Alien Life To Be Discovered

[Baddad]

Yesterday, ABC Radio Brisbane.
I heard the announcement that scientists believe that life other than in our Solar System will be discovered within the next 20 years.:eyepop:
The statement was made by an eminent figure of astronomy. I, unfortunately did not catch the name. I was driving.

Expected advancements in technology was mentioned. This seemed to be the main area of improvements leading to the validity of the statement.

I wanted to pull over to listen but the situation I was in was not allowing that without sacrificing safety.

Radio DJs / commentators made various remarks after the release.

If you remember an earlier thread that I initiated about alien life, you may also remember that I said that scientists must believe there is alien life out there. Because they are searching for it.

If or when it happens it will be an exciting event. Perhaps outdoing Man on the Moon.
I expect the conspiracy theorists to have a field day, along with the creationists.:lol:

Cheers:)

[xelasnave]

More money is all it will take.
Too much goes around general relativity.
Check the grants this year basically proving general relativityto be right when we know it's right
Half a billion for gravity B probe the result was predictable..
I believe 10 billion invested to prove general relativity correct to date...no authority for that so it may be wrong..but big bucks with little for solar system life search
What missions on the books for the places of extreme interest in our solar system..
The discovery of ecstreamophils on Earth should see missions leaving now..
But first we need to find an gravity wave.. Why
They are there even if we don't find them...general relativity is not a waste of money but the scientists could be better engaged finding DNA on a moon of Saturn.
Can you imagine the value of findinig DNA off Earth...same or different so much would be told...if different wow..if same wow wow what could such tell us.

[AstralTraveller]

And why the #%£€ would alien life have DNA? It may not even be carbon based. I hope you don't expect them to speak English too. :poke: This isn't Star Trek.

[Eden]

I definitely agree that more funding should go into missions geared towards (for example) exploring the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and perhaps even doing sample returns from those sorts of targets. This is probably where very basic forms of life will be discovered initially.

There are however a few important questions which remain to be answered with respect to general relativity or more importantly, why the laws of general relativity break down under certain instances. In the case of gravity waves, scientists want to know more about if and how the gravity waves emitted by super-massive black holes and black hole binaries many millions of light years away have any influence on our local region of space-time.

By answering these sorts of questions, scientists may eventually be able to overcome the barriers which are currently preventing us from traversing the vast distances of space.

[xelasnave]

Well that's the point we don't known
And I don't eliminate silicon etc based..
But I can believe they won't speak english that is just silly

[Eden]

:lol:
:rofl:

[xelasnave]

Perfectly reasonable and I agree ..The real answer is why not 10 billion for alien life search it is as important...

[xelasnave]

More finding is needed..military budget
How much would they miss
I don't know USA military niger but I will bet they probably spend 20 bill in toilet paper

[SimmoW]

Easy, they just have to look at my dirty socks to find alien life

[astroron]

As far as I am concerned,it is really vested interests who say we must look for other life in the universe, I think the general public wouldn't give a damn,but scientist and Astronomers accentuate it so much that it is given that it is so important to the human race,which in real life is not.
Keeps people in a job and the likes of universities sound that it is important.
More effort should be made in sorting problems here on Earth than spending billions on looking for life on Jovian moons.
It is exciting to do planetary exploration, but the guise of looking for life in the solar system is a waste of money.
Just my 2¢ worth.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Eden]

Ron -- when you say the general public wouldn't give a damn... indeed, this is the painful truth. Most people out there couldn't give the furriest crack of a rats hindquarters about space, astronomy, general relativity or whatever might be out there in the universe. And why should they? Most people are concerned only about the immediate here and now.

We have plenty of problems here on Earth and racing across the solar system is not going solve all of them, but what if... just if... we found abundant amounts of rare or as yet undiscovered minerals on some of our neighbouring planets, materials which could be put to good use here on Earth in who-knows-how-many potential areas...like medicine, or engineering... or solving the clean energy problem? It's a long shot, but if we don't look, we'll never find out.

[joe_smith]

"along with the creationists" especially if they say "we created the DNA seeds of life" :)

To me life on other planets is like big foot, if they cant produce a body to test then they haven't found it.

