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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Dan<b>…</b><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] NASA tease on SETI find<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>On the other hand, I would expect arsenic to be incorporated into tissues. I don't see anything earth-shattering about this finding. It's not like the central theory of biochemistry up to this point was something that utterly and definitively ruled out arsenic. In fact, to me, not having arsenic in the biochemistry of most Earth life seems more like an accident of history<span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This is an interesting case because arsenic is actually so chemically similar to phosphorus, yet it is so nearly universally toxic to life that it often cannot even be used as a pesticide: highly effective but also too dangerous to the personnel applying the stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Are you being serious here too? Did you completely rule out slightly different biochemistries? Were you estimating the number of places life might arise or spread to based on estimates of how many places might have plentiful arsenic? And what were your estimates? Have you now doubled the number of such places? Tripled them? Etc.?<span style='color:#1F497D'>...</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Not so much that I ruled out alternate life chemistries, but rather we have too few examples of it. When we talk about uploading, we are actually talking about an alternate life chemistry in a sense. Any actual example of it is very exciting.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> This sounds almost like a promotional stunt to justify funding or keep NASA in the news than anything else. I mean here the way the story was played up -- not the actual find.)<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>Regards,<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>Dan<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Certainly there was plenty of hype surrounding the announcement, but I can forgive NASA for that. I read what the NASA guy said, which wasn’t that far off base. The popular press ran with the ball, supplying the most egregious hype. I can imagine the morale at NASA is extremely low, after the retirement of the shuttle (leaving the US without a man-rated launcher), the cancellation of Orion (leaving the US without a man-rated reentry system), a repeated failure to explain what the space station is actually good for, and perhaps the deepest injury, NASA director Bolden’s comment:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN style='color:black'>"When I became the NASA administrator, [Obama] charged me with three things," NASA head Charles Bolden said “…and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:black'><a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/nasa039s-new-mission-building-ties-muslim-world">http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/nasa039s-new-mission-building-ties-muslim-world</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha:100.0%'>Well you know, plenty of us, even hardcore lifelong space fans, read that comment and seriously questioned whether we need NASA at all. I don’t understand Bolden’s motive for revealing that scandalous request. I know several hardcore space scientists, born to be space scientists, live for it, gave it everything, earned a PhD at the sacrifice of a family life, all space all the way. Then they read that comment. I can imagine the NASA scientists feeling like they have been demoted to foreign ambassador or US state department flunky.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha:100.0%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-color:#376092;mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha:100.0%'>spike</span><span lang=EN style='color:black'><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>