peoples" the fact is that they are in general VERY distant genetically from European stock.
I know I'll catch flak about this, especially from the French who are just a little too damn proud of their postal system, but part of the reason for this is that the U.S. has pretty much the fastest, most reliable postal system in the world.
I'm not saying there's a substantial difference, but there is one, and the U.S. postal service doesn't have any major disruptions of service (like say a large local land war like WWII) that would survive in people's memory. We also are significantly less prone to truck-driver strikes, something European nations seem to really like.
In many third world countries (and many that aren't...Israel still does it this way, or did a few years ago) most bills are paid in person at a local office or collected door-to-door, because no company is going to trust their profits to the postal system.
There's no reason why American's can't pay their bills electronically...and more and more do. I don't mostly because I live so close to complete and abject poverty that I want to be encouraged to have my checkbook there and check every last cent that goes out of my account. But that's just me. There's no reason why 80% of Americans couldn't be paying 90% of their bills on line.
I have a difficult time imagining a functional genetic system more simple than nucleic acids. Correct me if I'm wrong here...I've got a great deal of experience in genetics, but I must admit that I suck on the strict chemistry end of it.
RNA-only seems perfectly plausible to me, though.
While it may not be especially compelling evidence FOR panspermia, it certainly isn't an argument against it. Whether or not there might have been enough time for life to evolve (which is impossible to know for sure), the fact is that to my mind it's no more or less unreasonable to think the life came here from somewhere else than that it sprung out of nowhere here.
Actually, I'd have to say that chemosynthesis is a more likely mechanism for early organisms than photosynthesis, since most accounts of early earth I've heard include constant cloud cover and lots of nasty chemicals that need to be broken down by something before we can get to the point we're at now.
Given the high reproductive rate and thus high mutation rate, bacteria seem very unlikely to have been entirely wiped out by anything short of crashing into the sun.
Sorry...I screwed up, and I should know beter. The absolute magnitude is somewhere in the range of 4.7 or so, but the APPARENT magnitude, which is, of course, what matters, is more like 20, so, unless you've got a better telescope than me, no, it's not remotely visible.
I really like the idea we're still finding whole WORLDS out there left to explore, without even having to leave the solar system. Granted, they're not quite as big worlds as our's, but 330-750 miles in diameter is pretty damn big.
It's funny though, that we're hearing so much about this one (or maybe it just seems that way) and relatively little about previous ones like 2000 EB173, which is probably only slightly smaller, discovered a month or so ago, and previous large Transneptunians, like 1999 TC36 and 1993 SC, which are both well more than 200 miles in diameter. They've been finding these things out there for a quite a few of years now, and granted this one may be the biggest so far, and I, personally, think it would be kind of cool if it bumped Ceres out of the number one spot on the Minor Planet size list, but, really, how much does the general populace really care about Ceres? Or Transneptunian objects?
If I remember right, the thing has an absolute magnitude of 4.7 (I may be thinking of 2000 EB173, not 2000 WR106 (or maybe I'm just crazy, and my sick mind simply generated that number on its own somehow)), so I'd think it ought to be visible, at least with a decent telescope.
Space is so damn big, the odds of anything knocking it out of orbit in the first place, let alone of it then hitting something else, are incredibly tiny.
And it's not really that small...330-750 miles in diameter is pretty sizeable...much smaller things seem to stick quite happily to their orbits without much trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get this accusation of "forcing farmers to use" transgenic crops. Farmers want these things...and there are options. They just aren't as attractive.
It seems unlikely for one very simple reason...why would some one of another species (or subspecies, I suppose) be attractive to humans? Granted there are currently those few people who get into things like sex with farm animals, and most likely the prehistoric equivalents of them would have probably had no problem with Neandertal's, the vast majority would simply not been interested. Sexual attractiveness, while governed somewhat by cultural ideas, is pretty deeply rooted in biology, and the fact is that if a Neanderthal woman wouldn't do the trick for me or you, it probably wouldn't for Cro-Magnon man either. In general, people are considered more attractive the closer they are to average in various biometric measures...even the hottest Neanderthal chick in the world would not have even approached that. So while hybrids may have occurred if the two populations were in contact, and may have even been fertile (which seems possible, since despite not being directly related, the genetic relationship is really quite close), the resulting hybrid is still going to be ugly, by both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sapiens standards, and not really likely to contribute to the gene pool. Not to mention quite likely unhealthy to begin with.
