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Nasa to make announcement about possible ET life find on Thursday

Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

kaya'08 said:
LOL straight to the point.
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:D

So these microbes didn't evolve like we did into carbon creatures?
How does life evolving twice on earth mean life is likely elsewhere?
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Nope! Different sort of critter entirely!
It makes it more likely because we then know that live has more than one path to start from. Before, for all we knew Earth was a giant fluke, that even under perfect conditions life wouldn't always just spontaneously start from not-life. It happening twice on the same planet lends to the idea that as long as the conditions are present, life probably will start.

That said, it's just evidence to support a theory. So far our sample size is still 1, so it's nowhere near proof. And we still don't know if it's even what NASA plans to announce. Yes, I'm trying to keep my hopes down so I'm not disappointed :p

Gray_Fox_86 said:
How do we know that they didn't evolve to mix with us?
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Because they didn't really mix with us at all. Their environment is lethal to "our" type of life.
 
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Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Kandahar said:
Yep, it looks like that's what it is. The Daily Mail is now confirming that NASA is set to announce the discovery of arsenic-based life in Mono Lake in Yosemite National Park. However, it's not arsenic-based in the sense that it has arsenic instead of DNA...it's arsenic-based in the sense that it uses arsenic for energy instead of phosphorus like all other known life forms.

This means that life evolved on at least two separate occasions on earth...which means that it's virtually certain to evolve on any life-friendly world.

Astrobiology findings: 'Alien' bacteria that lives on arsenic found in Californian lake opens up search for life on other planets | Mail Online
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What I find funny about this evolve crap is, why have we stopped evolving along with monkeys if that where we came from? Sorry I dont believe we fell out of the tree as monkeys to become humans. I also dont believe some God created us from dust of the earth or from his image.

How man became man is the greatest mystery of all.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Heavy Duty said:
What I find funny about this evolve crap is, why have we stopped evolving along with monkeys if that where we came from? Sorry I dont believe we fell out of the tree as monkeys to become humans. I also dont believe some God created us from dust of the earth or from his image.

How man became man is the greatest mystery of all.
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Oh dear, they are always from Georgia! Evolution takes 1000s of years to happen.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Heavy Duty said:
What I find funny about this evolve crap is, why have we stopped evolving along with monkeys if that where we came from? Sorry I dont believe we fell out of the tree as monkeys to become humans. I also dont believe some God created us from dust of the earth or from his image.

How man became man is the greatest mystery of all.
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we are still evolving, as are the monkeys, we never stopped. and we did not come from the monkeys, we came from a common ancenstor
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

kaya'08 said:
So these microbes didn't evolve like we did into carbon creatures? Cool.
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From the little information I can glean from what's been released so far, it doesn't sound like the announcement is arsenic-vs-carbon. It sounds more like arsenic-vs-phosphorus. Phosphorus is a critical ingredient in DNA and ATP (the source of cellular energy for all known life). Arsenic is much more volatile.

But in either case, it means that there is a totally alien life form living next to us, that doesn't share any common ancestors with anything we've traditionally described as "life."

kaya'08 said:
But just out of curiosity how do you know that this arson based lifeforms aren't the next step in evolution and us carbon beings are actually the ones left behind?
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Evolution isn't necessarily a progression. Neither form of life is the "next step," because they don't have anything in common with one another. It's more like two completely different lines of evolution that have existed side by side for (presumably) billions of years.

kaya'08 said:
How does life evolving twice on earth mean life is likely elsewhere?
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If it had only occurred once, people could plausibly argue that it was a fluke...and that merely creating life-friendly conditions was not enough to actually cause life to evolve. People could still say that the odds against life ACTUALLY evolving just because the right environment existed were trillions-to-one. But since it's evolved twice on the same planet, that makes this vanishingly unlikely.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Anyone with a brain will not find this a great announcement, since there is very little chance that we are alone in our vast Universe.

Chances are very slim that we are the most highly developed life form.

How long ago was it that they made the announcement they might have found on Mars? Now since we first heard that pretty much nothing but silence.

I have for many years studied the claims of those in the UFO and E.T fields and interviewed many of the so-called experts and so far I have found only a couple of people who are not trying to sell a Video, book, or get you to visit their website and donate.

Is this big news. I'd say no bigger than the discovery of the Tube Worms that thrive in the depths of the oceans and at pressures that are unimaginable, being bathed in acids.

The news that it's new form of live is also no surprise as it was just a matter of time.

16,969 species discovered in 2006
16,969 species were discovered in 2006 according to a report compiled by Arizona State University's International Institute for Species Exploration, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the International Plant Names Index, and Thompson Scientific.
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So let's wait and get excited when E.T. lands on the field at Yankee Stadium, during the World Series.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

after browsing the article it seems the linked telegraph article, it seems it is still carbon based life, so this is along the lines of finding sulfur dependent bacteria in deep cave systems, it just shows the variability of present life is wider than we thought. This is no profound discovery with implications for multiple instances of abiogenesis, this is just showing that life can live in a much larger range of environments than previously thought. still pretty significant, just not mega-significant.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

kaya'08 said:
Holy crap so what your saying is NASA has been looking in all the wrong places for life? For example, they probably saw Mercury and just said "yeah its a ball of gas deffo no life there" when in fact it may in theory be the best place to look.
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I doubt it unless its withstand the extreme heat from the sun.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Gray_Fox_86 said:
So that does that mean that the blood of these creatures is acid? Like in the movie Alien?
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Unfortunately not. No blood in microbes. SO CLOSE.

Heavy Duty said:
What I find funny about this evolve crap is, why have we stopped evolving along with monkeys if that where we came from? Sorry I dont believe we fell out of the tree as monkeys to become humans. I also dont believe some God created us from dust of the earth or from his image.

