Our Man In Black 179
bot writes "A recent Slate article covers the onerous responsibilites of the Planetary Protection Officer. He is tasked with preventing contamination of earth by alien organisms, and 'forward contamination' (contamination of other planets with earth germs). There is also a published protocol (PDF link) for avoiding Martian bugs."
Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ok... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ok... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Ok... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
*looks in Firefox's Cookie Manager*
Oh yes I do!
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ok... (Score:3, Funny)
On a serious note, (and for the insightful mod), does this not sound like one of those dressed up job descriptions that are oh-so popular in today's job market?
"Would you like fries with that?" - Uniformed Solids and Liquids Nutritional Engineer Officer. Thing.
Re:Ok... (Score:2)
Re:Ok... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ok... (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, because the ladies sure loves a guy in a Star Trek uniform in any other situation.
Re:Ok... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe not, since "protectionism" is ill-regarded nowadays. But it is an important step on the career path to "Interplanetary Tariff Collector".
I vote for . . . (Score:2, Funny)
--AC
Re:I vote for . . . (Score:1, Funny)
we come in peace shoot to kill shoot to kill men
Re:I vote for . . . (Score:2)
Song....
Ever....
Re:I vote for . . . (Score:2)
Wildfire? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wildfire? (Score:1)
Me: Should I have?
You: It's the coolest book in the galaxy! It made the Amazon top 100 list... She's interesting enough for you, old man.
Pod People (Score:2)
It's interesting from the perspective that when the fungus comes to earth it is already too late to do anything about it.
I haven't seen the latest version [barnesandnoble.com] though.
Re:Pod People (Score:1)
Re:Wildfire? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a Martian microbe shows up, it gets eaten in 30 seconds by some terrestrial super-optimised (for earth) bug. The martian bug's super radiation protection, cold-protection, etc, just means it has misallocated resources for the terrestrial environment.
Notice that people get infected by bugs that have evolved attacking animals similar to people (e.g. primates, mammals, some birds.) The nasty ones come from animals similar to us. We have little to fear from reptile bug, less from plant bugs, and nothing to fear from things that attack fungi. Martian bugs would be like tourists from Iowa trying to infect New York City.
Re:Wildfire? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your argument, while well formulated, is wrong - an organism isn't fundamentatlly better protected against microbes that are specific to their own species. The immune system is best at protecting against attacks from enemies it already knows from previous experience, it's as simple as that. That is why emerging diseases are so devastating.
It is true that eg. a virus is best at attacking certain hosts, but as we have seen many times in the past, they can evolve and jump to another species, and we know of no reson why a virus shouldn't be able to jump between widely seperated species. We simply don't know.
As for whether a Martian microbe would be able to get a foothold on Earth: there are places on Earth that might be favourable to it - a dry, cold valley on Antartica, for instance. Again, we simply have no knowledge about it. And while some - like the Bush administration - seem to be in favour of just rushing in and get stung, I personally think it is better to at least try to think a little ahead and avoid some of the most obvious risks.
Re:Wildfire? (Score:5, Informative)
The chance of an alien microbe getting a toehold on Earth is pretty much zero. Most every niche is filled by a lifeform that has four billion years worth of ancestors that didn't die before they breed.
Too optimistic, not based on actual experience.
Examples: fragmities, cane toad, zebra mussel, weird and untreatable hospital infections. West Nile Virus.
Actually, being highly tuned to a particular ecological niche doesn't protect an organism from anything but incremental changes in local fauna or flora. In point of fact, alien organisms (in the sense of from different ecological systems), if they can survive often end up growing explosively.
Why? pertty much everything in a mature ecology is food for something else. Animals on the top of the food chain are food for microbes. Usually microbes aren't a limiting factor in an undisturbed ecosystem because these animals also usually have evolved a conservative reproductive strategy: modest litters at infrequent places. WHich is what makes top level predators easy to endanger.
However, if you take an critter from the middle of the deck, or worse yet the bottom, their strategy tends to be predation limited or resource (therefore competition limited) or both, not reproductively limited. They are also limited by specific competitive defenses evolved by cohabitors of their particular niche. Which is why you don't see only one kind of critter or one kind of plant occupying a niche exclusively (which by your logic should be the norm), but usually there are many varieties predators, grazers, trees whatever, although one may be predominant. For example in the woods near my house there is both hickory and sumac, although they have overlapping niches.
The problem with an alien organism is that if it is naturally resource limited rather than reproductively limited, and has resoruces to exploit in its new home, there will be no factor checking its growth until it consumes all of the available resources.
I happen to work in the public health field, although I am not an epidemiolgist. We often remark that the unprecedently huge population of the human race is a microbe's bangquet. Space microbes do not concern me unduly, and the steps being taken by NASA seem prudent and sufficient. However we DO face potential threat from "alien" microbes that are released by ecological disruption. There are cases of permanent benign infections in remote populations that form a kind of symbiotic biological defense against incursion. Hanta virus definitely fits this pattern, it is possible the Ebola may as well.
