Beginning of life - Political Forum

Athena · 09-02-2007, 01:19 AM

The quote is from NASA - Cosmic Cockroaches

Quote:

Astronomers have long known that PAHs are abundant not only on Earth but throughout the cosmos—they've been found in comet dust, meteorites and many cold interstellar clouds—but who knew they were so tough? "This is our first evidence that PAHs can withstand a supernova blast," he says.

Their ability to survive may be key to life on Earth. Many astronomers are convinced that a supernova exploded in our corner of the galaxy 4-to-5 billion years ago just as the solar system was coalescing from primitive interstellar gas. In one scenario of life's origins, PAHs survived and made their way to our planet. It turns out that stacks of PAHs can form in water—think, primordial seas—and provide a scaffold for nucleic acids with architectural properties akin to RNA and DNA.

I didn't see a science forum or maybe that is what is meant by natural sciences? As science often gives us a different story of creation then religion gives us, I thought may be this NASA news article might fit in here. Note, this does not mean there is no God, only that God does things differently than the ancients thought. However, it does mean there could life besides the life we know on earth. What do you think?

Athena · 09-02-2007, 12:40 PM

Thank you for that site. It was so interesting, I googled Gliese_581_d and got this:

Quote:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | New 'super-Earth' found in space

This BBC article is more informative and increassed my interest. The author of The Mayan Factor, speculates there is a galactic federation and earth may enter this galactic federation in 2012. This seems far feteched, but the I Ching fits in the center of the Mayan matrix, and appears to represent the 64 DNA code for our life on earth. The Mayan matrix includes galactic information, and is bigger. Now, someone researching time travel, converted the I Ching to a graph and got what appears to be a heart beat like rhythm that stops when the Mayan matrix marks the beginning of a new galactic cycle. Which we now know is a specific place in the galactic cycle around the center of the universe, where we were 52,000 years ago. This scientist said, if we discovered time travel, that would make time, as we know it, non existant. Then visiting a planet 20 light years away, would not be a problem.

Another thread questions the value of space exploration. It may be wiser to question our understanding of reality.

ExoPlanet · 09-02-2007, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Athena

Another thread questions the value of space exploration. It may be wiser to question our understanding of reality.

what is it about reality we dont understand then?

Athena · 09-03-2007, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExoPlanet

what is it about reality we dont understand then?

How many times have you watched "What the Bleep Do We Know"?

Athena · 09-03-2007, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodog

A few things to note about space travel and time travel. Time travel to the past from what little research I have done on the issue, has been consistantly deemed impossible do to the effects of casuality (I'm no physicists and do not full understand the mechanics behind it). However traveling into the future is in fact not only possible, but to a very very limited extent has already been done.

When an object moves at a certain speed they believe it or not move forward in time. If you place a stopwatch on a plane and one in the stationary position from which the plane takes off and have the plane circle the world several times then the stopwatch on the plane will be a few seconds behind the stationary one.

Controlling time in any effective manner would probably require some form of control over gravity, which is definitely way way way off since we still don't know exactly what gravity is. What we do know is that everthing with mass seems to generate it (generate might not be the right way to put it) and that enough mass can curve time. As a result light itself actually moves slightly slower when not in vacuum. (Look up light speed in wikipedia and it should at least hint to this when it talks about how it moves faster in vacuum).

I have heard of the problematic concept of using what I guess you could call space-time bubbles where time and space are warped through gravity which could nullify the effects moving at near or past lightspeed would have on mass (if something made of mass moves at close the speed of light it's mass becomes infinite which would cause it to tear itself apart). Wormholes which sounds a bit more likely to be possible then space-time bubbles would allow virtually instanteous travel once a wormhole has been established and also involves gravity.

Hmmm.... maybe this should be in the science section or something?

I think you know more about linear, three dimensional reality theories than I do. I would love to discuss such things with you. I didn't see a science thread other than the one tied to military technology and this isn't military technology science, from my point of view. But could make a fascinating war scfi if it were.

Back to the opening post. Like if you go to that planet that is 20 light years away and return to earth, you are traveling backwards in time, right? The image we see of things far away is a past reality, something that happened long ago, because it takes light years before we see the image. It can be kind of hard for us to wrap our minds around this, don't you think?

