[Paleopsych] re: bacterial engineering and our future in space
Bill Tillier
btillier at shaw.ca
Mon Nov 28 15:42:24 UTC 2005
Hi all: Sir Frederic Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe advanced the idea that
biological material could come to the earth's surface from space in the
1970's. They were widely panned for the idea at the time. Since, the
findings of biochemical molecules in space and the analysis of meteorites
have supported the idea. Here is a blurb from New Scientist, January 11
2002. Bill Tillier.
For the first time, millions of bacterial spores have been purposely exposed
to outer space, to see how they are affected by solar radiation. The results
support the idea that life could have arrived on Earth in the form of
bacteria carried from Mars on meteorites.
The idea that life started elsewhere and spread through space is called
panspermia. It was first proposed in 1903 by the Swedish chemist Svante
Arrhenius, who suggested that solar radiation might propel single spores
across solar systems.
Then, in the 1970s, astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe
studied the infrared spectra of interstellar grains of dust and concluded
that they were dried, frozen bacteria. They put forward the controversial
suggestion that life on Earth originated when such bacteria arrived from
space. But critics of their work said that cosmic rays and ultraviolet
radiation from the Sun would kill unprotected spores.
Recent discoveries of Martian meteorites that have reached Earth have raised
the possibility that bacterial spores could have hitched a ride on these
rocks. Most meteorites spend millions of years in space, but meteorites
taking a direct route would make it from Mars to Earth in just a few years -
too short a time to experience much damage from deadly cosmic rays.
The Sun's UV radiation might still pose a danger, however. To assess its
effects, Gerda Horneck of the German Aerospace Centre in Cologne and her
colleagues carried out a series of remote-controlled two-week experiments
aboard the Russian Foton satellite.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
> [mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org]On Behalf Of Gerry
> Reinhart-Waller
> Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 6:18 PM
> To: The new improved paleopsych list; "Jill Andresevic"@earthlink.net
> Cc: Steve Hovland; JZ; Oohbeeb at yahoo.com; sjlee at howardbloom.net;
> Kimberly Blozie; idigdarwin at yahoo.com; BobKrone at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] re: bacterial engineering and our future in
> space
>
>
> Jill and all,
>
> I'm not certain that Watson or Crick concocted their theory because they
> were looped out on acid. Think back to Ernest Haeckel and what he had
> proposed. If you need a refresher, here is one of my "home pages":
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~waluk/origin_of_species.html
>
> I also am without professional scientist credentials but I'm a faithful
> fan of Howard's.
>
> Regards,
> Gerry Reinhart-Waller
>
>
>
>
>
> Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D. wrote:
>
> > And materialists say that God is an unlikely explanation . . .
> > Lynn
> >
> > Steve Hovland wrote:
> >
> >> One of those guys, but I can't remember either.
> >> Whichever one he was, he also did a lot of acid.
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> *From:* Jill Andresevic [mailto:andresevic at earthlink.net]
> >> *Sent:* Saturday, November 26, 2005 9:29 AM
> >> *To:* Steve Hovland; The new improved paleopsych list;
> >> isaacsonj at hotmail.com; eshel at tamar.tau.ac.il
> >> *Cc:* jz at bigbangtango.net; sjlee at howardbloom.net;
> >> kblozie at yahoo.com; idigdarwin at yahoo.com; BobKrone at aol.com;
> >> ohbeeb at yahoo.com
> >> *Subject:* Re: [Paleopsych] re: bacterial engineering and our
> >> future in space
> >>
> >> Steve / Howard, I read that Watson or Crick (not sure which one)
> >> wrote about DNA being sent to Earth on a spaceship, because his
> >> theory was Earth could not create life, therefore life had to
> >> brought here from another place (interesting how this is not
> >> something well known, if indeed it is true). This also could
> >> connect to the fact that a pig and a chicken and a human embryo
> >> all look very much the same early in embryonic development, since
> >> I am speculating that there was one form of DNA that then evolved
> >> into different life forms. I am not a professional scientist like
> >> most of you (I am guessing), just a fan of Howard’s. Curious as to
> >> what you think of this, if anything. Jill
> >>
> >>
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *From: *"Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
> >> *Date: *Sat, 26 Nov 2005 06:52:45 -0800
> >> *To: *"The new improved paleopsych list"
> >> <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>, <isaacsonj at hotmail.com>,
> >> <eshel at tamar.tau.ac.il>
> >> *Cc: *<jz at bigbangtango.net>, <sjlee at howardbloom.net>,
> >> <kblozie at yahoo.com>, "Jill Andresevic" <andresevic at earthlink.net>,
> >> <idigdarwin at yahoo.com>, <BobKrone at aol.com>, <ohbeeb at yahoo.com>
> >> *Subject: *RE: [Paleopsych] re: bacterial engineering and our
> >> future in space
> >>
> >>
> >> Some people think our DNA came here from space
> >> encapsulated in bacteria...
