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Space Science

Possible Signs of Life Detected On Venus 283

Posted by timothy from the well-it's-gotta-be-somewhere dept.
MoThugz writes "This article from the The Houston Chronicle discusses the discovery of mysterious swirling patches on the surface of the planet which may be communities of bacteria. These bacteria might be a genetically-enhanced version of the thermophiles which are known to survive in extreme temperatures. The article suggested the bacteria could be using ultraviolet light from the sun as an energy source, which would explain the presence of strange dark patches on ultraviolet images of the planet."
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Possible Signs of Life Detected On Venus More

Possible Signs of Life Detected On Venus

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  • See also (Score:3, Informative)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:19AM (#4444510) Homepage Journal
    See also slashdot [slashdot.org].

    But wait, must grab some karma!

    Any life on venus must be female, afterall, men are from mars....

    Also
    Remember that astronomers once said Mars was covered with a complex network of irrigation ditches, which implied the presence of life. Take this with a grain of salt - we know so little about our own solar system that we must treat all discoveries as hypotheses - nothing more, nothing less.

    yadda yadda

    I guess fp is too much to hope for

    • Re:See also - Funny! Etc. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jouni ( 178730 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @09:56AM (#4445181)
      I'm probably not the only one to be amused by this: "Moderation Totals: Redundant=2, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=5"

      I believe the appropriate karma to follow should be tagged "Funny". :-) Community moderation at work!

      And now, to make my post important enough for it to avoid the dreaded zero...

      Regarding life anywhere; Steve Grand makes a very interesting point about life in his book "Creation"; it's not tied to the matter that makes life up but rather the patterns in how things connect. The analogy he drew was how clouds are not static bodies of steam but rather areas inside which the water carried by air becomes visible. Like ripples in the water, we only borrow the atoms in our own bodies for a while, binding them to the patterns of interaction that make us unquestionably alive.

      While it's far fetched to imagine even bugs on Venusian surface, it is not impossible to envision bacteria evolving from the complex interactions of heat and gases in the atmosphere. All evolution needs to kick off is a fertile playground, a pattern that can replicate itself with a degree of variation, and a lucky roll of dice.

      If there indeed *is* bacteria discovered on Venus it would suggest the dice of the universe are heavily loaded with a bias towards generating life. It's that bias which would determine not just whether we are alone but just how crowded it can this universe get after a while. On the other hand, the Venusians have quite a few hundred million years to catch up with their Terran cousins.

      Although, with the moderation above points, one has to wonder. :-)

      Jouni

      • Well, suppose there is, in fact, life on Venus. That doesn't mean that given enough time, intelligent life will emerge. Maybe suitable conditions for basic life cover a very broad range, but that doesn't mean intelligent life can survive in such heat.

      • Re:See also - Funny! Etc. (Score:4, Informative)

        by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @01:56PM (#4446879) Homepage
        All evolution needs to kick off is a fertile playground, a pattern that can replicate itself with a degree of variation, and a lucky roll of dice.

        [Ob.Disclaimer: IANA Smarty Man] Technically, we really have no idea what conditions are necessary to "kick off" evolution. We've deduced that evolution is in effect, based on observable phenomena, but that's about as far as we've gotten. We're still not sure exactly what conditions got it started on Earth, where we actually have the thing to work with. Making statements about how likely Venus is to meet these conditions is laughably premature. We don't know enough about evolution or Venus to do more than gather data and look for patterns.

        If there indeed *is* bacteria discovered on Venus it would suggest the dice of the universe are heavily loaded with a bias towards generating life.

        Another alternative is that the "dice of the universe" are biased against life, and the presence of life in our solar system is a statistical anomaly produced by some other effect. Certainly the universe in general is extremely hostile to life as we know it.

        There could be life in half the star systems in our galaxy, and the dice would still be heavily biased against life in general. If there were life in half the star systems in the universe, that would still only suggest--to me, anyway--that the dice have no particular bias one way or the other, everything else being equal. But I admit that these things are nowhere near my area of expertise.

  • Whoa... (Score:5, Funny)

    by warmcat ( 3545 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:19AM (#4444511)
    ''Schulze-Makuch said there may be unknown ways to produce hydrogen or carbonyl sulphide, but both need catalysts''

    These guys are GOOD!

  • ...to this [slashdot.org].

  • Not on the surface! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Soft ( 266615 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:22AM (#4444521)
    Not on the surface of Venus, 50 km up in the atmosphere, where the temperature is not too extreme. Their being lifeforms is inferred from the presence of gases that should recombine over time (like oxygen on Earth, which wouldn't stay in the air if life wasn't there to produce it).

