I just checked in on the NASA press conference, and heard the audible sound of deflation.
From CNN.com:
“Scientists have discovered a form of bacteria that can thrive largely on arsenic — an element generally considered toxic — dramatically expanding both traditional notions of how life is sustained and the range of where it might be found in the universe, NASA funded-researchers announced Thursday.”
Well, okay — that is news, really. Though mostly I think it points to how Earth-centric we are (and with good reason). It’s incredibly difficult for us to conceive of life subsisting (let alone thriving) on substances proven toxic on our home planet; we tend to conceive of ETs as tending toward hominid and their forms of communication as being recognizable or related to our own. We can only experiment with substances found on our planet (or captured relatively nearby) and can only create circumstances for experimentation allowed by our labs — even when those labs are orbiting in a space station. Once in a while we manage to get a sample of a comet, those long-distance travelers. But even those cosmic bodies stay within our own galaxy, and there is so much more universe out there.
Even in this case, the bacteria in question did not come from outer space, but a California lake and were grown using a little phosphorous. So, yes — the horizons of our sense of what is possible are expanding, little by little. Though we’re still definitely playing in our own sandbox.
In the end, given all else we’re trying to wrap our brains around in the world right now, this might not be a bad thing. No, it’s not as exciting as the admission of UFOs landing or an actual transmission from deep space. But as one commenter noted on HuffPo, “we’ve got enough … alien life forms in Washington.”
I’m not really sure people are grasping the significance of the finding (if the findings are true; biology is FULL of artifacts, probably close to 40% of the literature, if not more). It’s not that this organism can grow in something toxic, which is seen all the time but I think still quite remarkable (you wouldn’t believe what bugs can grow in). It’s the fact that every life form on earth uses phosphorous to make up the DNA backbone of genetic material. No phosphorous = no DNA = no life. This bug apparently uses Arsenic (similar chemical properties to phosphorous, which is why it’s semi-feasible). I’m still somewhat skeptical for a number of reasons though.
Len,
I am sure that what I seem to ‘know’ about human origins will only be palatable in a movie script or Sci Fi novel. I have no doubt that great writers like Mr. Asimov mostly had need to disguise what they knew to be true – except when they managed to publish random non-fiction works that garnered that odd a habit of going out of print.
xo
Thanks johnfrancis, I’ll be looking forward to that reveal.
be
Apparently the wikileaks has references to UFO’s in yet to be published documents,
“achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
Julian Assange small
Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.”
http://www . guardian . co . uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
peace well
shebear,
Melanie Reinhart also uses the phrase “chain reaction” in her description of the Pholus phenomenon. Looks like we got that going thanks to your astute observations of the female representations of Ceres, Lilith, Venus and the Moon in the chart and in the lab.
I would also attribute the “cracking open the door” aspect to Saturn’s sextile to Pholus, et al.. . . . cautious optimism personified.
hypnotic,
Perhaps the overblown expectations circulating through the internet and media could be attributed to Photographica, as the energy-release-point of the yod that Len found, located in LEO. Drama, drama, drama! I for one, and hopefully many of us (if you think about it), are grateful that the media can be seduced into covering something that “really escapes the understanding of the common people” and aims toward the thinking segment of our society, at least once in a while. (seductive Lilith in spandex?)
So as shebear observed, the announcement did contain that spark of magnificant possibilities. That’s all we ask of Pholus, just a small start. I too am pumped!
be
yes! len, shebear, beth — thanks for filling this topic out. in a bit of a rush, what caught my eye/ear was the ET hype all over the internet — which was pretty amusing but also very telling of how divorced our culture is in recognizing and appreciating genuine meaning in small, un-hollywood packages.
as i wrote, i really do think we’re expanding our horizons little by little. it’s not easy for many to break out of the perspective of what is known in order to conceive of paradigms that do not in some way rely on the familiar. ok, downright impossible for many of us.
With all due respect to both sides, I think the problem was with the way it was handled in the press. The headlines, the two day-lead in to a big time-specified news conference seemed to herald something much bigger than a scientific experiment and finding that really escapes the understanding of the common people. And I wonder if it was just another distraction ploy.