The destruction particularly of tropical habitat, with its greater biodiversity and fiercer competition, is a public health concern. These places in past were avoided by humans because they were "pestilential". People who explored these regions often came down with infections, usually malaria but very often some unnamed agent. In addition to the loss of biolgical resource, the things that are released by these incursions, combined with rapid global travel, should be a serious concern. Ebola is, in a sense, too aggressive to be a global danger, but a bug like the 1918 influenza in its characteristics would be very dangerous indeed. Expect over the next decade a number of new stories about novel tropical infections, hopefully none spreading too far beyond their origin.
So, in short, from an ecological perspective your optimism is not warranted. Yes, the most likely situation is that a new bug will die out. However, if it doesn't die out it will very likely be a major problem, although not necessarily to human health.
Men In Black (Score:5, Funny)
Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:4, Interesting)
The resulting lack of fingerprints and scaring is actually more distinctive than the criminals original fingerprints.
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm. Wear some thin gloves while commiting the crime, or burn off my fingertips with acid... Hard choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:2)
Damn, that was a good show...
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:4, Informative)
What's more, the unique pattern of lines that make up your fingerprints actually cover much of hands. A good palm print left at the scene of a crime will get you convicted just as easily...
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:2)
Re:Removing fingerprints doesn't work (Score:2)
Eat his hands?
Nah, he'd just drive mad and devour alive anyone looking at his hands
Re:So? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you left your birth certificate on the floor.
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
The resulting lack of fingerprints and scaring is actually more distinctive than the criminals original fingerprints.
I'm not an expert, but I'd say when the criminal runs up to the cops and shouts "BOO!", that it pretty much gives the game away.
Solution for this problem (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Solution for this problem (Score:2)
Simple (Score:2, Funny)
Couldn't he just watch this movie [imdb.com]?
- Tony
Re:Simple (Score:2, Funny)
But... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But... (Score:1)
Re:But... (Score:1)
</mindcontrol entity="ailiens">
<sanity>
You should already know what kind of community this is... and it should be no surprise.
All informative means in this case is that somebody with mod points has a sense of humor.
Re:But... (Score:4, Funny)
</sanity>"
Looks to me like you actually closed your sanity tag well before the start of you post...
You'd think I'd learn... (Score:5, Funny)
WHY DO YOU LIE TO ME, HOLLYWOOD!!!
*sob*
Re:You'd think I'd learn... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You'd think I'd learn... (Score:2, Funny)
The Reason For Lies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Reason For Lies (Score:2)
Oh. Uh, fine. Let me, uh, just get something out of my car.
I don't think he's coming back.
Re:You'd think I'd learn... (Score:1)
I'll have you know that Starship Troopers had an ample supply of organic alien firearms. Organic planetary defense systems, even. Bug Guns. Big Bug Guns.
I want this job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I want this job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I want this job (Score:1, Funny)
Anyone that thinks that line could help them... can't be helped.
Re:I want this job (Score:1, Funny)
You: It is my civil duty to protect you from alien lifeforms.
Girl: Umm... okay...
You:
Re:I want this job (Score:3, Funny)
Just about anyway I'm guessing.
Re:I want this job (Score:4, Funny)
;^)
Does NASA have too much money? (Score:2, Insightful)
So, he's protecting which planet from the threat of contamination from whom exactly? Ok, I'm sure NASA would be wise to think of the consequences of landing man-made things on Mars, but as long as real flesh-and-blood humans don't set foot on the planet, isn't bathing probes in radiation enough to render t
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, some benign fungus got attached to the probe just before we packed it up and sent it to mars. Unfortunately, the fungus is not so benign to the Martian plant life and wiped out entire ecosystems there.
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:2)
Seriously, how realistic are these goals, and how realistic are they (NASA) being in pursuing them?
Let's start with the lunar landings in the late 60's. As I recall, there was concern about bringing back some lunar germ (however unlikely), so they quarantined the crew -- after they exited from the craft, walked in the open (with lunar-exposed gear), and only then entered the quarantine trailer.
Next, how sterile is the stuff we've been sending various places? In various documentaries and reports, there a
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:2)
Earth: 1
Looks to me like tie.
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Does NASA have too much money? (Score:3, Informative)
their treatments were extreme: ethylene oxide (nasty compound), cobalt 60 radiation, ultraviolet, antiobiotic sprays, you name it. they would place swabs of bacterial samples through out the items to see if indeed they were getting sterilized.
the fact is, they were never able to kill everything; this is a well known fact within that little niche industry. there are simply bacteria that
So... (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps.... N?
Avoiding??? (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't NASA just spend a couple hundred million bucks trying to *FIND* Martian Bugs? Crap, when a few ice crystals were found, JPL wet itself. Had we found an actual bug, who knows what kind of party would have been thrown?
Re:Avoiding??? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Avoiding??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, at the rate we are preparing to actually send people to Mars and bringing them back, I am betting this won't be a problem for the current holder of the officer, or his next eight successors.
