Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Space Science

Can Bacteria Survive Space Vacuum, UV? 162

Posted by timothy from the sounds-like-my-love-life dept.
Porfiry of ExoScience writes: "The theory that microbial life once came to Earth on a meteorite from another planet will be tested on July 26 when a NASA rocket carries into space special microorganisms from research at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI). The tiny space pioneers will be riding an apogee, or suborbital, flight path similar to the historic 1961 flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. The passengers this time will be four dime-size cultures, each holding about 100 million cells of the microbes that will be exposed to space vacuum and solar radiation for 10 minutes."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Bacteria To Be Exposed To Space Vacuum, UV More

Bacteria To Be Exposed To Space Vacuum, UV

Comments Filter:

  • Re:What's the point? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With this time frame (10 minutes?), there's no other point than to spend (a lot of) money on some spectacular project to ensure future funding. The test itself is very weak. If they don't "survive", they haven't proven much -- just that this particular species didn't do well. If they survive, one could argue that it was a minuscle time compared to interplanetary travel.

  • Re:Evolution in only a theory, not fact (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry for my ranting, but at the end of the day evolution is nothing more than a myth with only circumstantial "facts" to back it up

    ... but then again, so is Christianity.
  • The theory that microbial life once came to Earth on a meteorite from another planet will be tested ,,,
    No. What will be tested is whether this type of microorganism can survive the outerspace conditions to which it will be subjected.

    If these microorganisms survive, we still won't know whether life "once came to Earth on a meteorite."

  • if it is a thing's first visit to Planet Earth, then it is not a re-entry to the atmosphere. It's an entry.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • MacGyver would desperately need to upgrade to a Leatherman. I bet he could hack into the Pentagon on his Palm VII!

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • yeah, and Ian Fleming also wrote about women named Pussy Galore, and Truly Scrupmtuous, (Halotta Fagina? yeah baby!) so we all know how that goes.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • Don't go blaming God for things idiot people do. (or say, or write). God gave us "free will", that is, we can do whatever we want to. Except in a few historically significant places, (Pharoh not giving in because God "hardened his heart"), God doesn't interfere with the will of individual men. It has something to do with being free to CHOOSE which "side" we're on. Personally, I don't believe that God is up in heaven rooting for suicide bombers or anti-abortion activists, or Republicans. The God I believe in is "all powerful". If He wants something done, He'll damn well do it Himself, and He won't work up a sweat. He doesn't need anyone doing anything in His name. If you do something in His name, out of faith, you need to examine your motives, and the motives need to be; for His glory, as a personal act of worship. Or be prepared to explain to Him yourself why you broke His commandments trying to compel other people to obey them.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • Just because religion is the root cause of many bad things that happen in the world, doesn't mean it's God's fault. Who is doing the bad things? God? No. People, just like you and me, people with selfish motives, and bent-up reasoning. Maybe it looks like religion made these people this way, but religion is a thing passed on to men from other men, so it's silly to blame God.

    I can't *prove* your wrong. But neither can you *prove* me wrong. Absense of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. In fact, I find it higly illogical and unscientific for a person to claim that there definately without a doubt is no God, because there is no rigorous scientific evidence for His existence. That's just plain stupid. You can't draw conclusions based on no evidence. All you can do is say; I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that there definately IS a God. Until the day after you die, you should withold judgement, just like He is.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • This, (in my opinion) is exactly why the Bible says Pi=3.0.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • Religion pisses you off?

    How do you think us poor believers feel?
    Religion is perhaps the WORST THING EVER to happen to the relationship between God and man.

    I'm convinced that religion, in general, is the work of Satan. (including the "church" of the MCSE). Clearly, God intended man to have fellowship, but I'm not at all certain that rituals and dogma, and rules, made anyone's life here (or spiritual health) better.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • "Fundamental belief is one thing. Pretending it's anything but belief is another. "

    That's funny, that's my standard criticism of athiests. You believe on faith (certainly not rational thought - what you convince yourselves is rationalism) that there definately is no God. Yet you do not have sufficient evidence to claim that there is no God. It is a belief, which you have perverted into rationalism in your mind, to soothe - I don't know, your insecurity that humans can overcome all their troubles if they'd just all be rational, and believe only what their scientists tell them?

    Tell me this, Mr. rationalism. Does Oat Bran, or does Oat Bran not, reduce cholesterol? Do silicone breast implants, or do silicone breast implants not have nasty side effects like cancer, and lupus, and other autoimmune disorders? Did OJ, or did OJ not, murder his wife? Is IE an application, or an OS?

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • bastard! ha! I get it! His parents weren't married!

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • hm. I don't think that the bible claims that the cross originated in any other way than the preferred method Romans used to execute criminals. What's so hard to believe about that?

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • The resurrection of Jesus is a as fully established as any other historical fact of the era.

    If every historical fact of an era is "shaky," then no historical fact of that era is "shaky?"
  • This is madness...haven't you people seen The Blob? (I'm talking the 80's special-effects laden version.) Exposing microorganisms to cosmic rays almost resulted in the Earth being consumed by a ravenous gelatinous creature!
  • The Bible? The Bible is just a book, filled with many contradictions. The Cross, the beloved symbol of Christianity, actually had nothing to do with Christianity at all. It originated from some other belief/event (I can't remember what it was, off the top off my head). If you choose to live your life by the rules within a book, then I'm sorry, but you're a lot dumber than I am.
  • Religion is stupid (not to mention the root cause of many bad things that happen in the world). The very fact that there are hundreds of them only proves this point. They can't all be correct. A whole lotta people are going to be very dissapointed when they die. But seeing as nothing will happen when they do anyway, there's not going to be anyone there to prove my point. But if you can *prove* me wrong, I'd like to see your evidence.

