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Space

Microbes Survive Space Trip 135

Posted by timothy from the wonder-what-customs-were-like dept.
An unnamed correspondent points to this Discover.com article; looks like the bacteria tested for space survival (in the short term) passed that test. From the article: "Two strains of microbes from extreme environments on Earth appeared to survive a short flight through the vacuum and searing radiation of space, researchers at the University of Maryland announced Sunday. The experiment lends credence to the theory that primitive life might hitchhike between Earth and other worlds aboard debris from meteorite impacts."
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Microbes Survive Space Trip

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  • Like one of the posters said in the mars greenhouse thing a couple of articles ago. What about using bacteria as hardy as these to begin terraforming Mars.

    Start creating an Oxygen atmosphere. Fill a canister, send it across and release it into the Mars atmosphere to spread across the planet.
  • ... who demonstrate why religion is such a bad thing.

    But this is another example of the anti-Christian bias displayed by the technical community.

    First, this is nothing compared to the anti-technical bias shown by the Christian community. The Amish have the most radical beliefs in this regard, sure, but there's an underlying anti-scientific, anti-technical, oppresive sentiment in all Christianity, and it just makes me sick to think about it.

    Rather than accept the fact that we came from the Garden of Eden as told in the Bible, they would rather believe that we were created in some big explosion in space halfway across the Universe!

    Which is easier to believe:

    1. a big explosion started the universe

    or

    2. there's a big bearded guy in the sky who sends his son to get killed so that he won't have to punish all of us for what our great-great-great-great grandparents did?

    I think that one's pretty obvious.

    Any rational human being should be able to see this for the obvious lie that it is, since if we were created in an explosion, then how did the galaxies form?

    It's called gravity. It's the same thing that holds the big ball that you're standing on together. Ever heard of it?

    Oh, wait, I forgot. The Bible says the Earth is flat. Sorry.

    No, whilst bacteria may be able to cross the vacuum of space this is merely another example of God's great design.

    No, it's just another example of how the simplest and lowest things imaginable can always prevail. Why do you insist on putting all your mystical trappings on this sort of thing?

    He is paving the way for our manifest destiny in the stars, where we shall eventually become angels ourselves and ascend to join His eternal light.

    Oh. I always thought he was paving the way for religious leaders to impose their whims on the dupes who follow them. Guess I must be wrong.

    To claim otherwise is to follow the bleak road to damnation.

    Time to wake up and smell the reality, buddy.
  • It's easy... microbes live happily on bit of rock, huge comet (meteor?) hits, tons of rock get chucked into space, one or two manage to escape the gravity well and land on another planet.

    this is true, but the rocks that are thrown up arent exactly very hospitible to life, theyre probably red hot by the time they leave the atmosphere if not from the actual impact and trauma of being torn from the surrounding strata than simply by atmospheric friction as it shoots out of the gravity well. Probably enough to sterilize anything. Of course the best way to test this is to find a big honkin asteroid, slam it into earth and see if any bacteria survive being flung clear.

  • "The proof is much too extensive for a Slashdot comment, I'm afraid." IOW: you have none.

    Your theories rest on the existence of a god. The scientific theories don't. Science doesn't have to disprove god. If you want to bring in a god to fit your theories, you must provide the proof of its existence. Stating "god exists" as a base assumption doesn't work and there's nothing you can do to make it work.

    Disprove the existence of God. When it comes down to it, your 'proof' has more to do with 'I can't see him, so he must not be' than anything.
    Nope. I don't have proof. I have the conveniece of being on the side that doesn't need a god to explain things and therefore needn't prove the existence of said god in order to continue with the theories. It's really simple. I can't "prove" the easter bunny doesn't exist. It very well may exist. But I don't need to assume it exists, nor can I use its existence to provide support for further theories until I prove (or infer) it exists.

    Using the improbability of evolution and abiogenesis is a very valid course.
    Have you been paying attention? Obviously not. Sure, you can use it as evidence, but then you *MUST* explain how a necessarily more complex being came into existence. If you say "it just happened," then why can't less improbable things have "just happened."

    Many things are proven wrong because of sheer improbability.
    Not quite. They're proven wrong because of sheer improbability *AND* an different explanation that is less improbable. You have no similar explanation.

    The origin of life is different because it affects the value that people place on their life. It also affects a person's outlook on the future.
    Irrelevent. The moral/ethical implications of the origin of life are immaterial to how life originated in the first place.

    So if one chooses to disregard any proof of God, which many scientists do, then one has to accept improbabilty as truth. Hence, our current situation.
    What proof? I submit again, you have none.

  • Let us face down these raving loons!

    Throw down the yoke of religious oppression.

    Be a blasphemer!

    Stand up for unbelief!

    Take the lords name in vain today.

    BTW, what's all this swearing on the bible stuff in court? I know for a fact that God and 'the human soul' don't exist so what meaning is it supposed to have for
  • Are you saying that this proves life on earth came from another planet? Just because a few bacteria can survive in space that isn't proof. Actually, bacteria being able to somehow get off a planet, survive in space, and survive re-entry doesn't prove that is how life got here -- only that it is possible.
  • Well, Catholics anyway. Eating the body of christ, drinking his blood and all that. Disgusting.

  • There is no need to have cosmic radioactive bacteria. That would indeed be a scary world to live in...

    You can read my original warning on this here [slashdot.org].

  • While I'd love to believe that the scientist would be honest with himself, it's much more likely that he would form an even more sensational theory, and one that couldn't be proven/disproven in his lifetime.

    But isn't that the most reasonable and honest thing to do? Just about any wacky far-fetched idea is going to be a lot more believable, less sensational, and easier to confirm-or-disprove, than the idea that life was created by God.


    ---
  • ...but how do you explain how they got into/onto the meteorite?

    With an E-ticket of course. All they needed was some form of ID... My question is, where did they get the ID?
  • ...but only one of the organisms tested is actually a bacterium (D. radiodurans). The archaea aren't true bacteria.
  • We all know that the religious nuts will froth at the mouth at anything which remotely calls their beliefs into question.

