Earth May Harbor a Shadow Biosphere of Alien Life 267
An anonymous reader sends us to Cosmos Magazine for a speculative article arguing that a 'shadow biosphere' may exist on Earth, unrelated to life as we know it. If such non-carbon-based life were found here at home, it would alter the odds for how common life is elsewhere in the universe, astrobiologists say. "The tools and experiments researchers use to look for new forms of life — such as those on missions to Mars — would not detect biochemistries different from our own, making it easy for scientists to miss alien life, even if [it] was under their noses. ... Scientists are looking in places where life isn't expected — for example, in areas of extreme heat, cold, salt, radiation, dryness, or contaminated streams and rivers. [One researcher] is particularly interested in places that are heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus."
So something which we can't define... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds pretty clear to me. Maybe rocks are intelligent. How would we know? Has anybody thought to ask?
Carbon-based for a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
On planets with radcially different environments there's probably a lot of potential for life that's totally different from ours, but I think it's fairly unlikely for us to discover it here.
not buying it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So something which we can't define... (Score:3, Insightful)
We can't communicate with rocks.
This reminds me of something I read a while back. Some scientists observed various metal molecules joining together into a helix structure.
They didn't do much beyond that, though... but it makes me wonder if carbon based life coming around on earth was just a fluke? It could've possibly gone another way, if we hadn't gotten there first?
Do they speak English in what? (Score:1, Insightful)
If such non-carbon-based life were found here at home, it would alter the odds for how common life is elsewhere in the universe, astrobiologists say.
Magic! If we find such life here, then the rest of the universe will change!
I think you meant...
It would alter our understanding of the odds. It might even alter the odds of success in our search for life elsewhere, since ostensibly we would be looking in more places of greater variety.
What it most certainly will not do is suddenly make that type of life appear elsewhere in the universe. Well, unless we are ready to assume an EdTV universe. It is awfully convenient that we're not really able to leave our solar system. Hmm....
They're Made of Meat (Score:5, Insightful)
"They're made of meat."
"Meat?"
http://home.earthlink.net/~paulrack/id82.html [earthlink.net]
Re:So something which we can't define... (Score:3, Insightful)
found it!
that is, this video this talk reminded me of:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2966542393735208484&ei=I2eZSbSXA5OEqwKozYCgDg [google.com]
Re:Wouldn't alter all that much (Score:3, Insightful)
Two flaws in your argument. First, if such life forms exist in a remote but abundant environment--for example, deep underground--they could be having a significant effect--for example, on geology--that we don't yet recognize. Second, even if such organisms are extremely rare on earth, studying their biology could help us find similar life forms elsewhere. We already know what signatures to look for in the atmospheres of other planets to indicate the presence of carbon-based life, but not necessarily for other biochemistries.
The odds don't alter ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what the original article said (the site is thoroughly slashdotted), but finding life based on alternative chemistry won't "alter the odds" - it will just alter our computation of the odds. That immediately raises my suspicions since it suggests that the article was written by a journalist rather than a scientist, and consequently that it might be severely distorted.
Having said that, there are a lot of possible alternative chemistries that don't involve non-carbon-based life: substituting arsenic for phosphorus as mentioned here need not also substitute something else for carbon, so the most likely possibility is that such life would be carbon based but still "alien." As far as we know now, at Earthly temperatures and pressures carbon is a far more plausible basis for life than anything else, and so far we haven't even found much that's very promising at other temperatures and pressures. But I'm not at all sure that we have sufficiently explored alternative temperatures and pressures to rule them out as possible habitats.
"Alien"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only in the ocean, grasses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So something which we can't define... (Score:3, Insightful)
The discussion requires an open mind.
You must be very new here.
Re:So something which we can't define... (Score:2, Insightful)
If your nine year old will, of his own volition, sit still for an hour at a time, you've either heavily medicated him, or have done an extraordinary job of parenting.
Or that's just his nature. I got frequent complaints as a child that I'd startled someone half to death, usually by moving when they didn't realize or had forgotten that I was in the room with them and had simply been quietly sitting there for the last hour or two.
I don't think that's an example of extraordinary parenting, although I'm sure it's at least partially environmental. A usual view inside my house as a kid would show a number of people, across generations, all with their noses in books. Nine is, what, 4th grade? I was already hooked by then. 4th or 5th was when I started chewing through Heinlein's stuff (the juvenile books, of course, the school library didn't stock the pornographic political treatises).