Category Archives: Life

Black and white close-up portrait of Frankenstein's monster with prominent forehead bolts and textured skin.

Frankenstein Revisited – The Successful Development of Synthetic Life

Categories, Life, Threats to Humankind, , ,

On May 21, 2010, the J. Craig Venter Institute (a team of approximately 20 scientists headed by Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, with facilities in Rockville, Maryland and La Jolla, California) successfully synthesized the genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides from a computer record, and transplanted the synthesized genome into the existing cell of a Mycoplasma capricolum bacterium that had had its DNA removed. The newly formed “synthetic” bacterium was able to replicate billions of times, and declared by its creators a new and viable life form. However, not everyone agrees. Some scientists argue it is not a fully synthetic life form since  its genome was put into an existing cell. The Vatican also claims it is not a new life.

Boon or bane? Despite potential practical applications, such as developing useful organisms  for the creation bio-fuel production, there is a dark side. Some scientist fear the techniques used to create the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides could also be used to create a biological weapon, like smallpox. In essence, the smallpox virus could be synthesized in a similar manner from it computer generated DNA code. The newly constructed DNA could then be inserted into existing related pox viruses.

In my opinion, this is another area, similar to artificial intelligence, that lacks appropriate regulation. Theoretically, it would be possible to synthesize a virus even worse than smallpox and unleash it on the world population. It is an existential threat we cannot afford to overlook.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Searching for Potential Alien Artifacts to Establish Proof of their Existence

Categories, Life, Universe Mysteries, , , , , , ,

Similar to the way archaeologists uncover lost civilizations on Earth by analyzing the artifacts left behind, various researchers believe the past presence of advanced aliens could be detected in a similar manner. This is a reasonable approach. It has historically provided evidence of civilizations that appear to have simply vanished. For example, the Mayan calendar is supposedly predicting the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Unfortunately, this is a poor example of a lost civilization, since it never disappeared. In fact, the Maya and their decedents still populate the Maya area, and continue to honor traditions that date back centuries. Millions of Mayans still speak the Mayan language. As for the Maya calendar, most scholars do not interpret it to predict the end of the world.

A real example of a lost civilization can be found in our own North American backyard. The Anasazi lived in the bordering parts of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. The Anasazi civilization emerged about 1100 BC, and appeared to vanish about 1100 AD. However, did they really vanish? Most archeologist think not. They did abandon their traditional homeland. In a number of cases, the “lost” civilizations are not lost. They move to a different location for reasons that generally relate to survival, like water and food availability. However, the point is that we know about the Anasazi civilization by studying the artifacts lefts behind, including their dwellings, pottery, tools, and the like.

Proponents of ancient alien visits to Earth point to the numerous alien-like artifacts. These include:

  • References in religious texts, such as the Book of Ezekiel (Biblical Old Testament)
  • Physical evidence such as Nazca Lines, which depict drawings that can only be fully seen from the air (Peru)
  • Ancient aircraft-type models, like the Saqqara Bird (1898 excavation of the Pa-di-Imen tomb in Saqqara, Egypt), and small gold model “planes” (Central America and coastal areas of South America)
  • Unusual ancient monuments and ruins such as the Giza pyramids in Egypt, Machu Picchu in Peru, Baalbek in Lebanon, the Moai on Easter Island, and Stonehenge in England. Proponents of ancient alien visits argue these structures could not have been built without alien help. They argue that the ability to build them was beyond the capability of humankind at the time they were built.

This is a sampling that proponents of ancient aliens provide as evidence that the Earth has been visited since ancient times by advanced aliens. Numerous books forward this theory. The most famous was written by Erich von Däniken, and published in 1968 (Chariots of the Gods?).

Obviously, this is a speculative theory, and not everyone agrees. In fact, there is considerable disagreement. Several disagree on religious grounds, like the Christian creationist community. Other critics simply say the evidence is subject to various interpretations. In reality, we have not found irrefutable evidence—the “smoking gun.” For example, if we found an electromagnetic transmitter (a radio) of unknown origin inside a newly discovered 3,000-year-old pyramid, that would be a smoking gun.

Source: Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012), Louis A. Del Monte

Image: iStockPhoto

A black and white aerial image showing a rough, cratered surface with several raised mounds or small hills.

Life on Mars? NASA News Conference January 24, 2014

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Is there or has there been life on Mars? Conspiracy theorists say yes and that NASA is covering it up. Often, conspiracy theorists argue that Mars photos (taken by NASA), such as the face on Mars, Pyramids on Mars, and a photo of what appears to be an ape like figure sitting on a rock are proof of a past civilization. While mainstream science debunks these photos as “tricks of light,” they have also admitted that they believe liquid oceans once covered the surface of Mars before its magnetic field disappeared. Did those ancient oceans harbor life?

NASA’s Opportunity rover, one of NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, reached the Red Planet Jan. 24, 2004 (PST), and has continued to transmit valuable scientific data. It landed three weeks after its twin, named Spirit. Both rovers made important discoveries that suggests a wet environment may have once existed on Mars, and that environment could have supported microbial life on ancient Mars. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010, but Opportunity continues to communicate with Earth.

