Here's a huge ass fuckin' rant.
Almost all I ever watch on tv are documentaries. Last night I was watching a documentary on planet discovery on Discovery Science channel.
Almost all I ever watch on tv are documentaries. Last night I was watching a documentary on planet discovery on Discovery Science channel.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Of course any time you talk about discovering planets the topic always comes up about discovering planets that support life. And of course the most dominant subject when talking about life and planets is temperature acidity and overall chemical composition. They got onto the subject of how simple organisms can survive in really extreme climates and showed a NASA researcher collecting bacteria n fungus' from Yosemite park where there's volcanic vents and temperatures can reach around 250deg, above the boiling point of water.
It made me think about how most scientists, especially astronomers (at least the ones I've talked to and seen) have such a limited view on life as far as how it can be created and how it can survive. I mean that's fucking nothing compared to the fungus' and virus' that live in the deepest parts of the ocean around the volcanic vents there. Temperatures can reach 700deg and be almost pure sulferic acid with tonnes of pressure. It's almost the same conditions that exist on Venus. Who knows, there could be simple organisms on Venus. I mean for fucks sake there could be fish (or things somewhat like fish) living there. We just haven't sent enough probes there to find out. We might not have to go that far to find life outside of our own planet.
What's even more sad is that these are folks who spend their lives looking for what are sure to be the most exotic creatures in existence, yet there's equally exotic creatures here already that they could go see for substantially cheaper than going to another planet.
In fact it's something that can actually be done in a few hours. Going to even the closest planet at the speed of the fastest man made object would take half a million years. That's about 15 times longer than man has been man. I mean by the time people got there we're going to be evolved to something other than what we look like today.
Now that's not to say that I don't think that folks should be only looking in the deapths of the ocean and not looking for other planets that can be inhabited by us or other creatures. Quite the contrary, it's utterly crucial to keep looking up. No, what gets me is how limited peoples views are on life being created.
It's like people think that there was a single spark and BAM a self replicating molecule was created. Then the protein molecule evolved and got more complicated until it became everything that is life here on earth. It's just ridiculous, I think. I mean I'm a chemist student so I know how chaotic that things are on a molecular level. In chemistry there's what is called a reverse reaction. You see all molecules are constantly being created then breaking up. For example a water molecule will keep cycling back and forth from H20 to Ho- + H+. A water molecule will be kickin back mindin' its own business and a random photon of energy from wherever will come zoomin up to it and break it apart. Then the two products will be kindo low on energy and pop back together again. The photon of energy that broke em up will get released andfly out in some other random direction. Then another photon will come smack into it, breaking it up and it'll come back together again back n forth, in and out, each molecule will go forming and reforming billions of times a second.
There's something similar that happens with evaporation, although the mechanics are different. It's why when you blow on water it feels cold. Like take a spoonful of soup for example. The hottest molecules that are near the surface will evaporate out and then rejoin back into the puddle. In and out, in and out, in and out, back and forth, in random figure eight directions, in and out of the soup. When you blow on it they get blown away and don't have a chance to rejoin, leaving only the coldest ones.
It's pretty similar to a reverse reaction in chemical reactions. Molecules are constantly forming and reforming many (perhaps billions depending on how high the energy level of the substrate they're in is) of times a second. A few times another atom will be near and will join in and form a different molecule. When this happens esentially the molecule mutates. After trillions n trillions of mutations (which can only takes a few minutes depending on the circumstances) molecules can mutate into really complex ones. Even ones that will self replicate, given enough time to cycle through all the random mutations.
I can pretty much guarantee you that it's happened many many times and that self replicating molecules (A.K.A. life) have been created randomly many times over. Oftentimes they'll be broken apart and that'll be the end of it. But it's pretty much guaranteed that some of them actually have survived. Carbon based, silicon based, virtually everything. It's just a matter of statistics. If it can happen then given enough time eventually it will happen. If the odds of a self replicating molecule are 1x10^32768 and mutations occur 1x10^16 per day then after so long it's going to mutate into that self replicating molecule.
It can happen here, it has happened here and it will happen here again. In fact it's a mathematical certainty that it already has. In fact it's probably where we get the different kingdoms from. But maybe not.
