Aliens?

[superpedro]

Wonder what this is about?: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.


First encounter of bacteria away from earth perhaps?

 

[tonto]

i personally welcome our new alien/bacteria overloards

 

[superpedro]

LOL - none the less.
The end of, the definition, of life as we know it... If that is what they found.

 

[BrainSellz]

nasa trying to get more funding...mo......they need to send a rocket with someone in it to the bottom of the ocean an do some real research on the planet we live on.....get your phuking heads outta space nasa.....space cases...lmao...pun intended

 

[walt cunningham]

i instantly thought they are trying to get more funding as well.i think they've had this information for quite a long time, and now with nasa about to shut down, they finally come forward.

 

[BrainSellz]

i instantly thought they are trying to get more funding as well.i think they've had this information for quite a long time, and now with nasa about to shut down, they finally come forward.

absolutely......


I have a little spell of nasa
"N assassin"..."N'asaasaN"...<-----thats nasa spelled forward and backword.......not sayin it means nothin however its just strange..mo

 

[trouble]

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

Friday, Dec. 3rd
WASHINGTON D.C.: Following NASA's 2 p.m. EST news conference yesterday, today NASA executives are pleading to Congress for $13.5 trillion in funding to keep their jobs & pursue they're search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in the universe.

 

[BrainSellz]

Friday, Dec. 3rd
WASHINGTON D.C.: Following NASA's 2 p.m. EST news conference yesterday, today NASA executives are pleading to Congress for $13.5 trillion in funding to keep their jobs & pursue they're search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in the universe.

heeeeeeeeey there we go....the truth is always refreshing.....life is all over this planet....no need to go anywhere else nasa lets study here.....no need for the space ships to space and rockets to mars....they want us all to have jobs but wont even give us are first cars...

 

[SacredTHCRitual]

what are you expecting? TIME magazine announces the aliens have been found, they are meeting with the president today, da da da da....it's never going to happen



"Aliens" ? if that's what ya wana call them have always been around. They are here, all around you all the time. Not "out there" per say but " in here"....

youtube Terrence Mckenna and go meet the Aliens personally
people are scared shitless for this to be true but hey it is.

Seriously...what do you believe the implications would be if the mass peoples realized the "aliens" weren't only galaxies away but right in your back yard? it would be to much for most to handle, it would contradict their whole up bringing and value systems..cant have that now can we...

 

[mriko]

what are you expecting? TIME magazine announces the aliens have been found, they are meeting with the president today, da da da da....it's never going to happen



"Aliens" ? if that's what ya wana call them have always been around. They are here, all around you all the time. Not "out there" per say but " in here"....

youtube Terrence Mckenna and go meet the Aliens personally
people are scared shitless for this to be true but hey it is.

Seriously...what do you believe the implications would be if the mass peoples realized the "aliens" weren't only galaxies away but right in your back yard? it would be to much for most to handle, it would contradict their whole up bringing and value systems..cant have that now can we...

Hmmm, there's one theory about alien encounters/abductions which says that these experiences are actually the result of massive DMT release from our very own brain. Tryptamines are like stargate eheh...

By the way, NASA speech might be about that...

Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life
By Jason Palmer

A bacterium that uses the element arsenic in place of the chemically similar phosphorus has been found.

It is the first example of a life form that can replace any of the six chemical elements crucial to life with a substitute.

The find, described in Science, gives weight to the long-standing idea that life on other planets may have a radically different chemical makeup.

It also has implications for the way life arose here - and how many times.

The "extremophile" bacteria were found in a briny lake in eastern California in the US.

While bacteria have been found in inhospitable environments and can consume what other life finds poisonous, this bacterial strain has actually taken arsenic on board in its cellular machinery.

Until now, the idea has been that life on Earth must be composed of at least the six elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus - no example had ever been found that violates this golden rule of biochemistry.

However, those interested in astrobiology - the hunt for life elsewhere in the cosmos - have long argued that alien life might be built on a different set of rules.

For example, astrobiologists have suggested that instead of the ubiquitous water that makes up so much of life, extraterrestrial life might just as likely run on ammonia.

One idea to shore up these theories is to begin to look for examples of life here on Earth that break the "golden rules" of biochemistry - in effect, finding life that evolved separately from our own lineage.

John Elliott, a leader of the UK's search for extraterrestrial intelligence, explained how such evidence on Earth could be suggestive about life elsewhere.

