I come in peace for all mankind.

bc

Er, that's one small step for (a) Boodler one giant leap for all Boodlekind?

bc

Although notions of "weird life" are exhilarating, they are also frustrating. They make it that much harder to bound the problem. Instead of just looking for places like earth, now we need to go lifting every rock on the cosmic beach and hope to see something interesting.

And then there is the matter of scale. If one accepts that life, and even intelligence, might be based on alternative architectures, who is to say these might not be really small? I mean, maybe "Horton Hears a Who" is actually cutting-edge speculative fiction.

I thought weird life was what happened when I left a block of cheese too long in the back of the fridge.

If I remember correctly, the search for fossils from early life on Earth was partly a matter of figuring out what to look for--or perhaps just of running into something odd and realizing that its originated via little critters.

Meanwhile, in the land of the non-weird, I encountered Beach Pigeons this week. Pigeons mingling with other shorebirds, pecking at the sand. Central Daytona Beach, evidently in a restricted area around the short boardwalk and a cluster of tall hotels. I think I detect a good little research project on these odd birds.

And let's not forget the "Cheela" in Robert L Forward's book "Dragon's Egg." I think tiny critters living on a neutron star clearly qualify as weird life.

We are way to hung up on DNA. There's a line in "ET" where the scientists get all orgasmic screaming "It's got DNA!" Like that is the only way to replicate.

Most of life is an enormous kludge and we have no idea if DNA is the best or only way to transmit protein synthesis instructions. Or if proteins are necessary.

Get McCoy to explain how he used to diagnose all those silicon rock monsters with indigestion.

I also like the notion that we, ourselves, are weird life. Maybe that is the solution to Fermi's Paradox. Perhaps the universe is jammed full of intelligent life, and we are just too freakishly strange to recognize the signs.

Morning boodle! The first morning glory of '07 bloomed yesterday. You can take a look here
http://picasaweb.google.com/frostbittenboodler/FrozenNorthGarden/photo#s5092745448984823074

Front Page News Flash:

Torqueberto Is A Liar.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901327.html?hpid=topnews

In other news:
Science - Water Is Wet
Entertainment - Celebrities Do Stupid Things
Finance - Buy Low And Sell High

Joel, you must one day write a sequel to "Captured by Aliens." So much has happened in the field over the last decade.

You could call it "Still Captured by Aliens - But Only In a Metaphorical Way So Please Don't File This Book In The Alternative Weird Guy Section."

Just a thought.

Gorgeous flowers, fb.

If say creatures that live in the center of red giant stars talk at a rate of one syllable per century, how would we ever eavesdrop on their conversation?

Hmmm, perhaps some weird life caused the impatiens pic to come up first.

This kit reminds me of the different ways people open a refrigerator looking for food. Frostdottir only sees things that are ready to eat with no more than a quick trip in the micro, and within 3 inches of the front of the shelf. Beyond that she says "that's not food, it's ingredients."

Mornin' all..

RD... how do we know *we're* not Whos? (what the heck is the plural of the formal Who?) I'm reminded of the pot-induced thinking on "Animal House"... "what if the solar system is just an atom in a giant's thumb" (or something like that).

I love my old percolator, but dang does it take a long time to make a pot of coffee. I swear the thing messes with me some mornings -- you think it's finished but as soon as you reach for it, it starts percolating again. Turn your back on it and it quiets down. Reach again and "cough-wheeze-splutter"... you get the picture. It's kinda like listening to classical music. Just when you think it's over, out comes the timpani and a blast from the horn section.

Sorta back on topic... I was just wondering what the social impact be if/when extraterrestrial life (especially sentient life) were confirmed? I mean, here we've been floating around all by ourselves, thinking we're just the bees knees. What happens, globally speaking, if we were to learn we're nowhere near as smart or pretty or civilized as we like to think we are in the Universal sense?

I may have to blow the dust off my copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Peace...

[10] (double digits! woohoo!)

There's two fellows in town that will talk your ear off regarding the presence of aliens among us. Fred makes his way painting murals, one of which graces the walls of our son's bedroom, and Mike is a tree surgeon of sorts. Milke literally lived in a tree for quite a while, thus earning the moniker Tree Man. He has some really interenting perspectives on the world when he's off his meds. Fred can tell you exactly where the aliens came from and what they're doing here. They may have a point.

Finally back home after 6 weeks in Peru and South Dakota.

I find it interesting (and unfortunate) that NASA'a definition of life includes Darwinian evolution.

Lamarck deserves a lot more credit than he receives. There are three basic conditions that have to be met in order for evolution to occur:

1) Individuals in a population must vary
2) Variation must be heritable
3) Variation must lead to differential reproductive success

Lamarck actually recognized all of these conditions. His only major mistake was in his understanding of how No. 2 actually worked. He believed, incorrectly, that an organism could pass on to its offspring traits acquired essentially by practice (inheritance of acquired characters). By this idea, condition 2 would be the "active" part of evolution; conditions 1 and 3 would just be a side-effect.

As it turns out, Lamarck was wrong on that point (that's why bodybuilders don't have babies that are born ripped.) Darwin's major contribution was to elevate the importance of No. 3 (natural selection) as the driving force behind the change in a population. That made evolution something that occurs across a population, rather than at the individual level as Lamarck believed.

But here's the thing--Darwin was right because of the particular way in which organisms pass down characteristics to their offspring. We pass characters on through DNA transcription, and our DNA is set a conception; our activities during our lifetime have no effect on or DNA makeup.

It happens that this is the case with us, but there's no theoretical reason why this HAS to be true. There's no reason why a different organism, with different origins, couldn't have the ability to modify it's DNA (or some other encryption method) during it's lifetime (doing naturally what biologists now do in a lab.) This would allow the organism to evolve by Lamarckian rather than Darwinian evolution.

Some earthly bacteria already kind of play around at this. They have the ability to obtain genetic information from another species, and then pass that information along to their offspring (whatever that means in an asexual organism.) That is essentially passing on an acquired character--Lamarckian evolution.

scc: interesting...I'm such a geek.

Thank goodness Yellowstone was made a national park in 1872--to preserve its unusual geology of of geysers, hot springs and mud pots. Today, it is significant as a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage site.

A nod, too, to scientists at Montana State University's Thermal Biology Institute who work closely with the National Park Service to conduct their research using "leave no trace" practices so that basic and applied research can be conducted without compromising other values--known and unknown.

I find people such as Brain Bothner to be fascinating. Fairly new to TBI, he researches proteomics and virology, focusing in particular on characterizing viruses isolated from Yellostone thermal features and making clearer the biology of viral infection in Archeal species such as Sulfolobus solfataricus.

What have we gleaned from past research --since 1966 when the first aerobic bacterium was discovered in Mushroom Pool in Yelloswtone -- of the organisms of these Yellowstone thermal features? Applications from Yellowstone organisms are found in the following processes (since many include enzymes, I'll provide one more graf).

Remember, that the largest functional class of proteins is the enzymes, or biological catalysts. A catalyst is a molecule that speeds up,or catalyzes, the rate of chemical reactions in a substrate, the molecules acted on. Enzymes are known to catalyze 4,000 different biochemical reactions.

Applications from Yellowstone orgamisms:

Heat-stable enzymes are used in laundry detergent to break down protein and fat stains on clothing.

Heat-tolerant microorganisms are being studied to identify enzymes that can degrade alkaline materials including pesticides and explosives like TNT.

An enzyme from a Yellostone bacterium is being used to clean up industrial wastewater from hydrogen peroxide bleaching proceses used to whiten and disinfect products.

New thermal-tolerant enzymes from a Yellowstone organism can reproduce DNA more accurately and without the equipment necessary in the current DNA fingerprinting process.

Metal-containing proteins are being studied for the potential production of hydrogen fuel.

