Possible types of Alien Lifeforms (Part 1: Mirror Life)

On Earth, life uses what is called right-handed DNA. Right-handed DNA uses left-handed amino acids, sometimes described as homochiral. The fact that all lifeforms on Earth use Right-handed DNA suggests that all life here is descendant from a common group of ancestors.

Why does the difference matter? If single cell members of mirror life (with left-handed DNA) are placed in a nutrient broth consisting of only left-handed amino acids, the lifeforms will not be able to thrive. The same is true of the reverse.

Mirror life is a type of lifeform that uses the same type of DNA structure, but where the DNA is left-handed. This type of life, in turn, used right-handed amino acids.

The possibly that life on other worlds may be mirror life is very exciting. If found, it would lend tremendous evidence that life is possible in other forms as well.

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Reference: "Are Aliens Among Us?" by Paul Davies, Scientific American December 2007

Related articles

• Video: What Would Trees Look Like On Other Planets?
• Predictions of Evolution of Alien Life
• Communicaion with Alien Civilizations
• Odds of Humaniods Evolving again
• Part 5: Blue Plants
• Part 4: Silicon Life
• Part 3: Arsenic Life
• Part 2: Exotic Amino Acids
• Part 1: Mirror Life

Great void in the universe

So, here's the deal. Science has disputed the age of the universe for a long time now. The current consensus is that it's about 12 Billion years so or, +/- a billion years (depending upon methodology). This comes from the previous observations that when looking into deep space, the farthest objects are about 12 billion light years away, in every direction.
When I was much younger, this interpretation of observations of the Universe got me thinking. How do we know the Universe is only as old as the number of light years away we can see? The only way to equate seeing the farthest objects with the age of the Universe is if we can also see one or both of the following: the center of the Universe; the edge of the Universe. Here's the problem. No one has claimed to observe either. Without this frame of reference, there is no way to determine the Universe's size. Without knowing how big the Universe is, we can't really know its age, unless by some magical fluke, we are at the center of the Universe. OK, so a general idea of the age of the Universe can be determined by the objects we observe at it's visible edge (Quasars), but we don't know if this visible edge is really the actual extent of the Universe. At most, we only know that galaxies of some sort began forming at that point in time, 12 billion years ago.
What does this hafta do with the vast void recently discovered in the Universe? The void is estimated as 1 billion light years across. That's 24th the size of the known Universe. That's like looking at a two foot long rulers and spacing them 1 inch apart by length. What would cause this big of a hole in the Universe? Could it be the middle of the Universe. Is it the void left as matter accelerates outward? Or is it the actual edge of the Universe? The notions being put forth by astrophysicist right now is some sort of dark energy explanation. But why does it have to be so exotic? OK, so I don't think it's the edge of the Universe because I believe astronomers do see deep objects past this void. So, hey, why couldn't it be the center of the Universe left void from matter expanding outward? One way to test this is to examine redshifts of the objects between us and this void to see if there are subtly less than objects in every other direction, using Hubble's Law. If the void is the center of the Universe, the age of the Universe could be judged with extreme accuracy because we'd no longer have to relay on objects 12 billion light years away. We'd only need to observe our distance from the center, then calculate the mass based on the shape of the Universe and the fact that the Universe looks the same in every direction.
This is all just an idea. I don't know much more than the press story. Heck, for all I know, this void could be where god lives. lol Just some fun to call up my old thoughts about the Universe.

Lunar Eclipse

I saw the lunar eclipse this morning. I didn't plan on it, but thought it would be cool to see it. By a strange coincidence I woke up this morning pretty much at the peek of the eclipse at 3:40am. Got dressed and went outside. Spooky. I expected to see something like a new moon silhouetted against the night sky. What I saw was pure evi...., well, no it wasn't evil at all. It was cool though. It was like looking at the full moon, but with the lights turned out, as though the man on the moon forget to switch the light bulb on. It was a dark brown color. A new moon is generally very dim and flat in appearance. The eclipsed moon has the full effect of a full moon, just a lot dimmer and dirtier looking. I shared the site with Allie from our bathroom window a few minutes later, since she woke up too. This full moon eclipse was more spectacular than most to astronomers because it was so long. Unfortunately, that means it was all the more boring to watch for the rest of us. I got my glimpse and went back to bed. Can check "See lunar eclipse." off my to-do list.

Sex in Space

Just some thoughts about this psycho astronaut. Ya'no, there's only about 70 astronauts at any given time. Love triangles going on at this level, involving married people leads me to just imagine what else has been going on in this tight knit group. For example, has their already been first time people had sex in space in some extremely exclusive Zero-G club (as opposed to the Mile High Club)? Hmm. This could either desolve into a Sex in Space fantasy, or a 90210 nightmare. Right now, it appears to be 90210 in Space.

