Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Life, but not as we know it - what could possibly go wrong?
We are in the middle of a pandemic caused by a previously unknown virus, which under some versions was produced by scientists in a lab, but in other versions was caught from a bat in a market (which seems the most likely) and yet the Independent reports that scientists have persuaded ancient microbes to wake up, grow and start reproducing after laying dormant on the sea floor for more than 100 million years.
Have they never read H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds? Or even seen the movie? What could go possibly wrong?
The paper says that the organisms are from the oldest marine sediment samples ever studied, collected 10 years ago during an expedition to the South Pacific Gyre, from up to 75 metres below the seafloor and nearly 6,000 metres below the ocean’s surface.
These organisms have remained in an energy-saving state since dinosaurs roamed the planet, in an atmosphere where living conditions are harsh and the nutrients that fuel the marine food chain are extremely limited.
Scientists believe that the discovery of such ancient life in solid rock deep below the sea floor is a major breakthrough, and has fuelled hopes for finding Martian life, given the subterranean environment’s similarity with conditions on the planet’s surface. They think that if the Red Planet was once home to life, it could also exist in a dormant, revivable state, rather than merely as a fossil.
So the plan is to revive Martians? Okay, these particular Martians may not yet have the capacity to roam the earth in a three legged machine fitted with an all-seeing eye and death ray technology, but surely the main lesson of Covid 19 is that the biggest threat comes from aliens you cannot see.
Somebody rein these scientists in before I have to take my tongue out of my cheek.
Have they never read H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds? Or even seen the movie? What could go possibly wrong?
The paper says that the organisms are from the oldest marine sediment samples ever studied, collected 10 years ago during an expedition to the South Pacific Gyre, from up to 75 metres below the seafloor and nearly 6,000 metres below the ocean’s surface.
These organisms have remained in an energy-saving state since dinosaurs roamed the planet, in an atmosphere where living conditions are harsh and the nutrients that fuel the marine food chain are extremely limited.
Scientists believe that the discovery of such ancient life in solid rock deep below the sea floor is a major breakthrough, and has fuelled hopes for finding Martian life, given the subterranean environment’s similarity with conditions on the planet’s surface. They think that if the Red Planet was once home to life, it could also exist in a dormant, revivable state, rather than merely as a fossil.
So the plan is to revive Martians? Okay, these particular Martians may not yet have the capacity to roam the earth in a three legged machine fitted with an all-seeing eye and death ray technology, but surely the main lesson of Covid 19 is that the biggest threat comes from aliens you cannot see.
Somebody rein these scientists in before I have to take my tongue out of my cheek.
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'They can grow and multiply'!Their is plenty of oxygen on THIS planet never mind Mars.As a result how quick could these microbes grow into 'Covid 19' like problem. Have they realised that they may have a 'weapon' to kill us off?
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