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San Francisco, 1:48 AM
Mon Nov 9
12 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved

    SETI Picks Up Regular Laser Pulse Emanating From Space

    UFO Lobbyist Offers to Brief Obama on Extraterrestrials

    What Would It Take To Bring Alien Invasions Back?

    Say it Ain't So: Mars' Ancient Seas Were Dead?

    Let's Put Our Worst Foot Forward With Alien Intelligences

    Get Ready To Go Back To Witch Mountain, Again

    Aliens May Look More Like Us Than We Thought
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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of brilliantmistake brilliantmistake
    07/19/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    "The existence of organisms like Deinococcus radiodurans and the Tardigrades gives weight to the argument that some of these extremophile lifeforms are actually aliens among us."

    Except their genetics and molecular biology (e.g. rRNA) clearly demonstrates that they evolved on earth.

    You really misrepresent Dr. Hoover's views. He's not speculating that these organisms came from outer space, but that they can provide insight into what like on other planets might be like. He mentions that he'd love to encounter extraterrestrial life (who wouldn't), that's a far cry from saying these organisms came from there.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment brilliantmistake was starred brilliantmistake was unstarred
    Image of alphanumeric1971 alphanumeric1971
    07/19/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    I don't know if the tardigrade is the most extreme. I don't remember which site I saw it on, but there is a bacteria or somesuch that exists in an acidic solution that makes chemical grade Hydrofluoric acid look lik evian water.

    It exists in the tailings from a gold mine somewhere.
     Reply
    alphanumeric1971 was starred alphanumeric1971 was unstarred
    Image of David Alvaro David Alvaro
    07/18/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    I love tardigrades. I remember reading a Stephen Jay Gould essay about then in college, and not really believing in them, until we found them infesting our lab when I was in grad school. We had been puzzled by evidence of their presence as a result of trails of yeast and bacteria growing on agar plates resulting from single cells picked up and shed by them walking across the plates, but it was a mystery until one of them walked into my friend Jackie's visual field on a dissecting microscope. We started seeing them walk around under the scope- just like the video here- such cute little scale models of macroanimals. And while they were a bit of a nuisance, realizing quickly that they were absolutely unkillable helped us to embrace their presence.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment David Alvaro was starred David Alvaro was unstarred
    Image of Chip Overclock Chip Overclock
    07/18/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    There are organisms that have evolved to live in environments ranging from hospital operating rooms (surely otherwise the most sterile environment that most of us are likely to ever encounter) and scotch whisky distilleries (an environment in which some of us wish we could spent more time). So it's no surprise that these extremophiles exist.
     Reply
    Chip Overclock was starred Chip Overclock was unstarred
    Image of Mathmos Mathmos
    07/18/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    I'm guessing "temperatures below absolute zero" is a typo
     Reply
    Mathmos was starred Mathmos was unstarred
    Image of Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
    07/18/09

    @Mathmos: I'm sure it is, else the universe has ended and we missed it.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of Sarah Hope Williams Sarah Hope Williams
    07/18/09

    @Mathmos: Thanks for catching my typo : )
     Reply
    Sarah Hope Williams was starred Sarah Hope Williams was unstarred
    Image of Mathmos Mathmos
    07/18/09

    @Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: For fun I googled it. Apparently , as one writer put it, there can be said to be a temperature below absolute zero, but it is little more than a matter of semantics, if you consider the temperatures of different degrees of freedom of a system separately, for example talking about the spin temperature of a collection of atoms.

    What does negative temperature mean
     Reply
    Mathmos was starred Mathmos was unstarred
    Image of Bill-Lee Bill-Lee
    07/18/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    If this is the variety life here on Earth, imagine (but not greater) the possibilities to be found on other planets...hell imagine some of the things we might find on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee was starred Bill-Lee was unstarred
    Image of HollywoodBob HollywoodBob
    07/18/09

    @Bill-Lee: Or possibly even within the atmospheres of Jupiter or Saturn.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee promoted this comment HollywoodBob was starred HollywoodBob was unstarred
    Image of Bill-Lee Bill-Lee
    07/19/09

    @HollywoodBob: Good point.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee was starred Bill-Lee was unstarred
    Image of phoghat phoghat
    07/19/09

    @Bill-Lee:
    I want some intelligent gas bag giants!
     Reply
    Edited by phoghat at 07/19/09 4:31 AM phoghat was starred phoghat was unstarred
    Image of unigon unigon
    07/18/09

    In reply to Extremophiles I Have Known And Loved
    Good lord, those tardigrades are so cute.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment unigon was starred unigon was unstarred
    Image of Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
    07/18/09

    @unigon: They sure are. Adorable, undying critters.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of RandomFrequentFlierDent RandomFrequentFlierDent
    07/18/09

    @Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Tardigrades are one of my favourite invertebrates. I’ll never forget my microbial ecology prof describing the lengths he’d gone to in his efforts to kill the little guys, including placing them in a supped-up autoclave, freezing them in liquid nitrogen and dipping them in ethanol and setting them on fire.

    It’s worth mentioning that the key to the tardigrades extreme survival capabilities lies in their ability to enter cryptobiosis; basically stopping all metabolic function in unfavourable environments and re-starting once conditions improve.
     Reply
    RandomFrequentFlierDent promoted this comment RandomFrequentFlierDent was starred RandomFrequentFlierDent was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    05/15/09

    In reply to SETI Picks Up Regular Laser Pulse Emanating From Space
    ATTENTION ALL R.O.A.C.H. Personnel:


    The initial test of the Astrophysicist-Confusing Reverse Laser has been successful. Project Sanjit Death Ray is proceeding according to plan.


    Thank you all for the great work. Please join us in Submarine Pen #4 after your shift for pizza and beer.

     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
    05/15/09

    @Grey_Area: R.O.A.C.H.: hooray beer!
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of tetracycloide tetracycloide
    05/15/09

    In reply to SETI Picks Up Regular Laser Pulse Emanating From Space
    "Any kind of communication would likely be distinguished from background noise by coming in repeated or non-random patterns."


    forgive my ignorance, but why would this be a good assumption? there are plenty of inorganic processes that display repeating or non-random patterns.

     Reply
    tetracycloide was starred tetracycloide was unstarred
    Image of John John
    05/15/09

    @tetracycloide: And most of them are known and factored into the equations. When I worked for a lab team looking for Gamma Ray pulses from celestial bodies, certain patterns were looked for, and also tested for, since they didn't always obviously emerge.
     Reply
    John was starred John was unstarred
    Image of beercheck beercheck
    05/15/09

    @John: "And most of them are known.."


    Careful.

     Reply
    beercheck was starred beercheck was unstarred
    Image of goldfarb goldfarb
    05/15/09

    In reply to SETI Picks Up Regular Laser Pulse Emanating From Space
    X-Men Origins : Wolverine Workprint - Return To Sender.
     Reply
    goldfarb was starred goldfarb was unstarred
    Image of Mount_Prion Mount_Prion
    05/15/09

    In reply to SETI Picks Up Regular Laser Pulse Emanating From Space
    It's a slow-working death beam--more like a malaise beam--that's been wrecking the economy and people's hopes.
     Reply
    Mount_Prion was starred Mount_Prion was unstarred
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