    You have to watch if you do it with Moslems though. They'll declare Fatwa and come after you with machetes, machine guns, scud missiles etc etc. OOh yeah, that'll make me a believer!

  • I recall that one of the Apollo missions, maybe Apollo 12, landed nearby an automated probe, maybe a Surveyor probe, and one of the astronauts, maybe Pete Conrad, cut a bit of the probe off put it in a back and took it back to Earth. On Earth a scientist found that there were microbes on the bit of metal. They speculated that a technician must have sneezed on the Surveyor probe before it left Earth. The scientist scraped a sample of snot from the scrap metal and put it in a dish to see what would happen. Surprisingly the microbes were alive.
  • i'm sure a few of them could survive anything that space d the sun can throw at them.

    Why dont you throw them *into* the sun, that would qualify under "anything the sun could throw at them"

  • While I, as a Christian myself, respect the princples of Jesus Christ and the words of the Bible, I must take offense at the way in which you abuse them through reference. You honestly think God will penalize humanity for paying attention to space exploration and questioning the sciences?

    Indeed, for such things go against what the Lord has taught us and attempt to mislead humanity into believing such lies as the "Big Bang" and evolution. People like yourself shouldn't call themselves Christians, your liberal theology is no kind of belief at all in truth, and you are little better than the most limp-wristed of agnostics.

    It is not being suggested that there is no God, and even if so, I hardly see fit to punish those who differ in our beliefs of the world.

    Nonsense. It's for their own good - if you do not follow the path of righteousness then you cannot go to Heaven when you die. It's for the sake of others that true believers are sometimes forced into extreme measures. We are doing the work of the Lord, and in doing so we cannot do any wrong. There can be no sin in doing the Lord's work by saving the souls of heathens.

    Our pope has revealed it that Christians may believe in evolution.

    Aaah, now that explains a lot. If you are a Catholic then you are no Christian at all! Your worship of idols and the Virgin Whore is directly against one of God's Commandments, and means that you cannot be a Christian if you are a Catholic! All Catholics are bound by their "religion" for eternal damnation, and the pope as the head of this cult is second only to the Anti-Christ in the harvesting of souls for Satan!

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • [slashdot.org]OOG HAVE POWERFUL CAVEMAN IMMUNE SYSTEM WHEN STONED ON CAVE WEED!!! OOG FIND GREEN MICROBE AND BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!! BUT OOG NOT MIND BEING SENT INTO SPACE TO TEST COSMIC RAYS!!! OOG THEN GET FREAKISHLY BIG AND STRONG AND GREEN AND THEN BECOME LAME INCREDIBLE HULK PARODY WITH HIS OWN COMIC!!!

    [slashdot.org]SPEAKING OF WHICH, OOG WANT OWN COMIC!!! SOMEONE GET JACK KIRBY AND STAN LEE TO MAKE SILVER AGE OOG COMIC!!! OOG BREAK LEADER'S HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!
  • Why not use Treat, the generic spam thats not quite meat?

  • Egads... More blind people spewing out their Christian Mythology.

    Hah! I think it is obvious I see further than you my deluded friend.

    For hundreds of years science has been chipping away at religion. The church was ready to execute Galileo in the name of a god. Only recently did the Pope apologize.

    You are in error. The church did not execute Galileo because of his calculations, but instead because he was using them to attack religion. If he had just stuck with using them to obtain results he would have been fine. There's a fine distinction there, but an important one.

    I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in ghosts, goblins, and invisible deities.

    I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in quarks, gluons, leptons and invisible forces.

    Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.

    Nonsense. You have "faith" in science don't you? Whether or not you believed in science would make no difference to its objective truth. Similarly, whether or not people have faith makes no difference to the Truth. Faith is required for following the path of the Lord and being allowed into Heaven. It's not required, but the consequences of its lack is eternal damnation.

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • No disrespect, but you do reply to things at some length, and very, very quickly.

    You can't catch this fish any more, though :)
    --

  • Just the beginning... (Score:4)

    by laborit ( 90558 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @02:37AM (#889559) Homepage
    Neither group of microbes came out of the trip unscathed. Even Deinococcus radiodurans, the species known for radiation endurance, lost 99.9% of its numbers. Clearly this isn't the stuff of interplanetary colonization yet. What we need to do is take these cultures, grow them back to strength, and send them up again. Maybe next time we'll only lose 99%. So we do it again. And again... Eventually, we may evolve something that can actually survive long space trips. Bear in mind that this might be much more similar to the natural bacteria on a non-magnetic, low-atmosphere planet, so it's a perfectly valid way to investigate the question.

    Or, we might find that no matter what we do, there's a physically-imposed limit on how much radiation any bacterium can handle. This would mean that space-bacteria would have to exist inside rocks, under better shielding. Or that they couldn't exist at all -- but that possibility is welcome too, since it gives the theory falsifiability...

    - Michael Cohn
  • Microbes surviving solar and Van Allen radiation is one thing; surviving re-entry in a flaming meteor instead of a nice, cushy spacecraft is another. Most rocks don't make it to the ground, never mind microbes. The impact into Earth at several thousand miles per hour would probably have some detrimental effect, too.

  • Re:So the christian god doesn't exist? (Score:3)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @06:24AM (#889561) Homepage Journal

    The religeous texts already have a lot of stuff in them that is very far removed from human experience. Anyone who believes in that faith will have already made their peace with the inconsistencies, and (most of them, anyway) accept that at least some of the book is the result of a ... uh .. creative process. (I've heard of Christian pastors who don't even believe that Jesus literally came back to life after he was killed.)

    One more minor inconsistency between the book and real life isn't going to disturb anyone.

    Also, even on purely logical grounds, where no faith is involved, you could disprove every single assertion in the bible and it still wouldn't disprove the existence of the god described therein.

    For example, if Linus says, "Linux exists" and also says, "Penguins live on the moon" and you disprove his penguin statement, that doesn't mean he's wrong about Linux.