> >>
> >> Steve
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> *From:* paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
> >> [mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org]
> >> <mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org%5D>*On Behalf Of
> >> *HowlBloom at aol.com
> >> *Sent:* Friday, November 25, 2005 8:50 PM
> >> *To:* isaacsonj at hotmail.com; eshel at tamar.tau.ac.il
> >> *Cc:* paleopsych at paleopsych.org; jz at bigbangtango.net;
> >> sjlee at howardbloom.net; kblozie at yahoo.com; Jill Andresevic;
> >> idigdarwin at yahoo.com; BobKrone at aol.com; ohbeeb at yahoo.com
> >> *Subject:* [Paleopsych] re: bacterial engineering and our
> >> future in space
> >>
> >>
> >> Joel--The article you sent, the one below, is not only
> >> amazing. It dovetails with a piece of poetry I wrote as a
> >> treatment for a short film in 2001.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> As usual, the poem was inspired immensely by my interchanges
> >> with Eshel. Take a look:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Could swarms of robo-microbes
> >>
> >> Made by humans and biology
> >>
> >> The techno teams
> >>
> >> That come from dreams
> >>
> >> The wet dreams of technology
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Could cyborg microbes by the trillions
> >>
> >> Launched as space communities
> >>
> >> Explore the dark beyond our skies
> >>
> >> Thrive on starlight, climb and dive
> >>
> >> through wormholes and through nebulae?
> >>
> >> Could they re-landscape Einstein’s space
> >>
> >> And tame time with phrenology?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Could they ride herd
> >>
> >> on mass stampedes
> >>
> >> of x-rays and raw energy
> >>
> >> corralling flares spat by black holes
> >>
> >> at the cores of galaxies?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Could genes retooled
> >>
> >> In swarms of cells
> >>
> >> Become our new conquistadors?
> >>
> >> Could they explore
> >>
> >> Galactic shores
> >>
> >> And synapse reports
> >>
> >> To our brains?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From global thinking
> >>
> >> Could we go
> >>
> >> To cosmos-hopping megaminds
> >>
> >> One small step for E. coli
> >>
> >> A giant step for human kind?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The article:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Retrieved November 25, 2005, from the World Wide Web
> >>
> >>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/24/national/24film.html?adxnnl=1&em
> c=eta1&adxnnlx=1132979630-umqKos8HcAa3U8FsuKGPrQ&pagewanted=print
> >>
> >>
> >>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/24/national/24film.html?adxnnl=1&e
> mc=eta1&adxnnlx=1132979630-umqKos8HcAa3U8FsuKGPrQ&pagewanted=print>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> >>
> >> November 24, 2005 Live From the Lab, a Culture Worth a
> >> Thousand Words By ANDREW POLLACK Your portrait in a petri
> >> dish? Scientists have created *living photographs made of
> >> bacteria, genetically engineering the microbes so that a thin
> >> sheet of them growing in a dish can capture and display an
> >> image.* Bacteria are not about to replace conventional
> >> photography because it takes at least two hours to produce a
> >> single image. But *the feat shows the potential of an emerging
> >> field called synthetic biology, which involves designing
> >> living cellular machines much as electrical engineers might
> >> design a circuit.* "We're actually applying principles from
> >> engineering into designing cells," said Christopher A. Voigt,
> >> assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the
> >> University of California, San Francisco, and a leader of the
> >> photography project, which is described in a paper being
> >> published today in the journal Nature. *One team of synthetic
> >> biologists is already trying to engineer bacteria to produce a
> >> malaria drug that is now derived from a tree and is in short
> >> supply. And J. Craig Venter, who led one team that unraveled
> >> the human DNA sequence, has said he now wants to synthesize
> >> microbes to produce hydrogen for energy. *The technology could
> >> also be used to create new pathogens or synthesize known ones.