  • News flash! Geeks finally find women... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:29AM (#4444541)
    Well, they _are_ from Venus.

  • Not Likely (Score:5, Interesting)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:30AM (#4444546) Homepage Journal
    I'd say that there are lots of other, more plaussible, explanations to 'mysterious swirling patches' on a planet surface.

    But, hey, the sientisist will get a headline or two, and perhaps even a few dollars to spend. I'm just saying that there are reasons to stretch the reality just a bit sometimes. Often these reasons are political or economical. In this case I'd have to go for the latter.

  • Bacteria (Score:4, Funny)

    by neurozic ( 607201 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:35AM (#4444554) Homepage
    Studying conditions above the surface, it noticed mysterious patches swirling around, which may be communities of bacteria.
    Mysterious things are happening to my dishes too. I keep delaying the wash to save the communities of bacterias who will win me a Nobel.

    • Re: Bacteria (Score:4, Funny)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:28AM (#4444679)


      > Mysterious things are happening to my dishes too. I keep delaying the wash to save the communities of bacterias who will win me a Nobel.

      "Yeah, Mom, I know I need to do my dishes, but conservationists got a restraining order because there's an unusual life form living there."
      Talk about convenient excuses!

    • Someone already did this before you. I think his name was something like "Pasteur", but I might be wrong.
      Of course, he neglected to wash his petri-dishes, but it brought him a Nobel anyway.

  • FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:36AM (#4444558)
    FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels being suspicious.... too low.

    All the free carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide gasses are too low in concentrations expected.

    SOMETHING is getting rig of them... a likely suspect is a biological activity from a microbial lifefrom.

    The patches are just a MINOR piece of the puzzle, this header to this article should not have been written without revealing the alarming absence of expected carbon gasses.

    • Re:FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:56AM (#4444607)
      My own problem with the life hypothesis is that we are pretty clueless about the chemistry that goes on in the Venusian atmosphere. It is quite possible that some chemical process that we haven't considered is influencing the balance of the atmosphere.

      Whilst on Earth carbonyl sulphide might be made by biological processes, it is quite possible that the high temperature and pressure of the lower Venusian atmosphere is generating the chemicals without biological intervention.

      It's interesting, but I'm quite literally not holding my breath.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

      • Re:FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zaffir ( 546764 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:50AM (#4444907)
        Exactly. This also ties in with the belief that there HAS to be water for there to be life, and that water means life. For all we know there are things living on Pluto that enjoy solid nitrogen popsicles on a daily basis.

      • Re:FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels (Score:5, Informative)

        by kakos ( 610660 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @01:30PM (#4446683)
        It could be possible that carbonyl suphide might be made by non-biological processes, but it is highly improbable given the time scale of such a reaction. A lot of organic compounds (like carbonyl suphide) can be made without biological processes, but the energy and time requirements are too extremely high to be produced in the AMOUNT that was found on Venus. However, if you add biological catalysts (protiens), you can get these compounds extremely quickly. So, when someone sees a large amount of one of these compounds, he can safely say that some sort of catalyst is causing this reaction. Since carbonyl suphide is a common compound produced by life on Earth, it isn't a giant leap to say that it might be produced by life on Venus.

    • Re:FAR more compelling EVIDENCE = CO levels (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Consul ( 119169 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:54AM (#4445587) Journal
      I'm wondering...

      The Russians actually landed a probe on Venus (in fact, I seem to remember two of them landing). Is it possible this new evidence for microbes might actually be getting caused by microbes we introduced there?

      Eh, it's just a random thought. Anything seems a likely explanation at this point. You can't always tell when it comes to the chemical processes of an alien world.

      -----

  • Actually...... (Score:3, Funny)

    by echucker ( 570962 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:39AM (#4444564) Homepage
    .... those "dark patches" are just acne I'd bet. Our solar system is pretty young on the scale as things go in the universe, so Venus prolly just needs to wash up a bit better.

  • Might? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pmasters ( 222241 )
    There's a lot of might's in that story :) - Why,
    after so many "ooh, we were wrong's" are scientists still so trigger happy on announcing "possible life on x"?

    • Definite Possibility! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by purrpurrpussy ( 445892 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:04AM (#4444627)
      Because otherwise the 99% of the human population who know little to nothing about modern science and don't even watch the news would never get "hooked" by anything. "Life on X" is popular at the mo' there have been many others "The Might Atom" for example.

      I think the theory is that you have a coupla "whizz bang" announcments a year and hope that enough people get into the sciencey thing and become inventors, engineers, fizzysists etc...

