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The Origin of Life on Earth
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Sir Ulli Send message Joined: 21 Oct 99 Posts: 2246 Credit: 6,136,250 RAC: 0 |
Summary (Nov 29, 2004): Neil deGrasse Tyson, author and host of the NOVA series, "Origins, Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution", gives a galvanizing tour of the cosmos revealing what the universe has been up to while turning part of itself into us. The Origin of Life on Earth "On this single planet called Earth, there co-exist (among countless other life forms), algae, beetles, sponges, jellyfish, snakes, condors, and giant sequoias. Imagine these seven living organisms lined up next to each other in one-place. If you didn't know better, you would be hard-pressed to believe that they all came from the same universe, much less the same planet". --Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Museum of Natural History Story from S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club m7 © |
Misfit Send message Joined: 21 Jun 01 Posts: 21804 Credit: 2,815,091 RAC: 0 |
11/11/04 - Seminar: Four Approaches to the Origin of Life - RealVideo me@rescam.org |
Alan Payne Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 28 Credit: 56,315 RAC: 0 |
This is all very well but I would suggest we look at what is being discovered about our possible origins in our Galaxy let alone the Universe. Chandra Wickramasinghe is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales UK and is about to release a scientific report that all life on Earth was seeded from Outer Space. Apparently one tonne of cosmic dust is deposited in Earth's atmosphere every day ! It is virtually proven that our latest disease, SARS, arrived from space. For the full report on this in pdf format please click here This science is called Panspermia and has been studied for hundreds of years. But with more modern discoveries to detect and analyse the cosmic dust, a clearer picture is emerging. For the whole story of Panspermia, and be prepared for surprises please click here Of course this means that if Earth has been spawned from outer space then so has every planet in our Galaxy, or even the entire Universe, which means that life is very abundant out there. So it is now more important than ever that SETI soon find the first ET signal which will more than prove that Panspermia is a fact. Of course when this is all released to the general public it will overturn much of what mankind has written and believed in for thousands of years, especially divinity. But I think that it is more important that mankind now move into a more realistic and truthful history of our beginings. You can go to the main page of Cardiff University by clicking here Happy reading. |
Murasaki Send message Joined: 22 Jul 03 Posts: 702 Credit: 62,902 RAC: 0 |
Skimming the article, I noticed something that I find kinda humorous to think about. As a general rule, humans more and more are surviving with physical conditions that would be fatal or reproductively unattractive were they subject to life in nature. It can be argued that there's few traits left that actually convey a "survival advantage" to reproductive age or are disqualifiers to reproduction. Therefore, as this natural selection gives way, humans may stop "evolving" altogether, so by the definition of the article, humans will no longer be living. Just a silly thought. |
HachPi Send message Joined: 2 Aug 99 Posts: 481 Credit: 21,807,425 RAC: 21 |
I do have a firm belief in the cosmic seeding theory. Even here on earth there are extreme examples of the astonishing conditions in wich bacteria and viruses can survive. If bacteria are in the "spore" stadium they are even harder to destroy... Look for instance at some bacteria in the very hot water well in the neighbourhood of a geiser. Not everything of a meteorite gets burned to ashes when in contact with the atmosphere. It could well be that on entry of a meteorite rich in say, carbon that a cooling layer of CO2 gas is formed on entry, or that on entry volatile gases/liquids absorb a great part of kinetic/friction energy, hence giving a cooling effect innerwards. The same cooling effect exists in leatherbags used in the desert to keep water cool on the inside. A small part diffuses/evaporates though the leatherskin and absorbs for that a lot of heat from the container itself, hence keeping it cooler than normal under the given conditions. Any volatile substance in a meteorite doing the same thing sucks energy (heat) from the inside of the meteorite, hence keeping it a lot cooler inwards than it normally could be. This can result in the possibility of survival of spores and viruses in the meteorite and hence continuous contamination of the earth soil/water/atmosphere. Even if there is one chance in a million of reaching the surface of the earth, seen the enormous deposit from outer space this should be taken into account as a very realistic possibility. (We basically doing here the same with Seti - and the Drake equation, ... its all about probabilities and chances). We could have a Drake equation analogon for the "seeding capability of cosmic dust and meteorites" wich I would call (grin) the HachPi equation... Such an equation would not be that difficult to simulate on a computer, reckoning with heatcapacities and diverse substances wich we find often in meteorites,... So it would not be that difficult either to calculate if inwards temperature is not rising to high to kill life (spore-bacteria-viruses-...)under certain conditions of speed, size, angle of attack towards the atmosphere, difference in substances contained in the meterorite/cosmic dust particles, etc... Greetings from Belgium ;-)) HachPi prof in physics-chem. |
Redshift Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 122 Credit: 1,244,536 RAC: 0 |
> It can be argued that there's few traits left that > actually convey a "survival advantage" to reproductive age or are > disqualifiers to reproduction. Tell that to the girls who refuse to date/marry/reproduce-with my friend Josh, who is only 4 feet 11 inches tall. www.onlinetasklist.com |
Murasaki Send message Joined: 22 Jul 03 Posts: 702 Credit: 62,902 RAC: 0 |
> Tell that to the girls who refuse to date/marry/reproduce-with my friend Josh, > who is only 4 feet 11 inches tall. Well, I did use the qualifier "few" traits. :) However, he doesn't have to set off in a hunting party with a stone spear and risk getting killed to impress anyone, so all he has to do is set sights sufficiently low, no pun intended, to attract that plump homely office worker in the admin section and *bang* genetics pass on. Evolution becomes extinct. |
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