"If we can find a 'second genesis' on our planet, obviously separate from our own evolution, you could then extrapolate that life can generate multiple times - that it's not a one-off phenomenon," he told BBC News.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet? Now is the time to find out”

End Quote Felisa Wolfe-Simon Nasa Astrobiology Institute

"And that's incredible evidence for it happening on other planets."

As unexpected

A recent collaboration between Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Paul Davies and Ariel Anbar suggested in a paper an alternative scheme to life as we know it, in which the normally poisonous element arsenic (in particular as chemical groups known as arsenates) could work in place of phosphorus and phosphates.

"We not only hypothesised that biochemical systems analogous to those known today could utilise arsenate in the equivalent biological role as phosphate," said Dr Wolfe-Simon, "but also that such organisms could have evolved on the ancient Earth and might persist in unusual environments today."

To test that idea, the three authors teamed up with a number of collaborators and began to study the bacteria that live in Mono Lake in California, home to arsenic-rich waters.

The researchers began to grow the bacteria in a laboratory on a diet of increasing levels of arsenic, finding to their surprise that the microbes eventually fully took up the element, even incorporating it into the phosphate groups that cling to the bacteria's DNA.

However, the research found that the bacteria thrived best in a phosphorus environment.

"Our findings are a reminder that life-as-we-know-it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine," said Dr Wolfe-Simon.

"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet? Now is the time to find out."

Dr Elliott called the find a "major discovery".

"It starts to show life can survive outside the traditional truths and universals that we thought you have to use... this is knocking one brick out of that wall," he said.

"The general consensus is that this really could still be an evolutionary adapatation rather than a second genesis. But it's early days, within about the first year of this project; it's certainly one to think on and keep looking for that second genesis, because you've almost immediately found an example of something that's new."

Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge agreed that, while the result was suggestive, it was not conclusive proof.

"The bacteria is effectively painted by the investigators into an 'arsenic corner', so what it certainly shows is the astonishing and perhaps under-appreciated versatility of life," he told BBC News.

"It opens some really exciting prospects as to both un-appreciated metabolic versatility... and prompting the questions as to the possible element inventory of remote Earth-like planets".

from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943

Irie !

 

[ZoSo]

I don't really understand all the jokery.

If there is evidence of alien life, which I doubt this press conference is actually about but one can always hope, it would be the most important discovery of our lifetime, period.

If there is life elsewhere in our solar system, no matter how primitive, it pretty much guarantees the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos.

This knowledge may not affect us directly, but it would certainly shock the world.

 

[sac beh]

Its not aliens, but it is sounding like a cool discovery, to me anyway:

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything. Updated.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/

I don't see why NASA asking for money is such a bad thing. I can think of a few billion dollars the government spends on other things that I'd rather give to NASA.

 

[mriko]

Right, space research is important too, be it about exobiology or cosmology or astrophysics and makes really cool photos to gaze & wonder at, as well (I love Hubble's Deep Fields, good for crazy brain gymkhana eheh...).
It's kinda important to know what's around us, isn't it ? Know how it all started, how stardust ended up as me typing on a keyboard and you to read my words on your screen, among a giga-zillion of many other things...

Irie !

 

[RugerBaby]

they're streaming right now!

 

[RugerBaby]

where's h3ad? lol

 

[headband 707]

They are talking about microbes and surviving in an enviorment they thought impossible . Then again what do THEY know lol peace out Headband707

 

[sac beh]

A microbe that can survive on arsenic in place of phosphorus, incorporating it into its biochemistry...

 

[ZoSo]

Pretty cool presentation. I especially liked the part where the chemist was talking about how arsenic might be more appropriate for life in extreme cold, like on Titan.

This kinda stuff is way over my head, though. Biology is probably my worst science subject.

 

[juicepuddle]

I didnt read thoroughly but I gotta throw in my opinion here.

They are asking for money to keep their jobs looking for something so elusive, when we haven't fully explored our own world. There are species undiscovered, depths uncharted..... so many reasons to stop looking to the sky and start looking around us.

Its just like fixing your own problems before you go try to fix other peoples problems, why run around looking for some crazy ass aliens when for all we know they are HERE among us.

Just saying its a HUGE amount of money to have guys wasting EVERYONES TIME. Research this place at least 50% before leaving looking for answers, for all you know they are behind the next hill.

 

[Bionic]

I didnt read thoroughly but I gotta throw in my opinion here.

Goes without saying on the internet.