Enzymes that can help speed up the fermentation process and convert plant material like corn into ethanol are being studied for potential biofuel applications.

Enzymes have been discovered that break down starch at high temperaures into the sweeteners trehalose and saccharide, used in procesed foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical producs.

Friday's news release about Yellowstone's latest discovery (I've given you the first two grafs):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070726142026.htm

In the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, a team of researchers has discovered a novel bacterium that transforms light into chemical energy. The researchers also discovered that the new genus and species belongs to a new phylum, Acidobacteria -- only the third time in the past 100 years that a new bacterial phylum has been added to the list of those with chlorophyll-producing members, of which there are now only six.

*noitce the Montana TBI mention again, below*

The discovery of the chlorophyll-producing bacterium, Candidatus Chloracidobacterium (Cab.) thermophilum, will be described in the 27 July 2007 issue of the journal Science in a paper led by Don Bryant, the Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University, and David M. Ward, Professor of Microbial Studies in the Thermal Biology Institute and Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University, and colleagues.

And now Ingmar Bergman has died. Man, they're just dropping like flies over there. There are a number of Bergman films I really like, and others I can't stand. But he was very, very good. I think my all-time favorite film of his was Wild Strawberries, but coming in a close second was Fanny & Alexander, for all the gender bending in it. Nobody like him, that's for sure.

Came in second in bridge yesterday (alas, there were only four of us). Woo-hoo.

firstimeblogger- I studied two of Bergman's films in college: "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries." I loved the theological debate that always ended up in a fistfight in WS. And, of course, being Bergman there were all those subtle sexual undercurrents.

"The Seventh Seal" was sometimes hard to watch because it had almost become a parody of itself. It's hard to take Death seriously after seeing it spoofed by Monty Python as "one of the little men from the village." (And I think "The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy" might have been what truly killed Bergman.)

Of course, as entertaining as they were to watch, these films were vastly more fun to talk about.

Wow, Dooley, that was a great post. So I guess not only do we need to accept the possibility of different life chemistry, we also need to accept fundamentally different life mechanisms.

Here's a Luna mnemonic I learned while studying Wicca in my youth. If you know east/west, you know the phases of the moon.

Oh Lady Moon
Horns point to the East
Shine be increased

Oh Lady Moon
Horns point to the West
Shine be at rest

Weird life was found at the R house this weekend, the results of the work of ants and water.

http://needlesandthings.blogspot.com/2007/07/man-toys.html

Aren't prions (think CJV, BSE, and Scrapie) a protein particle which replicate but we don't know how since they contain no DNA? then again, are they consdering these a life form? Should they?

What a co-inky-dink. A guy I know wrote a column in 2004 that brings together a lot of current Boodle threads: alien abduction, John Ashcroft and the Justice Department, and the glorious Weekly World News, among other salient topics. Read all about it at http://www.dcmilitary.com/dcmilitary_archives/stories/092204/31267-1.shtml

I'm in mourning for not one but two celebrities: Ingmar Bergman, of course, but also newscaster/talk show host Tom Snyder, dead at 71 of leukemia.

I knew Snyder when he was the news anchor at KYW in Philly in the late '60s, and worked with him once on a project. About 1967 or 1968, the Philly press corps organized its first "Gridiron" roast/dinner, and I wangled a slot on the writing committee, helping to write skits and songs, etc., parodying local Philly politicos and events. "All-news radio" had just become the new "in" thing in broadcasting, and the Inquirer's Joe McGinniss was red hot as Philly's version of Jimmy Breslin or Pete Hammill (in today's lingo, perhaps the equivalent of Marc Fisher). A Philly Daily News reporter named Jim O'Brien wrote a terrific skit featuring Joe McGinniss as an all-news radio reporter looking for a story on deadline during a really boring day when nothing at all was happening, and they had all this air time to fill. The script featured an off-stage narrator as McGinniss, in a "noir" kind of Raymond Chandler "down these mean streets" monologue, and then a lone actor in a trench coat to pantomine McGinniss's actions that matched the monologue. They cast Tom Snyder to do the offstage voice-over, which was great casting with his voice--and they cast me, of all people, to play McGinniss, which was an even more brilliant piece of casting, since the real McGinniss is very tall, very thin, had intensely black hair, and extremely Irish features. To say the least, I was not exactly tall, not exactly thin, and not exactly Irish-looking. And of course that's what made it work. With all due modesty I can report that Snyder and I brought the house down, McGinniss himself laughing most of all.

We'll need my esteemed colleague Kurosawaguy to chime in on the Bergman eulogy. My favorite Bergman by far is "The Seventh Seal," followed by "Wild Strawberries," "Smiles of a Summer Night," "Through a Glass Darkly" and "The Magician"--kind of the early/middle Bergman, the happierr Bergman. "Winter Light" had the magnificent Gunnel Lindblom in it, who tortured my dreams for years with her sultry lower lip, but the movie was a real downer, as were a lot of Bergman flicks: Persona, The Silence, Scenes From a Marriage. Never saw Fanny and Alexander, for some reason. I still have a tattered and much-read copy of four Bergman screenplays, of Seventh Seal, Smiles, Wild Strawberries, and The Magician, from 1969.

Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence were a trilogy, and were often shown together in art houses back-to-back, and after 7 or 8 hours of this you'd be about ready for suicide.

RD, I'd thought about Forward's star critters when I read this Outlook piece, too.

I'm writing a longer comment, might post it as an item on the 10thcircle. Or not.

Speaking of life and scale, I see that they're remaking Matheson's "The Incredible Shrinking Man."

Hopefully, they won't change a word of the closing soliloquy.

Martooni, I suppose people's reaction to life from/on other worlds would depend on the nature of said life. Gigantic starships suddenly parked over all of the world's major cities is a little different from ET, or just some little old Andromeda bugs hitching a ride to earth on a military satellite...

bc

While reading this kit I was hoping Dooley was back. Welcome back Dooley!

OK, well. Vegas. We hate it. Both of us. I guess in a few years when Son of G returns here with some buddies and is old enough to drink and gamble, he will have fun sitting at some gaming tables socializing and enjoying the vices this town has to offer.

Traveling with his mom and not old enough to partake? Not much fun. But he did learn from watching me spend about a total of 10 bucks on the slot machines that that's just not that much fun, either.

What happened to the days of sitting with your bucket of quarters and the tactile motions of putting in the coin and pulling the handle? And when you won something--which seemed to happen often--hearing the clanging and clinking of the change pouring out of the machine.

Now it's insert your dollar bill, push a couple of buttons and hear a click if you win something--which is apparently rare--you print out a ticket. What's up with that? No fun at all.

Did I mention it's hot out there? Like so hot that we tried to walk down the street, but it was too hot? And too much construction going on to make the Strip look inviting anyway.

As we wound through the maze of hallways to our room (the elevator gets off at 755 and our room is 702) we both wished we were back at the Harmony Motel, floating in the pool with our cheese, crackers and beer at poolside.

Today we take off for the Grand Canyon. Yesterday's drive through the Mojave National Preserve was indescribable. Really. Our Virginia brains were having trouble soaking in the incredible scenery. At one point, we were traveling through a Joshua Tree "forest" that looked like the moon had sprouted trees.

After driving through the Preserve we spent about 10 minutes on I-15 when we couldn't take the Interstate anymore and got off and went to Nipton, an old stop on the Union Pacific. There was a tiny restaurant with a hand-written sign, "Best Burgers Around!" which made us laugh because they were the Only Thing Around.

We walked in and the only other folks inside were two bikers on a day ride from Vegas. We spent a good amount of time talking with them and they gave us another good route into Vegas that continued to avoid the Interstate.

The burgers were, in fact, delicious; wrapped in a tortilla to avoid a bun fighting with the burger for taste. I asked the cook (the only other person in the entire place) if I tasted soy sauce and he said that he sprinkles teriyaki sauce on the burgers while they're on the grill.