    P.S. Okay, this is a semi-troll. But it's something I feel strongly about.
  • Not really. Religion pisses me off in a big way. I could make valid points but I'm just not in the mood to do so. I'm already pissed off today, this only make it worse. If that make me a troll, so be it.
  • Am I missing something?

    Yes, you've put the pig inside the space shuttle. That certainly doesn't prove much.

  • No, if anything relativity applied Newtonian physics to non-Euclidean geometries. Quantum mechanics is not a "generalization" of relativity. In fact, in some cases, relativity and quantum mechanics conflict. This is because relativity focuses on very massive objects and very large distances, whereas quantum mechanics focuses on very tiny objects and very small distances. What do you mean by "strong gravitational effects"? Gravity is the weakest force, at any scale. Superstring theory is, I suppose, one of the more developed theories that attempts to resolve these conflicts. Progress in physics is not described by the concept of further generalization. It is better described as the resolution of conflicts between theory and observed properties of reality, and sometimes as a refinement of mathematics.

    logan

  • His theories predicted heaps of stuff that other people laughed at. Only trouble was, he was later shown to be right in every area that has so far been tested on the Moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. John Baumgardner did a similar thing with magnetic fields on Uranus and Neptune.

    If there are any bacteria there, they're probably from Venus, although some could have been borrowed from Earth in an earlier flyby.

    The Moon's subsurface _is_ hot enough to support life. In fact, during the Lunar day it becomes too hot to support either the U/Pb or Rb/Sr dating methods.

    See books like Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" and followups like "Velikovsky Reconsidered" (Pensee editors) for details. Or type "velikovsky" into Google.
  • I can imagine bacteria traveling through space, buried inside some porous rock... This way they don't have to be exposed to the harsh conditions of space.

    Bzzzt! Because the rock is porous, the air leaks out. Because the rock is small (tens of meters across max) the radiation leaks in. Unless the rock only spends ten minutes in flight, in which case either it came from Earth or you want to be on a different planet when it lands.

    On a real bacterium-carrying rock, the gremlins need to survive intense shock and heat as the rock is dislodged from the parent planet (Mars, in theory, but why life more likely formed there is still an open question), intense cold, vacuum and gamma as the rock travels through space for many-many years, electrical discharge as the rock hits atmosphere, extreme heat as it descends, intense shock as it stops descending.
  • If it is, send cholera, AIDS, bubonic plague, malaria... and keep your telephones meticulously clean, lest you be eaten by a giant star goat.

    "Rubber ducky, you're the one..." (-:
  • Doesn't anyone remember The Andromeda Strain, we're all gonna die, auuggggghhhhhhhhhh
  • "This so-called theory is just another attempt by Dawkins and his cult of "blind watchmakers" to derail the Truths that have been revealed to all of us through the words of our Lord."

    Revealed how? On SlashDot? ZDNet? Weekly World News? Full page ad in Time? Through any *verifiable*, *repeatable* channel at all?

    Hume blows you away every time. You're asking me to believe that it's the most likely explanation for the existence of everything that the entire universe was created, as it is today, in 6 days by an omnipotent omnipresent being whose completely unprovable existence has never left a single trace of physical evidence anywhere?

    Wow. I can see why they call it "faith". As in "belief without cause".
    --
  • is no evidence at all. Sorry.

    It's a book of middle-eastern faery tales. Some of which are nice, and some of which are nasty.
    --

  • Eh? (Score:1)

    by pwhysall ( 9225 )
    "And the "evidence" of a few pieces of bone consist of the entire basis for the rediculous claims of the evolutionists. Pieces of bone which exist in no order and are often found in places which contradict evolutionary "theory"."

    Well, that's 100% more evidence than YOU have...

    "As for the Truth of the Bible, something which should be self-evident to anyone that searches for the meaning of creation, you dismiss it out of hand."

    Well, of course I do. Like any reasonable person. It's a big book of metaphors and allegory. If you take the bible as literal truth then you might as well leave any scientific discussion now - because you're basically saying "no matter what you say, and no matter what actual evidence you have, what I *believe* is absolute truth". IOW, you're saying that MY beliefs (founded in empirical, repeatable, verifiable scientific fact) have to be subject to criteria that yours do not ("it's in the bible so it must be true").

    It doesn't matter whether there was a nutter called Jesus running round approx 2K years ago claiming to be the son of god and pretending to heal people.

    Religion is bad. It causes people to abandon reason and rationality.

    I don't need religion to help me make sense of the universe. I need science and reason.
    --
  • "* Provable existance - This is by choice. Why? I leave that as an exercise for the reader. (Hint: Think about celebrities and their problems with friends)"

    I would love to know what this sentence means.

    "* Never left a signle trace - This is wonderful example of duality in interpretation. Depending on your basic views, the whole world: genetics, the atomic/superstring structure, the digestion biology the galaxies, the Sun, the earth's rotation, the life cycles and life itself are examples of structure, information and thought. How often do you see that in the remnants of a fire cracker?"

    Eh? Precisely what do the remnants of a firecracker and the rotation of the earth have to do with each other?

    "Faith - You have a lot of reading to do on this subject, I see. Start with a concept description."

    http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=f aith

    Particularly sense 2.

