[ExI] Panbiogenesis

The Avantguardian avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 27 05:04:49 UTC 2012


> From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
> To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 9:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Panbiogenesis
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson
> ...
>> Life on the night side at the time of the supernova might have a 
>> chance against everything except the neutrinos, which would pass 
>> through the planet and zap everything, regardless of the size of the 
>> planet.  I'm pretty sure a supernova sterilizes everything in the 
> stellar
> neighborhood.
> 
>> ...Three tenths of a light year is ~20,000 AU.  The energy dumped in a kg
> of material at 1 AU would be 400 M times as that of at 0.3 light year, or
> around 40 B j/kg or around 20 M kWh/kg, or something around a million times
> the energy released in the formation of of the earth.
> The reasonable assumption is that a planet at earth's distance from a
> supernova would blow up spectacularly from the neutrino flux, if it were not
> totally eclipsed by the supernova glare.  Keith
> 
> OK ja, those numbers are ringing a bell from a long time ago when I did some
> BOTECs on this.  Supernova neutrino flux is really bad news for life forms
> as we know it, because it causes one out of every jillion protons to absorb
> a neutrino and (somehow) grabs an electron to become a neutron.  Then if it
> is part of a carbon nucleus (plenty of those in every life form that we
> know) that carbon becomes a boron atom with a half-life of about .02
> seconds.  Most of those decays revert back to carbon 12, but a few of them
> screw up the works as I vaguely recall for a long time ago.  If that life
> form manages to survive the heating, the biochemistry is screwed up by the
> neutrino flux.

Well as far as I know, lethal doses and exposure limits to neutrinos hasn't been determined for any species. And while you might be right, keep in mind I am not talking about your run of the mill life forms here. I am talking extremophiles:
 
Like
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermococcus_gammatolerans
 
and 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans

 
Organisms which can withstand instaneous doses of 5000 Gray and go about business as usual. Organisms that can survive the vaccuum of space, radiation, dessication, and now accelerations that typically are found on the surfaces of white dwarf stars and the shock waves of supernovas. Killing these guys is like trying to atomize dust particles. I imagine it would be very hard to do. And if just *one* of these guys makes it to a new planet, the whole cycle begins anew.
 
An unlikely scenario perhaps but it is certainly possible.
 

Stuart LaForge
 
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson




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