Comments on: Searching for Life on Earth http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2009/02/22/searching-for-life-on-earth/ The musings and ravings of a computational biologist about science, computers, music and, you know, stuff Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Iddo http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2009/02/22/searching-for-life-on-earth/comment-page-1/#comment-155 Iddo Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:25:55 +0000 http://bytesizebio.net/?p=554#comment-155 Irradiatus: thanks :) MarkSense: not sure what you mean. The basic biochemistry of heredity: DNA, RNA Protein is common to all life, and "marginal life" (viruses). We need a serious departure from this to suggest a shadow biosphere. Weird life may exist, but as alluded to by your post, not on the surface, where known life has probably subsumed everything. Weird life may exist in the extreme and primordial conditions of the deep sea vents in the Atlantic ridge, or in oil drillings kilometers deep. Irradiatus: thanks :)

MarkSense: not sure what you mean. The basic biochemistry of heredity: DNA, RNA Protein is common to all life, and “marginal life” (viruses). We need a serious departure from this to suggest a shadow biosphere. Weird life may exist, but as alluded to by your post, not on the surface, where known life has probably subsumed everything. Weird life may exist in the extreme and primordial conditions of the deep sea vents in the Atlantic ridge, or in oil drillings kilometers deep.

]]> By: MarkSense http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2009/02/22/searching-for-life-on-earth/comment-page-1/#comment-150 MarkSense Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:20:39 +0000 http://bytesizebio.net/?p=554#comment-150 You omitted the possibility that 4b) We haven't realized that some life is not all from a LUCA. There are several recognized mergings between different creatures which are thought to have a LUCA. There could be known life forms which include non-LUCA components. I know it's unlikely that known life forms are not from our LUCA. Standard classification methods identify enough known characteristics that it is unlikely that known organisms are not from out LUCA. And there has been speculation that non-LUCA organisms might have trouble digesting those from our LUCA, but with all this potential food around I find it hard to believe that anything on our planet which lives on the surface wouldn't be evolving to nibble on our convenient bags of dirty water. You omitted the possibility that 4b) We haven’t realized that some life is not all from a LUCA. There are several recognized mergings between different creatures which are thought to have a LUCA. There could be known life forms which include non-LUCA components.

I know it’s unlikely that known life forms are not from our LUCA. Standard classification methods identify enough known characteristics that it is unlikely that known organisms are not from out LUCA. And there has been speculation that non-LUCA organisms might have trouble digesting those from our LUCA, but with all this potential food around I find it hard to believe that anything on our planet which lives on the surface wouldn’t be evolving to nibble on our convenient bags of dirty water.

]]> By: Irradiatus http://bytesizebio.net/index.php/2009/02/22/searching-for-life-on-earth/comment-page-1/#comment-149 Irradiatus Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:10:47 +0000 http://bytesizebio.net/?p=554#comment-149 I read about this the other day - your post is a really great synthesis of the ideas. Very well written! I read about this the other day – your post is a really great synthesis of the ideas.

Very well written!

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