      Otherwise most people would go back to watching "Big Brother" or "Pop Idol" or some equally vacuous "entertainment"... after many years of this the TV system would eventually fall into disrepair and the ensuing social chaos would cause untold destruction.

      probly.

      • Re:Definite Possibility! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by c.emmertfoster ( 577356 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:30AM (#4444685)
        Ouch.

        Personally I would prefer an ignorant populace to the credible, misinformed boobs that surround me.

        I work with people who believe we never landed on the moon, because of a television special ... not to mention "John Edward" and some woman who allegedly speaks to pets.

        Even as a child I could distingush reality from fantasy. Someone needs to instill these people with a sense of critical, rational thinking.

        I think I'm going to go read James Randi [randi.org] and be fanatically skeptical now.
        • The only problem with an ignorant population is that they can be pushed around by credible, misinformed people....

          I mean.... just look at marketing and advertising.....

        • Look, nobody is asking you to believe anything. What's neat about this story is that it makes a surprisingly good argument for a conclusion that on the face of it looks stupid. I mean, most people are willing to accept that there might be life on Mars or on Europa or Titan, but nobody every talks about Venus anymore.

          What I think you favor is a skeptical humility, and this story encourages exactly that: we (dogmatically) thought that there is no way anything can live on Venus. But it seems that when we critically examine that assumption, it is no longer so clear. Great! I say this is an excellent example of sound reasoning. The whole point of the research seems to be that we must check our assumptions... and that is a valuable lesson indeed for the credulous public.

  • Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vofka ( 572268 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:47AM (#4444580) Journal
    This sounds like a case of a bunch of scientists forgetting to properly apply Occam's Razor [weburbia.com]!!

    Life (even microbial life) is so extremely complex, that is seems implausable to jump to the conclusion that life must be present, simply because of a chemical marker which we find hard to make without the help of microbes!

    These guys should be concentrating on eliminating other possibilities, rather than just jumping onto the News Bandwagon to get their latest 'discovery of life' publicised.

    • Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dynedain ( 141758 ) <slashdot2 AT anthonymclin DOT com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:53AM (#4444594) Homepage
      Actually, I would say that in this case, applying Occam's Razor could justifiably let you pick either life-based or purely chemical processes.

      However, these scientists didn't choose. They said it might be life, or it might be an unknown chemical process.

      They lean to the life option because in this case microbes are much more efficient than inorganic processes (a valid Occam's Razor conclusion)

      • Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Fnagaton ( 580019 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:45AM (#4444887) Homepage Journal
        I agree, the more logcial conclusion given the available evidence is that biological life is present. However I find it anoying that debunkers tend to suddenly whip out the holy 'Occam's razor' argument, as if it removes any theory they don't like. I myself am left wondering if it wasn't for the film 'Contact' how many people would know about it? Although I do prefer the spelling 'Ockham' after the name of the Surrey village where he was born.

    • Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fstrauss ( 78250 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:59AM (#4444615) Homepage
      Life (even microbial life) is so extremely complex, that is seems implausable to jump to the conclusion that life must be present, simply because of a chemical marker which we find hard to make without the help of microbes!

      So we have a chemical marker which we have no knowledge of occuring naturally unless mircrobes are present.
      Apply Occam's Razor to that and you come to the conclusion that there is possibly life.

      Pretty fair conclusion imho

    • Re:Occam's Razor (Score:4, Interesting)

      by scaryjohn ( 120394 ) <john.michael.dodd@gma i l . com> on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:50AM (#4444909) Homepage Journal

      To ask which is more likely, that life forms are instigating these reactions, or undiscovered caches of inorganic catylists are... the answer fundamentally hinges on how high you think the lowest hurdle for life's emergence is, and how prevalent you think life is in the universe. (And I'm not talking "greys").

      There are a good number of people looking for more basic life in the universe [seti.org] that are of the opinion that life can begin in places much more hostile than blue planet Earth. They're looking to test the idea that basic, basic life is going to crop up wherever possible and then evolutionarily "dare" planetary conditions to kill it off. Just think about it, when life first emerged here the rocks had just barely solidified and the only thing we really had going for us was liquid water. Most of this planet's geologic history has been the three billion years between the emergence of prokaryotes, and the evolution of cells with proper nucleii.