    ---
  • At first, I was truly amazed to see that the cells survived.

    Then I noted that they were exposed for only 10 min. with a 1000-fold reduction.

    So, assuming exponential decay - that is, the number of microbes killed is proportional to the number in the colony - and solving

    Q[t] = Qo Exp[r t]
    Qo = initial amount of microbes
    r = rate of death
    t = time
    Q = number of microbes at time t

    Using Q[0]=Qo & Q[600] = Qo/1000 the rate r is found:
    r = -Log[1000/600] ~= -0.011.

    Solve Q[t] = Qo/2 the half life is found:
    t ~= 60 sec.

    So then, class, what have we learned? :)
    Well, if the population drops by half every minute in space, that doesn't bode well for any realistic transit (i.e. Earth to Mars). After one week (604800 sec) , the population drops to 10^(-3024) of it's starting value. That is too say, after a week it will all be dead.

    Granted, this is extremely simplified with gross assumptions. Still, it looks like there are real troubles for "Microbes In Space".

  • Astrobiology (Score:3)

    by Scurra UK ( 143378 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @01:38AM (#889563)
    follow this link [nasa.gov] for some interesting stuff from nasa about astrobiology, including the "life evolved on mars and flew here on a comet" theory IIRC
  • You know, I'm having a hard time reconciling what I know of Christians with the way you "speak". You seem to actually accept that others can have different opinions to your own. This is not a trait that is common among Christians, and those that do possess that trait are quickly 'removed' from the church and marked as heathens (as the person you are having this discussion with is doing to you).

    While I'm sure you (in your own mind) are a Christian, you do not strike me as such. You seem more like a real person, that just happens to have Christian beliefs as part of his system of morality. :).

    One thing that the 'hardcore' christians have problems with is the idea that the Bible, while supposedly the 'Word Of God' is still interpreted through humans. It was written by humans as their interpretation of the 'Word Of God', and each person that reads it sees a slightly different interpretation of the 'Word Of God' as a matter of their own perspective and their own slant on the meaning of the words themselves. Through generations of translations, many different 'versions' of the Bible, and many different languages of each 'version' it is possible that the words we see are not at all what was originally intended by the authors of the Bible, let alone the "Word Of God" before it was interpreted by those authors.

    As is plain to see by what I have written here, I was quickly pushed out of 'the church' at a very young age for my questions of faith, and to this day do not believe that those considering themselves christians are any better than the rest of us. While you (the person I am responding to) seem to be the exception to the normal christian mentality, I do believe your own church shall remove you if you make these views known. It happened to me.

    (Having said all of this I realize I have probably sacrificed a great amount of Karma for spouting my views. Sorry, but someone had to do it.)
  • I killed a dinosaur last night. I roasted it with some paprika. It was good.

    WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?

  • But we knew this. This is really how they sent all those baddies on that crystal in Superman to earth. If it wasn't for this, we would ave been safe.

    We also would have been safe from the "Share the software song". My guess is that's how RMS found it - it's clearly an alien microbe kind of tune.
  • Maybe from a meteorite or comet impact on a planet. That could very possibly lift the bacteria that can survive extreme conditions (like a powerfull impact)
  • I think a bacteria can survive the space travel,
    but how a bacteria can go outside a planet ?.
    Thats the question. There is no way a bacteria can
    go up, outside the atmosphera by a natural mechanism.

    Bacteria has survive in the lens of some
    of the first cameras dropped in the moon.

    Ovelord
  • Hah! I think it is obvious I see further than you my deluded friend. Believe what you want, but when you are lying on your deathbed wishing you did something more with your wasted Sunday mornings, remember me. You are in error. The church did not execute Galileo because of his calculations, but instead because he was using them to attack religion. If he had just stuck with using them to obtain results he would have been fine. There's a fine distinction there, but an important one. Sir, YOU are in error. the church did not execute Galileo at all, nor did I say they did. Regardless, if the church executes all those that attack it, do you really condone this? Do you suggest that I would be worth of execution because I do not believe there is an invisible man floating in the sky? The close mindedness of the follower of Christian Mythology shows it's true colours. I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in ghosts, goblins, and invisible deities. I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in quarks, gluons, leptons and invisible forces. Proving their existance, if even mathematically, is more than the proof any church can offer of a god. Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits. Nonsense. You have "faith" in science don't you? Whether or not you believed in science would make no difference to its objective truth. Similarly, whether or not people have faith makes no difference to the Truth. I have no "faith" in science. Science tests itself every day by the onus of proof. Numbers don't lie, religion does. Faith is required for following the path of the Lord and being allowed into Heaven. It's not required, but the consequences of its lack is eternal damnation. There you go, bringing unmeasurable "faith" into the mix. A favourite ploy by religious kooks. This has been a wonderful troll, thank you for allowing me to vent.
  • According to that book (you know, the bible) some 'god' created life on earth etc etc. When the theory about life is coming from another planet is true, does that also imply we have solid proof that christians believe in a god that doesn't exists?

    Not to start a holy war, just a thought.
    --

  • ...grow them back to strength, and send them up again. Maybe next time we'll only lose 99%.

    Well, it's worth a try but I suspect it's like firing a shotgun at a wall covered in postage stamps and suggesting that the ones that have no holes afterwards are resistant to lead. Given how radiation works at the scale of single-celled creatures, I reckon the .1% that survived were just lucky (lucky the trip didn't last longer).

    TWW

  • OK, so the bacteria could survive a few days in outer space (barely?). So, I suppose it follows that they could also survive for thousands to millions of years in outer space, which seems to be a more realistic time frame? Admittedly, testing that hypothesis is next to impossible, but forgive me if I don't take this as proof that life originated on Mars or something. (And what's the deal with everyone wanting to prove _that_? Earth not good enough for you?)
  • Wouldn't it be hell, that after surviving the heat and intense radiation of space, they land on earth only to die because some fool spilled soap on the thing?
  • Actually, I think it would be faster (although probably more expensive) to seed the Martian poles with higher life forms, i.e. moss.

