UPDATE2: 12/2/2010 10:15AM PST, NYT reports on this a full hour before the NASA news conference at 2PM EST (11AMPST) that it is in fact about arsenic microbes. – Anthony
UPDATE: It may not be so profound as I conjectured below after all. Our always sharp WUWT readers point me to articles in the Daily Mail (and also Telegraph blogs) which say it is more terrestrial in nature than extraterrestrial.
Nasa scientists are set to announce that bacteria have been discovered that can survive in arsenic, an element previously thought too toxic to support life, it can be revealed.
In a press conference scheduled for tomorrow evening, researchers will unveil the discovery of the incredible microbe – which substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth – in a lake in California.
The remarkable discovery raises the prospect that life could exist on other planets which do not have phosphorus in the atmosphere, which had previously been thought vital for life to begin.
But it seems like old news, as this paper from 2004 talks about microbes using Arsenic in Mono Lake: The microbial arsenic cycle in Mono Lake, California
There is also this earlier story from The Times, from May 2010 asking: Do alien life forms exist in a Californian lake? The scientist, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, quoted in that article, is also on the NASA press panel tomorrow. If they are indeed announcing arsenic microbes in Mono Lake, it sure seems like they waited a long time to do it, and the press release wording invites a lot of speculation.
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From NASA’s press release here there’s been a lot of buzz and speculation around the blogosphere on what may be announced tomorrow.
It may be mundane, such as they’ve found some building block of life in some comet or asteroid sampling mission, or they may have found evidence of life somewhere. I doubt it will be anything higher than microbe level if they do. Still, that would be fantastic news in itself. But after looking at the publications in the CV of one of the participants, James Elser of Arizona State University and his work in desert environments, plus Pam Conrad, co-author of a papers on Death Valley geology and how it pertains to Life signatures on Mars, I’m going to make a SWAG and offer that the press conference may have something to say about discovering the ingredients of and/or byproducts of life on Mars, via some samples from Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It is one possibility.
The other SWAG possibility I see is some discovery from the Cassini mission and Titan, Saturns’ largest moon, which has a chemical soup “smog”. Earlier this year on June 3rd, NASA made a press release titled:
What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?
Here’s the money quote:
“We suggested hydrogen consumption because it’s the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,” McKay said. “If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth.”
But then there’s this:
“Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed,” Allen said. “We have a lot of work to do to rule out possible non-biological explanations. It is more likely that a chemical process, without biology, can explain these results – for example, reactions involving mineral catalysts.”
I suppose if deep sea hydrothermal vents can support chemosynthetic bacteria using hydrogen sulfide for food, why not hydrogen and acetylene?
Of the two possibilities I cite, I’m thinking some announcement about Cassini and Titan has a higher probability. Maybe it will be somethings as simple as “we see signs of life on Titan, but we need more money to find out”.
We’ll find out in about 24 hours.
NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2
WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website at http://www.nasa.gov.
Participants are:
– Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
– Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
– Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
– Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
– James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe
Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or call 202-358-0918 by noon Dec. 2.
For NASA TV streaming video and downlink information, visit:
For more information about NASA astrobiology activities, visit:
– end –
In a somewhat related, sci-fi-ish, matter, or anti-matter…
http://www.rdmag.com/News/Feeds/2010/11/energy-antimatter-atoms-successfully-stored-for-the-first/
Pretty cool, as long as a whole bunch of em don’t break free!
I really hope it is irrefutable evidence of extraterrestrial life, even if it is only microbes. People have been expecting this for quite a while. One has to wonder what the social ramifications of it will be to the world view of any number of religions, etc.
we are NOT the only life in the universe.
hydrogen consumption
We call it chemical reduction here on Earth, not necessarily because of life presence.
LOL not that I care a whole lot. But how come my post in Tips yesterday for this was deleted, but Larry’s wasn’t and now it’s a story?
REPLY: I don’t know, I didn’t see the note yesterday. Perhaps it got deleted along with spam comments. We have had a barrage of spam posts lately, several hundred a day, so I apologize to you and to anyone who has seen posts gone missing. The effort of wading through all the dreck to sort out good comments is considerable, don’t take it personally if things get accidentally deleted. – Anthony
The next mars Rover (Curiosity) is presently being built. Video from the clean room is here and
here
I’m tipping that they’ve “discovered” that politicians do not qualify as intelligent life.
