We may be sharing our planet with invisible life forms

captainarchive

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When I first saw this I thought it was going to show rock that appear to have moved in deserts were being moved by invisible being.

"Never mind aliens in outer space. Some scientists believe we may be sharing the planet with 'weird' lifeforms that are so different from our own they're invisible to us"

Life on Earth
 
There are some scary nutters out there that's for sure :)
 
There are some scary nutters out there that's for sure :)

Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University
Chris McKay, who is based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre
Professor Charles Cockell
Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University
Paul Davies, of Arizona State University

Yes Scary nutters :rolleyes:

Did you even read the article or did you you just hear "tin foil hat" ??
As pointed out in the article if we don't look in different places with different methods how are we ever expected to find anything new.
Also pointed out in the article there are a lot of discoveries that have been made by mistakes that would never of been thought of but have proved useful to us.

But carry on labelling anything and everything different as crazy.:)
 
I find it strange that many will take this on board and say it could happen, yet laugh at those who believe in Jesus.
 
Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University
Chris McKay, who is based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre
Professor Charles Cockell
Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University
Paul Davies, of Arizona State University

Yes Scary nutters :rolleyes:

Did you even read the article or did you you just hear "tin foil hat" ??
As pointed out in the article if we don't look in different places with different methods how are we ever expected to find anything new.
Also pointed out in the article there are a lot of discoveries that have been made by mistakes that would never of been thought of but have proved useful to us.

But carry on labelling anything and everything different as crazy.:)

:laugh:

Life forms!
You tiny little life forms!
You precious little life forms!
Where are you?





(With apologies to Data)
 
Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University
Chris McKay, who is based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre
Professor Charles Cockell
Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University
Paul Davies, of Arizona State University

Yes Scary nutters :rolleyes:

Did you even read the article or did you you just hear "tin foil hat" ??
As pointed out in the article if we don't look in different places with different methods how are we ever expected to find anything new.
Also pointed out in the article there are a lot of discoveries that have been made by mistakes that would never of been thought of but have proved useful to us.

But carry on labelling anything and everything different as crazy.:)

I suspect IG is a little more qualified to discuss microbiology/biochemistry and what may be considered a crazy idea or not than say an astrophysicist or a philosopher.
 
I find it strange that many will take this on board and say it could happen, yet laugh at those who believe in Jesus.

If hat was aimed at me then i suggest you re read what i wrote.

:laugh:

Life forms!
You tiny little life forms!
You precious little life forms!
Where are you?





(With apologies to Data)

:confused::boring:

I suspect IG is a little more qualified to discuss microbiology/biochemistry and what may be considered a crazy idea or not than say an astrophysicist or a philosopher.

I have no doubt he is qualified in his field, is he a professor? genuine question.

If not then i'd like to know how he is qualified to be to be labelling these professors as crazy? They have already proved themselves not to be crazy by contributing to their respective fields, not exactly an easy feat is it?

The article was equally a philosophical idea as much as being about microbiology/biochemistry.:)

He may not agree with them but to be labelling people as crazy because you disagree with them :nono:
 
OK, there are inorganic phenomena that meet some of the criteria for life.
This isn't new - bloom on camera lenses, the 'purple plague' that hit a number of semiconductor plants in the 70s etc..
 
If hat was aimed at me then i suggest you re read what i wrote.



:confused::boring:



I have no doubt he is qualified in his field, is he a professor? genuine question.

If not then i'd like to know how he is qualified to be to be labelling these professors as crazy? They have already proved themselves not to be crazy by contributing to their respective fields, not exactly an easy feat is it?

The article was equally a philosophical idea as much as being about microbiology/biochemistry.:)

He may not agree with them but to be labelling people as crazy because you disagree with them :nono:

I thought most professors were crazy! If not their chosen area of study they are no more qualified than any other intelligent person, professor doesn't mean your a genius or infallible.
 
I thought most professors were crazy! If not their chosen area of study they are no more qualified than any other intelligent person, professor doesn't mean your a genius or infallible.

Granted, but some of the professors in the article are talking about their particular fields.
 
...
If not then i'd like to know how he is qualified to be to be labelling these professors as crazy? They have already proved themselves not to be crazy by contributing to their respective fields, not exactly an easy feat is it?

The article was equally a philosophical idea as much as being about microbiology/biochemistry.:)

He may not agree with them but to be labelling people as crazy because you disagree with them :nono:
They are not crazy, but they are guilty of allowing the media (even the scientific media) to get hold of pure speculation and blow it up as a near-theory.

It is clear by reading the article that they are simply tossing ideas around at the SF level. The correct way of looking at it is this:

We are not really sure what causes desert varnish.

As its occurrence around the world is in areas with very similar climate and topography, the first assumption must be that it is chemical, caused by atmospheric reaction with sunlight and the rocks. However, there are some difficulties with that, which means we still don't really know.

So we can speculate

Bacterial action? Quite possibly. Have we isolated the bacterium? No, not yet, but that doesn't mean we won't.

Non-DNA bacteria? Conjecturally, yes, but there is no evidence at all of such life forms, and we certainly wouldn't expect them to be worldwide and still confined to a single evolutionary niche (where are its evolutionary cousins?).

So don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, but for sure let's put these ideas into a proper sense of perspective.
 
Professor Carol Cleland, of Colorado University
Chris McKay, who is based at Nasa's Ames Research Centre
Professor Charles Cockell
Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University
Paul Davies, of Arizona State University

Yes Scary nutters :rolleyes:

The trouble with so called experts for this sort of stuff is that as soon as you try to investigate the evidence properly you quickly discover that they are nowhere near as qualified as they claim or just downright liars.

On the more innocent side of the spectrum is genuine experts being quoted out of context or just totally misquoted.

An example would be so called imaging experts : this usually boils down to some low level photoshop jockey who worked on an episode of stargate once pushing some imagery around in after effects and proclaiming it to be perfectly genuine. I worked in the digital imaging wing of Kodak for 10 years and I can tell you its very very difficult to manipulate images without leaving obvious tell tales for those in the know.
 
Like this one?



:)

read my post again, did I say any of the scientists were crazy nutters? (Hint: read some of the comments after the article)

No not that one, i did say some of, not all.

I read your initial post as a generalisation, should i not of? its how it is worded.
I have read the comments.
:)
 
I smell them sometimes, a horrible gassy smell they have and sometimes I even hear them.
 
I smell them sometimes, a horrible gassy smell they have and sometimes I even hear them.

Yes I find this too but its more common when my mother in-law is around. She must attract them somehow.
 
Purely from speculation about what little I do know about biology, chemistry and physics, I would not rule out the probability of equivalent simple life forms to those of a carbon base elsewhere in the universe.
Given the way molecules and elements behave in different environments, for example under the extreme temperature and pressures of a gas giant planet, that those molecules may form the basis of something resembling functions of what we term 'life'.
In other words, the environmental chemistry of the habitat is inexorably linked to the life that exists there.
So while not ruling out the unlikely possibility of life forms based on a different biochemistry to that of environment (life on earth), the large open expanses of the Atacama are within the general range of pressures, temperatures and chemistry that we would not expect nor have ever experienced molecules behave any differently to the expected norm.
 

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