    Get a grip on your own use of English before knocking mine. "thoughted"?
    --

  • Heh. (Score:1)

    by pwhysall ( 9225 )
    I'm bored and it's better than work at the moment.
    --
  • Sure, it's a troll.

    But it's a good one.
    --
  • As you rightly say, absolute truth is virtually unknown in science. Mathematics perhaps? Philosophers have long aimed for absolute truths, but essentially, I think that since it is possible that our very own minds are inherently illogical - but such that we can't derive this ourselves - nothing can be known for sure.

    Just for the sake of toying with a few thoughts - so don't take this too seriously - let's hypothesize that indeed god created the world recently, from scratch. One thing we observe is that our existence is explicable by evolution, in other words, god created the world in such a way that it seems to show all the traces of having been formed by another. Does this mean he doesn't want us to think he made the world? Will divine retribution strike down believing infidels (much like a secret service agency doesn't want to be uncovered)?

    I think, if we start off and don't take evidence at face value, we can pretty much argue anything. The sky is green - it's those aliens manipulating our senses (including those reading scientific equipment) telling us otherwise (go disprove me). Actually, you are 500 years older than you think, but a secret government projects stole your memory. Windows is stable. I mean, come on :-).

  • Discussions about religion very quickly degrade into universal truths. It's a fundamental problem of todays (not that it's been otherwise) screwed up religious institutes that they fail to accept the fact that other religions are possibly as accurate as they - or more so. This statement probably brands me as un-/ir- (choose yourself) -religious, which is true. Our beliefs, wishes, state of mind, you name it affects our recollection of events. Information passed on by several interconnected sources of dubious nature that are severely partial does not strike me as "historical fact"

    I don't know that it didn't. I don't believe - and admittedly, more importantly, don't want to believe - that it did.

    Anybody kidding themselves that there is significant evidence beyond their personal belief, isn't doing themselves justice. Religion should be banned - it's caused so much grief, wars, chaos, misinformation, and "what-religion-calls-evil" in this world that by it's own standards it has no right to exist.

    But if you believe in Jesus, God and "all that" (no I don't) then do so. Everyone has their own beliefs - their basis on which they (sub)conciously form other deductions. There is no way, absolutely no way (whatever those atheists like me say), that you can objectively claim one basis as superior to another. But by all means don't turn it into such a mass-delusion as the churches have. It's just too hypocritical.

    Fundamental belief is one thing. Pretending it's anything but belief is another.

    --EMN
  • The theory of evolution, as you so pointedly call it, has survived critical analysis - far more critical analysis than most other theories, because of criticism like yours - and it is at a point at which scientific arguments clearly bring it out as the until-now best theory proposed. If you have an argument agaist it, please state it clearly and precisely. "No 'blind watchmaker' could have come up with something like the eye..." which is entirely speculative, doesn't cut it. I would be extremely interested in and excited about a real, well based criticism you could give.


    While I'm at it, you may be interested in this web-page about exactly your argument: The Human Eye: A design review [rr.com], which takes exactly the opposite stance. To boot, it's well written :-).


    You say that "prejudices" are preventing the ability to make reason arguments. I could say the same thing. I don't think it's fair though - we believe in different things, and howevermuch I believe in evolution, and also disbelieve the existence of divinity, I recognize there is a damn good chance that I'm wrong. I'm just human - but so are you.


    --EMN

  • Do not forget that the earth atmosphere has changed more than a little since the days before there was life on earth..

    I think that's an obvious point which shouldn't be forgotten..
  • "Surviving in a hard vacuum and radiation is one thing, but surviving a re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is quite another.":

    I'm not entirely sure about that. The mass to surface area ratio of a bacterium is pretty small, so the re-entry velocity might actually end up being pretty reasonable. I don't have any figures available, but I have heard that small enough dust particles survive re-entry by simply drifting down slowly.
  • IIRC, during the Apollo missions, a ground tech sneezed into a camera enclosure. The camera was then taken to the Moon, and left there for a number of months. After the camera was retireved, the microbes in the enclosure came back to life in the lab, and THEN it was discuvered that someone had sneezed into the thing pre-launch. For a while there, they must have thought they brought something BACK. :O
  • If those bugs land in your backyard, the only people to survive will be alcoholics and colic babies. So stock up on everclear and get your pH down!!!
    Then prove the existence of Michael Crichton. I know *I've* never seen the man...
  • They don't necessarily have to be harsh. Suppose bacteria grow inside the pores of a rock, and then the pores get closed by clay or something else that dries and forms a hard coverage.
  • If the microbes survive, we'll know that life originated not more than 10 minutes from Earth! (If your life had originated here, you'd be home by now)
    --
    Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
  • They don't _have_ to fight.

    Who said anything about fighting?

    If you don't survive to reproduce, you don't pass on your genetic traits. This IS well understood

    ...who is arguing otherwise??

    And ignore the other guy,...

    WHO???

    Btw this is so far off topic its not even funny.

    I'm not even sure that you're reading the same post that I am!

    My .02
    Quux26

  • OOPS. (Score:1)

    by quux26 ( 27287 )
    Nevermind, sorry about that. =)

    I thought you were talking about the original post. Mea culpa. [giving self joe-forehead]

    My .02
    Quux26

  • Do NOT do that when I'm drinking soda.

    Jesus.

    My .02
    Quux26

  • First, let me say I'm a flaming atheist.

    That having been said, I can honestly say that I don't see how his post adds to the discussion (putting microbes through some stress) even a little.