> >> So far, however, most synthetic biology accomplishments have
> >> been like the bacterial film - somewhat bizarre demonstrations
> >> of things that can easily be done with electronics. *Synthetic
> >> biologists have*, for instance, *made the biological
> >> equivalent of an oscillator, getting cells to blink on and
> >> off*. To make the bacterial film, *common E. coli bacteria
> >> were given genes that cause a black pigment to be produced
> >> only when the bacteria are in the dark.* *The camera,
> >> developed at the University of Texas, Austin, is a
> >> temperature-controlled box in which bacteria grow, with a hole
> >> in the top to let in light. An image on a black-and-white
> >> 35-millimeter slide is projected through the hole onto a sheet
> >> of the microbes. Dark parts of the slide block the light from
> >> hitting the bacteria, turning those parts of the sheet black.
> >> The parts exposed to light remain the yellowish color of the
> >> growth medium. The result is a permanent, somewhat eerie,
> >> black-and-yellowish picture.
> >> *
> >> Scientists involved in the project said they envisioned being
> >> able to use light to direct bacteria to manufacture substances
> >> on exquisitely small scales. "It kind of gives us the ability
> >> to control single biological cells in a population," said
> >> Jeffrey J. Tabor, a graduate student in molecular biology at
> >> Texas. *Scientists, of course, have been adding foreign genes
> >> to cells for three decades, and the distinction between
> >> synthetic biology and more conventional genetic engineering is
> >> not always clear. *Proponents of synthetic biology say genetic
> >> engineering so far has mainly involved transferring a single
> >> gene from one organism into another. The human insulin gene,
> >> for instance, is put into bacteria, which then produce the
> >> hormone. Each project, they say, requires a lot of
> >> experimentation, in contrast to *true engineering, like
> >> building a microchip or a house, which uses standardized parts
> >> and has a fairly predictable outcome.* "We haven't been able
> >> to transform it into a discipline where you can simply and
> >> predictably engineer biological systems," said *Drew Endy, an
> >> assistant professor of biological engineering at the
> >> Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* "It means the
> >> complexity of things we can make and can afford to make are
> >> quite limited." Professor Endy *and colleagues at M.I.T. have
> >> created a catalog of biological components, which they call
> >> BioBricks*, which are s*equences of DNA that can perform
> >> particular functions like turning on a gene*. Still, since
> >> cells differ from one another and are extremely complex, it is
> >> open to question how predictable biological engineering can
> >> ever be. *M.I.T. has also begun holding a competition for
> >> college students to design "genetically engineered machines."
> >> The bacterial camera was an entrant in 2004 and was made in
> >> part using BioBricks. Mr. Tabor said the idea for bacterial
> >> photography came from Zachary Booth Simpson, a digital artist
> >> who has been learning about biology at the university.* By
> >> chance, the Texas team learned that Professor Voigt in San
> >> Francisco and one of his graduate students, Anselm Levskaya,
> >> had already developed a bacterial light sensor. So the two
> >> groups teamed up. The E. coli bacterium was chosen because it
> >> is easy for genetic engineers to work with. But *since E. coli
> >> live in the human gut, they cannot sense light. Mr. Voigt and
> >> Mr. Levskaya put in a gene used by photosynthetic algae to
> >> respond to light. The bacteria were also given genes to make
> >> them produce an enzyme that would react with a chemical added
> >> to the growth medium. When that reaction occurs, a black
> >> precipitate is produced. *The scientists created sort of a
> >> chain reaction inside the bacteria. When the bacteria are in
> >> the dark, the enzyme is produced, turning the medium black.
> >> When the bacteria are exposed to light, production of the
> >> enzyme is shut off. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
> >> Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us
> >> Work for Us Site Map Back to Top
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----------
> >> Howard Bloom
> >> Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
> >> Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind
> >> From The Big Bang to the 21st Century
> >> Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
> >> University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
> >> www.howardbloom.net
> >> www.bigbangtango.net
> >> Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board
> >> member: Epic of Evolution Society; founding board member, The
> >> Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New
> >> York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement
> >> of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
> >> Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International
> >> Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Institute for
> >> Accelerating Change ; executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
> >> For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
> >> www.paleopsych.org
> >> for two chapters from
> >> The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
> >> History, see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
> >> For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from
> >> the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
> >>
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
> >>
> >>
> >
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>
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