Comments on: NASA’s Hyped-Up Alien Life Press Conference Actually About Arsenic Biology on Earth [Update] https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/ The Nexus of Pop Culture and the Uncharted Universe Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:34:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=2024.30 By: Danlemon https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200332 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:34:00 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200332 An Independent Lab needs to verify these findings.lies

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By: Tony Ryals https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200331 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:00:00 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200331 Do these procaryotes still use Adenosine Triphosphate for
respiration ? They still fit my concept of ‘organic inorganic
coevolution’.However that’s still amongst the most radical biology
news of my life time if true.Substitution of one mineral for another
by an organism is not new however.Some organisms substitute selenium for sulpher into an organic structure when selenium is unavailable,as just one example.

Pretty amazing however still doesn’t hurt the concept of
organic-inorganic coevolution.It almost strengthens it….

Organic-Inorganic Coevolution …

by Tony Ryals

Before life made a cell it must have occurred,
Carbon and minerals wrote their first word,
It was the basis of the biospheric revolution,
Organic-inorganic co-evolution,
From the simplest life-form viral,
To the most complex evolutionary spiral,
Dances within a watery solution,
Using the elements of organic-inorganic co-evolution
Even the genetic strand has the phosphorous mineral in its carbon configuration
Phosphorous holds not only the key to energy transformation,
And life’s respiration
But is also essential to store life’s genetic information,
And eventually human intellectualization,
And what would be chlorophyll,
Without magnesium its carbon bonds to fill ?,
Without the magnesium impetus,
There’d be no photosynthesis,
And what would be the enzyme nitrogenase,
Without molybdenum to fill its carbonaceous space,
Nitrogenase alone would lack the inspiration,
To perform prokaryotic nitrogen fixation,
Without molybdenum fertilization,
And long before hemoglobin came along,
Other iron-containing heme groups sang their song,
Before these iron-carbon molecules evolved for respiration,
They protected oxygen-sensitive molecules from oxidation,
After photosynthesis led to oxygen’s liberation,
There’d be no vitamin B-12 or cobalamine,
If cobalt hadn’t co-evolved with carbon
To make this vitamin,
And what to the biosphere would it have meant,
If selenium hadn’t evolved with carbon
to form an anti-oxidant,
Molybdenum calcium iron and sulfur,
Chromium magnesium potassium copper,
Liebig’s law of the minimum,
And law of the maximum,
You can’t have too much and you can’t have too little,
You must be somewhere in the middle,
Copper in feed lots makes pigs grow fast,
But then their copper-loaded excrement poisons the grass,
Can’t survive the future without respecting the biosphere’s past,
The traces of life are in your head,
Bacteria will use them when you’re dead.

http://malta.indymedia.org/node/8810

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By: jmaxon https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200330 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:27:27 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200330 While this title of this article didn’t buy into the hype, it was instead dismissive and also made assumptions of work that hadn’t even been released yet. The same sin, just the done in the opposite way. That’s being said, good job on the updates.

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By: hanwaters https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200329 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 20:51:08 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200329 Haha sorry for the lack of complete sentences in my description! I didn’t know it was going to be published. (It’s fine btw, Quigley.) Thanks for the link!

@jmaxon I think you’re being a little melodramatic. Most of the science blogosphere was even more frustrated with this hype-stunt NASA pulled than even this headline indicates. It’s great to be excited about science and this article sure seems to be! But io9 and Gizmodo actually reported total hearsay on their sites, and thus played into the hype. I actually have appreciated how Geekosystem has stayed level-headed and hasn’t screamed, “OMG WE FOUND ALIENS!” like a good deal of the web has been doing this past week.

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By: Robert Quigley https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200328 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:10:25 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200328 @jmaxon giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you read any of the article above other than the headline, I don’t know where you get the sense that this is downplaying the discovery. It is a cool and interesting one — although not a brand new one; the abstract linked above is from 2009, and Wolfe-Simon has been doing this research since ’08. I do think that the “OMG, Aliens!” overhype around this announcement ultimately hurts people’s interest in and understanding of science.

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By: jmaxon https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200327 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:31:27 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200327 If anybody wants a website that actually understands science, go to io9 or Gizmodo.

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By: jmaxon https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200326 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:26:26 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200326 This is an astounding discovery, and the fact that this website, which prides itself as being geeky, is downplaying the importance and gravity of this finding is really disheartening. This site has lost all scientific credibility in my mind.

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By: loki08 https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200325 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:27:21 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200325 Booooooo! I hate you! Just punch my puppy or spit on my birthday cake! Can’t we have a little anticipation in our hum drum lives? You are the reason aliens will never land, they hate party poopers!
~Loki

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By: lamestream https://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/#comment-200324 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 03:17:21 +0000 https://www.themarysue.com/?p=41261#comment-200324 Wt – y r blmng NS bcs f *yr* (th prss’) hypd p bllsht? r y fckng nsn? Gt grp y rtrds.

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