Time to think about getting Son of G out of bed and on the road. The bikers gave us a suggestion for breakfast. Can't get off the Strip fast enough if you ask me.

So Death is just the only gay in the village, or am I getting my Britcoms confused again?

While Bill and Mandy have taught the younger generation the Death should not be proud, do not underestimate the metaphysical influence of Bill and Ted as well as the collected works of Terry Pratchett. The Grim Reaper has been a laughingstock for quite some time.

I can safely say I have never seen any Bergman films even by accident. As a kid, I do wish I had been allowed to stay up late enough to see Tom Snyder. He seemed to be one of the truly smart interviewers of singers, actors, authors and other denizens of late night shill shows.

Maybe someone posted this, but here's Cal Ripken's Hall of Fame speech. Makes me miss my mom... she was a huge fan of his...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901309_pf.html

I remember the idea of life without Amino Acids cropping up in "Andromeda Strain" written by Crichton back when he was still sane.

What I like is that many of these sci-fi notions are now getting the kind of serious attention they deserve.

Of course, when the announce the development of a "resonator" like in H.P. Lovecraft's short story "From Beyond" (and kinky movie adaptation) I will become seriously concerned.

Talk about weird life.

TBG - But...but...Vegas has Céline Dion.

Dooley, I added part of your comment to the kit. Thanks!

TBG, I was just going to direct you to this, for a must see after the Grand Canyon,
http://www.nps.gov/wupa/
but it looks like road and trail construction, and if you go farther down the page, it says it can be 10 to 20 degrees warmer than Flagstaff. Which makes me want to know, how hot would it be at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?

TBG, very glad to hear you say you both hate Vegas (but sorry you aren't having a good time there); I've always hated Vegas, too. I just don't understand the attraction, and never did. I've never been attracted to that kind of mindless excess that is represented by the hotels and/or the casinos. To me the notion of a room the size of a football field filled with slot machines and flashing lights has no appeal whatsoever. To me all that "glamor" and "excitement" is neither glamorous nor exciting; who needs it? Which isn't to say I don't enjoy a certain amount of minimally expensive gambling; I like various forms of poker such as Texas Hold'em, and convention 5-card draw and 7-card stud, plus Blackjack and some of its variants, etc.--but I don't feel the need to be ensconced in a neon wonderland to play. And then, yeah, there's the whole Celine Deon/Wayne Newton thing. I mean, really.... And sure, I like a good restaurant--but it doesn't have to be in the middle of the desert in a town utterly without charm or character or history. I think Vegas is a town that is equal to less than the sum of its parts. Much, much rather be in Frisco or Chicago or Boston--or even here in DC.

Shouldn't the last sentence of the last bracketed, italicized paragraph begin "No single molecule . . ."?

Just provin' I read all the way to the end . . . .

How do we know that's the real John Ashcroft walking around? Is it hard to imagine this administration doing something so hideous it might require replacing the Attorney General with Bush's personal lawyer? I can think of 3, 4 things off the top of my head...5.
I'm not saying there's any evidence of cannibalism; I just think you should be careful about taking things off the table.

dr... thanks for the suggestion. We are thinking of this as kind of a scouting mission for future trips with the entire family, so that looks good for the future.

Mudge... glad to know we're not the only ones. We were wondering last night if we were the only people in Vegas holed up in our room eating room-service banana splits and watching TV.

Son of G just pointed me to this posting in one of his daily Internet stops and it seems to fit in with this kit (and this group in general)...

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000661.php

Good morning, y'all. When reading this fine Kit, I immediately thought of the Simpsons episode where Lisa creates new life -- an entire world -- in a little dish; they invent a machine to shrink her and beam her down as their queen; they send tiny ships with missiles to attack Bart (who tried to destroy them), and Bart winds up winning the school science fair, since Lisa is still the shrunken queen. I think it was in a Halloween episode.

Surely you all remembered this too.

TBG,
SoG's link got flagged my office filter as "Adult/Mature Content". I'll have to wait until I get home to check it out. I just have to make sure my family isn't watching me.

Ivansmom - Treehouse of Terror VII - In which Bart is referred to as "The Dark One."

One of my favs.

I sometimes wonder if in the routine activities of life we might inadvertently destroy a whole civilization of intelligent and highly sensitive individuals capable of profound creativity and transcendent joy.

But my wife is seldom persuaded by these arguments and insists I clean the bathroom anyway.

re: Las Vegas being less than the sum of its parts, I've long felt that about tourist Orlando. There's a pleasant real city hiding there, complete with lots of brick streets and the great Leu Gardens, with the best camellia collection in the eastern US.

I also recall being put up in a wonderful resort hotel in Hong Kong thanks to the Taipei airport being closed due to fog. The setting was gorgeous--there just isn't scenery like that in Florida, but the hotel itself came perilously close to being a Disney-area clone!

TBG, did you see my comment about Vegas in the last Boodle? The short version is, I don't like it, but have been dragged to the Hoover Dam and the Star Trek exhibit/ride at the Hilton, which were fun (if nausea inducing, each in their own way).

I loved Tom Snyder. He was snarky before the word had been invented. Keith Olbermann was an admirer, too, and a follower in his footsteps. Very cool that you worked with Tom, Mudge.

DotC,
Not to mention wonderful little areas like Winter Park. Much more to Orlando than International Drive.

I really like the notion that in the future Lamarckian evolution will become the mode of choice. Disturbing, yes, but still intriguing. It would have been nice to tidy up some of my genetic code before reproducing.

TBG,

Vegas melted my shoes last time I was there. I really liked those shoes, too. It is too hot there.

We're going there to get a second car (because cars are cheap in Vegas) if I get the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow. Might wait until it cools down a bit, though. At least until September.

Oh, I've killed it...

L.A. Lurker --
In answer to your question in the last boodle, San Luis Obispo. Lovely area, but too far from anywhere to drop in for a cuppa.

I am beginning to feel vaguely like Ben (the Dustin Hoffman character) in "The Graduate" hammering on the window and yelling "Elaine!" Every attempt to comment today has been intercepted by the WaPo comment police and taken away for waterboarding. If this gets through, use your imaginations and think of all the knowledgeable and witty things I must have said that you didn't get to read. Elaaaaaine!

Had to go up to the Jersey shore at the end of last week. My wife's dad is in a nursing home up there, mid-stage Alzheimer's. We took him out to lunch on Friday and Saturday (there was a nice Italian place within wheelchair distance with outdoor seating). He seemed to perk up some with the attention. Otherwise, for the most part he just sits in his chair with his head bowed over, dozing.

We did stay in a B&B in Ocean Grove, which has an incredible collection of Queen Anne-style Victorian buildings. Along the main commercial street was a store called Kitch and Kaboodle. Sorry, didn't have time to go in.

Nellie- Pa Frost-in-law lives in Paso Robles. At least until he finds out where he'd like to retire (he's 77 and has been trying to pull up stakes for a couple years). I think a winery hopping BPH would be a fine thing for boodlers from north and south (and much farther east).

Jeepers Joel. You gotta stop linking to all these old articles. Every time I look at the date on them I get this oozy goozy feeling about how quickly the years past. Still, that article has always been a favorite of mine because of this line: "we shouldn't take ourselves for granted."

O.K., if every life form on Earth has DNA (and if the latest findings on Yellowstone thermophiles are no big deal, as you say), and geometry is important, yada, yada, yada, and structures have properties, then what in tarnation are we talking about here?

Maybe we need a far better presentation--if only for a better understandin--of the full knock-down, drag-out account of the Origin of Life (OOL) debate? If it ain't DNA, then what is it? Something far beyond our comprehension? Why even mention sofa cushions?

yellojkt,
Possibly the biggest Orlando secret is that there's lots of life south of Winter Park. Leu Gardens, a small sort of Vietnamese business district, and loads of brick streets.

