[extropy-chat] ET is a Bacterium was Dark Matter and ET.

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 20 14:21:42 UTC 2005



--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> --- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > The beast you are describing is an ultra
> > extremophile that
> > would use catalytic elements like tungsten and other
> > high temperature
> > elements in its protiens and today would be
> > generally inert at normal
> > temps and pressures.
> > 
> > Such creatures already exist in the Archaea and
> > thrive throughout the
> > earth's crust.
> 
> Point well taken. But it is still entrely possible
> that the common ancestor of both Eubacteria and
> Archaea came from outer space. The fact that Archaea
> are such extremophiles make it likely they could exist
> on other planets and not just the "garden" variety,
> but in the crust of Io for example or under the frozen
> oceans of Europa. They are fascinating little buggers
> though. Eating iron, beathing sulfur . . . as alien as
> you get without leaving Terra.

The problem is that extremophiles tend to not survive extremes they
aren't built for. A high pressure, high temp extremophile doesn't do
well at low pressure/no pressure low temperature and vice versa. Bugs
evolved for cold just die as their protiens precipitate out of solution
when temps get too high. Hot, high pressure bugs see their protiens
contract so tight that they tear themselves apart.

Another problem is transfer. Given that astronomical bodies tend to hit
each other at velocities in excess of 20,000 mph, the impact temps and
pressures of such collisions are too excessive for any life, even high
temp, high pressure bacteria, to survive. You are going to have to find
a bug that lives and thrives in lava to solve that missing link.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail for Mobile 
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. 
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail 



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list