Bad news, arsenic eaters...

By now I'm sure that most ATS subscribers who are interested in exobiology are aware of the controversy over GFAJ-1, the microorganism that was allegedly bred to use arsenic rather than phosphate in its metabolism. The research has been roundly attacked online and in the media. What will strike ATS members as intriguinging, though, is this statement by a Canadian biologist, emphasis mine:

"I don't know whether the authors are just bad scientists or whether they're unscrupulously pushing NASA's 'There's life in outer space!' agenda," wrote Canadian microbiologist Rosie Redfield in a blog that ignited the web furor

Space Daily

Redfield's comment about a NASA agenda raises some intriguing questions. Are they clutching at straws to pander to public tastes in the hopes of keeping their funding? Or is there something else at work here?

Originally posted by DJW001
Redfield's comment about a NASA agenda raises some intriguing questions. Are they clutching at straws to pander to public tastes in the hopes of keeping their funding? Or is there something else at work here?

I've said this the moment I saw the press conference but then again I've always considered that our foundation for life is relative to our planet, why not have alternate types of DNA? We don't even know what 'life' consists of and there's not even a clear definition of it yet. I'm not talking about a dictionary reference I'm talking about a clear and concise definition of the nature of life.

We already know that life can exist in extreme conditions so this news, despite considering that it might a stunt to increase their funding, was not that surprising. Still, another team should try and reproduce the findings and be done with this debate.

reply to post by DJW001



If his statement is correct, Than that would mean that they havent found life yet. But i dont think funding is the real issue. If the united states wants a program to succeed, Than they will always find the funding for it.

I think that there is a better program in the works for space exploration. Dont most people know that all
the space shuttle did was orbit the earth and do experiments and do surveys of the earth. I would hardly call that space exploration.

The fact is we havent sent a human into space since the supposed moon missions. That in itself is suspicious to me. I dont believe that we are capable of going into deep space with any of our technology of today.

reply to post by russ1969

The fact is we havent sent a human into space since the supposed moon missions. That in itself is suspicious to me. I dont believe that we are capable of going into deep space with any of our technology of today.

The fact of the matter is that human beings have been living in space continuously for years now. The ISS is providing invaluable data on the effects of long term weightlessness on human beings, which is vital to prolonged missions in deep space. You are correct, though, long term missions outside of Earth's magnetosphere are prohibitively hazardous with our current technology. This is a bit off topic, however.

reply to post by DJW001


I dont think it is off topic at all. The quote you posted implies that nasa hasnt found life as yet. My point is, They havent explored space enough to know. The international space station sits about 200 miles above the earth. The earth,s atmosphere extends out to 10,000 kilometers.

The Earth’s atmosphere extends out 10,000 km above the surface of the planet; although, it is extremely tenuous at this altitude. Only the lightest gases, like hydrogen and helium can be found there. It is from this layer of the atmosphere, called the exosphere, that molecules from Earth can escape into space.

www.universetoday.com...

I believe hands on is better than a probe travelling to a distant planet for answers.

And your quote

Are they clutching at straws to pander to public tastes in the hopes of keeping their funding? Or is there something else at work here?

I posted my opinion about the funding and speculated about a future program. Then i pointed out the fact that we dont send humans into space because i believe we have never been there and much resources have been waisted with the idea we have. Point is Nasa is a waist of time and resources and should be scrapped.

We havent even begone to fix the problems here on earth, Why should we put so much resources into space?
Use those resources to fix our planet first. We cannot sit and hope some aliens or god will come down and save us from ourselves. We need to be more accountable.


the fact is GFAJ-1 is not a fact as of yet and we are all speculating at this point. So are they grasping at straws? maybe. If we cant even put humans into space, than why push so hard at finding life? That is my main point.

Sorry, I am not a writer and have a hard time expressing things on paper.So if i seemed to go off topic it was to get to my main point.

Starred and flagged. I find it very interesting but find many faults in our logic to find the truth. If these life forms where not found above 10.000 km. or greater above earth, than wouldnt any life found be part of earth and not space?

That was a MEDIATIC TEST.

Nasa's Agenda move slowly. Step by step.

The hype about that old news www.abovetopsecret.com... "Life forms based on Arsenic" and spread world-wide with those hype in MSM, in these days, was only a Mediatic Test about more Big News coming in 2011.

Prepare the mediatic "soil".......

reply to post by DJW001

I read the article you linked. Apparently those derogatory comments were made in someone's blog post. The original paper about arsenic-based bugs seems to have received a lot of queries and criticisms. But this does not automatically discredit it. Apparently the questions and the original team's answers to them will be published next month. Let's wait till then before rushing to judgement, shall we?