As to the deflation, yeah, it hit me as a “guess you had to be there” kind of thing. and then, well great, something can survive on toxic poisons, so why cant we. But that is my pessimism.
I thank Len and Shebear for shining a light your on this and helping me to understand the brilliance of this scientific discovery.
I for one am in awe — bacteria that are limited in their supply of phosphorus find a similar alternative element to stay alive. We all start out small.
I dunno Amanda, I suspect the sound of deflation may have come from those who had the highest expectations for this announcement today. I am so glad PW pointed me to the NASA site today and I am so *very* glad to have Mr. LW (and his trusty side kick Be) set the stage so perfectly. (You two make an amazing tag team, may I say!)
I think what we had here today was indeed as Len’s article was titled: “Of Women and Men.” A female scientist and her discovery at Mono Lake is quite monumental in the greater scheme of things, I think. What I watched today was wonderful in my eyes. Three female and two male scientists debated the merits of an amazing discovery that is going to lead humankind who knows where in the years to come, and the three women who carried the bulk of the presentation, didn’t at all appear to me to be carrying any emotional “Nessus” baggage, while the men particpated with respect and honest debate, albeit slightly subdued IMHO.
I saw at Felisa Wolfe-Simon as some form of an embodiment of a Black Moon Lilith (sans spandex!) discovering something magical in the field of biology thrown into the mix by Ceres (phosphorus being used to grow food and crops) and I thought we had the promise of something brand new. Venus and Moon set the stage this early morning, and though it wasn’t quite a eureka discovery per se, it contains the spark of magnificent possibilities. No not an alien life force per se, but by discovering this profound change in the basic building blocks for life as we know it, as Ms Wolfe-Simon states, we are now: “cracking open the door and finding that what we think are fixed constants of life are not.”
Personally, I’m kinda pumped about this ground breaking news myself.
Amanda, Eric, et all,
Please allow me to weigh in a bit. The Late Great Issac Asimov wrote a serious (non-fiction) essay on the subject of how to recognize and identify alien BIOLOGICAL (as opposed to “living”) entities and/or things. As far as i can tell it is out of “print” and it has been four decades since i read it so the title eludes me.
A half century ago he recognized that biological processes could evolve even in environments where earthly life could not exist. Not only are the associated processes (respiration, excretion, etc) versitle and adaptable, nearly all of them are dispensible or replacable or combine-able. He finally concluded that there is really only one thing that is a “must” when distinguishing a biological organism from non-biological objects, entities, whatever. A biological organism MUST make an effort. This making an effort is judged to be essential even if means just sustaining its ability to make an effort.
As to Eric’s point. i agree. There are non-biological entities all around us and/or in the middle of stars and/or without bodies. The number and varieties of these non-biological living things far out-numbers the biological. Biological is a subset of living. For non-biological beings, making an effort is optional.
The two keys to this still-controversial discovery are (1) It is possible to have parallel or “shadow” ecosystems right here on Earth just as it is possible to have a parallel or “shadow” government. (2) We now have an additional template for which we can search for a “match” in our increasingly computerized and automated search for alien life. That is indeed a big deal, albeit not the stuff of movie scripts.
I have tried posting this several times to no avail.
Scientists have discovered there are a lot more red dwarfs then they originally thought which means there are like septillion more earth like planets out there which could harbor life.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201134158.htm
Well, we always knew California was full of alien life forms.
BEGIN QUOTE
In addition to boosting the total number of stars in the universe, the discovery also increases the number of planets orbiting those stars, which in turn elevates the number of planets that might harbor life, van Dokkum said. In fact, a recently discovered exoplanet that astronomers believe could potentially support life orbits a red dwarf star, called Gliese 581.
“There are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars,” van Dokkum said, adding that the red dwarfs they discovered, which are typically more than 10 billion years old, have been around long enough for complex life to evolve. “It’s one reason why people are interested in this type of star.”
END QUOTE
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201134158.htm
So they’re just admitting this now?
Science is a bit myopic, I guess. There could be entities being living inside the Sun. and plenty of living things don’t need bodies at all.