    I think Carl Sagan explained that bit on the TV series "Cosmos", and on his book based in that show (coincidentally, called "Cosmos").

  • Your theories rest on the existence of a god.

    And your theories rest on the lack of existence of a god. woohoo. You may not want to admit it, but everything you're saying is admitting it for you.

    I've spent my life working in science, and I've come to believe the way I do. You seem to be accepting (rather religiously, I might add) something that many scientists tell you. You've furnished no proofs, only conjecture. So that leads me to believe that you are severely biased in one direction and won't easily be swayed. That's fine. Like I said to begin with, I don't want to debate. This type of conversation quickly becomes a contest to see who can get the 'last word'.

    No, thank you.

  • The fact that you won't post answers to questions shows that you are a wrong. Go ahead get the last word. I don't care. I've exposed you as being ignorant and a liar. I'm happy.

  • Saying that life came from Mars conveniently tucks away the issue of how life started, so no one has to address it, doesn't it? Think about it. Mars has (had) terrible conditions for synthesizing life. It would also have to survive launch into space, travel through it for years, and somehow end up on earth, which would have to be right near Mars at the time, then life on Mars would become completely extinct. The alternative, and logical theory is that life was created on earth and remained there. Use intelligence and you can deduce which one probably happened.
  • The early unmanned space probes contained cameras. This was the mid 1960's, the only way to retrieve the images was to pick up the cameras, which our intrepid astronauts did.

    No. The Surveyor [hughespace.com] spacecraft carried television cameras, not film cameras. They transmitted their pictures back to Earth via radio.

  • The slashdot article is here [slashdot.org]. It's about an E-Times article, Bacteria pressed into service as living transistors [eet.com]:

    The article says that bacteria can encase themselves inside "armored shells of semiconductor". Could this also mean that bacteria could encase themselves inside other minerals, such as the rock in meteorites and survive for an indefinite peroid?

    "When we started this study, we were just trying to find the source of bacteria in the fab, and how they could remain alive after all the heroic measures to eradicate them with ultraviolet light, ozone and everything else including a dollar a gallon to purify the water," said Baier, who is director of the Center for Biosurfaces at SUNY

    ...[the fab contamination problem] concerned some clever bugs that just wouldn't die, no matter what -- bacteria that can survive in the vacuum of space, or inside a volcanic vent at the bottom of the sea. They can hibernate indefinitely and only need the slightest bit of light to wake up and thrive anew.

    In short order, the bacteria have encased themselves inside armored shells of semiconductor, making them impervious to all the attempts by clean-room personnel to kill them.

  • Now I think this story is really interesting. Here's a list of Internet coverage about the story:

    The research is being done by the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. Here's their press release [umd.edu] on the subject.

    To shoot the bugs into space, they used a NASA sounding rocket. Information on the rocket launch facility is located here [nasa.gov].

    Here are some links to the Discovery.com article, as well as a few others:

    And, of course, my own coverage on Universe Today [universetoday.com]:

    Fraser Cain

  • Told to children to keep them in line.

    I find it odd that supposedly rational adults continue to believe in such ridiculous tales. I would expect people like that to be locked up as unfit for society.

  • They need a crutch to live their lives. That simple.

    You should really feel sorry for them. These people go through their entire lives limping from emotional crisis to emotional crisis as their belief system crumbles around them.

  • While the Big Bang is an utterly bizarre theory to myself, a small part of me believes that it *may* be a relevant part of God's plan as a whole. Perhaps God has a place in the universe for the scientists, or He would not have created them and assigned their role. I will always retain my faith in God, but I keep my mind open to the possibility that greater pieces of His divine plan may be intended to be unraveled after the writing of the Bible. Your intolerant attitude suggests a 17th Century old meme Puritan who is fixated on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
    Regardless of your hellfire fixations, allow me to quote Matthew 11:15-11:17. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." You are doing a service in your attempts to convert others, but you are commiting the even worse sin of hating your fellow man. You may preach as God says, but you must allow your neighbor to make his own decision, for upon he rests his own salvation. Such hatred on your part violates the Christian covenant with the Lord.

    And as for my denomination, how dare you call me a Catholic! I may heed the pope, but I have grown up in a strong, New England Episcopalian background which I continue to apply to my life. I am also somewhat of a transcendentalist such as my namesake, in which I can see the beauty of God as He displays his power through an Oversoul which permeates nature and connects us to it. No matter what you may speak, I am a pure and devoted Christian, which I swear upon in the eyes of our Lord. I only hope He may understand your misguided wrath and spare you from the flames of Hell.

  • And learn Hebrew. There is a word for "ball" in Hebrew. The term "chuwg" doesn't mean "sphere" but "rounded." To quote from what you obviously ignored:
    God "sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth [chuwg], whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the skies [shamayim] like a curtain, he spreads them out like a tent to live in...[Isaiah 40:22]." Chuwg literally means "circle" or "encompassed." By extension, it can mean roundness, as in a rounded dome or vault. Job 22:14 says God "walks to and fro on the vault of heaven [chuwg]."

    Let's even assume that chuwg means sphere or circle. So we have either a flat earth and a flat heaven, or a spherical earth and a flat heaven, or a flat earth and a spherical heaven, or a spherical earth and a spherical heaven. Or, we have what it really means here, a flat earth and a domed heaven. That's the only combination which geometrically makes sense and allows for a someone to sit above the earth and see all of the earth at once.

  • Didn't you see South Park last week?!?

    One argument against yours (which is a form of Pascal's Wager) is that you may have chosen the wrong religion and displeased the God(s) . Then you would end up in the unpleasant afterlife just like the non-believer, even though the non-believer is also incorrect. Furthermore, you would have wasted all of the time it takes to follow your religion, whereas the non-believer would have that time to do other things.

