{"id":31537,"date":"2010-12-02T15:04:58","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T20:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=31537"},"modified":"2010-12-02T15:04:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T20:04:58","slug":"not-exactly-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/not-exactly-contact\/","title":{"rendered":"Not exactly “Contact”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just checked in on the NASA press conference, and heard the audible sound of deflation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Funny, I always thought they'd be taller...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From CNN.com:<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}