NASA to hold press conference about an astrobiology finding

[owly]

NASA has announced a press conference to be held 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 announcement has raised a significant amount of curiosity about the finding, as well as some speculation by members of the media and some UFO and alien bloggers. We’ll just have to wait until Thursday to find out what it is all about.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010...robiology.html

This should be interesting!

[owly]

Instead of starting another ET thread......

Royal Society asked average Brit if they believe in UFO's and aliens

The Telegraph today said that 46% of the British population believe in UFO's and aliens.

Surprisingly, these Brits feel that the government should reach out in friendship, but these same Brits are in disagreement on what these aliens could look like.

This was a funded study. My question is who put up the money ?

Why would the Royal Society do this study ?

What is the hidden reason for all of this ?

It's way too unspecific tho to ask people if they believe in aliens and UFOs.

You can't not believe in UFOs, because it's a fact that there are unidentified flying objects in our skies, regardless of what one thinks they might be or where they come from. An unknown natural phenomenon that causes a light in the sky is also a UFO. Actually, a better term is UAP in my opinion because it's not always an object.

Most people think of alien space ships visiting the earth when they're asked about UFOs, so the question should be more specific, like 'do you believe in alien space ships being present in earth's vicinity'

When it comes to aliens, no one can really not believe in aliens, because bacteria on mars are also aliens and it's pretty much clear to most scentists that there's life (aliens) on many places in the universe.

You should ask if people believe in intelligent life on other planets, or lifeforms from other planets visiting the earth. Otherwise there is no point, it's way too vague to ask 'do you believe in UFOs and aliens' there isn't really any point in that.

I find those 'studies' a waste of money if they are conducted like that. The result doesn't mean anything!

[owly]

They asked 2000 people. This number is too small to generalise appropriately to the 60 million people who populate the British Isles. I'm rather ashamed of the Royal Society for also not pointing out very large issues with the validity of optional surveys, in that only a certain type of person will respond.......

The only way to avoid that is to add enough distracting questions that the actual aim of the survey isn't obvious... And obviously, not pointing out the aim of the study......

They really just piss me off, why not come up with a higher dingbat number?

[owly]

NASA

Bacteria on a meteor. Actual outside of earth would be an incredibly important discovery really. It would fundamerntally prove beyond all doubt we're not the only life outthere......

But yeah, I think it's something to do with the Oxygen recently found on a moon in this solar system on one ofSaturns moon Rhea.......

Didn't they already find alien cells/life/DNA in the red rain and star jelly?

Anyways i'm not getting my hopes up that it's probably traces of bacteria on a meteoriite at the most, but like i said 'Bacteria on a meteor. Actual outsideof earth would be an incredibly important discovery' i don't think they've discovered an alien civilization or something like that.......

i guesws i have to wait and see, we have to wait and see.......

[Nagash]

Phone home?

[owly]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/01/di ... me/?hpt=C2

[owly]

Video of News Reports on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgz-w6MBEt0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au1xNMN0dmk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YvjTtwfUik

NASA PRESS RELEASE:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/no ... ology.html

[Nether]

Nice

[owly]

i'll be busy all day tomorrow it be nice if someone post the Nassa disclosure when i get home and have to race to find it myself........

either or tho i been geared for this since i was a small kid

[Kaz]

Was an interesting press conference, although a let down for anyone expecting news of discovery of actual extra terrestrial life.

The conference was about a terrestrial microbe, that can replace phospherous (one of the building blocks of all known life) with arsenic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/scien ... tml?src=me
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/ ... phosphorus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11886943

Google News search for the word Arsenic to find more articles

[owly]

i'm very excited, this in whats all so small is all so big!

Before in the past there where those that said we're the only life in the universe, to me that was like saying the earth is flat. Now the Question is where is life and how much and what type or form is out there. i marked this day on my calendar........

i only glanced at the links Kaz provided now i'm going in for a far better look........

edit/oh tyty kaz i don't have to look for the story the story came to me

edit2/scratch what i said.......

Well. NASA didn't find ET. There has been made a discovery that broadens the possibility of life elsewhere. It's not really about astrobiology, rather earth biology which shows that life can exists in environments we wouldn't expect.

Something i already knew...... bah good thing i didn't get my hopes up i learned my leason a long tome ago to not get my hopes up.

[owly]

i was so excited all day in class when i got home and found out what was released i had a major drop of emotions. They haven't told me anything new i already knew live would find a way to strive in unimaginable situations. About two years ago maybe longer they found crustacean living off of gas vents breathing the deadly gas like we breathe air feeding of it too off the ocean floor i forget where. That only confirmed my theory tho.......

The good thing is this might open up some eyes that has been closed

[Jezebel]

Being a DNA geek (I teach intro to molecular biology and genetics), I cannot emphasize more how exciting this finding is.

Until now, DNA was made up of a sugar (deoxyribose)/phosphate backbone, which framed the nucleotides in the middle (nucleotides are your genetic blueprint ).

Arsenic is a heavy metal and toxic to most living organisms. That a living organism not only survives arsenic, but actually has DNA with a deoxyribose/arsenic backbone is mind-blowing. Absolutely mind-blowing.

[Lady Maven]

OMG, Jez, have you seen that artwork they make of your DNA? It is a little pricey, but I want one soooo badly!!

http://www.dna11.com/?gclid=CMSomLa516UCFRxqgwodxHWvkg

[Super_Sturm]

Being a DNA geek (I teach intro to molecular biology and genetics), I cannot emphasize more how exciting this finding is.

So you go from crawly lil thingies, to squishy oozing slithering lil creepies...Nice
If I catch the flu bug, I'ma blamin Jez.

[Nagash]

Arsenic is a heavy metal

Heavy metal rules!

[owly]

cool dna pictures, thanks for sharing Maven

[Mickal Redwater]

I've been gone for so long! If i was still around during this i coulda told ya what it was before hand ASU was very involved in this discovery, one of the biology professors was on the panel for the press conference and the head of of astrobio team in the geology department got quoted a lot (The girl who discovered it is part of our team even though she's not at asu (anymore, she was a postdoc here).

This is really pretty cool, because it opens the playing field. We assumed life could be diverse, but now we see that life can survive even if you replace important parts with poison (its arsenic!!) this means life could really be many more places then before.


Of course who knows why NASA played the crap outta this. It was on the news like 2 days before and the wording was just poor. NASA has a history of that. It makes the actually discover seem not as good. But for scientists, this was really cool and we'll be refering back to it, and using it for a while. The general public(and owly) has probably already forgotten.

[owly]

ithink it's cool you know all the players

[Atla]

So we got potential Arsenic infected Alien Lifeforms out there.

We should nuke them from high orbit, it's the only way to be sure.