Thinking of hidden stuff, older downtown churches are often wonderful but endangered. Reno, Nev. has a wonderful poured-concrete Gothic church downtown, looking just a bit like the two poured-concrete churches in St Augustine (I think there's a connection via architect Bernard Maybeck). Jacksonville Beach and Daytona Beach both have churches built of native coquina rock (the same soft shelly stuff that the Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine is built of).

New Scientist had a cover story on strange life a couple of weeks ago. I'm starting to wonder harder about the ethics of sending people to Mars. They'd undoubtedly contaminate the planet with some of our critters, and what might they bring back?

On the other hand, in the driest parts of Chile's Atacama Desert, it's hard to find bacteria. Really.

Loomis, I agree it needs more detail. DNA is the molecule that carries genetic information. A different kind of molecule might carry genetic information in "weird Life." But I'll try to answer you question more fully later and add it to the kit. Thanks.

bc... I was thinking more of religious and existential implications -- kinda like what happened after Copernicus and Galileo showed that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

I like to think that most humans would welcome proof that we're not alone, but I can also easily imagine negative reactions as well.

All life on Earth uses the same 20 amino acids; conceivably weird life could use different amino acids.

Really weird life might also use, instead of water as its liquid solvent, something like ammonia, or some liquid hydrocarbon. That's why they said we should look at Titan, still, even though it doesn't have the right conditions for liquid water.

> Why even mention sofa cushions?

Maybe Joel was trying to inject a little humor into the discussion? It has been known to happen.

Weird life is life that isn't based upon organic chemistry. Life that is, perhaps, totally absent the sacred trinity of H, C, and O. Further, as Dooley suggests, Weird life might not even follow Darwinian evolution. It might build the next generation to specifications dictated by the present generation.

'...according to the committee, liquids such as ammonia or formamide could also work as biosolvents -- liquids that dissolve substances within an organism -- albeit through a different biochemistry. The recent evidence that liquid water-ammonia mixtures may exist in the interior of Saturn's moon Titan suggests that increased priority be given to a follow-on mission to probe Titan, a locale the committee considers the solar system's most likely home for weird life. '

'Besides the possibility of alternative biosolvents, studies show that variations on some of the other basic tenets for life also might be able to support weird life. DNA on Earth works through the pairing of four chemical compounds called nucleotides, but experiments in synthetic biology have created structures with six or more nucleotides that can also encode genetic information and, potentially, support Darwinian evolution. Additionally, studies in chemistry show that an organism could utilize energy from alternative sources, such as through a reaction of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, meaning that such an organism could have an entirely non-carbon-based metabolism.'

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11919

"experiments in synthetic biology have created. . . ." So with a little more application we could ourselves create Weird Life? Which could then replicate, take over the planet, enslave us, and worship our pets?

That's the trouble with scientists. They don't think these things through.

Lakeside Park
Willows in the breeze
Lakeside Park
So many memories

Ivansmom - I came to a similar conclusion when I was thinking about Lamarckian evolution. If a given generation were able to create a new generation free of all genetic foibles, what trouble might this cause.

Simply enforcing a decent curfew might be a disaster.

OK, time for a rant.

Joel, I've been thinking off and on about this kit since I first read it Saturday night, and after due consideration I think I have to take a contrarian view against a lot of what those scientists are saying. It seems to me this particular topic of "weird life" has an undue amount of thumb-sucking and navel-gazing to it that isn't accomplishing much of anything.

For instance, there is the oft-repeated notion that all life forms, at least as we know it, are carbon-based; there then follows speculation that other life forms might be based on some other atom (silicon often being mentioned, though not in this kit). But I want to dispute this as being, at best, a fairly useless scientific statement, or at worst actually wrong. Here's what I mean.

First, the statement that "all life as we know it" is carbon-based comes from "the scientists," that is, it is an argument from authority. I would argue that the statement (1) has no particular usefulness, (2) is largely a semantic question, and (3) is not strictly the purview of "scientists" alone to decide, but can be more usefully decided by a general consensus of the public at large, given a minimally sufficient education in the general sciences. Here's why:

To say that "life" is "carbon-based" is like saying that because pot roast is largely a meat-based dish, that all food everywhere is meat-based, even a vegetable soup in which the only meat product is a cup of chicken stock. For that matter, one could say that "all food is carbon-based." That would undoubtedly be a true statement--but it would also be meaningless and tell us nothing useful, like "all soups are liquid-based." Yes. And...?

Take the average jellyfish, which I understand is made up of about 98% water. What is the utility of describing a jellyfish as being "carbon-based" given that fact? So, yeah, there's some carbon in its DNA, and every one of its cells as some DNA, blah blah blah. But is that a useful thing to know about a jellyfish? Does that make it "carbon-based"? I say this is purely a semantic question, and as such it doesn't belong "just to scientists" to answer. It belongs to the common culture, which is the agency that "decides" how language is used.

Take the average clam, oyster or mussel. Those things are overwhelmingly comprised of calcium and/or calcium oxides, depending on how you want to play the semantic game. So how does a creature whose overwhelming feature is a massive amount of calcium-based outer shell come off as being "carbon-based"? Of what utility is it to describe a clam as "carbon-based"? Human beings are said to be 60 to 70% water, depending on gender and some other variables. How is it useful to describe us as carbon-based? If all life (as we know it) is carbon-based, it is also, to one degree or another, also water-based, as you point out. Or if you prefer, hydrogen/oxygen based if ya wanna get all molecular and atomicky elemental about it. The report cited itself contradicts the carbon-based argument when it says: "Life on Earth uses molecular structures with properties 'specifically suited to the demands imposed by water.' Water is in charge. And wherever we go on Earth where there's energy and liquid water -- even miles beneath the surface, or around boiling volcanic vents at the bottom of the sea -- we find life." So what's it gonna be, carbon-based or water-based? Or both?

And the report goes even further: "All living things use mundane elements, the common stuff found all over the place: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulfur." OK--so why does carbon get star billing in that list? Isn't it true that without those other elements carbon would be nothing? Air, which the vast majority of surface creatures need, is mainly nitrogen-based (at least insofar as it is made up of about 78% nitrogen and 20% oxygen; carbon dioxide makes up only .034% of air--barely even registers (and note that carbon is only one-third of THAT miniscule amount, doubled by the oxygen content). The oceans are about 70% of the earth's surface--mainly water and a bit of sodium chloride--ain't no significant carbon in it, to speak of, except that which decomposes from dead plants or animals. And what's left? The earth itself, which admittedly has some carbon in it--but it's such a minor supporting element that it never gets top billing. According to Wikipedia: "It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminum (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements." Notice any particular element conspicuously missing from that list?

Let's face it: carbon is the Paris Hilton of elements. Somehow it seems to be getting all the press attention for no especially good reason; it just happens to show up from time to time in trendy places like the spiral rungs of DNA, the Hope Diamond, Exxon/Mobil gasoline, and some of my cooking.

Next, I want to dispute the notion given several times by the scientific "experts" in the kit that we poor bumbling humans wouldn't know weird life if we stumbled over. Over and over, the report says things like "how would we recognize" weird life forms? Maybe the d@mn things are right there in front of our eyes? We are only good at finding things we already expect to find. Blah blah blah. Examples:

-- "The human mind finds it difficult to create ideas truly different from what it already knows," the report states. [Say I: poppycock and balderdash. I think the human mind has been quite dazzling in its ability to create all sorts of ideas "different" from what it already knows. Yes, this may be a "glass is half-full/glass is half empty" argument. I say its half-full--and I have every right to that opinion as does any nay-saying scientist. It isn't a strictly "scientific" question; it belongs to all of us and any of us; it is much more philosophic and teleological than "scientific" and fact-based. In short, I think we're pretty durn smart. Or the best of us, anyway. Not too sure about some GOP members of Congress and the administration, and at least three of my kids.]

