I object to that. There are several ways microbes can hurt us. Just for example, imagine some martian microbe that thrives in our atmosphere and produces botulinum as a byproduct of it's metabolism...;)
The fact is that we just don't know what might happen. As you said, the microbe might just do no harm at all. But there's still possibility of annihiliation of life (or just some species) on Earth. I don't think we should take any risks with that. And if we want to experiment with the organism, we should do this in it's own habitat, not in some alien conditions.
I remember the old days of VLB video cards that had 4 or 8 Megs of RAM, and people used to write drivers for them to use extra RAM (because you really didn't need that much of RAM, just about 2 Megs for games) as a RAM disk. They used to store swap file on it, and it was really, really fast. And nice hack, too. These days, 4MB of swap space was suitable for running all but most intensive applications (like graphics apps). Maybe it is time for someone to reinvent the wheel.:-)
It is not really funny. Introducing alien microbes to Earth might result in global genocide. Alien microbe might simply die here because of conditions, but might thrive and kill many species because no living thing has any immunity response developed to deal with alien attackers. It might be like introducing smallpox to America. Or syphilis to Europe, for that matter.
And we think avian flu is bad enough... this thing might kill 100% of human population. Of course, there's still a chance some minor number of people and animals might survive to develop resistance, but I doubt it is going to be you and me...
Because one man (being President or not) has a dream of reaching Mars, all the other science must be scrapped now? Destroying Hubble project (with all its scientific achievements that were and, worse, that could be) because all the money is going to be spent to eclipse President Kennedy, which leaves no Space (pun intended) for other scientific projects, no matter how good they were/are/might be - it's another example how politics doesn't understand, or care for a science. It will take years to advance technology to make a spacecraft safe enough for Mars exploration. Not that I do have something against going to Mars, I think it is a great opportunity, but simply focusing on just one goal is just calling for a missed opportunities in science. And a chance for Europe to take scientific lead in Space. Hmm, that's not bad for us. Go to Mars, Mr. Bush, go go go!!
Astronomers indeed have a very good idea what is a star and what is a planet! =)
We might brag about if Pluto is a planet or not, but there's just no dispute whether something that burns nuclear fuel is a star or a giant planet set on fire by some neanderthals in a dense wood, or some President with a finger on the button... And if it orbits around bigger body while being cold, there's a fat chance it is not a star. Unless there's Holywood sign on some hill. Or it might harbour semi-intelligent life that belives everything revolves around them, but in that case we're talking law of relativity, and it doesn't have much to do with intelligence, for nature laws are quite happy even if they're not discovered by self-proclaimed intelligent life forms.:)
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The fact is that we just don't know what might happen. As you said, the microbe might just do no harm at all. But there's still possibility of annihiliation of life (or just some species) on Earth. I don't think we should take any risks with that. And if we want to experiment with the organism, we should do this in it's own habitat, not in some alien conditions.
I remember the old days of VLB video cards that had 4 or 8 Megs of RAM, and people used to write drivers for them to use extra RAM (because you really didn't need that much of RAM, just about 2 Megs for games) as a RAM disk. They used to store swap file on it, and it was really, really fast. And nice hack, too. These days, 4MB of swap space was suitable for running all but most intensive applications (like graphics apps). Maybe it is time for someone to reinvent the wheel. :-)
And we think avian flu is bad enough... this thing might kill 100% of human population. Of course, there's still a chance some minor number of people and animals might survive to develop resistance, but I doubt it is going to be you and me...
Because one man (being President or not) has a dream of reaching Mars, all the other science must be scrapped now? Destroying Hubble project (with all its scientific achievements that were and, worse, that could be) because all the money is going to be spent to eclipse President Kennedy, which leaves no Space (pun intended) for other scientific projects, no matter how good they were/are/might be - it's another example how politics doesn't understand, or care for a science. It will take years to advance technology to make a spacecraft safe enough for Mars exploration. Not that I do have something against going to Mars, I think it is a great opportunity, but simply focusing on just one goal is just calling for a missed opportunities in science. And a chance for Europe to take scientific lead in Space. Hmm, that's not bad for us. Go to Mars, Mr. Bush, go go go!!
Astronomers indeed have a very good idea what is a star and what is a planet! =) We might brag about if Pluto is a planet or not, but there's just no dispute whether something that burns nuclear fuel is a star or a giant planet set on fire by some neanderthals in a dense wood, or some President with a finger on the button... And if it orbits around bigger body while being cold, there's a fat chance it is not a star. Unless there's Holywood sign on some hill. Or it might harbour semi-intelligent life that belives everything revolves around them, but in that case we're talking law of relativity, and it doesn't have much to do with intelligence, for nature laws are quite happy even if they're not discovered by self-proclaimed intelligent life forms. :)