    • We haven't done enough exploring in this universe to really know the simplest explanation. If life, in fact, arises with some regularity (at least microbial life) throughout the universe, then life may in fact be the simplest explanation. Until we have actually thoroughly investigates enough regions of various planets and moons to determine that even life that functions the way we expect (with chemistries we can see and study here on Earth) does or does not exist with any specific regularity, then you guessing it isn't life is just as meaningless as them guessing it is. In fact, it may be worse odds, since we know for a fact that there are thermophile microbes on Earth that can exist in conditions found on Venus, and would produce those sort of emissions. I would probably argue that Occam's Razor should fall on the assumption that its life, not the assumption its not, since we have specific statistics for the extistance of life that could work that way, and no statistics , and no statistics to suggest it couldn't be.
    • To quote your link:


      The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is,

      "when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."

      Might I add something to the last sentence?
      "...the one that is simpler is the better, unless the other one promises fundamentaly more funding and/or publicity"

      That should explain it...

    • Ockham's razor vs. James Lovelock (Score:4, Informative)

      by Phronesis ( 175966 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @03:10PM (#4447510)
      Ockham's razor is only one criterion for the quality of a scientific statement. Popper's falsifiability criterion is equally important and studying the atmospheres of distant planets can provide a nice way to rule out likely candidates for life.

      Back in the 1960s, when the U.S. was planning the first Mars lander to look for signs of life, NASA scientists were proposing instruments such as traps for sand fleas. NASA gave Lovelock some money to look into whether they were going about this appropriately.

      Lovelock [noosphere.cc] did not believe that there was life on Mars and proposed that anomalous gases in the atmosphere was the best test for ruling out the presence of life on a planet. As described in Nature [nature.com]:

      In his opinion, "life proclaims itself as a global phenomenon," leaving a clear fingerprint in a planet's atmosphere. This was where he thought the missions should be looking -- although he considered Mars's atmosphere to be that of a lifeless planet anyway.
      This hypothesis has the advantage of strongly satisfying Popper's falsifiability requirement: If life must create a chemical balance in the atmosphere that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium, then it's easy to rule out life on a planet by demonstrating that its atmosphere is close to equilibrium.

      Of course, a non-equilibrium atmosphere is a necessary, not a sufficient condition, so further work must, of course, be carried out before reaching the conclusion that life must be present, but it's so rare to see such strong non-equilibrium conditions that this is indeed exciting news.

  • Not good news for terraformers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rpjs ( 126615 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:48AM (#4444581)
    If there is life on Venus, it's going to be very difficult to get any future plans to terraform the planet past the environmentalists.

    • Re:Not good news for terraformers (Score:5, Funny)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @09:38AM (#4445067) Journal
      Why would you want to teraform Venus? Is Death Valley in the middle of summer too cool for you? Do you find lava to be refreshing? Been looking for a place where the trees spontaneously combust? Think it takes far too long to get skin cancer on Earth?

      If so, maybe Venus is the place for you.
      • But .... those are all problems with the unterraformed venus. A terraformed venus wouldn't have any of those issues, for some terraforming technology > x.
      • If you wanted to block _all_ the sunlight falling
        on Venus, which is more than you need to do to get
        Earth-like conditions, the numbers go like this:

        The area of mirrors required is approximately
        equivalent to a 10,000 x 10,000 km square. If
        formed of rolled sheet steel 1 micron thick, you
        will need 0.1 cubic kilometers of steel. A small
        iron-nickel asteroid will do nicely. To heat the
        material for rolling, concentrated sunlight can
        be used, focussed by some of the mirrors you made.
        Thus what you need to start with is a seed
        factory that can produce the parts for a rolling
        mill.

        Once you have the mirrors made, they can operate
        as solar sails to deliver themselves to Venus
        and maintain position once there.

        Daniel
      • If some of those microbes are in Earth's atmosphere, does that mean we're being Venusformed?
      • What's "environmental" about someone who wants to force plants to be the way that person saw them in childhood rather than letting them change as they naturally do? A different word is needed for historically-ignorant complainers.
      • We'll soon hear complaints about the Sun swelling up and engulfing Venus in a few billion years. Surely something must be done to protect Venusians.
    • (* If there is life on Venus, it's going to be very difficult to get any future plans to terraform the planet past the environmentalists. *)

      Nah. Just slip a few spores of generically-altered atmospheric transfering bacteria, and it nobody will know who "fixed" Venus. They can complain all they want, but there is nobody to complain to :-)

      The biggest problem IMO is its slow rotation. A day is about 240 days. Perhaps a thick enough atmosphere will transfer heat evenly to the dark side.

      • The biggest problem IMO is its slow rotation. A day is about 240 days.

        Which is longer than the Venusian year which is 225 Earth days. Weird, huh?

        Perhaps a thick enough atmosphere will transfer heat evenly to the dark side

        Given that Earth's atmosphere isn't all that thick, and we're warm enough at night, I reckon a planet closer to the Sun would have reasonably (if not ridiculously) warm nights...