Big problem... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure (Score:2)
Sure. As soon as you can have it surveyed and marked by a licensed professional.
at first glance (Score:5, Funny)
Forget the Mars mission (Score:5, Funny)
Humans are biological material. So much for the manned mission to Mars.
Re:Forget the Mars mission (Score:2)
Not to mention all the crap that falls off everybody in our day to day existence.
And don't troll me with "speak for yourself", all humans shed skin cells and hair without knowing it. Not to mention what happens when you sneeze or cough. Or flu season etc. etc.
Doubt me still? Try cleaning your keyboard someti
Re:Forget the Mars mission (Score:1)
Ants in the Apollo 11 Crew Quarantine Module (Score:5, Informative)
Years later, astronaut Buzz Aldrin said in a television interview that the mobile quarantine trailer in which the Apollo 11 crew was isolated had one serious flaw: Ants appeared to be going into and out of the trailer (37). If there were any Moon bugs, they would have gotten out with the ants. -- from The dilemma of Mars sample return [acs.org]
Add to that all the meteorites that fail to stop at the agricultural station on their way in, and I'd think the Earth is already pretty contaminated.
I'm not saying that he should not try to reduce cross-contamination, only that its not an easy job.
Re:Ants in the Apollo 11 Crew Quarantine Module (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ants in the Apollo 11 Crew Quarantine Module (Score:2)
Which is another argument for being very careful about forward contamination. "There Exists Life On Mars" is a Very Big Hypothesis.
As much as I'd like to see human exploration of mars, if I go to Mars, and I find bacteria there, I'm going to have a hard time proving they're Marsbugs, not Humanbugs.
If I radiation-bake a robot, and send it to Mars, and it finds bacteria that aren't rad-hardened, the case for life on Mars is m
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
I, for one (Score:2)
Re:Ants in the Apollo 11 Crew Quarantine Module (Score:2)
Re:Ants in the Apollo 11 Crew Quarantine Module (Score:1)
Re:OT: wrt to your sig (Score:2)
Too true. But then so are you. If a left can be any leftward turn, then a right can be any rightward turn. Drivers in Boston and Britain will probably agree with me that there are no right angles (so will Einstein and other non-Euclideans). Lets assume that the definition of right and left is an appropriate 90 degree angle +/- 45
Trip to mars (Score:3, Funny)
Forward Contamination (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Forward Contamination (Score:2, Informative)
What kind of a position is this, exactly? (Score:3, Funny)
Mars Terraforming Debate (Score:5, Interesting)
First Draft of the Prime Directive? (Score:5, Informative)
The NASA Requirements for Protecting Life on Other Bodies [nasa.gov] could be the First Draft of the Prime Directive [startrek.com]:
As indicated, dealing with simple life forms does not present many of the issues addressed in the Prime Directive [70disco.com]:
Re:First Draft of the Prime Directive? (Score:2)
The Prime Directive is an ethical cop out. It cherry picks the issue of interference, making the easy decision of whether to intervene when intervention is unneccessary, in the case of "healthy development". It avoids the moral dilema of how to act in the case of unhealthy development. It does not address the truly difficult eithical questions: How are we to distinquish healthy from unhealthy development ?
Worst jobs in science (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bet the poor guy is underappreciated (Score:3, Funny)
Disaster (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Disaster (Score:2, Interesting)
Something along the lines of "missed a step during Martian rock decontamination; 5 billion people dead" will probably get him a verbal warning at least.
Re:Disaster (Score:2)
To where, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing there's SOMEONE out there willing to work for four or five human brains a day.
NY Times article from Sunday (Score:1)
I think its was sad ignorance; articles like this one show that people who think NASA is that stupid are morons themselves.
oh i know! (Score:2, Funny)
hmmm...germ duty (Score:2)
This is outrageous (Score:4, Funny)
Great job title, but bad for traffic stops... (Score:5, Funny)
Cop: Are you are aware you were doing 45 in a 40 - zone?
The NASA guy: ummm. no, but if you say so...
Cop: Where were you going ?
The NASA guy: home - I'm going home from work
Cop: So, where do you work?
The NASA guy: I'm the planetary protection officer - it's my job to protect the earth from interplanetary biologicals and contamination
Cop: OK buddy, we're going downtown....
Excellent! (Score:2)
Planetery protection officer (Score:2, Insightful)
That NASA have spend astronimical amounts of money only to fail to discover anything more dramatic than a prehistoric sea on mars.
Despite, the possibility to the contrary, and the fact that it fits with the current scientific trend of "you are not special", there is actually a good chance that there is no life on mars.
I understood that all of the evid
Re:Does he have the... (Score:2)
Fuck it, this play on words thing is harder than I thought!
Re:some people (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus, we simply do not know enough about the planet from our limited excursions to discount anything.
Re:some people (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, if you read the article carefully you'll learn that the UN's COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection is actually responsible for setting the policies -- so, the rest of the world is "in on this". This guy does happen to chair that panel; however, in his capacity as NASA's Planetary Protection Officer, his only role is to implement guidelines established under the auspices of the UN.