I have some thoughts on today’s NASA announcement over at The Corner.
[Update a few minutes later]
Alan Boyle has a lot more on the story.
11 thoughts on “LAWDKI”
Comments are closed.
I have some thoughts on today’s NASA announcement over at The Corner.
[Update a few minutes later]
Alan Boyle has a lot more on the story.
Comments are closed.
This is very exciting. I’m looking forward to meeting a Horta. Which like Methuselah lives for a thousand years. I don’t know if Methuselah was fond of pointed ears however?
I appreciate Alan Boyle’s discussion about hype and reality. The information is fascinating, but not very exciting. It is somewhat of a PR bust to those outside the scientific community. I’m not sure about Alan’s remedy, but the discussion is something to consider.
What I read in the NYT was that they did NOT determine if arsenic was worked into the DNA.
Rick,yeah they haven’t. They’ve demonstrated an organism that can grow in a high arsenic, low phosphorous medium.
To me it was exciting because of the possibilities it represents. I do understand that it’s not the earth shaking announcement it purports to be.
It’s also wildly off the mark to claim this is a parallel evolution. What it does seem to be is adaption to a harsh environment. Something bacteria are particularly good at.
At the current stage of our spacefaring capabilities, or lack thereof, i find exobiology one of the most abstract and boring schools of science around.
When there is an actual demonstratec capability to send a flotilla of robotic submarines exploring Europa’s oceans, it will start to get interesting.
I for one welcome our new arsenic overlords.
I thing this is a desperateness move by NASA … I mean press conference for Arsenic based life ? Sure you can get a College auditorium of grads biology students interested but a Press conference ?
Talk about boasting one’s sexual exploit in a catholic mass … this looks like NASA need some money
@Sams: Yep, I agree. NASA does this “teaser announcement” every time a major budget issue is at hand, and this time it’s the nature of budget reshuffling for the CR.
Plus, this really is premature hype of the Cold Fusion type. (Which doesn’t mean it isn’t worth pursuing.)
However, the argument about LAWDKI has already been made with thermophyllic eukaryotes. They work on a sulfur (rather than oxygen) cycle, and exist at temperatures higher than sterilization autoclaves thought capable of destroying all life.
There’s plenty of LAWPDKI (Life as We Previously Didn’t Know It) around to convince me that life is not rare, but ubiquitous.
The following blog entry contains a rather devastating detailed critique of the paper.
http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html