Star birth linked to waves of life on Earth

I found this interesting article (backup link) that proposes a link between new star generation in our Milky Way galaxy with the waves of bacteria life in Earth's past. Quick quote:

"Dr Svensmark noticed that the biggest fluctuations in [bacterial lifeform] productivity coincided with high star formation rates and cool periods in Earth's climate. Conversely, during a billion years when star formation was slow, cosmic rays were less intense and Earth's climate was warmer, the biosphere was almost unchanging in its productivity."

This idea is interesting because it demonstrates just how linked we are, not just to the Earth, but the cosmos as a whole.

So, a bit more on Pluto's demotion

It is appropriate that their are already scientists that are rebuffing the recent supposed demotion of Pluto as a planet. I mentioned there would be embarrassment on this decision within 20 years. Well, one week is certainly within 20 years. lol

Reuters reports:

"The IAU can say the sky is green all day long and that doesn't make it so," said Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "The IAU created a definition which is technically flawed, linguistically flawed and scientifically embarrassing," Stern said in a phone interview.

This is pretty funny and pretty much matches the point I made previously. These people don't own our solar system and they don't own the English language.

Fact of the matter is, the new definitions of "planet" actually are poorly worded to specifically exclude both Ceres and Pluto as planets.

A "planet" [1] is a celestial body that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.

Furthermore, these rules fail to recognize the differences between the accepted planets. Gas Giants like Jupiter or Saturn have very little in common with Terrestrials like Earth or Venus. Instead of playing political games with how words are used, these scientist should be working to create meaningful classifications of planets that describe their general make-up and origins.

Once we start exploring other solar systems, I think we will find the familiar order of our own solar system is quite rare, and that our current understanding of what a planet is not resemble its future definition. There will be planets that share orbits in one fashion or another. There will be protoplanets larger than Earth, but residing within an Asteroid field. There will be double planets that are similar in size and that orbit either other. There will smashed planets, rogue planets, comet tail planets, double Gas Giants, heavy element planets, obround planets the size of Mars, empty planets, planets that look like the Virgin Mary or Abraham Lincoln, hard surface planets bigger than Neptune, and planets where it really is easy being green. All of this makes the current politically motivated discussion, of what deserves to be called a planet, all very silly.

So, on Pluto's demotion

Lame. Astronomers are so lame. They don't have a clear definition amongst themselves regarding what is a planet and what is not, yet they are so arrogant that they imagine they have some sort of magically authority or ownership over our solar system and the English language.

The redefinition of Pluto from planet to "dwarf" is going to go down as one of the biggest moves by any group of scientists in our times. The fact is, they are making this weird decision at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no single description to suit all sizeable bodies that orbit a star. Earth has less in common with Saturn that it does with Pluto. Well, we call Saturn a "Gas Giant" planet. Funny, so it's not the same type of planet as Earth? This is where the artificially imposed definition of the word planet is going to seem really stupid in a couple of decades. There's all sorts of bodies of all sorts of shapes orbiting all sorts of stars. Some will be called planets and some won't because of their location in their respective solar systems? I think we are going to find out that the variety of how solar systems are organized is going to make that practice absolutely silly.

It's going to look every more silly cuz all they educated astronomers can't stand the fact that Pluto was discovered by an amateur, an outsider to their world. This is jealousy if nothing else. Again, they've got this strange almost religious belief that they are somehow empowered to have authority over our perception of our Universe. Umm, yeah, No. With the same authority they use to speak of the solar system, I used here to speak of them now. I hereby declare them lame and without any authority over our solar system or the English language.

Myths of Space (movies)

There are pretty big problems with every science fiction space movie or TV show, except 2001: Space Odyssey.

1. There are no auditable sounds in outer space. Maybe ships battling it out in a very dense nebula might produce auditable noises, but other than that, the only auditable noise transmitted is within the ships or objects themselves, and not across the vacuum of space. The first season of Star Trek got this right, but even the makers of that show eventually opted for the excitement of noisy explosions.

2. Massive fireball explosions do not occur in the vacuum of space, even when oxygen is involved. How is this known? Well, although Apollo 13 crew members did not see their service module oxygen tank explode, it certainly didn’t rip through their vessel in a fireball when it did blow. That incident may suggest it’s pretty hard to blow-up even flimsiest objects in space because the vacuum outside the object creates the path of least resistance for any force being exerted on the object. That’s my own thought on the matter. But the fact is, the vacuum outside the ship does cause any explosion to dissipate so rapidly, no fireball would have a chance to form.

3. When a person is ejected into space without protection, they will not simply explode from the pressure of their body. I’ve only seen two movies get this right: 2001: Space Odyssey and (believe it or not) Airplane II. The human body doesn’t have nearly enough pressure built up within it to spontaneously explode when going from normal atmosphere to vacuum. What would happen is that the person would suffer lose of consciousness from lack of oxygen to the brain, get the bends and prolly actually begin to die only after a couple of minutes. A couple of incidents have already occurred that support these conclusions, where either a whole person or an area of the body was exposed to a vacuum environment.

Sources: Basic High School curriculum (LOL), http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/waw/mad/mad12.html, http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=8, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html, and the Apollo 13 “historical records”.