    Slashdot is as much a podium for creationism rants as it is for atheism rants. ...which is to say not at all.

    My .02
    Quux26

  • Whe the heck would you have a payload of bacteria on the outside of a ICBM?

    My .02
    Quux26
  • Never left a signle trace - This is wonderful example of duality in interpretation.

    A theory (in this case, god) begins to lose it's value when it is undiscernable from chance.

    My .02
    Quux26

  • a) Define "fail"
    b) How would failing disprove evolution?

    My .02
    Quux26
  • Damn. Why does the only post that breaches my threshold (2) have to ask the precise question I was going to ask??

    Seems to me that they can just recreate these conditions in a lab. The UV such microbes would receive is a known quantity, as is the heat and accelerations (if that's even a factor). So just spin a microwave oven on a tether for 10 minutes. =)

    But seriously, can anyone explain what this is supposed to be aside from a visual stunt?

    My .02
    Quux26

  • Never mind your nonsensical christianity, I'm thrilled to see that Black Entertainment Television got its own TLD! (Hint: see poster's email address)
  • Remember the film "The Blob"? Wasn't this how it all got started? The scientists/military decided it would be cool to throw a lot of microbes etc in a small satellite/probe/rocket and see what exposure to space did to them?

    Mind you, seeing how no Astronaut has yet come back large, strong and scaly or with the ability to stretch like elastic, flame on, or go invisible I reckon we're pretty safe.

    Of course, IANAS (I Am Not A Scientist).
  • Perhaps it's because of the low quality of Christian that seems to argue on Slashdot. I've seen some very well thought out, convincing or interesting arguments for the existence of god(dess), but, baby, these ain't them. We seem to attract the fundementalist types that are reduced to whining "but I have faith, so I must be right!". The tragic loss of Christianity is that is promoting faith, and shunning evolution, it has also generally denied its followers the benefit of good rhetorical training. At least Judaism has it's tradition of debate. Christianity has very little.
    Geek-grrl in training

    "Religion is the opiate of the masses, but I prefer acid."
  • Intriguing, but a little off, as far as I recall my physics class. Air molecules get colder and colder at high altitudes, finally cooling down to the temperature of deep space at the edge of the atmosphere. Less pressure=colder for a gas. What causes the extreme heat of re-entry is the friction of air molecules sliding past an item moving at extremely high speeds, either because of motion relative to the earth, or simply because it's reaching terminal velocity. Things entering the earth's atmosphere at slower speeds don't necessarily burn up.
    Geek-grrl in training
  • Ok.. Let's say I put a pig into a space shuttle set to land on auto pilot and watch it come down in Florida. Have I now proved that pigs came to this planet from space? Have I proved ANYTHING? I don't think so. Am I missing something?

  • They lived on the spilt gore from Castle Wolfenstein.

  • Surviving in a hard vacuum and radiation is one thing, but surviving a re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is quite another.

    Not really. If the germs are on the inside of a porous rock, then they could ride out the reentry quite nicely. While the outer surface of a meteroid is heated to incandescence, the burn time is so short and thermal conductivity of most rocks so poor that meteorites found soon after their fall have been covered by a layer of frost.

    Why? The flaming exterior is soon cooled by the air on one side and the icy chill of the interior rock on the other. (The temperature in the shade around Earth's orbit is about 80 K, nearly the temp of liquid nitrogen. This assumes you've got something to do the shading, if only the other side of the rock.) See John S. Lewis' Rain of Iron and Ice for details.

    Not to mention the state the artifact must have been in when it was ejected from Mars in the first place. As I understand it, the theory is that significant meteor strikes on Mars can propel martian fragments outside of its gravity well. From all I've read about meteor strikes on Earth, any 'shrapnel' from a blast that large is molten rock when it ejects.

    Yes, but Mars is a much smaller planet than Earth, with a smaller escape velocity. It would take a coorespondingly smaller asteroid strike to blast rocks off the planet at >= escape velocity. The almost total lack of air (less than 1% of ours) would mean little velocity would be lost to air friction.

    Yet, I agree with you. I'd like to see some better simulations of these Mars rock ejections.

    So the real question is: Can microbial life survive a molten host environment, then frozen, irradiated, and exposed to a hard vacuum (the microbes on the exterior, that is), then heated to near-molten levels again when it reenters the atmosphere? If so, we'd better not go to Io!

    Skip the molten host launch and the molten reentry and you've got a situation that bacteria just might survive. Maybe.

    And, what's Io got to do with it? Conditions suitable for life are postulated for Europa, but not Io. There's no evidence of water and loads of evidence for constant volcanic eruptions, searing radiation, etc. Io is not a friendly place.
    --

  • I don't know what Velikovsky was smoking when he concocted his theories, but I want some. 8^)

    Example: Bacteria from Venus? Nothing remotely Earth-like could survive there. The surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, the clouds are made of sulfuric acid droplets, and there is no water.

    There isn't any steam, either. Venus is quite depleted of hydrogen compounds compared to what you'd expect for an Earth-sized planet. Though controversial, there's some evidence (high D:H ratios measured by one of the Mariner probes) that Venus may once have had more water, but lost it due to photo-disassociation by solar UV and escape to space.

    This means that the big V's claims in Worlds in Collision that rains of Venusian hydrocarbons (could he have meant carbohydrates?) formed the Israeli's mana in the Old Testament are bogus. There are no measurable hydrocarbons in Venus' atmosphere. If you dumped some hydrocarbons (say crude oil) there, the temperature, acid, and UV would soon break the oil down into non-hydrocarbons.