And, if at any point you get tired of muddling your way through such a complex system, bomb Iraq.
The problem has less to do with the scientists and more to do with the people asking the questions. The media isn't real fond of publishing stories which basically say "no one really has more than a very slight idea what's going on with any of this." So scientists are encouraged to speculate, and that speculation is repeated as fact. Scientists are happy to speculate...that's kind of what the job IS, as long as you then attempt to back that speculation up with fact.
Not to say that there aren't scientists whose minds will never be swayed by any amount of evidence on certain subjects, but those people are rarer than it might seem.
The Bush administration's handling of science is pretty simple, and has absolutely nothing to do with scientific truth. It basically goes something like this:
1. Does the Christian Right oppose {insert issue X}?
If Yes, then research has demonstrated that {issue X} is dangerous, not to mention, morally repugnant.
If No, proceed to #2.
2. Does {issue X} imply the need for action which might result in any major corporation losing money?
If Yes, then there has not yet been sufficient research on the subject.
If No, proceed to #3.
3. Does any major corporation stand to make a great deal of money because of {issue X}?
If Yes, the research has indicated that it is vital that government give vast amounts of money to the development of {issue X}.
If No, then ignore and move on to next issue.
After running through the above process, observe public opinion. If it appears that opinion regarding {issue X} is sufficiently negative to possible cost you even a severely compromised election, immediately reverse your opinion, claim that's what you were saying all along, and that the research supports your current stance.
Yeah, but the easiest way to get something from Europe to east Asia is still by boat...think about where you have to go through to go overland: former Soviet states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, etc. Not places known for their impressive transportation infrastructure. Not to mention a decent risk that it won't arrive on the other end at all. Even with nutty terrorists in speed boats, the oceans are a hell of alot easier, safer, and cheaper of a way to ship things.
50km up, where the radiation would be lethal.
Not saying it's impossible, but I ain't buying it.
Plants already suck up arsenic from the ground. In fact, garden vegetables which have absorbed toxic levels of heavy metals are a common cause of chronic illness in areas with contaminated soils. The fact that plants do this in the first place make it relatively easy to crank the tendency up a few notches.
Toxic heavy metals already pervade our ecosystem, generally in concentration that make it difficult to remove them. As has already been stated, anything that can take these low concentration (but still dangerous) contaminations and turn them into high concentrations that can be safely removed somewhere is a good thing.
Arsenic can't find its way into the ecosystem in a "macro scale" unless its there in the first place...the soil and the groundwater are very much part of the ecosystem. But in this case, presumable some, in fact large amounts, of the arsenic has been removed when the plants are harvested.
If the test sites are heavily contaminated in the first place, you can bet local ecosystem poisoning has already happened.
As far as "mining" via plants...do you think really think that strip mining would be LESS hard on the environment? Unless the world magically reverts to the stone age, people are going to want metals, and until something better are is introduced, there's little incentive for them to stop doing what works for them already...
My wife, my sister, my mother, my father, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law use Palms (or Handspring Visors) on a daily basis. None of these people has any trouble entering data on them, and its been months since I've seen my wife make an error entering data. It's just not that hard to do. I use the things once or twice a month, and while I stumble once in a while, I find them perfectly usable.
My own PDA is a Newton MessagePad 120 (I have a 2100, but it's screwed up). No data entry problems there.
PDAs weren't intended to replace computers. If you use it as a word processor, you're going to be disappointed. If you use to replace an addressbook, to do list, notepad, etc, which is what they're really intended to do, they work great. I'm a graduate student, I keep all my research notes on my Newton, as well as deadlines and assignments. No problems so far.
Many plants are completely interfertile within entire genuses (grapes for example...almost the whole genus Vitis will cross happily with everything else in the genus except Vitis rotundifolia, which probably should be there anyway)
Fungi, particularly ascomycetes, have a tendency to have two genus and species names.
Ultimately, you just have to admit that species (and genus and family, etc) are pretty much arbitrary, and that life and evolution are nowhere near as nice and orderly as taxonomists would like us to belive. Not to say that taxonomy isn't a useful tool, in its own right.