Of course any time you talk about discovering planets the topic always comes up about discovering planets that support life. And of course the most dominant subject when talking about life and planets is temperature acidity and overall chemical composition. They got onto the subject of how simple organisms can survive in really extreme climates and showed a NASA researcher collecting bacteria n fungus' from Yosemite park where there's volcanic vents and temperatures can reach around 250deg, above the boiling point of water.
It made me think about how most scientists, especially astronomers (at least the ones I've talked to and seen) have such a limited view on life as far as how it can be created and how it can survive. I mean that's fucking nothing compared to the fungus' and virus' that live in the deepest parts of the ocean around the volcanic vents there. Temperatures can reach 700deg and be almost pure sulferic acid with tonnes of pressure. It's almost the same conditions that exist on Venus. Who knows, there could be simple organisms on Venus. I mean for fucks sake there could be fish (or things somewhat like fish) living there. We just haven't sent enough probes there to find out. We might not have to go that far to find life outside of our own planet.
What's even more sad is that these are folks who spend their lives looking for what are sure to be the most exotic creatures in existence, yet there's equally exotic creatures here already that they could go see for substantially cheaper than going to another planet.
In fact it's something that can actually be done in a few hours. Going to even the closest planet at the speed of the fastest man made object would take half a million years. That's about 15 times longer than man has been man. I mean by the time people got there we're going to be evolved to something other than what we look like today.
Now that's not to say that I don't think that folks should be only looking in the deapths of the ocean and not looking for other planets that can be inhabited by us or other creatures. Quite the contrary, it's utterly crucial to keep looking up. No, what gets me is how limited peoples views are on life being created.
It's like people think that there was a single spark and BAM a self replicating molecule was created. Then the protein molecule evolved and got more complicated until it became everything that is life here on earth. It's just ridiculous, I think. I mean I'm a chemist student so I know how chaotic that things are on a molecular level. In chemistry there's what is called a reverse reaction. You see all molecules are constantly being created then breaking up. For example a water molecule will keep cycling back and forth from H20 to Ho- + H+. A water molecule will be kickin back mindin' its own business and a random photon of energy from wherever will come zoomin up to it and break it apart. Then the two products will be kindo low on energy and pop back together again. The photon of energy that broke em up will get released andfly out in some other random direction. Then another photon will come smack into it, breaking it up and it'll come back together again back n forth, in and out, each molecule will go forming and reforming billions of times a second.
There's something similar that happens with evaporation, although the mechanics are different. It's why when you blow on water it feels cold. Like take a spoonful of soup for example. The hottest molecules that are near the surface will evaporate out and then rejoin back into the puddle. In and out, in and out, in and out, back and forth, in random figure eight directions, in and out of the soup. When you blow on it they get blown away and don't have a chance to rejoin, leaving only the coldest ones.
It's pretty similar to a reverse reaction in chemical reactions. Molecules are constantly forming and reforming many (perhaps billions depending on how high the energy level of the substrate they're in is) of times a second. A few times another atom will be near and will join in and form a different molecule. When this happens esentially the molecule mutates. After trillions n trillions of mutations (which can only takes a few minutes depending on the circumstances) molecules can mutate into really complex ones. Even ones that will self replicate, given enough time to cycle through all the random mutations.
I can pretty much guarantee you that it's happened many many times and that self replicating molecules (A.K.A. life) have been created randomly many times over. Oftentimes they'll be broken apart and that'll be the end of it. But it's pretty much guaranteed that some of them actually have survived. Carbon based, silicon based, virtually everything. It's just a matter of statistics. If it can happen then given enough time eventually it will happen. If the odds of a self replicating molecule are 1x10^32768 and mutations occur 1x10^16 per day then after so long it's going to mutate into that self replicating molecule.
It can happen here, it has happened here and it will happen here again. In fact it's a mathematical certainty that it already has. In fact it's probably where we get the different kingdoms from. But maybe not.
VIEW 14 of 14 COMMENTS
bexi:
thanks a lot for your comment on my video 
eyesofatragedy:
yay! im excited to see you this weekend! Whoever thought that us chat folks would be meeting up in Awesomeland!!