    Didn't happen. Can't happen. Velikovsky was wrong. End of story.

    And, that's just one point. V may have been a good scholar, but he was a lousy astrophysicist. (To be fair, he wasn't an astrophysicist at all, just some guy who wanted to relate Old Testament writings and certain other myths to a game of cosmic billiards. Far from "being right in every area tested so far," he was wrong on nearly every point that hadn't already been nailed down by the "conventional science" that he derided so much. Example: When V was writing WiC, Venus was thought to be much cooler with a heavy layer of water or hydrocarbon clouds covering the surface. Guess what V wrote into WiC? Hmmmm....)

    Velikovksy's claims have been hashed out and mostly refuted on numerous Usenet news groups over the years. There's no point in trying to drag him over to /. unless as an excuse to start a new flame war or a new variety of trolling.
    --

  • Rumor has it the company [aerovironment.com] I worked at sent a cockroach up to 80,000 feet on one of their high-altitude solar-powered missions (incidentally setting the altitude record for propellor-powered flight).

    It didn't make it.

  • IIRC

    It was on the surveyor (?) craft that landed in the pre-apollo buildup, this was visited by astronauts from a late apollo mission (14 or 15). They brought back some selected parts to test how materials have faired after long space exposure, but viable microbes where also found (it also caused wobbles at NASA since it was supposed to have been sterilised before launch as usual).

    EZ
    -'Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to log on..'
  • Why would reentry present any particular danger to a unicellular organism?
  • Also, there was this business with bacteria surviving three years on the Moon... here's the link:

    http://www.microbewo rld.org/mlc/pages/contents/22.htm#marooned [microbeworld.org]
  • Please read my original post - I said "when", not "after"
  • Look here, evolution isn't an opinion.
    Yes it is. In good science, there are no "laws" -- everythings an opinion.

    --

  • I judge the post by its content. In this case, the contebnt was a legitimate question.

    --

  • Non-existence of God is easily disprovable: die.

    --

  • Yes, but Hume assigns way to much weight to probabilities based in lack of evidence. To him, the fact that he has not seen something means it probably does not exist. Read his "On Miracles" to see just how far he took this.

    --

  • And you've examined the evidence, I assume?

    I doubt it, since if you had examined it, you would probably not call it "shaky". The resurrection of Jesus is a as fully established as any other historical fact of the era.

    --

  • Hume blows no one away.

    My cousin who was born and raised in Florida doesn't believe in snow. By Hume's logic, we must then conclude that Snow does not exist. He never accounts for this question of inadequate evidence!

    --

  • Look: moderation is not a bludgeon to suppress opinions you disagree with. That is exactly how moderation is being used here -- since you, the moderators -- find this idea absurd, you are going to suppress the post. The post was well-written, polite, and apparently well-informed. I would have given it a +4 interesting.

    The moderation of this post is wrong, and it is contrary to the moderator guidelines, which call for moderators not to moderate down because they disagree.

    --

  • There is a theory that there is life in the bacterial life within the moon. If conditions are hot enough within the moon then such life can exist. The theory even states that is where life may have from when the earth was formed within the core of the earth. It is just another theory.
  • Hume's principle is about *probability*, not belief.
    --
  • I've seen several complaints about the way the moderation scheme works. Usually their reactionary posts I personally don't value very highly, and their always pretty offtopic(-1). But as moderation is core to slashdot, I suppose it's necessary to discuss it even when it is not the explicit topic. Thus this message.

    First of all, the entire tree about religion is all nice and interesting, but doesn't belong for two reasons: it's offtopic; and (as must be obvious to anyone who's tried to discuss religion as we're doing now online) absolutely not going to get anywhere. Let Katz post some weird Religion rant so we get real interesting response. The religion comments are plainly empty.

    Additionally, the moderation guidelines also call - somewhat inherently conflictlingly - for moderators to moderate total bullshit down. Well, some moderators (and can we _really_ blame them?) thought that this creationist attitude is simply bullshit, and doesn't increase the value of the discussion. I can't say I blame them. I'll admit I can't disprove creationism, but it strikes me as a needlessly complex explanation for something that can be explained more straightforwardly. Where to draw the line, I ask, when do you say something is new and interesting and when is something plainly wacko?

    I really think people criticize the moderation scheme too frequently. It allows me to read only a fraction of the posts and the few times I read more than those, I discover that the rest is of far lower quality. So I applaud the conceivers, the slashdot staff, as well as those that at any given time have moderation access and are willing to plow through the bullshit so that I can get to the juicy bits. They're really doing me a big favour.
  • Why should gamma rays and a hard vacuum be any more difficult to survive if it is in space?

    In order to justify more funds allocated by the congresscritters...

  • You are probably referring to D. radiodurans, which is one of several organisms that will be carried aloft in this mission.

    This NASA article [nasa.gov] talks about D. radiodurans with an eye on possible uses of the bacterium in space exploration.
  • I believe people recently found a meteorite that contained droplets of water enclosed within rock salt. Given the melting point of salt and other properties, I think that makes it unlikely that the interior of the meteorite got too hot. Of course, if the bacteria were on the outside to begin with, they might simply "come off" during reentry and then drift down harmlessly through the atmosphere.
  • They don't _have_ to fight. If you survive to reproduce, you pass on your genetic traits. If you don't survive to reproduce, you don't pass on your genetic traits. This IS well understood. You need neither a biology degree, nor a background in medicine to grasp these basic concepts (although the original poster does seem to have congnitive difficulties). What is NOT yet fully understood are mutation rates, their causes, and how it leads to speciation.