I've got to agree with you here. The simple fact that there are certain chemicals floating about which would very complicated and unlikely to be produced inorganically by no means implies that the presence of life is likely. Remember, by most calculations, life itself is one damn unlikely and complicated chemical reaction (at least at the initial stages...we seem to muddle along quite well at this point). So what's more unlikely...the weird chemical maneuverings required to make this stuff inorganically, or the weird chemical maneuverings required to create the life to create it organically?
Actually, though, I think they are talking hybrids. They are talking about multiple generations, gradually yielding a nearly 'pure' mammoth. That's not cloning, it's breeding.
I just looked it up...mammoths have 58 chromosomes, while modern elephants have 56. So any offspring would have 57 and be sterile. End of story.
h tm
A little bit more on Motty:
http://www.angelfire.com/apes/izes/motty.
And, of course, interactions in utero are only an issue if they're genetically compatible in the first place, which I would say is hardly a given. Even if they are capable of creating viable offspring, the odds of that offspring being fertile itself I'd say are approximately nil (this based on my fairly minimal knowledge of elephant genetics, mind you). African and Asian elephant hybrids are exceedingly rare, and the only one I know of did not survive long after birth ("Motty", born in England in the 1970s). Keep in mind that African and Asian elephants are not only two different species, but different genuses (Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus). Hybrids between different species within the same genus virtually never give rise to fertile offspring (think mules), and very VERY rarely happen between different genuses.
Mammoths (and I may be wrong here...if so some one correct me) all belong to the genus Mammuthus (clever, eh?), and I think there are three main species, Colombian, Jefferson, and Woolly (don't ask me for species names...)
Granted, taxonomy is, in the end, a completely arbitrary thing, but the fact that taxonomists have placed the mammoth in a genus seperate from Elephas suggests to me that they feel there are enough differences to justify it and if there are enough such differences, sexual compatibility is unlikely.
Why should we believe it, when we're already lied to once? It's strongly implied, both in ads and the included documentation, that iTools came as part of the package when I bought the computer. As far as I'm concerned, I bought iTools when I bought my iBook. What's next....is my iBook going to pop up a window in a second, requesting a credit card number so I can pay $100/yr to continue using the computer I already bought.
I, personally, don't care how much it costs them...no one forced them to make the offer in the first place. It's lame, and people will notice. Apple's users are very loyal...but we don't like getting dicked over any more than the next guy, and this is a dick-over if I ever saw one.
1. Apple's main market has always been primarily current Mac users.
2. This is an expensive electronic toy.
Who buys expensive electronic toys? The same people who spend a lot on their computers. Every Mac shipped in nearly two years has had FireWire, and iTunes is a free download and has been around a while. The sort of people who have $400 to spend on an extremely cool walkman, tend to replace their computers every couple of years anyhow.
Will they sell a million or two of these? Nah. They don't have to. Apple's goal is to make Mac users happy they're Mac users, and they do that well. This is just another good reason (for some people) to own a Mac. If non-Mac users like something Apple makes, I'm sure they're happy to sell it to them, but they're not the target audience.
This thing is priced high because they can right now...the thing's not even shipping, and the rumor is that supplies are low at the moment...they'll let the people willing to spend $400 on it spend $400 on it until they A) exhaust that market, and B) get caught up on production, and then they'll lower it to $300, and get the people who are willing to spend $300. Why sell it to people willing to spend $400 at $300? And after a while at that price, I suspect we'll see it go a bit lower, and a new, souped up one will appear to take the $400 slot. It maximizes profit and spreads demand out so that they can meet it.
People also need to realize that Apple isn't saying "CRTs are bad and no one should use them." They're saying "We no longer choose to make CRTs...we're going to leave that to other people." An awful lot of computer users, particularly those who know what they need/want, buy monitors from brands other than the computer maker's. Standard CRTs from other companies still work with Macs, and most likely will for a very long time. Apple is not a huge manufacturer of monitors (it's not small, but there are lots bigger) and the differences in CRTs are, while real, fairly small. Apple has simply decided to let other companies fiddle with that stuff, and move into an area where there is more room to innovate and produce cutting edge equipment. And whether or not you admit it, and clearly a large number of you don't, Apple is, in general, a considerably better innovator and risk taker than 99% of the Wintel world. Even when the PC universe comes up with a good idea, they hesitate to use it, because in their world, compatibility is paramount. The Macintosh has always been primarily compatible only with itself, and so Apple doesn't have to fret about those sorts of things. Look at USB... PC makers were free to incorporate it for years before Apple took the plunge...and they might never have done it if Apple hadn't. Apple made the leap of faith and the result was the development of lots of USB devices which encouraged the PC makers it was safe to try it themselves.
