Extraterrestrial Life Found And Confirmed? NASA To Hold Press Conference! (1 Viewer)

[SWFF]

This caught my eye in a serious way. Should be interesting . . .


DREAD CENTRAL: Yes, you read that headline correctly, and we're not kidding with you either. While we spend most of our time talking about fictitious things involving monsters, ghosts, and aliens, it's always interesting when something rooted in reality comes to light that we just can't ignore. You never know ... this coming Thursday ... life as we know it may change.


NASA just released the following press release:


"WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, December 2, 2010, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.


Participants are:

[*] Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington

[*] Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.

[*] Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

[*] Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.

[*] James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation, and telephone number to Steve Cole (e-mail here) or call 202-358-0918 by noon, December 2nd."



[*]

How will this newly discovered Astrobiological Discovery impact our lives? Well, it's unlikely that anyone will be asking anyone else to take us to their leader, but you have to admit this is pretty damned exciting. Are we alone? Tell us what you think below.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Shawn, I hate to keep raining on your parade, but there is much less to this story than you're indicating (as well as numerous Websites). Why not go to the independent site known as NASAWatch.com where there are already posts about this curiously worded NASA announcement. But, no, NASA has not discovered extraterrestrial life. JB

 

[SWFF]

Figures. In the back of my mind, I had a feeling this was some kind of jack job. Well, you can't blame a guy for wanting to believe. The Truth Is Out There. Maybe, I'll change the heading and make this thread something else. Got any ideas?

 

[Bryan X]

I have insider knowlege regarding tomorrow's NASA announcement. Tomorrow they will announce that Silica absorbs extraterrestrials.

 

[ThomasC]

From Gizmodo:

Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.


At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.


But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.


No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology.

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/

 

[SWFF]

So, this wasn't a jack job after all! Interesting.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, that's why I advised you to go to NASAWatch.com. This is being covered there. The bottom line is this: If certain bacteria are able to thrive on, of all things, arsenic, then it does alter the equation of what, how, and where we can hope to discover life. The old phrase "life as we know it" just got expanded. And it's all based on something discovered here on Earth.

 

[DaveF]

I've solicited a comment from my bio-science friends, to get a better understanding of how important this is:


For my bio-science friends, help out your squishy-science illiterate friend: on a scale of one to ten, where one is "stop cluttering up my Facebook" and ten is "our understanding of life is profoundly changed", how do you rank this news?

 

[Cees Alons]

It seems that the research underlying this "find" could appear to be seriously flawed.


They may have introduced just enough phosphate in their lab arsenic fluid to make a normal bacteria grow. It is probably a new strain alright, but some scientists seem to think it's NOT a new type of life. In fact it is a "nephew" of the Coli bacteria, which would prove that it came after guts were developed in our world.


The hype is only partly caused by the NASA, although started by them of course, the rest are the media....



Cees