--"It could be under our noses, or even in our noses," Davies told me. "The world is teeming with microbes -- squillions and squillions of them. The vast majority of which haven't been characterized, much less had their genome sequenced. We don't know what they are. And some of those might be shadow life." [Uh, wrong again. Just because we haven't sequenced their genomes doesn't mean squat. It's a false requirement for "knowledge" and knowing what all those squillions of microbes are. In general, we know a very great deal about all sorts of microbes and we've been able to sort them into various categories and describe what they do and how they do it. Is there more to learn? Absolutely. But I protest the twin notions that we are a bunch of ignoramuses who don't know squat, AND that there are some sort of Mystery Microbes out there that we haven't yet stumbled upon in our bumbling, foolish incompetent way. My money bet is that even though there may be squillions of them left to describe, they all pretty much conform to all the various forms and structures we now have a fairly good grip on. "We don't know what they are," indeed. Twaddle, say I. This is yet another half-full/half-empty argument, and it isn't "scientific" at all.]

--"Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars program, agrees: 'Our capabilities of looking in the microbial world are still pretty crude. We have marvelously sensitive techniques for finding what we've found before.'" [Our capabilities are "still pretty crude," are they? Doesn't that directly contradict the very next sentence about "marvelously sensitive techniques"? What he really means is "we haven't found what we haven't found," mainly because our techniques are either pretty crude or marvelously sensitive, and because we haven't yet found anything that just proves there MUST be something out there to be found. Which is just so much mental masturbation.]

--"We don't know the 'rules' of organic chemistry, says John Baross, a University of Washington biologist and the lead author of the report." {Uh, puh-leeze. We don't know the rules of organic chemistry? WTF does that mean? How come every *&^%$#&^%$ chemistry and biology major spends a gazillion hours studying the fording rules of organic chemistry? We seem to be able to manufacture fording teflon spatulas and immortal Twinkies out of it. Is there more to learn? Sure. But we "don't know the rules of organic chemistry"???? It's statements like this that send me right up the wall.]

I don't have any problem whatsoever visualizing some alien life form based on silicon, or using liquid methane or ammonia or some other fluid instead of water. That's all okey-doke by me. But I have a serious problem believing that such a life form already exists here on earth and we've been too hung up on watching "American Idol," doing tequila shooters, or are otherwise too freakin' stupid to have noticed by now. Four hundred years ago? Sure. But not now.

Finally, I just want to give some props to the mad skilz of scientists of all kinds over the past couple hundred years. I think by and large they've all done a great job figuring out all manner of stuff we haven't known before. Sure, there have been wrong turns, stupid mistakes, and bum notions along the way. But we've been to the bottom of the ocean in 36,000 feet of water. We've been to the moon and back. We've sent probes to other planets. We've eradicated major classes and categories of diseases, and are close to some breakthroughs on some remaining tough ones. We've got (IMHO) a good grasp of chemistry, physics, biology, astronomy, math, engineering, yadda yadda--you name a hard science and I think we're well down the road on all of them. I don't think we are the half-blind bumbling buffoons that report makes us out to be. Paris Hilton notwithstanding.

Mudge... you really shouldn't hold back. Next time, just let it all out and tell us what you really think.

;-)

Mudge - That's a darn good rant.

And I agree that there is something kind of "have you ever really looked at your hand" about this stuff. But let's face it. Carbon is more than just the element that forgets to wear underwear. An O-Chem teacher once showed us the Organic Chemistry Periodic Table. It consisted of an enormous C surrounded by little bitty H's and O's. Carbon is the chemical backbone upon which all biochemistry hangs. So to say life on earth is Carbon-based is pretty fair.

I agree the phrase "rules of organic chemistry" is confusing. I guess it depends on what is meant by "organic chemistry." I'm not happy with my own statement that weird life is life without organic chemistry. I think the true interpretation would be life without conventional biochemistry.

And I agree that it is unlikely that we missed too much terrestrial stuff, but we could have. We detect a lot of microscopic life from the chemistry. Microscopic life with weird chemistry might be hard to detect.

Finally, I think it says great things about scientists that they can think up such weird concepts.

We are weird life...

The "they-might-already-be-here-and-we-don't-even-know-it" argument is often advanced by the astrobiological-industrial complex to justify their extravagent expenses and to keep the rest of us down.

'The diversity of organic chemicals is due to the versatility of the carbon atom. Why is carbon such a special element? Let's look at its chemistry in a little more detail.'

http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=60

And since bad things come in threes...

http://www.kcra.com/sports/13782572/detail.html

Uncorroborated as of yet, but farewell, Mr. Walsh.

:-(

A brief interruption to let you know that Bill Walsh, former head coach of the S.F. 49ers died this morning following a battle with leukemia.

You may now return to your carbon based discussion.

A brief interruption to let you know that Bill Walsh, former head coach of the S.F. 49ers died this morning following a battle with leukemia.

You may now return to your carbon based discussion.

Another example of weird life would be if it didn't have cells.

'Cellular structure is so widespread on Earth that a central theory in biology is known as cell theory. An unexpected form of life that would be considered "weird" would be a life form that does not exploit cells but achieves a distinction between "self" and "non-self" that is not "cellular" as we define the term.'

I think I can state with 100% accuracy that it was common to find weird forms of life under the sofa cushions at my house for a good long while. Thankfully those forms of life left when their progenitors moved out.

You want some carbon-based molecules seen in space, check these out, from the Baross report:

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11919&page=18

I think the point is, there are certain features of Earthlife that jump out at us. Like, it all uses liquid water and carbon-based polymers (such as DNA), uses DNA as the genetic information carrier, has cells, and is subject to Darwinian evolution. The question is whether these are incontrovertible features of life or not. This report says "probably not" but some alternatives would certainly be weirder than others. The consensus for a long time has been otherwise: You must have carbon, must have liquid water, etc.

I had a Physical Chemistry (P-Chem) teacher who worked with liquid crystals. He used to suggest that with a few tweaks liquid crystals could substitute for cells. (I think he was heavily influenced by late night viewings of "The Andromeda Strain")

So give your flat screen monitors due respect. Don't tick them off.

Joel - Your 3:25 is a great paragraph. I think all that information is in your Outlook article, but that one synopsis really brings it all together.

So, if the aliens send robots, will we be able to determine if they are "alive" or not?

kb,
Don't get me started on Cylons. I could really geek out. More.

I haven't touched Chemistry since 11th grade AP, but I remember all those trippy hexagonal rings. Carbon is the party animal element.

Vascular plants (pine trees, cycads, flowering plants--in other words, regular plants) famously have cells--the term comes from cells of cork bark, as examined by Hooke (Google check: yup).
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/hooke.html

But plants are a bit un-cellular in that their cells are connected by tube-y things called plasmodesmata. At least there's usually just one nucleus per cell.

But some of the mycetozoa (slime molds)patently don't have cells. Just a flowing, pulsating mass of live stuff.

Once on a dark and stormy night returning home from a Monday night 49er game we stopped a Sam's in Tiburon for dinner (about the only thing open that late) and there was only one other couple there in a corner booth. We recognized the laugh from the Late Late show. It was Tom Snyder. We went over to say hello and tell him how much we enjoyed his show. He was very affable. He asked about the game and willing gave us his autograph. Him and Bill Walsh both passing the same day has left SF with a hole in its heart.

Padouk, the core of my argument is the statement that "weird chemistry might be hard to detect" isn't a rational statement a scientist ought to be making, although it might be true. The reason we think it might be "hard to detect" is because we haven't found any of it. Ergo, jeez, it must be hard to find. There is still the underlying premise that it exists--and the proof it exists is: we haven't found it yet! And that's absurd reasoning. It's exactly the same argument as saying that the abominable snowman is hard to capture, and we know this is true because we haven't caught one yet. The "proper" deduction to be drawn from the fact that we haven't found any abominable snowmen, Loch Ness monsters, elves, ghosts, pots of gold at ends of rainbows, etc., is not that they are hard to find but that they most likely don't exist. We aren't just a bunch of bumbling abominable snowman catchers.