Examination of both genetics and physiological traits indicate that Ainu have more in common with early prehistoric Japanese, while modern Japanese are actually pretty similar to ancient Chinese. Both, however, have Mongoloid ancestors. The fact is that race is a pretty poorly defined concept as it is, and ascribing a particular trait to one race or another is unlikely to hold up particularly well. Australoid peoples actually have a number hair traits ascribed mostly to Caucasoids, such as facial hair, blonde hair (in children), and wavy hair and body hair. Despite questionable science claiming they are descended from "primitive Caucasoid peoples" the fact is that they are in general VERY distant genetically from European stock.
I know I'll catch flak about this, especially from the French who are just a little too damn proud of their postal system, but part of the reason for this is that the U.S. has pretty much the fastest, most reliable postal system in the world. I'm not saying there's a substantial difference, but there is one, and the U.S. postal service doesn't have any major disruptions of service (like say a large local land war like WWII) that would survive in people's memory. We also are significantly less prone to truck-driver strikes, something European nations seem to really like. In many third world countries (and many that aren't...Israel still does it this way, or did a few years ago) most bills are paid in person at a local office or collected door-to-door, because no company is going to trust their profits to the postal system. There's no reason why American's can't pay their bills electronically...and more and more do. I don't mostly because I live so close to complete and abject poverty that I want to be encouraged to have my checkbook there and check every last cent that goes out of my account. But that's just me. There's no reason why 80% of Americans couldn't be paying 90% of their bills on line.
I have a difficult time imagining a functional genetic system more simple than nucleic acids. Correct me if I'm wrong here...I've got a great deal of experience in genetics, but I must admit that I suck on the strict chemistry end of it.
RNA-only seems perfectly plausible to me, though.
While it may not be especially compelling evidence FOR panspermia, it certainly isn't an argument against it. Whether or not there might have been enough time for life to evolve (which is impossible to know for sure), the fact is that to my mind it's no more or less unreasonable to think the life came here from somewhere else than that it sprung out of nowhere here.
Actually, I'd have to say that chemosynthesis is a more likely mechanism for early organisms than photosynthesis, since most accounts of early earth I've heard include constant cloud cover and lots of nasty chemicals that need to be broken down by something before we can get to the point we're at now.
Given the high reproductive rate and thus high mutation rate, bacteria seem very unlikely to have been entirely wiped out by anything short of crashing into the sun.
Sorry...I screwed up, and I should know beter. The absolute magnitude is somewhere in the range of 4.7 or so, but the APPARENT magnitude, which is, of course, what matters, is more like 20, so, unless you've got a better telescope than me, no, it's not remotely visible.
I really like the idea we're still finding whole WORLDS out there left to explore, without even having to leave the solar system. Granted, they're not quite as big worlds as our's, but 330-750 miles in diameter is pretty damn big.
It's funny though, that we're hearing so much about this one (or maybe it just seems that way) and relatively little about previous ones like 2000 EB173, which is probably only slightly smaller, discovered a month or so ago, and previous large Transneptunians, like 1999 TC36 and 1993 SC, which are both well more than 200 miles in diameter. They've been finding these things out there for a quite a few of years now, and granted this one may be the biggest so far, and I, personally, think it would be kind of cool if it bumped Ceres out of the number one spot on the Minor Planet size list, but, really, how much does the general populace really care about Ceres? Or Transneptunian objects?
While the odds are smaller, there's no reason why it couldn't be orbiting very slowly and still remain in orbit.
Is there?
If I remember right, the thing has an absolute magnitude of 4.7 (I may be thinking of 2000 EB173, not 2000 WR106 (or maybe I'm just crazy, and my sick mind simply generated that number on its own somehow)), so I'd think it ought to be visible, at least with a decent telescope.
Space is so damn big, the odds of anything knocking it out of orbit in the first place, let alone of it then hitting something else, are incredibly tiny.
And it's not really that small...330-750 miles in diameter is pretty sizeable...much smaller things seem to stick quite happily to their orbits without much trouble.