But we knew that already – so where’s the “new” in that?
Maybe they have created a robust computer MODEL of an extraterrestrial life form! They certainly need the funding at NASA. Perhaps there is even an Islamic connection.
My guess is secondary signs of microbe life on Mars via organic methane production… or ET phoned home…
They’ve found god.
Actually NASA will only present their results about the planet Mars. Since they’ve been roving around now for a while on that other place they can absolutely positively unequivocally conclude that “maybe” Mars “might” really exist and “perhaps also it might” really be a planet, in our “solar” system no less.
I would say that they have discovered there is AGW warming in Mars. 😉
The relevant part will be AGW.
Ecotretas
Its Arsenic instead of Phosphorus — so ATA?
Via the Daily Mail:
“Nasa scientists are set to announce that bacteria have been discovered that can survive in arsenic, an element previously thought too toxic to support life, it can be revealed.
In a press conference scheduled for tomorrow evening, researchers will unveil the discovery of the incredible microbe – which substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth – in a lake in California.”
This might be about an organism that survives in an extreme Earth environment with a radically different chemical-life supporting process and generates different by-products than other organisms. The upshot is that trying to detect life on other worlds by searching for the “normal” life markers will be complicated or expanded due to this discovery. Or they’ll try to make some claim that this organism may have some origin from another place in the solar system. Of course this is just a guess! Without a landing probe that has the proper on-board lab equipment it’s hard to prove anything.
Knowing NASA, this will be filled with “could’s” and “if’s” and a bunch of other weasel words that will make a bad car lease seem reasonable.
I think you’re a little late to the party here. It is apparently about microbes being able to live in Yosemite, here on Earth.
I’ll drink to that.
I agree… they will ask for more money to send an astrobiology lab to Titan. By the time the mission is done, most of those guys will be retired.
According to the news here, they found in a Californian lake a bacterium with arsenicum in it building blocks in stead of fosphor (if my spelling is correct).
Cool!
Hydrogen and oxygen/carbon lifeforms would be an explosive mix. If there’s any intelligent life reading this that breathes in free protons, please keep your distance.
Andromeda Strain
I’d give a passing nod to Thomas Gold and his Deep, Hot Biosphere. He actually wasn’t the first to propose that. Some Soviet scientists were, unknown to him till later. He took a lot of flack, and still does, even in the grave. But the undersea vents are a half-way step toward what he argued, that not only did life begin way down below (something the Johnny-come-lately establishment claims for Titan and others), but he also argued that the majority of life on Earth still exists down there.
Wikipedia, that ultra-reliable consensus purveyor, sayeth:
Life will come in many forms. From what I have learned about the chemical makeup of genetics (nothing learned in real depth, however), I actually am doubtful it will come in other forms than hydrocarbon-based. Hydrogen vs water is still going to be hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are so active and multiplexing.
So, though they may come out and tell us about the “building blocks of life,” they’ve been telling us about those since they dreamed up the lightning in the boggy soup scenario. After that “step forward”, they pontificated that they would figure out how to make life themselves before long. That was a half century ago, about the time others promised fusion reactors. It is a shell game, and there never really is anything under any of the shells – but they keep on getting grant moneys.
Flim flam? Yes, to some degree…
As many here are aware, when scientists go down a blind alley, they don’t ever admit their error.
If I am wrong on this, I will be the first to credit them. But I doubt it. I will read this later and hold to a skeptical POV about both its validity and its significance. I suggest that it will be another incremental “next step” that gets no one anywhere – but that funnels more government funds into another mini black hole dead end.
The game is not scientific advancement, but advancement and continuation of careers. Press releases are just one of the gears in that mechanism.
There are a few more stars out there than we thought, increasing the chances that we are not alone.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1334714/Hunt-aliens-boosted-scientists-discover-universe-holds-times-stars-previously-thought.html
The title is misleading. “Even arsenic lakes in California are suitable for life” — seems more appropriate. With subtitleds for humor impared: “(This is why real estate is so damn expensive there)”