The "proper conclusion" from the fact that we haven't found any weird life on earth is that it probably (almost certainly) doesn't exist. That being so, why are people spending more than casual effort looking for it?

And if it doesn't (in all likelihood) exist here, why should we assume it exists elsewhere? Or if it does, why should we assume it is hard to find OUT THERE? That to me is a non-sequitar: because it is hard to find on earth (because it doesn't exists here), it's going to be hard to find "out there," where it may well exist. That just isn't logical, Mr. Spock. Maybe it's really darn easy to find it "out there" and we don't have to worry too much about being able to spot it, assuming it doesn't waltz up to our space probe and take a bite out of its radio dish.

Wouldn't it be logical to assume that an entire planet that uses, say, methane or ammonia as the base liquid would be covered with all sorts of creepy-crawlies made out of ammonia and silicon? This planet is covered with all sorts of creepy-crawlies based on carbon and water. Would some alien spacecraft that landed here have too much trouble spotting our resident life forms, do you think? Wouldn't Commander Erq391 turn to Science Advisor Sjlmr9567 and exclaim, "Jeez, this planet is *lousy* with carbon-based life forms! Just look at those suckers run and hide! Man oh man, they're in the water, they're leaping out of the water, they're flying in the atmosphere, they're crawling all over the ground."

In short, why would we assume they are hard to find because *we're* NOT hard to find? I don't get it. Either life is ubiquitous, or it isn't. If you assume there is some kind of life form on a planet, why also assume there is just one or two kinds of it, and that they must necessarily be difficult to detect using ordinary senses (such as sight)? If you assume life on planet X, wouldn't it follow that there ought to be all kinds of it in various shapes and sizes, wandering around willy nilly?

Cute short video explaining carbon to non-science minded people like me: http://www.npr.org/news/specials/climate/video/

I understood this better than anything my science teachers taught me. Maybe it's because I'm so visual...

I would much prefer a more performance based test for "life". It should be self-replicating, exothermic, and non-entropic. I'm sure it needs a few more criteria to exclude things like crystals and Republicans.

Note this shout out to Joel...

(from St. John's College's Continuing Education classes)

FINE ARTS WORKSHOPS

Workshops offer instruction in the practice of the fine arts.

Catch and Release: Writing the Personal Narrative
Instructor: Laura Oliver
Tuesday, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
September 11 - November 13
Barr Buchanan Center, The Nelson Room 305
Tuition: $175.

"You can do almost anything with what you already have." -Joel Achenbach

When Mak Dehejia was a young man in India he visited a shadow pundit--a man who could read the future in the way Mak's shadow fell along a knotted stick. Years later that forecast became an essay concerning destiny and desire. When Amy Hempel's heart skipped a beat, what happened as her body rushed to fill the void became a story about vulnerability and expectation.

Personal narratives are stories crafted from life experience. These stories may take the form of essays, vignettes or memoirs, but each narrative exposes a point of connection between the personal and the universal. In this class we will learn to plumb the depth of experience for emotional truth and to shape that journey on the page in a way that engages the reader. Reading assignments will be discussed, in-class writing exercises will inspire, and participants' work will be shared in a stimulating, informative and supportive writing environment. Students receive attentive feedback, instruction, inspiration and numerous handouts to support their work in and out of the classroom.

Mudge writes:

'Wouldn't it be logical to assume that an entire planet that uses, say, methane or ammonia as the base liquid would be covered with all sorts of creepy-crawlies made out of ammonia and silicon?'

That's sort of the point of the entire discussion. Forget "assuming" anything. Can life exist with ammonia or liquid methane (methanol?) as the solvent? No, it's not "logical" to assume that. Water has specific qualities, highly useful to life, that other liquids lack. Not all liquids are endowed by their creator with the same talents. Because I'm not a chemist I can't explain it intelligently without going wildly out of my depth, but this committee tackled this specific issue -- do you need water? -- and even Baross, who is very open minded on these things, thinks you probably need at least a little bit of water.

Obviously I really liked this piece, and the annotations, but in the comments to the column, Dreamer Evel Knievels over the Great Life River Canyon into philosophy, and rightly so. Boodlers on the Achenblog have speculated and philosophized about the nature of reality and life from when Achenbach and the WaPo team opened the lid for reader comments.

Could life, the universe, and everything it have a higher source and purpose, a manifestation of the intersection of all of the thoughts and consciousnesses in the Universe, interference patterns in the Higgs ocean of strings vibrating to the Great Cosmic Symphony? Is there a single Conductor, with all of us playing our parts as written, or are we all improvising some Multiversal free-form jazz jam session?

Or are we just scuzz growing on a saucy carbon meatball that's hasn't been refrigerated properly?
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2006/07/bcs_cosmic_gumbo.html

As "The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems" points out, we humans typically display biases in what we look for as 'life'; terracentrcity, carbon chauvinism, water over other liquids, etc. and from what we know of Earth chemistry, this makes sense. But assuming that the entire universe is just like this is like an amoeba assuming that the entire world is just like the puddle he lives in.

Mudge, buddy, have you ever given any thought that in the great scheme of things, all the matter and energy we can perceive directly is about 4% of the universe? What about the other 96%? At this point we think that other 96% of friggin' *everything* is comprised of 73% dark energy and 23% dark matter, both of which we humans can only gauge by their effects on regular matter (which they both don't seem to interact strongly with, anyway), sort of the way a person with completely impaired vision would perceive an elephant after bumping into it. Could there be life comprised of dark matter that subsists on dark energy living right under our noses? How would we know?

Humph, I never imagined you for a baryonic bigot, but geez, man, open your mind.

As far as life goes, I think that across the entire universe you'd get some argument about exactly what it is, except possibly that it is what you make it to be.

Like love, you know it when it happens and you know it when it's gone.
But everything in between is up to us.

bc

PS, perhaps more later, it's a busy day for me...

Bh, thanks for the comment on Snyder and Walsh.

From the obit on Bill Walsh: 'Few men did more to shape the look of football into the 21st century. His cerebral nature and often-brilliant stratagems earned him the nickname "The Genius" well before his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073000998.html?hpid=moreheadlines

I just saw the headline, "Redskins, Landry Agree to Deal" and just about had a heart attack--you see, I have been deeply, deeply traumatized and scarred over the years by Tom Landry, and notwithstanding the fact that the b@st@rd is dead, any mention of the name "Landry" just makes me wince and flinch. This story seems to be about LaRon Landry, whom I suspect is no relation.

And this just in: Chief Justice John Roberts has been rushed to the hospital; he fell down while at his vacation home. He's apparently all right, just being checked out.

Mudge, Ivansdad is a big Cowboys fan, grew up in the days of Landry. His Cowboys addiction, which involves much grumpusing at the television during football season, is perhaps why the Boy isn't interested in the game. Ivansdad's language, addressed to the team, often made it inadvisable for the Boy to watch with him as an innocent child. I liked it that Landry always wore a hat.

Mudge - you seem to be specifically offended that the weird life folks suggest that there might be undiscovered forms of life here on earth, as if such scientists are pitching the existence of hidden WMDs in Milwaukee.

Part of science is about separating that which is possible from that which is impossible. Abominable Snowman:possible. Abominable Perpetual Motion Machine: not possible. Up until now, it seems as if the consensus is that undetected life on earth was impossible. The Weird Life folks are suggesting that this is an error. It is possible. Now the onus is on the experimentalists to figure out to find it or not.

Pending funding, of course.