    And ignore the other guy, he's a blatant troll, and apparently a pretty ignorant one as well. In his bizzaro universe natural selection magically does not exist (in ours it does. This part is not a theory. See the alt.origins FAQ). Not only that, but according to him, evolution sets out to prove we are "descended from apes" (in the universe WE live in, the theory of evolution says nothing about apes being our ancestors). Poor deluded fellow.

    Btw this is so far off topic its not even funny. Please moderate this entire thread down if you have to.
  • Human eye - random series of mutations where by NATURAL SELECTION, those creatures with bad or no eysight were eaten by creatures with it, thus leaving only sighted creatures to reproduce (more sighted creaures)

    Human soul - I'll even give you the benefit of the doubt that it exists. Electromagnetic energy stored in our brains and nervous systems. These are the the 3D representations (shadows if you will) of our multi-dimensional bodies from 4th-7th dimensions existing only 1 mm away (see string and M-theory).

    My ideas are just about as provable as yours. The eye thing is absolutly proveable.

    As for observing evloution, try microbes. I generation of human life can be millions for a bacteria - plenty of time to observe evolution.

    BTW can you suck your testicles up into your body cavity at will? The ancient Romans could. But since it no longer serves a purpose, the ability has been "bred out" of humans (as is the ability to wiggle you ears) so that today, almost no one can do it.

    That sound suspiciously like evolution to me.

    I'd rather be decended from a Bonobo or Chimp than be created by a God which says its ok to kill someone who doesn't believe in him/her the "right way" - see Northern Ireland, Isreal, Iran, the Crusades, the Inquisition etc all done in the name of God.

  • Hey man, I can troll too....hehe
  • http://www.science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast0 1sep98_1.htm [nasa.gov]

    Here is the clickable link. That ain't no 10 minutes! This is proof (if true, of course) that bacteria can survive harsh space conditions for extended periods of time.

    Sure it doesn't prove that "we are the aliens", but it's the best evidence yet (besides similar lab results of vacuum and radiation) that bacteria can survive things like mars meterorites. (Who knows, maybe even comets?) So life may be more pervasive than we thought. (Or maybe only able to be more pervasive)

    -Ben

  • Trying to figure out if life "arrived" on earth is going to be
    difficult, and it really isn't the interesting question. The
    interesting question is can we get life off of this planet,
    and surviving somewhere else. If mankind is to have any long term
    legacy (think geological time scales...) it will be the spread of life
    through the solar system and onto passing comets. This research will
    help select candidate microbes for such a mission.
  • Not to mention the not-so-new idea that some seriously mutated, never-before-seen-by-humans microbes exist in the upper atmosphere. Thousands of years of floating around, being beaten on by unfiltered UV, nowhere near us so we might acclimate ourselves to it...

    I would imagine that a suborbital flight would be pretty darned optimal for picking up stuff like this.

    My .02
    Quux26

  • While I'm sure this is a troll, some of the points raised are disturbing. I'll throw caution to the wind and feed the beast anyway....

    Sorry for my ranting, but at the end of the day evolution is nothing more than a myth with only circumstantial "facts" to back it up, and it doesn't deserve to be taught to children who are blinded to this important difference.

    While you may believe that the evidence in favor of evolution is suspect, I would counter that you have not objectively viewed the evidence in question. Furthermore, your viewpoint is in opposition to that of mainstream science and science education organizations, such as the AAAS and the AAPT, who have condemned the change in Kansas school standards. The burden is on you, my friend, to prove that the Christian mythos is necessarily a more consistent explanation of the facts than is evolution. It is not enough to sit back and say "Evolution is wrong, ergo the Christian myth is right." Please keep in mind that "the bible says so" will carry little weight in your argument; heliocentrists were condemned for decades by the church in part because the bible allegedly indicated that the earth was the center of the cosmos.

    There are plenty more worthwhile projects we can do in space, ones with real scientific value.

    Looking for the boundary of "Heaven?" Searching for "angels on high?" I shudder to think what one who has no understanding of how science is conducted would imagine space projects with "real scientific value" to be. I suppose you do not believe in geology either, that dinosaurs were just big beasts who wouldn't fit on the ark, the Big Bang theory is false, and that nuclear theory is suspect as well (can't have carbon dating indicating an age of a living entity that is older than the age of the universe). Do you object to the term "fossil fuel?"

    Allow me to distinguish between science and religious scibabble for you: Science (in principle) follows the scientific method. You formulate a hypothesis, conduct experiments (such as this one) to test said hypothesis, and then you refine your hypothesis based on the results of the test. Sometimes this leads to the unpleasantness of having to scrap your "sexy brilliant idea" and start anew, and sometimes you just have to tweak the hypothesis somewhat to explain the data better. Then more experiments are conducted, and more refinement is performed. Eventually, when the hypothesis is good enough that it stands the test of numerous experiments it gets elevated to the status of "theory." A scientific theory is logically nothing more than a successful hypothesis, albeit one that has passed so many tests successfully that one may strongly suspect it to possess a measure of veracity. Scibabble (I shall use our good friends in Kansas as an example of scibabble at its best/worst) holds that "idea A, my pet idea, is contrary to idea B, which happens to be a scientific theory. I do not believe the weight of evidence in support of B--I shall call it all "circumstantial evidence"--therefore idea A must be correct." It is a position based on a logical fallacy, and as such its conclusions are suspect. When I attended grade school we indeed learned about "this important difference," however it would appear that you did not.

