Microbes Alive After Being Frozen for 32,000 Years 527
An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience is reporting on a new type of bacteria that after being frozen 32,000 years in the Arctic was ready to swim, eat and multiply instantly upon being thawed. Researchers are excited because they're the sort of microbes that might thrive in the ice sea announced on Mars yesterday. The instant revival abilities mean a future mission, if it found anything on Mars, could conceivably culture it and bring it back alive. Maybe NASA could market them as Martian Sea Monkeys."
strange meaning for "new" (Score:5, Insightful)
cane toads (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't bring them back!
Re:I, for one,... (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously, discovering unicellular life on Mars would be the greatest scientific discovery of the last 200 years.
I suppose it depends how you define scientific discovery, but I'll stick with, I don't know, let's say the general theory of relativity. That theory (I'd call it a discovery) has pretty profound implications about the nature of our universe. On the other hand, Mars is just the next rock over; I wouldn't find it all that shocking if life were found there (although it would certainly raise some interesting questions).
Re:I, for one,... (Score:5, Insightful)
>greatest scientific discovery of the last 200 years
I think it's impact would be much greater on the theological world than the scientific.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably not a religious fundamentalist either. Remember, the vast majority of the religions on the planet make Earth out to be something special in "all of God's work", and challenging that with something like, "Life has come to be elsewhere without spawning from Earth" would be a real problem for many religions, assuming that the message about life spawning managed to reach the people in these congregations.
If religious leaders condemn it they could advocate open violence against anyone spreading the knowledge or believing it. Since there are a LOT of people who fall into the Fundamentalist category or are influenced by them this could have really nasty ramifications.
Most people can't handle a major change in their world view.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:2, Insightful)
And I have proof: Look at human history.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Martian Life... (Score:3, Insightful)
1: Life does exist outside of Earth.
2: Mars has life.
3: Our immune system cannot adapt to (possible) extraterrestrial microbes.
4: The microbes would have the similar makeup of chemistry to interface with Earth Chemistry.
Of course you have an interesting.. You made up plenty of stuff. Lets find some microbes and then make wild-ass guesses.
Problems for religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of them will probably be happy accepting that it is "our kind of life" that is the special thing and that the existance of microbes etc elsewhere doesn't diminish how special us higher beings are. After all, most of them don't seem to like the thought that we and simpler organisms have common origins anyway.
Re:Martian Life... (Score:3, Insightful)
but we still don't know all bacteria on Earth (Score:3, Insightful)
blind eye (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never believed religion to be anything more than a crutch. It's a crutch for the immoral to have a reason to stay moral, just like law and prosecution are reasons for the criminally-minded to avoid crime. It's too bad that the crutch can be used both ways, and can facilitate the very thing the crutch was invented to stop.
Behold, mankind.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Could you handle it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I don't normally, but I'll bite this time...
If God exists and did this, or part of this, and it was obvious to all of those involved that he actually did these things and that there was absolutely no other way that these things could have happened then those involved would have a reason to believe in him. Fact of the matter is that none of these things have happened to me or to anyone I know, and those that I know who claim that God did something in their lives that's overly special are either crazy or are so bad at stastics that they're not accounting for the 10x number of bad things that happen for the one "miracle" that is simply fortuitous coincidence.
The British didn't defeat the Spanish Armada in Queen Elisabeth I's day because God helped, they had several unexpected advantages. Likewise, 1910-1920 era Germany lost the first World War despite asserting to themselves in some national motto "God is Great." The man referred to as "Comical Ali" the Iraqi Information Minister continually ranted how the Americans were losing, and how Allah was going to see the Iraqi army to victory over the Infidels.
This is the same damn argument that Science has had with religion from the earliest days of the discipline; skeptics don't blindly accept "truth" simply because people insist that it's true. Continual restatement of a position doesn't have anything to do with reality.
Show me one 'miracle' and I'll show you ten anti-miracles, like my 30 year old friend who was a vegetarian and otherwise the picture of health who died of completely natural causes, not realising that she had pulmonary hypertension until it was far, far too late to do anything about it.
In the mean time, I'm not going to believe something transcribed by hand over generations, across multiple languages, and at times by organizations with manipulative agendas. It was also originally written by people who didn't understand the natural world like we do. I don't doubt many of the positive "lessons" that are the ultimate theme of the parables, but the exact verbatim message can't be literally interpreted in my opinion.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're speaking from a very US-centric view. There are very few people outside the US that fall into the sort of "fundamentalist" category that you are describing. There's nothing in the Torah or Koran that says that there's only life on Earth and that Earth is special. To the best of my knowledge there's nothing in the Bible to that effect, either.
Global Warming Safety Net (Score:3, Insightful)
Or then again, maybe everyone else is right and they are just going to kill us.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:3, Insightful)
Christianity certainly makes humans special, but in no way precludes the existence of other extraordinary mortal creatures. Doing so would actually be inconsistent, since the scriptures mention other special creatures (angels and demons) which don't exist exclusively on Earth.
Therefore, even intelligent extraterrestrial life wouldn't pose a threat to Christian theology. Since Mars is expected (at best) to harbor bacterial life, there's no point in having this discussion.