        IMHO, Venus needs several things to be habitable:

        1. Water
        2. A decent rotation rate
        3. A moon to control any seas we might have after adding water.

        My solution? Grab that Quaoar object everyone's in love with at the moment and smack it into Venus. Hit it right and all three criteria will be met :)

  • Slashdot is ruining everything! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:50AM (#4444584) Journal
    Look what you did [google.com]!

    Now you made Google News post old news as well and we get this chain of Google News from Slashdot News from Earlier Slashdot News (which I'm sure got covered on Google News as well).

    Hm... On the other hand... Let's just blame it all on Houston Chronicle which posted the old story first. :-)

  • New slashdot category (Score:5, Funny)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:50AM (#4444588)

    I think we need a new category on Slashdot; "Wild speculation about extraterrestrial life based on insubstantial evidence".

    • People didn't think that there could be life in hot springs, in the dead sea, in glacial ice, or thermal vents on the ocean floor either. The organisms that live in these extream enviroments are just as different from other bacteria, than humans are from E. coli and they were found right here on earth. It might not be so far fetched to think that airborn microbs could be living in similar extream enviroments on another planet.
      • [..] It might not be so far fetched to think that airborn microbes could be living in similar extream enviroments on another planet.

        I don't think it is far fetched. However, it seems that whenever some odd phenomenon is seem on another planet the first conculsion these days seems to be that it is a sign of life, and more probable conclusions are ignored. I don't think real scientists do themselves justice by speculating on flimsy evidence.
        • (* I don't think real scientists do themselves justice by speculating on flimsy evidence. *)

          They are just looking for the "best" places to probe around. If you are going to probe around, might as well pick spots with strange chemistry, organic or otherwise. We already gave the solar system a first go around. The second time is to focus on "interesting" spots.

          It is the sensationalism that is the problem, not their methodology. I am not sure whose fault that is. A scientists says, "Hmmm. Odd chemistry. It just might be life" and the newspaper prints a story on it.
  • Nasa could do metric>>imperial conversions we could send an orbital probe to go pick some up... with out it buringing up (-:

    Seriously thou, would it be possible to send a scope to go pick some up. Obviously it would be expensive.. and the money could be spent better else where, but we know they won't so lets go with the flow and think about it... Not knowing much about venus, would the atmospheric pressure and gravitational forces be to high to send some sort of probe to enter the atmosphere and blast back out? (far off wacky idea I know, but I am bored)

  • Message Received (Score:3, Funny)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:54AM (#4444596) Journal
    "All your Venus are belong to us."

  • Trash talking scientist. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:54AM (#4444601) Homepage Journal
    "For life, you need a volume of water, not just tiny droplets."

    Yeah, he's right. There is no such thing as airborn viruses....not

    This is the comment of an entrenched and threatened scientist.

    Plenty of extremephiles can live at 158 degrees. Plenty of viruses can live in the air. I've always thought venus has been too often overlooked. I belive it was because the russians made it there first.

    Seems to me the ideal place to send a solar glider made of glass. Better solar power production than Earth. Thicker atmosphere than Mars. Easier to get to than mars. Least explored of our neighbors.

    • Re:Trash talking scientist. (Score:5, Informative)

      by 20_ooodbye ( 535341 ) <winda002&student,otago,ac,nz> on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:31AM (#4444687)
      Ummm, Viruses aren't generally considered alive untill they infect something. When the virus isn't infecting a cell it's just a protein coat with some nucleic acid inside. It doesn't need to "do" anything, so is it alive in the air? As far as the scientist's comments, I'm not sure that we can apply our terrestial bound understanding of biology to other worlds: Sure on earth the creation of life probably involved large amounts of liquid water, but that's not to say all life will be like earth life. Perhaps life on venus started as self replicating clouds of gas, or any number of other things
      • Actually, yes, a virus is considered alive if for no other reason, to distinguish it from a DEAD virus. Example: I have HIV. A drop of my blood drops on the kitchen counter. For a short period of time, the virus is alive. It will die shortly thereafter and no longer EVER be able to infect anyone because it's DEAD and it doesn't come back to life. Many virii do not survive long outside of a host.
        • Gotta disagree. You could consider a virus to be "active" or "inactive," not alive or dead. It's the same as with any chemical catalyst or protein. Just because something can or can't do a chemical reaction, doesn't mean it's alive or dead.


          Even so, most textbooks will say it's a gray area, but generally come down on the side that viruses aren't technically alive because they don't have metabolic systems.