    Thank God I come from somewhere where they value the difference between a theory and the Truth.

    Kansas, perchance? I find it curious that you capitalize the word "truth"--perhaps you associate the notion of truth with biblical truth only? It must be difficult to do your taxes each year.... "Blast! Where's the 1040A section of Leviticus?!"
  • Alan Shepard's was a much lower orbit than Gagarin's. If the point of the analogy is to explain what orbit the bacteria are going to be in (low), then it's entirely correct to cite Shepard before Gagarin.

    Slava Gagarinu, a hero for all mankind, and all that jazz, but you're still wrong.
  • Join NASA: Be an astronaut, explore strange new worlds and civilization, and kill their inhabitants with alien bacteria.
  • Sorry for my ranting, but at the end of the day evolution is nothing more than a myth with only circumstantial "facts" to back it up, and it doesn't deserve to be taught to children who are blinded to this important difference. There are plenty more worthwhile projects we can do in space, ones with real scientific value.

    Thank God I come from somewhere where they value the difference between a theory and the Truth.

    Kansas?
  • So what's wrong with the Heterotroph Hypothesis?
    Even if you prove that microbes might have landed here from a meteor, you have to explain how they got there. The possibility of life starting somewhere else, then surviving being blasted off their home planet, travelling [b/m]illions of years through space, and landing here would be lower than the possibility of life just starting here, given the ideal conditions that evidence points to. Wouldn't it?

    I agree with some other posters here... I don't think the scientists actually wonder if life came from other planets.

    Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
    foo = bar/*myPtr;

  • What about Yuri Gagarin? He was the first person into space! Have some respect when it comes to space travel and try to think about who did what first.

    --
    Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess

  • " The resurrection of Jesus is a as fully established as any other historical fact of the era."

    As is the resurrection of Elvis in this era.

  • Wasn't this also a MacGyver episode:

    They sent some bacteria into space to see how it would be altered by the solar radiation. The satellite crashed to some remote part of the US, and MacGyver was sent to retreive the sample from the woods in a bio-suite. All of the animals around him had died suddenly with the symptoms of "old age". The transmit on his suite gets broken and he almost ends up being napalmed.

    Back in the labratory, an over zealous scientist tries to save the bacteria before they're destroyed by Peter and MacGyver. She and her dog get exposed to the bacteria and die. MacGyver gets out just in time to have the whole laboratory incinerated right behind him.

    ... Then MacGyver puts the building back together with duct tape and his trusty pocket knife! Oh, how sweet were the days when each week's MacGyver was NEW!!!

    http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Television/S hows/Action_and_Adventure/MacGyver/
  • I have read that ages ago, back in the Apollo days, that one mission brought back a video camera that had been left on the moon or somewhere, and when they opened it up, they found that almost all the bacteria in it survived, so I don't see what the point of the experiment was.

    Your tax dollars hard at work I guess

  • Re:Questioning theories... (Score:3)

    by stevelinton ( 4044 ) <sal@dcs.st-and.ac.uk> on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @01:12AM (#908012) Homepage
    One cannot prove that the universe was not created yesterday out of nothing, with all our memories and all its other internal records made consistent. On the other hand, such a theory has very little predictive power, since the next thing you look at might be the one thing that is not consistent. One cannot prove that the behaviour of gravity will not change tomorrow to cause the Earth to crash into the Sun.

    Scientists always have to choose among the theories that fit the available evidence. Then they seek more evidence to test their choices. Experience leads to some "meta-theories" about which choices seem to work out better:

    * simplicity -- once you have the right language (usually mathematics) then theories that derive lots of behaviours from a few simple rules seem to do well

    * predictive value -- theories that don't let you make predictions about experiments not yet performed are not much use.

    * mediocrity -- theories that have our location, our species or our epoch in the history of the universe as somehow special do not seem to do well

    * aesthetics -- a bit of a two-edged sword, but brilliant and experienced scientists often seem to develop an effective intuition for which theories are "beautiful enough" to be true.

    Anyway, returning to the question of evolution. All reasonably simple theories consistent with the biology that we observe seem to have

    + Mendelian inheritance, with minor modifications
    + Malthusian pressure resulting in not all
    juvenile creatures actually breeding
    + mutations

    A consequence of this is the sort of evolution by natural selection that can be seen going on over short timescales in (for instance) butterflies adjusting their camouflage to smoke polution, or cod breeding at younger ages under fishing pressure.

    The next question is what happens if this process goes on over geological timescales (assuming for the moment the basic theories about the age of the Earth and the basic geological processes acting). Here, you will find more divergence among theorists about details, but most surviving theories do have species emerging, diverging and dying out, matching the fossil record. Recent theories suggest this may be less gradual and more jerky than earlier theories, with processes like the isolation of small populations on islands playing a larger role.

    Finally, you can ask whether processes like these have been taking place in past, and if so, how the existing range of species fit in, which brings me back to where I came in: you cannot disprove creation yesterday, or one second ago. On the other hand, teh available records, mainly fossils, but also ice cores and other things, are really quite consistent with the broad thrust of evolution.

  • Re:What's the point? (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @01:06AM (#908013) Homepage
    Why should gamma rays and a hard vacuum be any more difficult to survive if it is in space?

