Swiss Scientists Discover DNA Remains Active After Space Journey and Re-entry 67
Zothecula writes: It may sound like the first chapter of a Quatermass thriller, but scientists from the University of Zurich have discovered that DNA can survive not only a flight through space, but also re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and still remain active. The findings are based on suborbital rocket flights and could have considerable impact on questions about the origins of life on Earth and the problems of terrestrial space probes contaminating other planets.
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This news story is as boring as the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey..
I believe you are on the wrong web site for your personal proclivities. I suggest, perhaps, e! (or maybe Vogue, Elle or just the National Enquirer).
Our astronauts will be relieved! (Score:5, Funny)
Contamination? (Score:2)
It's not contaminating, it's colonizing.
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Your point, while partially valid, is nevertheless misguided. ALL viruses are specialist parasites. What you need to "infect" a planet with life is something like a lichen, bacteria, or plant.
Re:Contamination (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, but then we'd never get to space at all.
Re: Contamination (Score:2)
I suppose that communications satellites, GPS and terrestrial mapping don't feed a lot of people either.
Re:Contamination (Score:5, Insightful)
The billions of dollars spent on the space program should be spent feeding starving people and cleaning up the environment.
Firstly, prove to me that any money diverted from the space program will be 100% spend on your items AND prove that spending this money improves the condition for the entire human race, and we'll consider it.
Historically, we never divert to humanitarian aid at 100%, plus most times when money is earmarked for such programs, the money is siphoned off to feed pork-barrel local constituency programs.
Secondly, why can't the two programs coexist ? The paltry percentages of the US GDP spent on space exploration won't make a difference if the will to do such work isn't already there.
And finally, while I agree entirely that we need to be better stewards of this planet, it does not preclude us for investigation other locations, whether for scientific curiosity or for future human occupation.
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so NASA doesn't buy rockets from russia ? components from the far east ? raw materials from africa ?
and all of them ethically sourced you say and all taxes paid with none of it going into tax havens ?
and some completely unqualified assertions with no working , why you are spoiling us.
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Try this one on for size: The money spent on space programs is 100% spent on earth.
People see the headline "$800 million spent on Mars probe" and somehow feel that that's $800 million that was packed in a suitcase and blasted into space. That's $800 million that was spent on jobs, either directly or indirectly. In comparison, keeping the money in a suitcase or a safety deposit box is ineffective.
And some of that $800 million gets returned in taxes on wages, and some of THAT tax money goes to aid pro
Re:Contamination (Score:4, Insightful)
That's $800 million that was spent on jobs
Then it would follow that building refrigerators by the millions and dropping them into the sea would increase the economy, too. It will not.
1850 called and would like it's broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org] back.
Unlike building and junking fridges, going into space increases both our scientific and our technical abilities. You probably wouldn't have a PC today if the race to the moon hadn't happened.
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Integrated Circuits (ICs) were made possible by experimental discoveries showing that semiconductor devices could perform the functions of vacuum tubes and by mid-20th-century technology advancements in semiconductor device fabrication. The integration of large numbers of tiny transistors into a small chip was an enormous improvement over the manual assembly of circuits using discrete electronic co
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Another problem is that it's based on the fallacy that economics is a zero-sum game. And that physical money is a good analog of financial money. Both are false.
Another assumption is that feeding the starving is a reasonable approach. But population growth is exponential until a limiting factor is reached, and exponential growth cannot be sustained. Ever. So if you plan to "feed the starving multitude" you'd better have some plan in mind to feed twice that number of people in 20 years.
Personally, I thi
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Personally, I think we are already beyond the sustainable capacity of the planet.
Agreed. I think we passed it a long time ago, just like the point of no return on the federal deficit.
Re:Contamination (Score:5, Insightful)
So what are you doing on Slashdot then? How can you spend time on this while people are starving?
Shouldn't you be feeding people?
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The war machine actually kills people, destroys food and crops and wrecksthe environment actively. Why not start cutting there before you think about cutting space program money. Oh, and the war machine takes 100 times the funding, so it is much easier to cut there then from the space programs of various nations.
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Hmm, NASA budget is ~$18B. Are you really suggesting the military budget is $1.8T???
If so, you might want to reread the budget sometime. Hint: it's actually about 1/3 that.