Breaking news--probably minor:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chief Justice John Roberts was taken by ambulance to a hospital on Monday after a fall at his home in Maine, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Roberts has a summer home in Port Clyde, Maine. The spokeswoman said the chief justice, 52, was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

She said she did not know how he fell or what injuries he might have suffered.

bc - Great. Now I have the following tune cootie.

"Looking for life in all the wrong places.."

>The "proper" deduction to be drawn from the fact that we haven't found any abominable snowmen, Loch Ness monsters, elves, ghosts, pots of gold at ends of rainbows, etc., is not that they are hard to find but that they most likely don't exist

This is quite reasonable, the only problem being we do in fact sometimes find species that everyone thought were extinct. Funky life can also be very shy.

If you're really looking outside the "we think this is life" box I find it necessary to question those basic assumptions yellojkt mentioned (It should be self-replicating, exothermic, and non-entropic.)

Why? That's like the people who insist an activity be defined as a sport only if there's contact, a ball, or a particular scoring system.

In short, you really don't and can't know the rocks aren't alive. Maybe they're just vewwwwy quiet, and long-lived with a great sense of privacy and decorum which clearly they've been trying to teach us for quite some time.

A neat SF take on some weird life was Greg Egan's story "Wang's Carpets".

>have you ever given any thought that in the great scheme of things, all the matter and energy we can perceive directly is about 4% of the universe? What about the other 96%?sort of the way a person with completely impaired vision would perceive an elephant after bumping into it. Could there be life comprised of dark matter that subsists on dark energy living right under our noses? How would we know?<

We wouldn't know--which is why the argument is pointless. If you set up the parameters of the problem as being something we are unable to detect--then the obvious answer is, we'd be unable to detect it. And if we are unable to detect it--how could it affect us if we can't detect it? Therefore, for all practical purposes it doesn't exist, at least in no meaningful way. It's the same argument for the existence of heaven and hell, etc.--you can't prove they exist, you can't detect them, you have no scientific evidence, etc. And that isn't "science"--it's just "faith." Which is fine. But don't try to tell me it's science, or uses logical reasoning, etc.

Unless of course something happens and the dark matter, dark energy, life forms based on dark energy, whatever, suddenly does something--in which case we'd be able to detect it (destroying the premise that it is so far undetectable). As far as we can tell, in the past 13 billion years or so, there hasn't been anything remarkable that has happened that we haven't roughly figured out by now. We know asteroids hit the earth once in a while, and may do so again. We have no particular reason to suspect something may suddenly lunge out of the dark matter and swallow us up or wipe us out; as near as we can tell, it hasn't so far. Whatever the he11 it is, it seems pretty stable and benign. So far, anyway.

And my other argument is, we humans are NOT analogous to completely visually impaired people trying to suss out an elephant. We are visually pretty acute. And we're smart. And we figure things out. Just because we don't know what dark matter is *now* doesn't mean we won't some day figure it out. The blind people in the parable all leap to the wrong conclusions, based on limited evidence and perspective. We often do too....but then we think about it for a while, we talk to each other (which is key), we compare notes, and we sooner or later figure it out. We aren't stuck with small bits of misleading data like the people in the parable. We are constantly gathering data one small piece at a time, trying out theories, measuring, speculating, revising, analyzing, thinking of new ways to solve parts of the puzzle, and so on. I don't have to tell you that.

I think I am much more optimistic and open to new ideas than some of you guys are. I'm not tryin' to toot my own horn, but *I* never particularly thought that carbon and water were the *only* possible building blocks of life, at least not since the StarTrek episode about the Horta. I mean, c'mon. So I just don't see what all the fuss is about. And I still stand by my assertion that the statement "We don't know the rules of organic chemistry" is utter bunkum--and the guy who said it needs to be called on it.

Gotta go run for the bus, unless of course some previously undetectable force from the dark matter steals my bus ticket and makes me walk home.

Some plants masquerade as rocks. Like Lithops (from Namibia?)

If Chief Justice Roberts' house is in Port Clyde, Maine, isn't that where the sardines used to come from?

You know, the Justice is young enough that he could conceivably have been surfing, and bonked his head on the board. I assume that whatever happened, it's not serious.

Mudge - Like I said, I don't much care for that "rules" quote either, but I am pretty sure no Organic Chemist would ever claim that everything about this absurdly complex field is known.

I, for one, am relieved that it's not one of the more "liberal" justices that was rushed to the hospital. Is that wrong of me?

Frostbitten, thanks for the morning glory picture. Mine are still to come (I hope).

The discussion is fascinating and difficult to follow -- and indeed, keep nose to wheel at the day job!

I will say that it all makes me happy. Even when I skim and always when I say, uhhh? Such a wild thing is life, whether based on carbon or silicon or elixer Q.

And weird is as wonderful as ordinary. But what will be common might be the mathematics of say

*freckling patterns
*Fibonacci numbers, especially in plant stem and petal arrangements
*handedness or chirality (will it be left-handed or right-handed or contain mirror images as a matter of course)
*size (how big can it be?)

I'm chiming in before a brief dinner break (and then onto a triumphant finish to a set of causes of action in a complaint -- Ivansmom can relate, I'm sure). And, well, yes, I'm still on the Ingemar Bergman recollection (do forgive me the obsession).

My favorites also include Autumn Sonata (with that other famous "Bergman" -- Ingrid), Scenes from a Marriage and Face to Face. I already have Scenes on video (as well as its successor Saraband on DVD), and I would love to get my hands on Autumn and Face. There's a *lot* of talking in his films, and I tend to focus on the dialects (can pretty much tell what parts of the country the actors are from) and the nuances. Cries and Whispers is also very good, and I just love that hateful scene when Liv Ullman is being oh, so b!tchy to Ingrid Thulin. Very powerful movie and all those in it are really magnificent. Erland Josephson has got to be one of my favorites (for tons of reasons). I once passed him while we were both walking in opposite directions on Odengatan in Stockholm. Our eyes met, we nodded to each other, said "Hej" and that was the end of our very short, yet intensive, relationship.

Dinner, and then *alas* the law, awaits. Or is that "await"? Whatever. . . .

Do carry on.

CP - Have you ever encountered the chirality and odor phenomenon? When I took O-Chem the professor let us sniff samples of organic chemicals that different only in their reflective symmetry. One smelled like oranges, while the other smelled like turpentine.

Weird stuff.

No one has yet invoked Conway or Wolfram, so I will, in regards to life being a thing which is modeled well by cellular automata. More will be seen on this front in the future. As cellular automata rely on computers, life relys on carbon.

Life is also a process which catalyzes oxidation faster than it "normally" would occur. Enzymes are catalysts. Life may be seen as a parasite on disorder in matter. Fire has many commonalities with life. So does crystallization. The carbon based enzymes allow calcium to be deposited in shellfish faster than the concentration of calcium in seawater would naturally crystallize.

Life is a hack. A piggyback acceleration of entropy used to create more life.

We can't go back to the innocent world of RNA only. The sterile soup allowed all sorts of things to occur that ravenous life would, if present, consume immediately. DNA is the serpent in the RNA-world garden.

mostly, I don't think so. And you put it in such a nice manner!

Ground Control to Major Tom

Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you....

Hey, boodle:

I currently have in my hands, retrieved from my very own mailbox today, a photograph of our very own Cassandra, wearing a bright yellow Achenblog shirt and looking not at all grandmotherly--she's, like, a spring chicken! I can totally imagine the kickball game now.

As I told her, I doubt if anyone doubts her authenticity at this point, but at her request I am bearing witness. Cassandra is a real person. Not only that but she is surrounded, in the photo, by real kids, who appear to be paying very close attention as she directs them in a project.

**Cassandra, thank you for sharing, and thanks again for sticking around here.**

And now, a very good night to all. I'm all befuddled with so many worlds colliding today. After I got the letter from Cassandra, I spoke to mo on the phone--we seem to be heading towards a south Florida BPH pretty soon. If anybody out there thinks they might be within shouting distance of Fort Lauderdale this Saturday, Aug. 4, email me at kbertocci (at) hotmail.com and I'll send details.

