Originally published at: These organisms are 830 million-years-old and may still be alive | Boing Boing
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Certain meteorites, such as Zag, have large halite crystals. Some have been found to contain fluid.
I await my cut of the movie rights for Andromeda Strain Redux.
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I do wonder how many bio/viro/whatevs-ologists are racing against each other to find the thing that will wipe out the human race.
I mean, if I had to go through thousands and thousands of old ice or soil samples, that would be one of the few motivators to keep going. I suppose I could also stumble across some cancer curing bacteria, but I guess I’m a optimistic pessimist.
(No, I am not anywhere near such a line of work.)
“Possible survival of microorganisms over geologic time scales is not fully understood,”
Silent screaming…
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If they are alive, oxygen will probably kill them. If that doesn’t, something else probably will. Keeping them alive is the hard bit.
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The next headline will be: ‘Possible survival of macroorganisms over the next five minutes not considered likely’
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It would be fascinating and also a little disappointing if we ended up discovering alien life, especially intelligent alien life, that evolved to exist at dramatically different time scales than humans. Imagine trying to communicate with a life form that took decades to react to your presence.
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Humanity is not likely to be wiped out by some soil bacterium from millions of years ago, which is not going to be the least bit prepared for our aggressive immune system. The real danger would be from pathogens in animals given lots of opportunities to spread and mutate and jump to humans.
You know, like where covid-19 came from before it killed a few million people.
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You can’t convince me these aren’t super-fancy stainless steel sinks in some swanky postmodernist house.
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This word just isn’t used as often as I’d like…
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Yeah, I read that part about the geologists suggesting “that their approach to analyzing the crystals could also be applied offworld, such as in the salt deposits on Mars” as a safety suggestion the first time I read it.
The salt deposits on Mars might be far enough away for my peace of mind.
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There’s a pickup line in here somewhere.
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I too miss Boingboing’s game coverage
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For nerds in a lab environment maybe.
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you know, there will be a sample return mission not very far from now.
I want offworld sportsball!!
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