[X] My Assistant

[Decepticon]

I'm surprised no one posted this yet.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/01/07/mar...e.ap/index.html

[Alex Chapman]

I am another long term lurker and I just thought I would and my view to this debate. First of all micro-organisms only survive and replicate in conditions similar to those they have evolved in. If you put some Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes pimples, next to a deep sea hydrothermal vent its not going to do well and the same is true if an extremeophile from that vent was placed on your skin. In fact, we only really have a good understanding of micro-organisms that thrive in conditions similar to the ones produced by our own bodies. We can’t even grow most of the naturally occurring soil bacteria in a lab, nutrient or blood agar at 37C just isn’t what most micro-organisms have evolved to metabolise.

So yes the Viking experiments were fundamentally flawed and were really looking for dormant organisms that would thrive in a 1970’s lab. Martian Life if it exists will thrive in Martian conditions and that is really how it should be studied.

How do you look for something that you don’t know is there and you don’t know what its like? That’s anyone’s guess and we are just going to have to keep sending in-situ experiment packages looking at different regions of mars and attacking the life question from different angles till we get lucky. To be honest the best hope we have is for a large scale series of sample return missions or else get 50 microbiologists on the surface for 5 years. Trying to look at old data that used fundamentally flawed experiments just won’t give an answer.

Only when we see life and see it growing and multiplying and metabolising right in front of us will we conclusively know we have found Martian Life.

As for the hydrogen peroxide question you might as well theorise that life on Mars uses propane or butane as a solvent but that’s all it is a theory, well more like wild speculation and is pretty much pointless. We need to look with open minds and see what not guess what’s there is there and try to prove we are right.

[Bob Shaw]

Early designs for experimental devices to investigate Martian life had great names, like 'Gulliver'. Came the 70s and we just got boring abelled release experiments.

In view of the current extreme range of uncertainty and confusion, may I make a modest proposal: we should press for any new life detection experiment to reflect our inability to sort out the noise from the data (sic) and should name the next device after a true cultural icon of our time!

In short, gentlemen and ladies (damn few apart from Emily!), I give you...

...the Rumsfeld Experiment!


Bob Shaw

[dvandorn]

In view of the current extreme range of uncertainty and confusion, may I make a modest proposal:

Bob, here I thought you were going to suggest eating Martian babies!

Of course, had you done so, you would have deserved a good Swift kick in the pants...

-the other Doug

[Bob Shaw]

Bob, here I thought you were going to suggest eating Martian babies!

Of course, had you done so, you would have deserved a good Swift kick in the pants...

-the other Doug

oDoug:

The reference was *entirely* deliberate!


Bob Shaw