It seems like you're trying to find reasons to condemn religion, but this certainly isn't one. Atheism is the most fashionable belief, but in the end it just rejects every concrete point of view without actually explaining anything.
In the interest of fairness, try to be more open minded and less prejudiced.
Re:Martian Life... (Score:5, Insightful)
The germs that are most dangerous are ones that have evolved tricks to evade detection.
Germs from Mars would be the first against the wall when the T-cells rolled into town.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:1, Insightful)
There are only a minority of hard-core types that believe that Earth is the center of the universe.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I, for one,... (Score:3, Insightful)
So research should only be done to satisfy the interests of the wealthy and/or Wal-Mart?
Re:Martian Life... (Score:3, Insightful)
oh wait... heh.
immune systems attack anything remotely suspicious and sometimes even things that they shouldnt, like ones own cells. thats what an allergic response is. martian bacteria wouldn't do anything pathologically interesting compared to what millions of years of bacterial evolution have done on earth.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:2, Insightful)
Being an idiots increases your odds of being in the history books by a hundred times, as does being powerful. The few, the proud, the Idiotic Powerful are the ones that end up in history books, as opposed to the millions of froods that just had enough power to get by.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, instead of the Sun, which has nasty radiation, maybe the impact was terribly strong, which could send stuff out past Mars (like, every probe Earth has sent out into deep space ever)...
Why is religion always being attacked here? (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW I can't help but parallel this story to Jesus's life, crucifixion, and resurrection. I for one, welcome our new microbe lord.
Two issues (Score:3, Insightful)
What's with this culture of "one scientific team says so, so it is an absolute fact"? That's why you all were suckered by the "methane from life" claim that turned out to have been a misinterpreted overheard conversation at a party.
2. Why was Mars even mentioned at all? We're talking about Earth life here; if there is any life on Mars, it will likely be playing by significantly different "rules" at a molecular level. This discovery on its own was neat; no need to try and jazz it up by trying to distantly connect it with Mars.
Immortality is Overrated (Score:2, Insightful)
More likely these things aren't up to the 1337 5ki112 today's evolved fauna (bacteria,virii,fungi) and wouldn't last long outside the petri dish. Makes for some what sci-fi, but what you have today is the stuff tough enough to last through whatever nature and errant meteorites have chucked at it.
On another note, immortality is overrated. Survive 32K years and you get to swim around a petri dish among strangers. Hmph.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering it was formerly a commonplace view that other planets were populated, how would it even make sense for religions to be fundamentally opposed to the concept?
Can you please name a single religion with a dogma that specifically condemns the possibility of life on other worlds? Or are you just blindly opposed to religion?
Re:A claim you might hear (Score:5, Insightful)
And either of them doesn't really involve anything spectacularly improbable, and which can then be ascribed to a God/demi-God/alien/whatever. It just needs time. And time it had. Billions of years of it.
Statistics and large numbers are a funny thing. If you're one in a million, there are 6,000 just like you world-wide. Think about it. Because therein lies your answer: the key is very large numbers, not divine intervention. (And also that's the usual problem why people just don't get it: human brains has trouble working with really large numbers.)
Well, the same applies to both evolution and abiogenesis. No matter how improbable a mutation is to happen _and_ get passed on, given enough specimens over millions of years, it _will_ eventually happen. (Note, I said "improbable", not "impossible".)
Smaller mutations are easier: they happen all the time. An animal is born who's slightly smaller and faster than its parents. Another is born with slightly bigger claws. Another one is born who's slightly bigger and stronger, but needs more food. Etc.
From there it's merely a question of selection. Some of those deviations will give the animal more chances to survive and have offspring, some will make it less likely.
This affects the others too: the foxes that have an easier time finding food, might leave less food for the ones who don't. The mutated gazelle which runs faster, makes the _others_ an easier prey for lions. Etc. Essentially the most fit mutation puts the others at a disadvantage.
And you don't even need to believe in Darwinism to see that in action: artifficial selection is based on exactly the same kind of natural diversity, except the criterion who's the fittest is an artifficial human criterion, and the culling out the "unfit" is much faster.
See starting with dogs that looked like wolves, and ending up with the Pekinese. That was dilligent selection of those random mutations that were the closest to the desired end result: something (A) looking like a Chinese dragon, and (B) small enough to fit under the Emperor's tea table. It worked. Enough generations of selection turned a wolf ino the Pekinese.
Well, the same happens naturally too, only slower.
And here's the fun part: trying the same independently on two planets doesn't reduce the chances in any way. Your chances of rolling a 6 with a die are not influenced by my also rolling my own dice at the same time. The fact that you rolled a 6 doesn't say I can't roll a 6 too.
Re:We're all dead!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm,... (Score:2, Insightful)
Martian Chronicles
Re:We're all dead!! (Score:4, Insightful)
This has happened often enough that it wouldn't be surprising to find that martian life was an awful lot like life here on earth.
Heck, there was an interesting discussion on the Mars Society lists about this a while back. With some off-the-cuff calculations of escape velocities, ejecta from planets due to impacts and outer bounds for bacterial spores survivals here on earth - even (especially?) in the frigid extremes of space - of 25 million or so, we were figuring bacteria could easily travel interstellar distances once they got past the odds against having been shot in the right direction.
Re:I, for one,... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I, for one,... (Score:3, Insightful)