Nasa to make "extraterrestrial life" announcement tuesday

[SaltwaterServr]

This is a very cool discovery.

It's almost like switching a human from eating food to firing buckshot down their gullet and they adapt to it and begin to grow while eating buckshot! :laugh2:

Not only that, but they incorporate it into not just their DNA sequence, but into the DNA structure itself!

Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Opens New Possibilities for Alien Life

EDIT: Video of the presentation. (appears to be slashdotted right now)

I tried to get in on the video feed, and it was locked up.

Arsenic. Still can't get over that they use it in their DNA. Of all things, arsenic.

 

[bbgun]

http://img257.*************/img257/9679/me026mt4.jpg

they're heeeeeeeere

 

[theogt]

they're heeeeeeeere

No, he's not.

*high five*

 

[ScipioCowboy]

http://img257.*************/img257/9679/me026mt4.jpg

they're heeeeeeeere

Bob's disappearance is a great mystery -- perhaps greater than even the topic of this thread.

 

[Temo]

I tried to get in on the video feed, and it was locked up.

Arsenic. Still can't get over that they use it in their DNA. Of all things, arsenic.

Well Arsenic makes more sense than anything else to replace phosphorus, no?

 

[YosemiteSam]

Well Arsenic makes more sense than anything else to replace phosphorus, no?

Considering it has similar properties yes.

 

[DallasCowpoke]

I was under the impression that remnants of simple lifeforms had already been discovered in meteorites.

No, that was S. Philly.

 

[YosemiteSam]

No, that was S. Philly.

If GFAJ-1 can not only survive, but thrive on Arsenic. Maybe you should add it to a few of your recipes. :laugh2:

 

[DallasCowpoke]

If GFAJ-1 can not only survive, but thrive on Arsenic. Maybe you should add it to a few of your recipes. :laugh2:

Obviously sir, you've never had my Alligator Sauce Piquant.

:

 

[zrinkill]

http://img257.*************/img257/9679/me026mt4.jpg

Little pony bit the dust.

 

[Hoofbite]

Bob's disappearance is a great mystery -- perhaps greater than even the topic of this thread.

Not that big of a mystery. He got banned.

 

[MonsterD]

That episode of Star Trek TNG with the silicon based life form was awesome, but a little too much like the nanite artificial based life forms episode.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

Not that big of a mystery. He got banned.

You can look at his post history and see what might have precipitated it.

Arsenic is more surprising because it is more reactive, to a large degree with respect to biochem, than a lot of other elements. Arsenic is like a running chain saw with two bades and no handles. Some organisms can sequester it inside vacuoles, and thereby live in an arsenic environment. Most of the time, it runs and starts to chew into any chemical bonds around it.

If anything, you would expect cyanate, CN. That pairing has similar properties, and depending on the arrangement, you can do a lot with those bonds. The size is of course different, but both elements are in abundance as along as the nitrogen can be fixed into biologically available sources.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

That episode of Star Trek TNG with the silicon based life form was awesome, but a little too much like the nanite artificial based life forms episode.

Xenomorphs (the titular aliens in the Aliens series) were allegedly silicon based.

 

[MetalHead]

We all know there have been aliens amongst us.

 

[DallasEast]

At 1 pm on Thursday Nasa is making an announcement that will "Impact the search for extraterrestrial life forms".

http://carloz.newsvine.com/_news/20...ories-on-what-the-space-agency-has-discovered


Here are the 3 main theories on what they think will be announced:

1. Life on one of Saturn's moons​

Over at Kotaku, the speculation has centered on Rhea, one of Saturn's moons.

Chances are it has something to do with the recent discovery by the NASA-led international Cassini-Huygens mission of a tentative atmosphere containing both oxygen and carbon dioxide on the surface of Saturn's moon Rhea.​

The oxygen in Rhea's atmosphere is five trillion times less dense than that of Earth, and the surface of the moon is far too cold to support life as we know it. That doesn't rule out life as we don't know it.​

2. Arsenic

At Kottke.org, one theory again focused on one of Saturn's moons, but not Rhea.

So, if I had to guess at what NASA is going to reveal on Thursday, I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis (by following the elements). Or something like that.​

Almost at once, however, Alexis Madrigal, science editor at The Atlantic, threw cold water on the notion that NASA had proof of alien life.

I'm sad to quell some of the @kottke-induced excitement about possible extraterrestrial life. I've seen the Science paper. It's not that.​

alexismadrigal​

3. A new model for the existence of life

Writing at Discovery, Phil Plait suggest that rather than blowing the crowd away with a photograph of a little green alien, NASA is more likely to unveil a discovery about the conditions required for life to exist.

Of course, the speculation is that NASA will announce the discovery for life. Maybe. I can't rule that out, but it seems really unlikely; I don't think they would announce it in this way. It would've been under tighter wraps, or one thing. It's more likely they've found a new way life can exist and that evidence for these conditions exists on other worlds. But without more info, I won't speculate any farther than that.​

​

http://i356.***BLOCKED***/albums/oo4/DallasEast1701/c6203760.png

It's a movie scene referencing Jupiter instead of Saturn, but I think it's appropriate.

100 CowboysZone.com credits (fully redeemable at any Farmer's Branch convenience store ) to the first poster who can identify the particular movie scene.