          • Gotta disagree. You could consider a virus to be "active" or "inactive," not alive or dead. It's the same as with any chemical catalyst or protein. Just because something can or can't do a chemical reaction, doesn't mean it's alive or dead.

            Well, by this argument, you can argue that humans are "active" or "inactive" as well. At a certain point, perhaps through defects, in a very complex chemical process, certain chemical reactions cease and the human being becomes "inactive." The more popular term however, is "dead."
            • I won't argue whether a virus is dead or alive simply because there's no really acceptable definition for life, in my thinking.

              How do you define it? A virus can certainly reproduce, with a host. Just like a human can reproduce, with a human of another sex. (Well, okay, they do it in different positions).

              I think if the only real argument against a virus being life is that it needs a host to have to have what we recognize as life, then it's not a good definition. My personal opinion, though.
        • Before we go too far in discussing whether a virus is alive or not we must clearly define life.

          There are plenty of alternative definitions. Some popular modern defninitions involve the capabilities of retaining low entropy. According to that definition, a virus is not alive by itself, but could be considered a part of the living system of the host.

          Tor
      • As far as the scientist's comments, I'm not sure that we can apply our terrestial bound understanding of biology to other worlds: Sure on earth the creation of life probably involved large amounts of liquid water, but that's not to say all life will be like earth life.

        It is quite possible that life on Earth or Mars "seeded" Venus. There is more evidence that life can be "splashed around" by impacts lately.

        Thus, given the choice between self-arising on Venus independently and being "infected" from Earth or Mars in the past, I think the second is the most likely based on the current (but flimsly) evidence.

        On worlds like Mars, Europa, and Titan, the conditions for the formation of *primative* life are not that different WRT estimated probability. Thus, life may have formed on say Europa first, and then got splashed around the Solar System. It may have even come from another Solar System.

        It is speculated by some that primative life is common throughout the Galaxy because of the robustness of "space-hardy" microbe spores that we are just learning about.

        Natural selection will favor the spread and hardiness of such spores. It takes only one to ignite life on a condusive planet or moon.

        Thus, the claim that inteligent life will not likely share our DNA (if found) may not really be true after all. We may be *related* to Zeta-ians after all.

        I *still* don't want to go to yet more weddings though.
    • Yeah, he's right. There is no such thing as airborn viruses....not

      Well as a wanna be scientist you should now that viruses are also not alive per se. Viruses are a classic twilight area. Are they alive, are they not? It's not an easy answer. However to claim them to be a life form as you do is false.

      • Re:Trash talking scientist. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:13AM (#4444786) Homepage Journal
        Sorry, I read this article too long ago to remember it's subject:

        "Almost no earthly environment is out of bounds for bacteria, including the atmosphere. And while the clouds aren't exactly teeming with life, air-sampling instruments have trapped bacteria more than 11 kilometers above sea level. Carried aloft by rising currents, some microbes can also drift thousands of kilometers before landing. But scientists thought that, like many long-distance travelers, the bugs were inert during their time in the air.

        To test whether atmospheric bacteria were inactive, limnologist Birgit Sattler of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and colleagues collected cloud water from a site 3100 meters up in the Austrian Alps. They kept the samples frozen and analyzed them back in the lab. Once thawed, the cloud bacteria released carbon and slurped up radioactively labeled amino acids and thymidine, an ingredient of DNA, showing that they were metabolizing and reproducing even when on the verge of freezing. That bacteria straight from clouds were active suggests that cloudborne bacteria are as well, the researchers conclude in the 15 January issue of Geophysical Research Letters."

        Terrible error on my part. I hope this clears up the gist of my argument, that air itself carries life.

        At least here on earth, life will fill any ecosystem it can. Non-native life will adapt to and fill any ecosystem, even ecosystems hostile to life. There is a common house cat killing penguins in antarctica. Bacteria were found outside the mir space station, eating the glass. Sea lampreys will thrive in a fresh water lake 50 degrees warmer than their normal ocean habitat.

        We may have already infected Mars, Venus, the Moon and Jupiter with bacteria. How many bacteria must survive to create a viable breeding population? Just One.
      • Don't play lawyerball, son. If they found viruses in Venus' atmosphere, that would still be big news, whether or not you consider them "alive".

  • Habitablity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @06:57AM (#4444609) Journal

    Why do most people asume that the living conditions on earth are the best model to compare other planets with? For all we know, the conditions here on Earth might be downright horrible for life to develop and we simply just got lucky. (Especially plausible if you think about the conditions we live in; instable tectonic plates, atmospheric disturbances, electro-atmospheric disturbances, oceanic disturbances, etcetera) But that'd going off-topic... There are simply so many things yet unknown and researchers are simply too eager to disregard a complicated subjects for various reasons I'm unfamiliar with...