    So which religion is the right one? According to South Park it was the Mormon religion. So do yourself a favor and make sure you don't miss any more episodes! :^)
  • Thanks for the correction, my understanding from another article was that the reason for retrieval was for the images.
  • Is it me or is the idea that life on our planet actually came from somewhere else a bit silly? What ever happened to KISS and Occum's? In simple and brief terms, it suggest that biochemical reactions on Earth are responsible for the start of life not some extraterestial source(although some say that it was an extraterestial event that may have helped trigger it).

    For some microcellular organism to do this fantastic voyage it must...

    - survive the initial impact (devistating in magnatute since stuff was thrown back into space) of a cestial body somehow not be blown apart by the event
    - survive in the extreme vacuum and radiation of space
    - survive in the extreme heat and destructive force of reentry
    - survive another impact and again not be blown apart by the event
    - and then take shape on a primordial Earth enviroment hostile to areobic life to begin with (did I remember the eras correctly? was there enough O2 in the atmosphere during the dates they are throwing around?)

    I find it interesting that everyone is going gaga over this "evidence" like this yet no one is willing to suggest the idea that life started here and hitched a ride to Mars which is possibly just as "plausable".
  • And you call yourself a person? Dude you're pretty stupid if you actually believe in all that bull shit. BTW, I'm a priest, can I have some money? I need it to go to the strip bar and get child pron. It also aids my ability to molest your kids, or your wife. Thank you.

    With Christian love,
    Bongo
    The priest who rapes children and molests your wife (it said I had to do it in the "How to be a Catholic Priest For Dummies")
  • This isn't my flame war but that's not going to stop me!

    And your theories rest on the lack of existence of a god.

    They don't. Nothing rests on the non-existence of a god. God can't be proven non-existent. You could prove human beliefs about a god wrong, but the people could just be mistaken. There are no facts about God, so there is nothing to disprove, and conversely nothing to prove.

    Unless of course you find a Babel fish. :)
  • The little bugs just get blown off the meteorite. Then they drift down slowly and land in a nice nutrient-rich puddle.
    And they lived happily ever after...
  • I don't know much about this type of science, so I'd really like someone to answer this question.

    I've heard that there was a large meteor that started a chain reaction that killed off the dinosaurs. Could it be possible that WE were that meteor? That human life's building blocks were on that meteor sent from another place?

    I sound like a bad sci-fi plot, but it begged the question.
  • You are in error. The church did not execute Galileo because of his calculations, but instead because he was using them to attack religion.

    Attacking? Thats a load of crap; he was merely telling the common people (most could not read nor write, while the wealthy church however...) about his findings. In other words; handing them a clue that there were more sides and points of view then just the one the church told about. And thats something the church could not handle; freedom of speech? The idea alone... Nohoo; let the people remain clueless, don't want to loose the income they provide.

    Nonsense. You have "faith" in science don't you?

    Ehmz, offcourse not. I do have some confidence in the people working on this matter. science is nothing more then to study, come up with theories and backup those theories with proof.

    Faith is required for following the path of the Lord and being allowed into Heaven. It's not required, but the consequences of its lack is eternal damnation.

    I take serious offence in the way you morons threaten the rest of the community with this loaded piece of crap. Its the same old story and I guess you dumbo's will never grow up; you can't force people anymore into believing the things you seem fit. In this aspect you are no better then your ordinary dictator. Those dictators can still use drastic measures to enforce their will, but we can be very gratefull that we took away that kind of power from the likes of you a long time ago. Please don't forget that the main reason for doing so was the fact you morons could not handle it; you killed and tortured people because they didn't believe the things you did.

    Religion; the best way to justify ordinary dictatorship.

  • Why do scientists feel the need to deliberatley complicate matters?

    Maybe they finally came to the realization that there are too many factors against life forming spontaneously.

    In that case, just say it came from another planet. Even though that doesn't solve the whole equation, sensationalists would camp on that idea and forget about the question of how life formed. It also allows them scenarios that are/were impossible on earth. Since we don't know where exactly it came from, we can't prove them right or wrong.

  • Most microbes die in earth's atmosphere.
    Ah! The atmosphere!
    Ahhhhhhhhh, the atmosphere...!
    Ahhhh.............................
  • solus popcornius,
    a lesser known bacteria discovered in the ruins of atlantus,
    it has the key chariteristics that it produces a stickey substance not too dissimilar in taste and texture to jelly beens that have been left in a cup of wate infrom of the fire.
    this sticky substance jb973e strange property that when in contact with hihg levels of super hot dense plasma it turns into popcorn, thus protecting solus popcornius from and hamfull effects of the sun.

  • This is essentially Pascal's Wager (or, IIRC, the standard interpretation of what Pascal was rabbiting on about). In essence, the argument goes that the penalty for being a wrong non-believer is a heck of a lot worse than being a wrong believer.

    I think the argument is a red herring - it says absolutely nothing about whether God actually exists or not - but then again, my personal view on the matter is "unconvinced atheist" (I don't believe that there is a God, but I don't absolutely discount the possibility of one). Anyway, can somebody please explain whether this argument is relevant to the question "does God exist?", and why?

  • Well, yes.

    But any event with a non-zero probability will occur sooner or later.

    What you describe has a non-zero probability, and we're sitting here talking about it.

    Who'da thunk, 4.5 billion years ago, that the flaming ball of molten rock that was the embryonic Earth would one day spawn a bunch of people who spent all day sitting around talking about how unlikely it is that we came to be here at all and therefore we probably don't exist and are making it all up anyway?
    --

  • Re:Just the beginning... (Score:3)

    by laborit ( 90558 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @03:32AM (#889598) Homepage
    Nope. Radiodurans has lots of genetic-repair mechanisms built in to repair DNA that's broken by high-energy encounters. Check out this Science News Online article on Radiodurans' survival strategies [sciencenews.org].

    On the other hand, the article did note that the bacteria that fared less well looked like the cells had actually ruptured. But I suppose that could be due to dysfunctional metabolism and other products of severe genetic damage.

    - Michael Cohn
  • * Stop trying to force your lack of religion on me.

    Riiiight... "Take the red pill" You may not like living without your religious crutches, but at least you living in The Real.