If you want to see where the real money is going, try looking to the mandatory outlays (SSA, Welfare, that sort of thing). Hint: Mandatory outlays are about 2/3 of the total budget (130x NASA's budget).
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Please explain you philosophy to Putin and ISIS. I'm sure they'll listen to you.
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The problem with starving people isn't a problem of needing to throw more money at the situation as much as it is a problem of politics or power (e.g. local warlords preventing food shipments from reaching starving people so that the warlords can show how powerful they are). Even if you diverted 100% of NASA's budget to feeding starving people, you wouldn't solve the problem.
When it comes to the amount of money NASA spends, the 2013 US Budget [wikipedia.org] shows that NASA is only 1.4% of the national budget. The bigges
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When the rocket is standing on the pad (Score:5, Insightful)
It may have been sterilized but a seagull can just fly over and poop on it.
As the rocket speeds out the atmosphere, it must initially flatten lots of bugs against itself.
How did anyone think we could send anything into space that wasn't crawling with earth-bacteria and other stuff, exactly?
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in a word... Fairings - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
The seagull poops on the fairings (if it's even able to get that far, i'm sure they have cannons, falcons, and a lot of other usual bird removal methods at a launchpad, probably more than your average airport), the bugs splatter against the fairings, the actual probe/vessel that was sterilized before putting it into the sealed fairing, will remain sterilized as long as the seals hold. they are removed long before they get to the destination and beco
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Maybe they can keep birds away, but frogs, not so much [nbcnews.com].
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Addendum: I don't know if this was mentioned in the article (yay laziness!), but most spacecraft are merely cleaned, not sterilized. Avoiding contamination is important for interplanetary missions, but not so much for something that's going to stay in Earth orbit or burn up in its atmosphere.
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Thank you for that, fullmetal! I always appreciate it when someone lights the way in front of me!
In restrospect, I didn't really think about my question because of course, engineers and scientists take multiple precautions. Those precautions may not always be 100% effective but they ARE there.
Thanks again!
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If you actually read the links, you'll find they applied DNA samples with specific and known markers to the exterior of the vehicle and then tested for DNA with those specific and known markers after it was recovered. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, once again actual scientists actually do know what they're doing, unlike random Sl
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Quick (Score:2)
Somebody make a shitty about it that's like a prequel to Aliens but most certainly is not a prequel to Aliens! [a-WINK!]
Also: mother-fucking space cobras [80s metal guitar riff]!!!
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There already is a prequel to Aliens, it's called Alien... and it was good, Ian Holm was in it, Sigourney Weaver, and like all good prequels, it came before the sequel!
Junk science/reporting (Score:3)
So they use a sounding rocket and paint it with a substance including DNA.
Launch the sounding rocket into a brief experience of no atmosphere & where some parts (but not all) of the rocket are heated to 1000 degrees.
Then, after recovery, they scrape the paint out of recesses like the screw heads.
Oh, gee so a brief exposure to no atmosphere, Zero G & no extreme temperatures doesn't destroy DNA? Who'd a thunk it?
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Well, lots of people since DNA is pretty easy to destroy using a bunsen burner. That said, this isn't all that impressive. Lots of handwaving and little actual instrumentation (did the temperature actually get to 1000 degrees near that screw head or was it protected). It does point out that even naked DNA on something like a meteorite could well survive the entire trip down in a viable conformation.
That opens lots of possibilities such as panspermia [wikipedia.org].
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Precisely. Nothing in their test is new or surprising. We've known for decades that DNA can survive the environment in space and sheltered nooks on a sounding rocket gives no info on how meteorites moving much faster prove anything about panspermia.
Junk science/reporting...
Very limited test (Score:2)
Radiation? (Score:4, Interesting)
since it's a suborbital flight, that doesn't say much about deep space. sending it on a trip around the moon would be a better test. at least get out of the Van Allen belts and get into the cosmic radiation, before you can see if it actually does survive a trip through space.
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Hominid Aliens? (Score:1)
One day we'll find the answer [youtube.com]...
Old news (Score:2)
DNA can survive not only a flight through space, but also re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and still remain active.
We've known this since 1961 [wikipedia.org]! Okay, it was well wrapped in meat and metal, but still.
Duh (Score:2)
Panspermia (Score:1)
Yet another fact to support panspermia [wikipedia.org].