It is not illogical to say that life on other planets has to be similar to life on Earth. It might turn out to be true that the range of conditions which will support life is very small, and it is not irrational to think that similar pressures will create similar forms of life. It may not be true, but it is not illogical. Also I don't think a large organism could survive on a planet with the gravitational force of Jupiter.
recently my granny had 2 spaceships visit her back yard . she has told me the story several times since i believed she had a real experience and i didn't make fun of her. there was also evidence left in the yard . where they had landed - 2 circles were marked in the grass . the grass turned a noticably deeper shade of green . the circles - each approximately 4 ft diameter . she described them as giving light , saucer-shaped , and their coming and going was accompanied by the rumble of intense air disturbance . i think the saucers are not machines , that they are the aliens .
Thats a nice idea dude. I think itd be learned that life is always trying to be sustained in a enviorment because that would prove that life is non stoppable. Isnt that kind of like darwinism or adaptation? The first fish existed because its genetic make up or the evolution process in that point of time reached a point where it outsmarted its enviorment or adapted? Am i on topic or is this not what you were saying? lol Good Idea man. lol
The problem with this is logical naivete. Lungs are just portable gills. Our lungs absorb oxygen through a mucos membrane. In other words, the oxygen must be desolved in water or it is unavailable to our bodies. So basically, we carry the ocean around with us or we couldn't breathe. Even plants (yes, plants absorb oxygen) can only utilize oxygen that is dissolved in water. They, too, brought the ocean with them when they ventured onto land. The reason it MUST be so is simple regulation. When a substance is dissolved in water, the individual molecules are seperated. This allows the organism to absorb the O2 in a controlled manner. otherwise, too much oxygen absorbtion would cause uncontrolled carbon burns, resulting in an internal overload of CO2 build-up and "rust" damage. Let's not forget that the very property that makes oxygen the perfect fuel is the fact that it has a strong (but not to strong) tendency to interact with other chemicals (even itself). ---------------- So we've got some parameters here; life requires a versitile fuel that can be utilized in a controled manner, and it requires inter-organism (and inter-cellular) communication. ---- there does exist anaroebic bacteria that does not use oxygen. to it, O2 is highly posionous. however, it feeds off organic products that are the results of O2 based life. Maybe it's the results of contemporary evolution with standard life, but it seems more likely that it evolved to fill a small niche created by O2 supported life.
Geckopelli, I thought that anaerobic bacteria existed very early in the history of life, and that it survived along ocean vents where it fed off of sulfur compounds. I could look it up, but I'm already in this thread so......
True-- but science is still to weak on the subject. Consider that no substantial evloution occured; I don't believe there's any indication that a multi-cellular anerobic life form ever existed. This may indicate that O2 based life was already dominant and simply devoured any evolutionary attempts to expand. or it may be that anerobic life was self defeating in that it produced it's own poision, changing the enviroment so O2 life could evolve. In either case (or any other), the anerobic didn't stand a chance against O2 life. this would seem to indicate it's unviability. Now days, anerobic bacteria exist all around us. but it is dormant unless provided an O2 free environment.
I might add that the early anerobic life was only able to feed off sulphur compounds because of the presence of excess energy from the volcanos.
Interesting, I hadn't even considered the possibility of a multi-cellular anaerobic life form. Perhaps the earliest life forms, when the earth's atmosphere contained less oxygen, were anaerobic bacteria. Is the process of living off of sulfur from ocean vents simpler or more complex than photosynthesis? Because the energy for life had to come from either the sun or the earth, and if one was easier to do than the other then I would think that it would arise first. Did aerobic life arise from anaerobic life?
Maybe. Or maybe some other form of anerobic life. Or maybe the other way around (which, without solid reason, seems more likely to me.) Consider that our form of life began in the ocean and adapted to the dry land. Well, I suspect the evolutionary adaptation required to go water to dryland was at least as complex as that required to go from normal (for the time) ocean conditions to underwater volcanic vents. Here's something to ponder: Why are the amino acids that form life all of the L variety? The D variety is exactly as likely to occur-- did the L forms devour the D forms? or did only L forms develop? And if so, why?
I would think that the excess of energy supplied by a volcano means the processes we're simplistic, and further, provided an environment that was evolutionarily dead-- a sustained environment with only cataclysmic change. No chance to adapt.
I'm not sure about the amino acids. Perhaps it has something to do with the way that they fold up? I do not think that a sustained environment lacks the ability to bring about adaptive change because on the opposite end of the spectrum we see organisms maintaining stasis through long periods of environmental change. The prime forces in the struggle for life are biotic, not abiotic. Also stable environments are breeding grounds for host parasite evolution. I think that aerobic life arose from anaerobic life for one reason. The first life forms either had to get their energy from the sun or the earth, and because photosynthesis seems more complex than chemosynthesis I would expect it to arise later.
I mean, you can keep trying to shut the idea down with currently valid scientific logic all you like. My point remains that what is understood to be a fact with no logical exceptions is still ALWAYS subject to change. The lucky break earth caught when it was able to use oxygen molecules as fuel for sustaining life was a lucky number in the cosmic lottery. Creatures don't use oxygen because it makes sense. We have made sense out of how creatures are able to use oxygen because they do. The idea that there are foreign chemicals and gases capable of sustaining life that are still undiscovered by humans is not even as far-fetched as the idea earth was lucky enough to have oxygen in the first place. I'm just saying the amount of energy stored in any random particle is MC squared. This means that if broken down efficiently enough, the amount of energy stored in the tip of graphite in a pencil point could power new york city for a while. The idea that earth is the only exception to the rule seems almost egotistical.
Only exception? Not at all. it is very likely that primitive life exist on some of the moons of the outer planets. In fact, the only thing the Universe apparently does is produce life. EVERYTHING, from the big-bang on moves in the direction of life- our kind of life (I've expouded on this in more than one thread in recent months). But existence is a matter of probability, and one viable planet of life in our small system is pretty good odds. As for undiscovered stable elements-- No. if they existed, nuclear fusion would not work. E=MC2 doesn't apply. life function off chemical energy, not mass conversion.
When amino acid-like substances are formed, the formation of D requires the concurrent formation of L. Only Uncertainty offsets this by an incalcuably small amount. This applies to the formation of ALL Matter from energy as well.