    • Re:Habitablity (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drudd ( 43032 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:19AM (#4444804)
      It's pretty hard to take up the argument that the conditions for life on say Mars are better than Earth. Earth has vast forests, billions of species... seems pretty conducive to life, huh? Mars, on the other hand, may or may not have microbial life... pretty dull.

      All the conditions you listed off, instable tectonic plates, atmospheric disturbances, etc are all wonderful sources of energy, and most likely helped the formation of life on Earth, rather than hindered it.

      Doug

  • Danger - Charged Words (Score:4, Informative)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:04AM (#4444629) Journal
    "These bacteria might be a genetically-enhanced version of the thermophiles which are known to survive in extreme temperatures."

    The phrase "genetically enhanced" has become an abbreviation of "genes altered through chemical manipulation". All evolution is natural genetic enhancement...even if done selectively by plant breeders who, for example, create large juicy ears of corn from a plant which produced small ears just a short time earlier (and I have no idea how much corn had been altered by pre-Columbus breeders).

  • Bah humbug. (Score:5, Informative)

    by c.emmertfoster ( 577356 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:15AM (#4444648)
    The original paper in question here was called "Reassessing the Possibility of Life on Venus: Proposal for an Astrobiology Mission" and published in a journal called "Astrobiology [liebertpub.com]."

    Please note that the title of the damn paper is not "Merchants of Venus Discovered, Are Selling Us Meat," but, it appears to me to be an optimistic proposal for another venusian probe.

  • Maybe... (Score:2, Funny)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 )
    Maybe this means they can do something about the strange lifeforms infesting uranus!

  • Genetically enhanced? (Score:5, Funny)

    by stere0 ( 526823 ) <slashdotmail@stereo.CHICAGOlu minus city> on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:36AM (#4444698) Homepage

    These bacteria might be a genetically-enhanced version of the thermophiles which are known to survive in extreme temperatures

    Does this only sound silly to me? They can't be genetically enhanced. If they exist, they're just the way our lord Venus Christ created them!

  • The Houston Chronicle discusses the discovery of mysterious swirling patches on the surface of the planet which may be communities of bacteria

    So either the RIAA have set up shop on a new planet, or evolution is starting on Venus, with lawyers...
  • Are you sure it's not something stuck on the view screen again. Just cos it's wiggling doesn't mean it's alive... [angelfire.com]

  • I like the reasoning... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vandan ( 151516 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @07:50AM (#4444722) Homepage
    One of the best indicators of life is a system existing far from equilibrium. Without the presence of life, all systems tend towards the point of minimum order (towards chemical and energetic equilibrium). But life uses an energy source to direct the system around it away from chemical equilibrium, producing ordered structures. These structures contain the energy in a way such that life can later return to extract the energy source to perform work. See Stuart Kauffman's "Investigations" for a very interesting read on it.
    These guys come to exactly the same conclusion as I would have given the evidence, and I think the theory is quite sound.

  • Manned mission to Venus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by invid ( 163714 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @08:10AM (#4444775)
    We should be looking to send a manned mission to Venus before sending a manned mission to Mars. Venus is 10 million miles closer to Earth than Mars is. A Venus mission wouldn't have a landing so it would be much cheaper. And then there's the possibility of finding life in the atmosphere. I know, I know, people want to have the excitement of astronauts walking around on the surface of another planet. They also want to be able to see the surface of the planet from orbit. But think about it, for considerably less cost we can have humans exploring (from orbit) another world with an atmosphere and possible life. We can have probes enter the atmosphere and return samples to the orbitting spacecraft, which could then be brought back to Earth. A manned mission would have the flexibility and resources to make an exhaustive examination of the atmosphere. It makes more sense to have this be our first manned interplanetary expadition than the more expensive and difficult mission to Mars.

    • Re:Manned mission to Venus (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chainsaw1 ( 89967 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:10AM (#4445254)
      There are other reasons why I totally agree with this plan

      Venus provides positive pressure and a positive heat source to work with. The pressure outside and the temperature outside is _greater_ than our standard for living. We know more about dealing with increased pressure (deep-sea research, scuba) environments than reduced pressure ones. We also know how to cool hot temperatures to cool ones with the Carnot cycle. Venus contains complex chemicalls naturally that would be profitable to industry. Best example is sulfuric acid, the #1 most produced industrial chemical in the world. It is generally too complex to be found in significant amounts on the surface of other worlds.