At the time of the original announcement concerning these bugs, I thought the reseach methodology--at least, as it was explained in the BBC news item I read--seemed a little confusing. I said so on ATS at the time, and Arbitrageur commented on my post, too. Still, I'm willing to wait and see.

reply to post by Astyanax


Personally, I'm reserving my judgement as well. What I found interesting about the article is that some (presumably more conservative) biologists feel that NASA has an agenda. The question for the "Never A Straight Answer" conspiracy believers is: if NASA is willing to inflate any claim in pursuit of this agenda, why don't they simply up and reveal all the secrets you believe they are hoarding? It would make them the single most important, best funded organization on Earth, wouldn't it?

reply to post by DJW001

Yes indeed. I find it rather sweet and touching that such an aura of disbelief exists round NASA, since it clearly arises from UFO cultists' dissatisfaction with the (to them) prosaic and unhelpful nature of real-life space exploration. It is thus is a mark of the fervour and blind love UFO cultists lavish on their religion – which makes it, I suppose, a kind of testament to the nobility of the human spirit.

When the search for life outside out planet seems, dull. Then why not present a Earth bound form of some what different origins? It's still a new form of life. The whole reason they even announced this was to keep funding for the search of life in space.

reply to post by Arken

The hype about that old news www.abovetopsecret.com... "Life forms based on Arsenic" and spread world-wide with those hype in MSM, in these days, was only a Mediatic Test about more Big News coming in 2011.

Sorry, I just pulled this thread up because someone has just started a thread on the same subject. I notice that you allude to Big News coming in 2011. It's 2012 now. What was the Big News?

I've always thought that NASA scientists seem to lean in the direction of believing that life is ubiquitous in the Galaxy/Universe, and is possibly even likely in our solar system.

At least that is the attitude I get when I read papers by NASA scientists such as Chris McKay and Geoffry Landis. I've always felt NASA to be very "pro-life elsewhere". I don't know if it is an "agenda", as the information in the OP asserts, but it seems to be the pervading attitude.

Which makes sense, considering that almost all scientist consider life elsewhere to be likely, and that would include NASA scientists.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

I've always thought that NASA scientists seem to lean in the direction of believing that life is ubiquitous in the Galaxy/Universe, and is possibly even likely in our solar system.

At least that is the attitude I get when I read papers by NASA scientists such as Chris McKay and Geoffry Landis. I've always felt NASA to be very "pro-life elsewhere". I don't know if it is an "agenda", as the information in the OP asserts, but it seems to be the pervading attitude.

Which makes sense, considering that almost all scientist consider life elsewhere to be likely, and that would include NASA scientists.

Exactly. As scientists, they are predisposed to assume that the Earth is not a special case, and are very open to evidence of life elsewhere. (Contrary to what you may read elsewhere in this forum.) On the other hand, NASA also has political concerns. It needs to justify its funding in the face of fiscal tightening. I suspect that it is the administrators who have an agenda, and will trumpet results that scientists would be more circumspect in presenting. Hence, the above shaky results and the constant announcement of "New Earths" discovered by Kepler. In private, astronomers are wondering if KEPLER's data is too good to be true. They're getting "jitter jitters," if you know what I mean.

Originally posted by russ1969
reply to post by DJW001

 

I dont think it is off topic at all. The quote you posted implies that nasa hasnt found life as yet. My point is, They havent explored space enough to know. The international space station sits about 200 miles above the earth. The earth,s atmosphere extends out to 10,000 kilometers.

Actually the exosphere layer of the atmosphere extends to at least 100,000 km by direct detection and the theoretical upper boundary is at 190,000 km. 10,000 km is just an arbitrary number that does not correspond to the actual end of the earth's atmosphere.

I posted my opinion about the funding and speculated about a future program. Then i pointed out the fact that we dont send humans into space because i believe we have never been there

Setting aside the off-topic issue of your apollo hoax belief, the internationally accepted cutoff point for space is the Kármán line at 100 km altitude. Above that altitude, a vehicle would have to travel faster than orbital velocity in order to stay aloft since aerodynamic lift becomes insufficient at sub-orbital velocities. By your definition, even geostationary satellites are not "in space" since they're within the 100,000 km reach of the exosphere. That is not a useful definition in my opinion. This is why there is a distinction between the terms "outer space" and "interplanetary space." Outer space encompasses everything above the Kármán line, interplanetary space begins at the end of the earth's atmosphere.