  • How come it's always Christian extremists who post this crap? How come there's no Budhist extremists posting here? Why don't we have people screaming about Allah? Or Baal or Ra, or even Thor? Oops, my apologies. Some might feel that I'm trivializing someone's religion by saying 'even Thor'. I'd go back and correct that, but I already hit 'Submit'.

    Where's the religious equality and representation on /.? I demand religious rants by other groups, even if someone (someone who is not me, that is) has to write a Bot of some sort to get things started!
  • You're in for one hell of a surprise.
  • No, not very likely.

    The ancestors of homo sapiens can be traced back in time further than that.

    Besides, the meteorite theory is only one theory. I lend more credibility to the theory that activities in the earth core were the cause of dinosaur extiction (scientific american, oct 1990, Courtillot, A Volcanic Eruption) (as well as the rise [sciencenews.org] of them). Still, that might be triggered by comet inpacts of course. [uga.edu]



    ----------------------------------------------
  • People like yourself shouldn't call themselves Christians, your liberal theology is no kind of belief at all in truth, and you are little better than the most limp-wristed of agnostics.

    Christianity does not have a monopoly on truth. One could argue from the derivations of the word truth that your kind of narrow minded assaults on people that do not share the same views as yourself are untruthful.

    You use the word agnostic as if it were something dirty. Being agnostic does not deny the existence of God, it merely pertains that it cannot be proven.

    I assume from your recent posts you are wearing the "I'm a Christian" hat. Where has all your tolerance and forgiveness gone?

  • * But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.

    Based on your statement I would suggest that religion is the coward's path. You don't want to take a stand you you embrace god(s) as an insurance policy.

    Regardless, from my side of the fence you "lose" more than I. We're both dead, but you've wasted countless hours on your knees talking to a non-existant god.

  • Which, of course, begs the question: "Where did God come from?"

    My point wasn't that life didn't form, but that it didn't form in the way everyone wants to believe.
    Actually, that's not your point. Your point was that God created life because it's improbable that life created some other way and evolved to this point. Fine. Back it up. Prove the existence of God (necessary in your theory) and then disprove evolution and abiogenesis. But using the improbability to do that is not valid because if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be here.

    Then we'll talk.

  • In related news, an old man and a crying baby were the only survivors of a mysterious die-off in a small town. Its believed this die-off is related to the reentry of this bacteria experiment.
  • Whew, thanks. Wish I'd thought of that myself. Here I was beginning to worry that the bug getting passed around the cube farm was more than just a summer cold.
  • There were rodents on Earth during the time of the Dinosaurs, and we can trace ourselves back to them, so no - it's not our fault.

    However, much, much earlier in Earth's history, it was subject to a much more massive collision. It involved a planet-sized (Mars sized) body termed Morpheus (IIRC) and resulted in the formation of the Moon.

    There is speculation that there was already some primitive life on Earth at that point, but there was scarecely any dry land. The collision effectively terminated EVERYTHING that was there before - since the entire planet deformed and resolidified. We could be whatever little bits of protoplasm survived a brief orbital trip - or maybe we rode in on Morpheus.

    My source for this is "What if we had no Moon", a recent show on the Discovery Channel.

  • Is this really proof? (Score:3)

    by Life Blood ( 100124 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @03:35AM (#889609) Homepage

    From reading the article it basically states that two types of bacteria were sent up. One is simple household stuff. The other is a bacteria reknown for its ability to withstand radiation. The common bacteria was killed, the resistant bacteria resisted although if saw a 1000 fold reduction in numbers.

    Now here is my problem. The rocket wasn't even orbital. It basically only scratched the surface of space for a short time. Even doing that caused a three order of magnitude drop in the hardiest bacteria on the planet. It killed the weaker one, the one that would have most likely been the representative of our evolutionary ancestor. Does this really prove that life could have been seeded from somewhere else? Shouldn't the flight at least be orbital so the long term survival of the bacteria can be examined? All I'm saying is that a millenium in space is very different from the hour (ish?) the experiment used.

  • That would mean your prescious Jesus is the son of a whore... :)

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity

  • Attacking? Thats a load of crap; he was merely telling the common people (most could not read nor write, while the wealthy church however...) about his findings.

    Exactly, attacking the church's authority. Whether or not the church was correct is irrelevent to the argument. The greatest good is served by allowing the church to see to the good of its member's souls, and this mission is harmed if the authority of the church is undermined. Galileo should have waited until he had the church's backing before proceeding.

    Ehmz, offcourse not. I do have some confidence in the people working on this matter. science is nothing more then to study, come up with theories and backup those theories with proof.

    But by this measure you would believe in Newtons' theory of gravity, yet Einstein proved Newtonian gravity to be wrong! So much for the sanctity of scientific "proof" eh? In reality you do have "faith" in science since you have obviously not proven every result yourself have you?

    I take serious offence in the way you morons threaten the rest of the community with this loaded piece of crap.

    *sigh* It's not a threat, it's just how it is. Read the Bible if you don't believe me.

    Its the same old story and I guess you dumbo's will never grow up; you can't force people anymore into believing the things you seem fit.

    Of course you can, you just need to convince them it is in their own best interests, which it is. After all it is far better than to suffer on Earth and go to heaven than to life a comfortable life here and then suffer eternal damnation in Hell isn't it?

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • If life didn't form, be it from spontaneous generation, abiogenesis, or quite literally "the hand of god," we wouldn't be here talking about it. Using the improbability of life forming as evidence against any one of the above is simply pointless.

  • Don't sell yourself short by suggesting it's thanks to a supreme being floating in the sky

    First, my current mental health is mostly of my own doing. Without any help I still managed to drag myself out of quite a few severe depressions. You can't imagine how many times I shouted at that supposed God people told me about who was supposed to help people - why wasn't he helping me? I did it all myself, and then found my faith.

    nailed up on a cross

    I'm not Christian.

    If someone were to suggest that the cat I had in my lap didn't exist I would think they need glasses or a mental examination. Not unlike those that believe in gods.

