[extropy-chat] stardust at home

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
...
> At 07:54 PM 1/20/2006 -0800, spike wrote:
> 
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
  
> >Friends, is this a great time to be alive, or what?  {8-]
> 
> Yeah, right--it's all fun and games until the Andromeda Strain rips out of
> the lab and eats everyone's head.
> 
> Damien Broderick
> [I *hope* I'm joking...]

Ja, you are joking, I can assure you.  This dusty old planet 
has passed thru the tails of comets millions of times, yet 
never have we suffered having our heads devoured.  {8-]  At 
least I have not.  {8^D

Amara may be able to verify, but it is easy to imagine that 
several tons of cosmic dust enter the atmosphere every 
day.  There is a fairly straightforward calculation that
shows that a lifeform on a sufficiently small grain of
cosmic dust could survive atmospheric reentry.  I will
dig out the text on this, or perhaps attempt to rederive
it from first principles, should there be sufficient 
replyage to this comment.

This of course leaves unanswered the fundamental question 
of what is the noun form of the verb "reply", if not 
replyage?  Replyitude?  Replyation?  Just reply?  Dr. Broderick,
you are the scholar of letters among us, what is the answer sir?   

spike