>Ground Control to Major Tom

Funny, I just got that from Amazon and loaded it up on the iPod yesterday. Great piece, especially as a synth guy. Very uneven album though. I much prefer Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust.

RD, here is an example from organic chemistry about the right-handedness of a molecule vs. the left-handness of a molecule. Carvone exists in two chiral or handed forms.

(S is for the Latin 'sinister', which means left-handed; r is for rectus or right.)

S-(+)-carvone smells like anise or carraway;
R-(-)-carvone smells like spearmint.

I think that this example should be in every high school chemistry class. And, the experiment where you synthesize luciferol, the firefly chemical.

Making banana oil is pretty good times, too.

Organic chemistry was (is) my favorite science class ever, save for any botany class. Flowers rule. But chemistry is cool, too.

http://www.moleculeoftheday.com/2006/05/12/carvone-you-can-smell-chirality/

Molecule of the day. What a concept!

I'm laughing, very loudly. Alone in my office.

Have quickly Boodleskimmed and (forgive me if I've missed a bunch of stuff), I love (Lub) this place.

Three things I've picked up on:

Curmudgeon is involved (as I am, and as is College Parkian) with words. I drive my dear husband mathematician Himself, when I dispute the "multiple universe" theory, mad! For him, universe means one thing, and for me, another. For me, universe means everything there can be, and ever could be, in perpetuity. For him? It is a coherent system of physics which can be understood as a whole. It took us a few years to understand that his "universe" and my "Universal" were not the same language and all that that implies.

Karen received a picture of Cassandra and her kids today, and told us about it. I remember that within the last four weeks someboodler described Cassie as "an old woman." Hah! I think not. Cassandra is (if that) a mere five years older than I, and I am not an old woman and will not be old within the next five years. For pity's sake, mid-fifties is not "old." Not by a long shot. Help me out here, Cassandra S.

Cassandra, I love you, and I think you are wonderful.

What Cassandra is, and I am, is "seasoned" and "fabulous." Deal.

'Mudge, can you please (at your convenience, without disturbing your hemobling) resend your best crab-cake recipe to dbioyoki@hotmail.com? I have good crabmeat, and only lack the rest of it.

I too received a photo from Cassandra, which I have on my desk. What struck me first is the beauty of her handwriting. A large, lovely, confident script she has. (I am envious, since my handwriting went to he11 in a handbasket when I started word processing, and it wasn't that good to begin with.)

What do our Achenblog shirts say about us? Cassandra's is bright green, mine is gray heather. The green becomes her. If I wore a green shirt, I'll bet kids would pay attention to me, just as the kids in the photo are focused on her.

I am grateful for the opportunity to know her and to participate in Achenblog. The science stuff, written about in clear, intelligible language, has expanded this English major's world in many positive ways.

A couple of points, Mudge.

First of all, I nearly added, "Does it matter anyway?" when I wrote the dark matter / dark energy life bit, but I figured I'd let you make that argument, which you did very well.

But in the scheme of things there *is* an unexplained change in the Universe that is attributable to dark energy - from the beginning of our universe, gravity dominated the way the universe behaved and evolved; the cosmic expansion of the universe from the Big Bang would have eventually stopped and then reversed direction into a Big Crunch. But about 6 Billion years ago, dark energy overcame gravity, which caused the universe's expansion to re-accelerate, giving us the universe we see today, with everything moving apart into a cold dark sea of night.

Which, my friend, might be exactly the way *they* wanted things for themselves, after they had 7 Billion years or so to figure out how.

Does it matter?
Well, not to us, but to our decendants Billions of years down the line - it just might.

But then, our great-grand-godchildren may have had enough Time to figure out what's going on and perhaps how to rearrange things to suit *their* way of life.

bc

Off topic, and off-side. But I must say this.

I realized today that this is, in fact, the good life. I am living the best possible way I can. I have real friends, and an extended family, and some landscape, and a community of imaginary friends, and a good work-life.

I am living the best possible life. Excellent.

Slyness said "I am grateful for the opportunity to know her (Cassandra)and to participate in Achenblog. The science stuff, written about in clear, intelligible language, has expanded this English major's world in many positive ways."

And all her words work for me, too.

Minus one thing, apparently, Yoki! Mudge's crabcake recipe. :-0

In fact, the science has gotten to me. I met the girlfriend of a nephew a few months ago, and upon hearing she was an English major, I immediately said, "Oh, change your major and take some REAL courses!"

Dear old aunt nellie!

Whenever I present the Origin of the Universe and the OOL lessons, I always think of the possibility that there is another planet like ours out there that is a replica of ours. We're all there doing things like blogging, doing teqila shooters, being flatulent at inappropriate times, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

BTW, I wonder how Justice Roberts' neurological condition could be diagnosed as benign. Ideopathic sounds even worse. I would think that two drop-you seizures would be indicative of something other than a benign condition.

Yoki: I would count myself in the company of those living the good life you described. It would be better if I could type without looking at the keys.

Jack, I can type without looking at the keys. It's not all it's cracked up to be!

Yeah. I just passed through the dining room to check on one of our cats. Fred was a rescue and started out as a feral cat, then hung himself up by his front leg in the kennel that was his home prior to ours. Our vet didn't think he'd gain use of the limb but up to now he got around pretty normally. About a week ago he started walking funny, took a header off his perch on the server in the dining room, and has gradually lost control over his hindquarters; he can hardly walk. Other than that, he's the same old sweet Fred. His partner in crime is another stray that is the feline from Hades. I think I'm going to lose Fred. :-(

I'm suprised nobody mentioned slime mould.

Or distemper

...or scabies

I think I saw this headline earlier:

"U.S. Pledges Billions as Vick's Middle East Co-Defendant Pleads Guilty"

Maybe not! :-)

That was a weird life / slime mould joke, for those who haven't been paying attention!

>It would be better if I could type without looking at the keys.

In the late sixties learning that skill involved a very proper sturdy and substantial woman, fake blank keys, and lots of exclamations of "Girls, girls, how will you ever earn a living?"

And with that skill firmly learned, if you start on the wrong keys, spell check cannot help.

But I did hear when I graduated college, that is nice dear, how fast do you type?

These are indeed good days.

Jack - and the vet says?

I ask because last Thanksgiving, my fat cat could hardly stand. We had left him and his partner in crime, girl-cat at home with child, while we visited other relatives for ten days. Turns out my boy-cat had stopped eating, dropped 10 pounds, and made himself very ill. Long story short, the vet hospital had visiting hours. He is now fine and has regained those ten pounds and a few more.

According to Wikipedia, there are these species of life on earth, give or take a few: 287,655 plants, 10,000 lichens; 1,250,000 animals, (1,190,200 invertebrates and 58,808 vertebrates); 5-10 million bacteria (so let's split the difference and call it 7.5 million, realizing we might be a couple million light) and 1.5 million fungi. That comes to a total of 10,547,655 species, more or less.

Ten and a half million different species (and maybe up to 13 million). And not one single blessed one of them uses anything but a carbon-based and water-based biochemical system. Not one. And given the overwhelming weight of this number, people are talking about the possibility of a species turning up that goes against the previous 10.5 million, and uses something other than carbon and water. And this speculation exists despite the fact that there is not one single solitary piece of evidence, or even a hint of evidence, nor even a rumor of a hint of evidence, that such a creature might exist somewhere on this planet. There's not even an old wives tale that such a thing might exist. So, yes, Padouk, I am in fact intellectually offended and affronted by the notion. It violates every single thing I know about probability and numbers, or odds, or biology, or chemistry. It violates the very notion of "science" itself. And for somebody to suggest that maybe, for all we know, rocks might be "alive." Yes, I am offended. You should be, too.