    First you compliment my mental health, then you say I need a mental examination. 'tSeems you're contradicting yourself :)

    Religion is keeping a good chunk of humanity in the dark ages. Turn your back on the controlling lies religion teaches and free your mind.

    Wrong. You're confusing rigid dogma with religion. I did exactly what you advise here. I let no-one tell me what to believe, opened my mind, and figured it all out for myself.

    Maybe YOU should take your own advise and open your mind. Stop piling all theists on one big biased heap. :)

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity
  • I suppose it's faintly possible, but very unlikely. Humanity's "building blocks" are the same as the rest of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. Also, our evolution goes back to before the end of the dinosaurs. Granted, the fossil record isn't complete, but there were mammals around that probably evolved into us. If we had arrived as microbial life on the comet that (probably) wiped out the dinosaurs, we would most likely be a form of life totally unlike other Earth life, and there wouldn't have been enough time for us humans to evolve yet.
  • I can't believe I'm actually replying to this, because most of the time it's a useless waste of time, but here goes anyway :)

    Claiming something doesn't exist because you've never seen it is indeed a logical thing to do, but it isn't always the right thing. You might not see the carton of milk in the fridge when you're looking for it while it's right in front of you. You might not see that car approaching from the right, but it is definitely there.

    I have personally experienced, and am constantly experiencing the Divine. I feel the Divine Energy, Breath of Life, Chi, Force, whatever you'd like to call it flowing through me, and through everything that surrounds me. And there you are telling me it doesn't exist.

    Say you're holding a nice fluffy cat. You can feel its warmth in your lap, hear its purrs, feel its fluffy fur as you pet it, and then along comes somebody who claims cats do not exist. He seems to look right through the cat as if it truly doesn't exist, he just doesn't notice it somehow. Wouldn't that be weird? Well, I think you're just that weird :)

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity
  • unlikelihood [dictionary.com] (<snip>)
    n.
    1. The state of being unlikely or improbable; improbability.
    2. Something unlikely.
  • I can understand the idea of microbes landing on a planet, but how do you explain how they got into/onto the meteorite?
  • The current sterilizing procedures for spacecraft are very stringent. They really want to knock down everything. The reason being that this experiment was already accidently done.

    First link [nasa.gov], now a quick summary: The early unmanned space probes contained cameras. This was the mid 1960's, the only way to retrieve the images was to pick up the cameras, which our intrepid astronauts did. They returned to earth with a colony of the bacteria, these bacteria survived launch, radiation, 3 years on the moon, launch from the moon, more radiation and re-entry.

  • Besides all that, Pascal's Wager is the wrong reason to believe. Sure, it's nice reasoning, but it can't possibly make anybody truly believe in anything. It may open somebody's mind a little bit, though, so they suddenly and unexpectedly find God - any God of any religion. But other than that, Pascal's Wager is an utterly useless red herring. Hmmm, herring!

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity
  • Exactly, attacking the church's authority.

    That was basicly exactly what the first poster said yet you told him he was wrong. But now you're telling me exactly the same again. Anyway; the church took offence in him making those calculations. Therefor he was punished for making those calculations, nothing more and nothing less.

    *sigh* It's not a threat, it's just how it is. Read the Bible if you don't believe me.

    I did. Problem; the bible can tell me anything I want to hear. You'll find stories about people getting condemned for trading and in other sections will find stories about people who's complete success is based upon making money. And there's allways the fact that even the Bible was written by mere mortals. So basicly you're telling me again that your ways are a fact yet you still fail to hand proof.

    After all it is far better than to suffer on Earth and go to heaven than to life a comfortable life here and then suffer eternal damnation in Hell isn't it?

    That heavily depends on what you call heaven and hell. And my friend; you can't tell me whats heaven nor whats hell since all descriptions were, once again, given by mere mortals. I hate to repeat but it still boils down to you guys threatening me and I take offence to that.

  • At first I was about to disagree with you arguing that some of the bacteria they launched on the rocket was found in the hot springs of Yellowstone national park. These Archaea bacteria could easily survive the heat however the radiation is a much bigger concern. The article says there was a 1000-fold reduction in cells and this was only from a suborbital (10 minute or less) flight! If these cells were to travel to another planet they'd be in space for a number of years! The mutations involved would be tremendous and the chance of any cells surviving would be scant at best. I think this article is almost proof against cells surviving in space. The one chance the cells would have would be to survive in the depths of a meteor potentially in a pocket of rock. The odds would still be slim but with infinite space and infinite celestial bodies I guess anything can happen... as it did.
  • Ahhh! I'm a bastard, I made a redundant post:
    Comment #74 [slashdot.org].
    Ahhh! And I've even wasted more bandwidth being concerned about it...
    Sorry about that...
  • I was not concerning myself with the history of Christianity, merely pointing out that the belief set of many practising Christians today is that of forgiveness and tolerance which from the post I was replying to, seems to be in short supply.

    You only have to look at the crusades, The Spanish inquisition amongst others to see the truth deep within most religions. I.e. its not about what we believe in, its about you not believing the same as we do.

  • The bacteria used for the experiment were varieties known to survive in locations inhospitable to most life forms. One of them, the Archaea, live mostly in undersea volcanic vents. There are some varieties that actually live in active volcanoes. Pretty tough creatures. And while the atmospheric friction would probably kill anything living on the surface of any clump of rock torn off a planet, there could very well be more bacteria alive inside microscopic crevices deep inside the rock. And impact has little or no effect on creatures that small. I'm not saying there would be a lot of survivors, but if a hunk of rock containing 1 meg of bacteria (which isn't very much) crashes into the Earth and 0.001 of the bacteria survive, it's probably going to be enough for them to survive in the long run (if they get lucky).
  • There is a big issue about how the first cells formed. And this does nothing whatsoever to help it.

    In fact, it all sounds a bit flukey to me. Microbes evolve on Mars, hitch a lift to earth, love it here and thrive and become higher life until Slashdotters are born. Over on Mars, meanwhile, everything goes pearshaped, they don't become multicellular and the planet dies.