      I also believe it may be easy to set up a power station by taking advanage of the high temperatures of the planet to produce energy somehow, but I'm still formulating how to do this.
  • Ok from an economic/15 min of fame perspective which do you thnk would attract more $/pretigue saying the you found some rare funky gas on Venus or that you found some rare funky gas on Venus that was CREATED OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS BY BILLIONS OF EXTRATERRISTIAL BACTERIA LIVING AT 50KM. hmmmm... tuff one

  • Interesting read (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Fnagaton ( 580019 )
    IIRC Stephen Baxter explores a related theory in his book "Deep Future" availble from Gollancz. I found it an excellent read and if you find this kind of thing interesting I recommend it.

  • Carl Sagan planned this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rotaluclac ( 561178 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @09:08AM (#4444970) Homepage
    If my memory is correct, Carl Sagan et al already proposed to seed bacteria or algae into the upper atmosphere of Venus. Their proposal was to use photosynthesizing organisms that reproduce so rapidly thay enough of them stay in the friendlier upper layers of Venus' atmosphere to survive. They would break down the carbon dioxide, reducing the greenhouse effect. As aeons pass, the habitable layer of the atmosphere would become thicker and thicker, so the process would accelerate. Another source of acceleration would be simple evolution. After a number of aeons, terraforming could begin. Perhaps the Russian Venera's carried the seeds...
  • the probability of finding life in our own solar system is pretty good, but just because we find i doesn't mean its native, the probability of life evolving on another planet in our own system is pretty small, its probably safe to assume that any bacteria we find have terrestrial origins, we sent a probe to venus 20 years(?) ago, might some bacteria have hitched a ride on our probe and possibly thrived on venus?

  • Easy way to test this theory (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:05AM (#4445230)
    Shuttle a bunch of antibiotics to Venus. If the dark patches go away, then we know bacterial life existed on Venus.

    Science is fun.

  • Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seangw ( 454819 ) <seangw@sean[ ]com ['gw.' in gap]> on Monday October 14, 2002 @10:14AM (#4445275) Homepage
    Why does life require circumstances like our planet to start?

    We aren't looking for life on other planets, we're looking for life that we understand. Realistically life should occur just about anywhere given enough time (perhaps for actual voids in space, not necessarily what we think of them as, since "black matter" could be negate a "void" in certain areas of space).

    I think "life" is merely a self propogating chemical reaction. Evolutionarily wise it makes sense that "chaos" would force mutations. We can easily assume the propogation under all circumstances won't necessarily be the same.

    This means that organization of chemicals so that a reaction produces other reactions of the same type would likely be found anywhere that chemicals and or energies can react (remember, we're not just looking for life like our own).

    More interestingly it would be interesting to try to create reactions that re-create themselves, and allow them to evolve.

    Then again, I don't think we'd get approval for any experiments that wouldn't yield results for possibly billions of years . . . imagine the electric bill.

    -Sean

  • I hope they don't bring it back to earth! Afterall, we've already seen what microbes from Venus can do in Night Of The Living Dead. Do we really want the dead rising from their graves again and devouring the living?
  • Aren't those the bacteria that started growing on my 1.4 GHz Athlon after I installed it during my lunch hour?

  • Logic (Score:2, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 )
    I think a training course in logic should be mandatory for everyone.
    the team found chemical oddities there that could be explained by the presence of living microbes.
    That's extremely uninteresting. The fact that my coffee cup is half empty could be explained by an ET having drunk it. Here is a statement that would be interesting:
    the team found chemical oddities there that could not be explained by anything other than the presence of living microbes.
    See the difference a couple of negations make? You go from something completely insignificant to something exciting.

  • Comets seeding life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i8a4re ( 594587 ) on Monday October 14, 2002 @02:31PM (#4447137)
    There has been some talk about the stats involved on life being created on Earth and then being created on Venus. What if there was a planet that had large oceans and it was teaming with life. Then an asteroid hit the planet and sent fragments of it in all directions. One of those pieces of ice and dirt (which now has frozen microbes in it) happened to find our solar system. As it approached the sun, it started evaporating and pieces started falling off. All it would take is one microbe to seed life.

    After all the extremophiles discovered all over the Earth, it is not too hard to imagine a layer in the atmosphere of Venus where life could thrive.

    We know there are microbes that can survive being frozen, and there are some that can survive extreme temperatures and large amounts of radiation too. We've even found a several billion year old microbe captured in a salt crystal in Carlsbad Caverns, and when it was rehydrated, it was alive.

    If an even like the one I described could happen, then there are billions and billions of microbes floating around space just waiting to land on some planet that can support life.

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