How man became man is the greatest mystery of all.
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I'd think this was trolling if I hadn't heard the same thing said seriously before.

Evolution theory does not work the way you think it works.

Whovian said:
It would also kill us if we ate it. :ninja:
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That typically is our first reaction to new life forms...
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

marduc said:
after browsing the article it seems the linked telegraph article, it seems it is still carbon based life, so this is along the lines of finding sulfur dependent bacteria in deep cave systems, it just shows the variability of present life is wider than we thought. This is no profound discovery with implications for multiple instances of abiogenesis, this is just showing that life can live in a much larger range of environments than previously thought. still pretty significant, just not mega-significant.
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That's not my interpretation from the article. I agree that it sounds like carbon-based life, but with a crucial difference: it uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its equivalent of DNA and ATP. That would indicate that it has nothing in common with other forms of life.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

From the little information I can glean from what's been released so far, it doesn't sound like the announcement is arsenic-vs-carbon. It sounds more like arsenic-vs-phosphorus. Phosphorus is a critical ingredient in DNA and ATP (the source of cellular energy for all known life). Arsenic is much more volatile
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Okay, so that aside, these "microbes" still have a cell membrane, nucleus, etc?
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Here's an interesting article from about a year ago, where Astrobiology Magazine was speculating about the possibility of arsenic-based life in this very lake. They feature an interview with one of the women scheduled to speak at NASA's press conference tomorrow.

Searching for Alien Life, on Earth

Just to be clear: finding an organism that didn’t need phosphorus, that used arsenic instead, would be one of the most significant scientific discoveries of all time. It would mean that Mono Lake was home to a form of life biologically distinct from all other known life on Earth. It would strongly suggest that life got started on our planet not once, but at least twice, that the origin of life on Earth was not a freak accident requiring highly specialized circumstances, but a relatively commonplace event. And that in turn would strengthen the argument that life is likely to be present on other worlds as well. Not too shabby a result for an afternoon stroll by a mountain lake.
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Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

kaya'08 said:
Okay, so that aside, these "microbes" still have a cell membrane, nucleus, etc?
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That I don't know. Maybe we'll find out tomorrow.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Heavy Duty said:
Read more: Evolution stops here: Future Man will look the same, says scientist | Mail Online
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Never use the Daily Mail as a source for anything. It's true that selection pressures are different now, but that doesn't mean we're done evolving.

marduc said:
after browsing the article it seems the linked telegraph article, it seems it is still carbon based life, so this is along the lines of finding sulfur dependent bacteria in deep cave systems, it just shows the variability of present life is wider than we thought. This is no profound discovery with implications for multiple instances of abiogenesis, this is just showing that life can live in a much larger range of environments than previously thought. still pretty significant, just not mega-significant.
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We won't know for sure until the announcment.

Heavy Duty said:
I doubt it unless its withstand the extreme heat from the sun.
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Mercury is unlikely, but the idea is that life could survive in a lot more types of environments than ours. Mercury has no atmosphere and some really extreme temperature variations.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Kandahar said:
That I don't know. Maybe we'll find out tomorrow.
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Assuming this is the case, the only difference between them and us is that we use Protien and they use Arsenic in DNA/energy. Doesn't sound like we are worlds apart, to be honest.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Kandahar said:
That's not my interpretation from the article. I agree that it sounds like carbon-based life, but with a crucial difference: it uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its equivalent of DNA and ATP. That would indicate that it has nothing in common with other forms of life.
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but that does not necessarily point to a second abiogenesis, it could be just adaptations and the substitution of phosphorus with arsenic, it does not mean a rewriting of everything, it is just adapting to utilize an element that is in the same group instead. You find similar in biology (albeit not with such profound implications) with magnesium replacing calcium

yes it is still very significant, but on the surface (we will see with the announcement the devil is in the details) it does not necessarily suggest a secondary abiogenisis (although it would be awesome if the details do point that way)
 
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Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

kaya'08 said:
Assuming this is the case, the only difference between them and us is that we use Protien and they use Arsenic in DNA/energy. Doesn't sound like we are worlds apart, to be honest.
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Uhh, that's a pretty serious and fundamental difference. An entirely different form of DNA is going to be an entirely different form of life.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Deuce said:
Uhh, that's a pretty serious and fundamental difference. An entirely different form of DNA is going to be an entirely different form of life.
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I just dont get how two different life forms that evolved from two completely different things, whatever that may be, still share the same biological characteristics like a cell wall, nucleus that stores DNA etc. That would suggest some form of common ancestry SOMEWHERE down the line, which would mean its still pretty exclusive to Earth. Hypothetically speaking of course.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Kandahar said:
Here's an interesting article from about a year ago, where Astrobiology Magazine was speculating about the possibility of arsenic-based life in this very lake. They feature an interview with one of the women scheduled to speak at NASA's press conference tomorrow.

Searching for Alien Life, on Earth
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thank you for this, this shines a bit more light into things.
 
Re: NASA to announce "major discovery" that could boost chances of life on other worl

Kandahar said:
Alien life form ‘is here on Earth’ | Skymania News and Guide



Twitter is going berserk tonight, with rumors that NASA is planning to announce the discovery of arsenic-based life on earth. For those who haven't taken biology in a while, all known life is based on carbon atoms (i.e. DNA). If this is what NASA announces tomorrow, it is a huge bombshell that will make us question everything we've previously thought about how life evolves. Arsenic-based life would be totally alien from anything previously known to science.

Furthermore, it would mean that life evolved at least TWICE on earth...meaning that abiogenesis is probably far more common than previously thought.
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Cool - but I'm not confused.

Didn't they have a revelation when they discovered bacteria that thrived without oxygen?
As well as microbes and sea-cumbers that reveled in heat vents and plumes on the ocean floor?
 
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