According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “NASA will reflect on the rover’s work in a news conference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014.

The event will originate from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and be carried live on NASA Television and streamed online.

Participants will be: — Michael Meyer, lead scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington — Ray Arvidson, Mars Exploration Rovers deputy principal investigator, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. — John Callas, Mars Exploration Rovers project manager, JPL — Steve Squyres, Mars Exploration Rovers principal investigator, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.”

Will we get an irrefutable answer to the question of life on Mars? Let’s tune in on the news conference and find out.

Sources: NASA JPL Website: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-018

Image: Wikimedia Commons – Small part of the Cydonia region, taken by the Viking orbiter and released by NASA/JPLon July 25, 1976

A highly magnified electron microscope image of a tardigrade, a tiny water-dwelling micro-animal known for its resilience.

What kind of life might we find on other planets? Extremophiles!

Categories, Life, Universe Mysteries, , , , ,

In the last five decades, we have come to learn that life can be highly adaptable. Starting with the discovery of extremophiles in the 1960s, our entire understanding of how life may have evolved on Earth has been undergoing a reassessment. The early Earth would have presented a relatively inhospitable environment, suggesting to scientists that the earliest forms of life may have been extremophiles.

What is an extremophile? An extremophile is an organism that can thrive in an extreme condition that would be detrimental to most life on Earth. Let us take an example of the most complex of all known extremophiles, the tardigrade.

Tardigrades (also known as “water bears”) are 1 millimeter (0.039 in) long when fully grown, with 4 pairs of legs, each with 4-8 claws also known as “disks.” The animals are prevalent in moss and lichen and viewable with a low-power microscope.

What makes them an extremophile? The tardigrade can withstand temperatures as low as minus 273 degrees Celsius (near absolute zero) and as hot as 151 degrees Celsius (well above the boiling point of water, which is 100 degrees Celsius). It is also able to withstand pressures about six times that found in the deepest ocean trenches and ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than humans can survive. The big surprise is they can also live in the vacuum of space.

The average human can live without water for about three days, without food for about ten days, if the external environment is hospitable to humans. However, the tardigrade can go without both food and water for more than 10 years. They dry out to the point where they are less than 3% water, but can rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.

The discovery of extremophiles makes finding life on other planets and moons, even within our own solar system, more likely. For example, just recently researchers discovered bacterium, Planococcus halocryophilus OR1, in permafrost (permanently frozen ground) on Ellesmere Island (part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian territory of Nunavut). The organism thrives at 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius). This discovery offers clues as to the type of life we may find on Mars or Saturn’s moon Enceladus, both of which contain water ice and surface temperatures well below freezing.

What we humans consider hospitable conditions may actually be lethal to extremophiles. For example, the microorganism Ferroplasma acidiphilum needs large amounts of iron to survive. The iron amounts they thrive in would kill most other life forms. On Earth, many extremophiles live deep underground, which was previously thought to be a dead zone for life, due to the absence of sunlight. However, now we know that the majority of our planet’s bacteria live underground.

The planet Mars has two polar ice caps, which consist primarily of water ice. What might we find as we explore these and the surrounding regions? Saturn’s moon Enceladus appears to have liquid water under its icy surface. Because of Enceladus’s apparent water near the surface, it is a prime candidate for extraterrestrial life in the form of extremophiles.

In my YouTube video, introducing my book, Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries, I predicted that we would likely find extraterrestrial life in our own solar system within the next twenty years. I stand by that prediction. In fact, I believe I am being conservative.

I suggest we prepare ourselves. We may be on the verge of discovering life in our own solar system.

Sources:

Image: Wikipedia Commons – The tardigrade Hypsibius dujardini

Detailed anatomical diagram of the human heart with labeled parts including atria, ventricles, valves, and major arteries and veins.

Your Heart Beats 2.5 Billion Times during Your Lifetime

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Science has discovered that almost all mammals, with the exception of humans, have about the same number of heartbeats in their lifetime, approximately 1 million.

However, humans are outliers in that we get over 2 billion beats. According to Nova (source below), the human heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

This may seem counter intuitive because when you sleep, your heart rate is slower and when you exercise or become excited, your heart rate is faster. Therefore, based on life style and temperament, you would expect each person to have a different number of heartbeats in their lifetime. According to OMG Facts (source below), you would be wrong. You would also expect different mammals, with different lifespans, to have a different number of heartbeats during their lives. However, this is not the case either.

According to theoretical physicist, Geoffrey West, there exist simple scaling laws relating animal metabolism to body mass. Larger animals live longer, but they metabolize slower, manifested in slower heart rates. Smaller animals live shorter lives, but have heartbeats that are more frequent. For example, animals from rabbits to elephants have lifespans with just about an equal number of heartbeats, approximately one billion.

Therefore, if you equate lifespan to heartbeats, most mammals experience almost the same length of life, with humans being an exception.

The moral of this story is simple. As a human, you have about twice the number of heartbeats of other mammals. Use them wisely.

Sources:

 

Image: Wikipedia Common