    Surely, Microbes evolving on Earth, with all the right conditons for sustinance of Carbon-based life, is more likely. Why do scientists feel the need to deliberatley complicate matters?

  • It's easy... microbes live happily on bit of rock, huge comet (meteor?) hits, tons of rock get chucked into space, one or two manage to escape the gravity well and land on another planet.

    IIRC it looks like one entire hemisphere of Mars is an impact basin.
  • well there's a bateria(D. radiodurans) that can survive the levels of rad's that you get when you drop a nuke,
    somthing like 1.5 million rads..

    heres a good link [astrobiology.com]with lots of other nutty bugs

    i'm sure a few of them could survive anything that space d the sun can throw at them.
  • but their luggage was lost.

    --
  • I want them to send up a can of Spam (or Spam Lite if fat content is a concern).
    When the can of Spam (or Spam Lite) makes it back to earth it can be tested for microbial growth and then consumed by the scientists. No waste[0]!

    -g

    [0] no waste if you don't count the hundreds of tonnes of fuel needed to get the can of Spam (or Spam Lite) into orbit in the first place.

  • Stan Lee, be proud (Score:4)

    by theuglykid ( 143438 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @01:54AM (#889632)
    I have always thought we needed to send more stuff into orbit to taste cosmic radiation. There just aren't enough invisible microbes, stretchy microbes, or rock microbes. But whatever you do, don't get that green one angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

    "Archaea SMASH!"
  • This is an interesting theory about how life could have come to Earth, but it only solves the n+1 part of how life came to exist. The base case, or how the very first life came to exist is still an open question.
  • Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.

    We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.

    For the sake of the argument, let's assume your beliefs are right. I was born in 1974, I'll probably die somewhere around 2065. By 2100, we're both dead. End of story.

    On the other hand, here are my beliefs. I believe there is a God, I believe that there's life after death, and I believe that I didn't evolve from a radiation-immune microbe. (These are my closely-held, personal beliefs. I'm neither attacking anyone or forcing them on anyone, so I'd appreciate if everyone doesn't jump on this.)

    Now let's assume that I'm right. We both live, we both die. But that's where our paths diverge. I go into the afterlife, while you experience your "end of story." So if I don't believe like you do, but you turn out to be right, I lose nothing. But if you don't believe like I do, and I turn out to be right, you lose everything.

    Somehow, this all relates to space microbes and NASA and all that good stuff. Somehow. ;-)
    --

  • Remember that a seeding only needs to happen once. For billions and billions of years the earth lay barren, without any life, and then suddenly there was an explosion of it. It doesn't matter at all how small the chance is that enough bacteria survive the trip through space to seed another planet, since it only needs to happen once, and thus chances are irrelevant.

    It is also useless to calculate the chances of something that has already happened. Yes, maybe the chance of a large enough amount of bacteria surviving all the way to earth is infinitesmally small, but the chance of a golf ball landing on that one specific blade of grass it happened to land on is equally minute - and equally nonessential.

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity
  • Having fun with genomics::
    The entire genome [tigr.org] of Deinococcus radiodurans is freely available at TIGR.
    Enjoy!
  • Egads... More blind people spewing out their Christian Mythology.

    For hundreds of years science has been chipping away at religion. The church was ready to execute Galileo in the name of a god. Only recently did the Pope apologize.

    I'm always amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people that believe in ghosts, goblins, and invisible deities.

    Saying one must have faith simply acknowledges the fact that religion can't stand up on it's own merits.

    We're born, we eat, we breed, we die. End of story.

  • Somewhat related topic (Score:3)

    by Dungeon Dweller ( 134014 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @02:01AM (#889653)
    This reminds me of the Discovery channel commercial with the meteors. Picture microbes doing this instead of meteors.

    "On the Discovery channel I learn all about everything, including how to make everything from French pastries to nuclear explosives"

    "I learned that meteors burn up in the atmosphere"

    "AHHH, the atmosphere! The atmosphere!"

    Poor microbes. They should test reentry. That would prove a lot too (not that this didn't).

  • Identities revealed! (Score:3)

    by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) <evanNO@SPAMmisterorange.com> on Tuesday August 01, 2000 @02:07AM (#889659) Homepage
    As seen in the Wall Street Journal:
    The identies of the two microbes, once classified by the NSA, were released today:

    They are one (1) Jon Katz and two (2) Tom Pabst. These two strains are considered very dangerous for their utter lack of knowledge or comprehension. They can survive anything it is now shown, including space travel. This information is to be a warning to all, to realize how volitile and fragile our little worlds are. And to also understand the concept that ignorance and pure stupidity can never be fully destroyed, only sent out to the cosmos to find more suitable ways of annoyance.

  • I disagree. Part of the whole point is that evolution is a very hard thing to start biochemically. The whole "seeding" idea partially springs from that, i.e. that life may have come from a cushier place where the initial evolutionary step would have been easier not more difficult.

    Also since very little life is resistance to radiation, can it be infered that the seed was not either? Of course the flaw in this argument is that the resistance may have evolved out because it was largely unnecessary.

  • Prove? No.

    Add credence to an interesting hypothesis? I think so!

    Who was it who lashed together a papyrus raft and sailed around the Pacific to prove how Polenesians could have originated from South America? (Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki? sorry, I probably have this all screwed up, too lazy to check my facts). Don't think he really proved it, just demonstrated that it might be possible.

    Same idea here, I would think. This wasn't an elaborate experiment. Basically the microbes were not the primary science, rather it was just piggy-backed on a NASA sub-orbital mission carry solar radiation study payload. This is probably just a first step to further missions that might go orbital and such. Now, probably at very little cost, NASA can say 'see, it might be possible... can we have some more money please to test this out some more?'

    Sure, we already know that microbes can survive from what they found on a lunar probe, but that was hardly a controlled experiment. This probably gives them an idea of what parameters they need to set up for the next time.

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