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Infinitely
interesting!!
posted by
KaBooM62
on February 4, 2008 at 9:00 PM
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the BOOK, 2010, not the year, silly!
posted by
Ciel
on February 4, 2008 at 4:33 PM
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and Arthur C Clarke wrote about Europa in 2010, I think--
just the warning, that we could visit and mess with any other bodies in the Solar System, but Europa was off-limits.
posted by
Ciel
on February 4, 2008 at 4:32 PM
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Re: reply to TAPS
The thing with science is that every answer that opens a door, takes us into a new room with lots more doors!
posted by
Ciel
on February 4, 2008 at 4:30 PM
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Re: Wasn'it Sagan who had written a tell about life on Europa?
I think you're right, auslander, although I don't remember the details...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 3, 2008 at 5:07 AM
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Re: Good post, Naut. I have always questioned the
Yep, Saul, 'the easy way out' is definitely out, and the more questions science answers, the more arise - and that to me is endlessly (pun fully intended, lol) fascinating...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 3, 2008 at 5:05 AM
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Re:
Thanks Offy hon. Well, I don't think we need to toss out everything, but it does offer interesting new possibilities...And my weekend is shaping up reasonably well...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 3, 2008 at 5:01 AM
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Re: Nautikos
Krisles, you may well be right, there may be a variety of conditions that might make life possible. There may be forms of life we would not recognize at all! For example, the life we know is carbon-based, but there may be other 'base' substances. But it seems to be the case that for an interchange between particles to take place
there has to be sufficient energy. And nobody thought there was sufficient energy at -108F...(well, Miller did...lol)
posted by
Nautikos
on February 3, 2008 at 4:58 AM
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Wasn'it Sagan who had written a tell about life on Europa?
posted by
auslander
on February 2, 2008 at 12:33 PM
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Good post, Naut. I have always questioned the
assertions that maintain that life had to begin with just such ingredients and conditions (from the primordial soup to the easy way out -- god did it). One of the things I have learned over the decades of my life is that we are constantly reassessing the "knowns" of science and philosophy...
posted by
saul_relative
on February 2, 2008 at 10:03 AM
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That is amazing...With this new information I guess we can almost assume that everything we thought we knew about how life forms can be tossed out the window? Very interesting Naut~
PS. Hope you are having a good weekend~
posted by
Offy
on February 2, 2008 at 5:14 AM
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Nautikos
Fascinating! I wonder how many other combinations, under how many other conditions might yield similar results...more means to the end than we might even begin to imagine....perhaps the true key is even simpler and he didn't even have to wait 25 years... I had a grandfather who was an inventor, and a mother who is the most curious person I've ever met.....I have a hundred questions cross my mind a day....but am far too lazy to pursue the answers to very many, so I admire scientists very much.
posted by
Krisles
on February 1, 2008 at 6:28 PM
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Re:
Thanks for the rose, afzal!
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:27 PM
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Re: Fascinating.
Pat, it's in this month's
Discover, and as I told TAPS, the article covers a lot more ground. You can find more on his work on the web. Actually, and as I forgot to mention to TAPS, there is another chap, Hauke Trinks, a professor at a Hamburg (Germany) University, who is working in this area, who has come to the same conclusion as Miller. He has written fairly extensively, but I don't know if it's been translated.
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:27 PM
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Re: Everything that God created has been done in perfect order. One day we'll
Kabu, I wish I could share your optimism, but I don't think we will
ever understand it all. One good reason being that we have no idea what
'all' is, but that's only
one...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:10 PM
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posted by
afzal50
on February 1, 2008 at 6:07 PM
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Re:
No one, OTA...or maybe I should say, no
One...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:07 PM
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Re:
Certainly a man of patience. Mind you, he had a lot of other stuff going as well...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:05 PM
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Re: Re: Nautikos
LOL, Justi!
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:04 PM
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TAPS
Miller died last year. The whole thing is very complicated, and I have just given you a snippet of a much longer article. Bada may be continuing to work on this, but I'm not sure, although I am sure some people
are doing work in this area. It is always difficult to get definite answers in science, or maybe I should say that, when there
is a definite answer, things are no longer interesting. But I find the possibility that this
is correct fascinating, because it would allow us to have many more reasons to speculate about other life in the Universe than we have had so far...
posted by
Nautikos
on February 1, 2008 at 6:03 PM
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Fascinating.
I'm going to have to look that up. What a great basis for a sci fi story. :)
posted by
Pat_B
on February 1, 2008 at 4:57 PM
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Everything that God created has been done in perfect order. One day we'll
understand it all.....well maybe!
posted by
Kabu
on February 1, 2008 at 4:00 PM
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Naut.. so who / what created those "hostile" conditions ? hmmm???
posted by
Blue_feathers
on February 1, 2008 at 3:57 PM
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What a great labratory test! sam
posted by
sam444
on February 1, 2008 at 3:23 PM
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Re: Nautikos
I'll wait until they turn into a boy and a girl and come out to play! Dense is a disease I don't mind having.
posted by
Justi
on February 1, 2008 at 2:15 PM
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Nautikos
Wouldn't it be fun to be a scientist? I don't know why I didn't choose to do that. It is amazing what persistance can accomplish. What comes next? What's he going to do with it now?
posted by
TAPS.
on February 1, 2008 at 2:08 PM
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