DRIEST PLACE ON EARTH HOSTS LIFE

Not of interest to NoCo, but maybe for everybody else.

DRIEST PLACE ON EARTH HOSTS LIFE

Searching for life on Earth, seriously?  Irony's not your strong suit, I'm guessing.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars#Cosmic_radiation

Interesting.  Those South African bacteria do indeed sound like potential Martian colonists.

But hey, why should we really care about subterranean bacteria?  We're not going to be sharing technology or philosophy with exomicrobes, or making love to their blue women. Has our search for God finally devolved to this, to SETB?

Quote :

The surfaces of other rocky bodies in the solar system are all too cold, too hot, too dry or too toxic to support the kind of life known on Earth. Their subterranean environments, however, are likely to be more hospitable and stable. More important, many may contain the short list of ingredients that seem to be all the South African microbes need.

"This is a very nice potential model of the habitability of Mars, Jupiter's Europa and other moons," said Steven D'Hondt, an astrobiologist at the University of Rhode Island, who was not involved in the project. "The sorts of ecosystems you could get there could certainly be something like this."

You shouldn't have wasted all those pixels on the bold type. I think everyone is aware of that fact.

Why should we care? Sometimes knowledge has its own value.

We will never share technology, philosophy, or anything else with extra-terrestrial beings. We will never boff their blue ladies, or even take them to a carnival on the moon. We may, at some point, find evidence that leads us to believe they probably exist, but that's about it.

"Knowledge has its own value."

True. But let's do the math. How much value would it have, to find subterranean bacteria on Mars? And how much is it costing us?

You mention cost just about every time this subject comes up.
Have you ever figured out just how much NASA costs you? Just curious.

Doesn't matter. If it was 1€ it would be more than the knowledge is worth.

Maybe to you it is worthless. Value and cost are not the same thing.

I don't want to argue this anymore.

It doesn't mean anything. As Richard correctly surmised, I'm not interested in "life found on the driest place on Earth."

N problem. It is a subject that probably doesn't interest many people. I find it quite interesting, though, that they have discovered bacteria and microscopic animals that can survive in extreme conditions: in acid; in the vacuum of space; can go 120 years without food or water; live without sunshine or oxygen, etc. Tends to redefine what conditions are necessary for life. Bologna sandwiches would be optional.

I like the toads that dry up in mud puddles and remain in stasis until the rains come again. I like the fish that freeze solid in lakes until the thaw comes.

Neither one has fuck-all to do with extraterrestrial life.

No, they don't. Which may be why no one has mentioned them. Until now.