extraterrestrial life
vlicata | December 21, 2010I've been strangely fascinated by the "arsenic-eating" and maybe "arsenic-utilizing' bacteria report from NASA researchers and the so-called "backlash" ("arsenic-gate") in the blogosphere. Many others have posted on this topic. What I've found most interesting is that there seem to be several parallel and barely intersecting universes: 1) the scientific literature, 2) the traditional media, and 3) the blogosphere.
Universe 1: Wolfe-Simon has published for several years about the potential for unique
arsenic metabolism (among other topics), and this is the next paper in her series of…
heathero | December 1, 2010NASA has made a bit of a stir by announcing a press conference for tomorrow at 2pm EST. Scientists are going to reveal some exciting new findings relvent to the search for extraterrestrial life. Some people are anticipating/hoping that they will announce that extraterrestrial life has been confirmed. No one would be more excited than I (I love being able to make silly statements like this) were that the case, but I would bet a lot of money that it is, sadly, not. Don't get me wrong, I am super-excited about this announcement because most likely it is going to deal with extremeophile…
vlicata | May 2, 2010While driving to the Astrobiology 2010 Conference last week, I and a graduate student from my lab briefly discussed Stephen Hawking's recent declaration that humans should try to avoid contact with what would surely be hostile aliens. It seemed odd to be attending a conference where a primary aim is finding extraterrestrial life while the news media and the blogosphere was reverberating with Hawking's hawkish alien opinions. What really made the whole situation even more odd, however, was the almost total absence of any reaction to, or even general acknowledgement of Hawking's remarks at…
jstemwedel | April 30, 2010
Despite the crush of the closing weeks of the semester, I found a little time to follow the conversation about whether Earthicans ought to welcome a meeting with whatever extraterrestrial life might be out there to meet us, or whether we'd be better off hiding under the bed.
Although the Free-Ride offspring have not followed the point and counterpoint on the best alien life action plan, they're generally more enthusiastic futurists than I am. So, I asked them to dig deep into their imaginations and give us their visions of first contact.
It should surprise no one that the elder and younger…