[joe_smith]

here is a link to some info about it We'll find alien life in 20 years – but it'll probably be outside our solar system
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2692658/We-alien-life-20-years-claims-Nasa-likely-discovered-outside-solar-system.html)

[graham.hobart]

I have just read two bits of info.
One . On the the discovery of the Ebola virus. Historical
Two. On the existence of bacterial specialised viruses or phages.
My first research project when I did my first degree was on the lipoprotein membranes of gut bacteria. At that time we thought we were the bees knees.
I had no idea that phages existed.
Looking back I think my supervisor did, but never told me.
I did stacks of Transmission and also scanning electron microscopy just looking at a part of a bacterial membranes
I recently looked again at the phages.
These are incredible "don't **** with me life forms"
I will summarise . One the bacterial phages that has a taste forE. Coli. - attaches with short tendrils. Once attached with the longer arms then secures itself and injects its genetic material then replicates and thousands of copies spill out. Time frame- 30 minutes. From attachment to death for host.
If you imagine that could exist on the coldest vacuum and the hottest moon. I wouldn't be inviting them around for tea would you ?
G

[graham.hobart]

Point is , these phages look like nothing on Earth, they look alien.
And they have been around for millions of years.
So phage bit bacteria , bacteria bit man. We have this incredible genetic load that is half redundant.
That's the inner space.
I agree that we should explore beyond our boundaries.
We should also explore inside the great grey planet of our brain and consciousness. 25% of us will need it someday
Dementia, Parkinson's, strokes, will be on all of us before the Escher alien life form, or the species life form comes at us with drooling mandible and googly eye.
M
Nothing is so alien as the life you don't understand.
By the way
There is life in tassie
Cheers
Graz

[xelasnave]

Thank you Graz
If you were a man prepared to speculate and given your scientific background and the pshyci you are reasonably presumed by me to enjoy would you venture a view as to life in whatever form may exist outside Earth. Could life be so inventive it will find a place to prosper.
I an taken by the tenacity of the extremeophile and how they thrieve in conditions we once would call exclusive to any form of life.
Your little mate strikes me as one who may well go where he wants and overcome environments we cannot yet imagine.
I an seeking speculation which you may reasonably decline given your profession
Thank you for your interesting and in my view exciting input
Regards alex

[LewisM]

"It's life Jim, but not as we know it". Why d we obsess with looking for water worlds and goldilocks zones? Sure, be nice to find life as we know it, but even Extremophile Bacteria found on Earth go part way to dispelling the need to find life as we ACCEPT it. Who's to say the first life form we find does not paddle around in the liquid hydrocarbon lakes of Titan?

Life will be found, and sooner than 20 years I think. I believe the seasonal variations in Martian methane levels in the atmosphere is POSSIBLY bacterial in origin. Time will tell.

Graham - interesting :) I am currently working on bacteriophage categorisation/morphology of Nocardiae spp - predominately, the phages are siphorviridae. Will be presenting it soon enough - just had a few set backs with the TEM

[Baddad]

:)Thanks Joe, :)
That seems to be where the item was sourced from. I was hoping some one would be able to confirm the article. I am definitely interested in it.

On a bit of a tangent to this thread: From Mythbusters comes another interesting item and also a second documentary type on Foxtel.

Mythbusters was investigating that life in many of its forms is somehow interconnected. They measured "stress levels" in some plants when a person presented thoughts of killing the plant. They came up with other than "busted". To me it was not complete but deserved further investigation.

On the other program was basically telepathy. Some success was achieved they too determined that all life is somehow connected.

This particularly intrigued me as I conducted my own experiments a long time ago. The results scared me. I never dabbled in it again.
What these experiences have done is to open my mind to believe there is much more to life than what we see on the surface.

There is much to discover.

Cheers:)

[DavidNg]

Hi I also heard similar story from Sydney ABC Radio a few morning ago. Some NASA figures claimed alien life is imminently be discovered within 20 years, seriously all they wanted is adequate fund to continue or expand their work.

Cheers
David