    The near-Earth space environment is more complex than "gamma rays and a hard vacuum". There is the solar wind and solar radiation, cosmic rays, microgravity etc.

    The experiment is a hitchhiker on a sounding rocket used for solar research, so it isn't costing the taxpayer big bucks.

  • Why vacuum, gamma etc... (Score:3)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Monday July 24, 2000 @11:49PM (#908014) Homepage
    I can imagine bacteria traveling through space, buried inside some porous rock... This way they don't have to be exposed to the harsh conditions of space.

  • Re:Previous knowledge (Score:3)

    by Catmeat ( 20653 ) <mtm&sys,uea,ac,uk> on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @05:21AM (#908015)
    I guess you're refeering to Apollo 12. That landed just by the Surveyor 3 probe and the astronauts brought back some components including the camera. The point of this was to demonstrate pinpoint landings so the Surveyor was just a target and the samples where pickled up so the effects of long period exposure to the Lunar environment could be studied.

    Since then, theres been increasing scepticism over the bacteria. Since nobody expected to find any, no real precautions regarding sterility where taken with the handling of the camera and it's now thought the camera may have been contaminated on it's return. But nobody really knows for sure.

  • Poor bacteria! (Score:3)

    by alexjohns ( 53323 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .cirumla.> on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @05:24AM (#908016) Journal
    Does PETA know about this? Is there going to be a protest? How inhumane! Bacteria have a right to live just like we do. What's next? Monkeys? Dogs? People?!?
    --
    '...let the rabbits wear glasses...'
    Y2038 consulting

  • What's the point? (Score:3)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Monday July 24, 2000 @11:34PM (#908017) Homepage
    They have already found that these bacteria survive gamma rays and a hard vacuum in their lab.

    Why should gamma rays and a hard vacuum be any more difficult to survive if it is in space?

  • And the next series of tests... (Score:3)

    by meckardt ( 113120 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @12:43AM (#908018) Homepage

    will involve shooting politicians into space sans spacesuit, to see how well they stand up to the vacuum and solar radiation. Theorists propose that this form of life came to Earth from outer space, possibly on meteorites.


    Gonzo

  • On an Apogee... :) (Score:3)

    by grahamsz ( 150076 ) on Monday July 24, 2000 @11:52PM (#908019) Homepage Journal
    Today scientists dicovered several microscopic life forms living on a 5.25" disk containing the ancient classic Commander Keen. They are eager to investigate how the bacteria survived amid the piles of dust on the floppy.

  • Surviving in space is one thing, but... (Score:4)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @12:16AM (#908020) Homepage
    Surviving in a hard vacuum and radiation is one thing, but surviving a re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is quite another.

    Not to mention the state the artifact must have been in when it was ejected from Mars in the first place. As I understand it, the theory is that significant meteor strikes on Mars can propel martian fragments outside of its gravity well. From all I've read about meteor strikes on Earth, any 'shrapnel' from a blast that large is molten rock when it ejects.

    So the real question is: Can microbial life survive a molten host environment, then frozen, irradiated, and exposed to a hard vacuum (the microbes on the exterior, that is), then heated to near-molten levels again when it reenters the atmosphere? If so, we'd better not go to Io!

    Kevin Fox

  • bacteria survived apollo moon mission (Score:4)

    by Benjamin Shniper ( 24107 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @04:07AM (#908021) Homepage
    http://www.science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast0 1sep98_1.htm

    Many have referred to it; here it is from a reliable source. Or as reliable as you get on the internet.

    -Ben

  • Re:What's the point? (Score:4)

    by Chalst ( 57653 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @12:42AM (#908022) Homepage Journal
    I read a fascinating article about how these bacteria are supposed to
    survive high doses of radiation: the ionising radiation is so
    energetic it will actually sever any DNA it encounters, but the
    bacteria is able to reassemble the original DNA from fragments.
    Reported in the recent Economist survey on the Genome project.

  • Maybe it IS the right test (Score:4)

    by laborit ( 90558 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @04:54AM (#908023) Homepage
    I was briefly annoyed when I saw this article, but fortunately the scientists were smarter than the blurb made them sound. Of course throwing some random bacteria into space won't prove anything about the long-term space-endurance of their entire form of life. Bacteria, thanks to their rudimentary life-support needs and short generations, can undergo some truly striking mutations. The extremophiles [resa.net] are a group of bacteria that have evolved to live in ridiculously inhospitable extremes of heat, cold, and toxicity. Some species grow optimally at >100C and pH1.0 -- a hundred times more acidic than stomach acid and hot enough to boil water! In fact, the project appears to be using something similar, a bacterium which was discovered in an extremely hot geothermal spring.

    Even then, Earth bacteria aren't necessarily going to have the right stuff. Bacteria that evolved on a planed without a magnetic field to block harmful high-energy particles and an ozone layer to absorb UV might have tolerances to radiation that would be stupidly excessive for anything in our relatively lax biosphere. Like bacteria from our own poles, life from a very cold planet might have a metabolism slow enough that traveling through space for 10,000 years wouldn't be a big problem (and if not, we always have spores). If you had some bacteria initially living on the interior of a chunk of ground that became a meteor, it's even conceivable that they could gradually evolve specifically to survive on the surface of a spacefaring rock.

    If this fails, biologists might turn to trying to engineer bacteria that can survive in space. Creating selection pressure for radiation, vacuum, etc. isn't so hard...

    - Michael Cohn

Slashdot Top Deals

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.

Close