Now if 300 million years ago a super nova blew up and the PAHs travel many light years to earth and become the foundation for the amino acids of life, what is the date of this event, considering this trip is going backwards in time? I really don't know what I am talking about. I find it very hard to wrap my mind around this stuff, but this kind of thinking can lead one to String theory, don't you think? The possibility of reality being more than 3 dimensional?

This is getting a little far from the question of how God created life on earth, but I am willing to go the flow.

ExoPlanet · 09-03-2007, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Athena

How many times have you watched "What the Bleep Do We Know"?

admittedly i have watched it once and to be honest that was enough, i was convinced that there is more to reality than we know but all i was asking was.....''what is it about reality we dont understand'' , i was directly asking the person who said that there is alot about reality we dont uderstand what she knows about this subject, i wasnt saying that we know everything just asking her what she knew

Xotica · 09-03-2007, 01:35 PM

If any are interested in this realm of inquiry, I would suggest looking into the science of Comparative Planetology. It is a relatively new discipline populated with academics from terrestrial interests (geology, tectonics, volcanism etc) and the space sciences.

Alun · 09-03-2007, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodog

I never heard of PAH, but I have heard of types of Extremophile that could survive in space, even cosmic rays and entry into orbit. I honestly never found the Panspermia theory to be likely, but this only further suggests it.

This theory isn't Panspermia; PAH - Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. In its usual form on Earth it's just an organic pollutant. I think the OP's article is saying this molecule could help life spontaneously generate.

Athena · 09-03-2007, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExoPlanet

admittedly i have watched it once and to be honest that was enough, i was convinced that there is more to reality than we know but all i was asking was.....''what is it about reality we dont understand'' , i was directly asking the person who said that there is alot about reality we dont uderstand what she knows about this subject, i wasnt saying that we know everything just asking her what she knew

Ah

it isn't so easy to say what I know. I don't have a sense of knowing much. I think evolution is more likely than bible stories, but also know, just because I think something is so, it doesn't make it so.

Quote:

The Origin of Life by David Menton

Evolutionists speculate that life gradually evolved from mere hydrogen in a series of stages. The first stage began about 15 billion years ago with the "Big Bang" which produced an expanding cloud of hydrogen gas -- all else was void. With time and energy, hydrogen transformed into all the other chemical elements. Then, about 4 billion years ago, the earth's atmosphere consisted of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water, from which life would inevitably evolve.

During stage two it is believed that simple chemicals from stage one formed the small organic molecules essential to life such as sugars, amino acids and nucleotides. In 1953, Miller and Urey claimed to "simulate" the evolution of some of these organic molecules from methane and ammonia using apparatus and conditions designed to achieve the desired result.

Stage three in chemical evolution is supposed to have involved the stringing together of small organic molecules into long chain-like molecules called polymers. The most important biological polymers are starches (polymers of sugars), proteins (polymers of amino acids), and DNA (polymers of nucleotides). In another "evolution simulation" experiment, Sidney Fox produced protein-like molecules by heating pure-dry amino acids at high temperatures. When this material was allowed to cool in water it formed small globules which he called "microspheres." Although these microspheres are stone dead, evolutionists refer to them as "protocells," implying that they represent an early stage of living cells. In fact, about the only similarity between microspheres and living cells is they are, as their name implies, small and spherical.

The final stage of chemical evolution involves the chance transformation of organic molecules and polymers into the unfathomably complex machinery of living cells.

This site seems to infer that what is said is a not a good explanation of life. I think it is a good explanation of what happened. So how believable the first post is, depends on what one finds believable, I guess. I believe it is highly likely the elements needed for life could have blown in from some place else, and transformed into the life forms we experience on earth where and when the conditions for life were possible.

Athena · 09-03-2007, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodog

Yeah I checked out the science section after typing that and it is linked to the military so I see your point. Anyway I don't know as much as you think I do, it's just a casual hobby for me, but you might want to check out Orion's Arm. It's completely fictional but talks a lot about theoritical science.

In the second paragraph I think it should be noted that you are not actually going backwards if you travel to something that is light years away, but rather if you look at the star itself in the sky then you are looking at how it looked 20 years ago.

If we actually could travel at the speed of light while going to a star that is 20 light years away then 20 years would have passed in the real universe however that much time would not have passed inside the spacecraft so you would not have acually aged that amount (I don't know the equation as to how much time would have actually passed in the spacecraft itself, but I'm pretty confidant that the difference would be significant). The reason for this I believe is because of the increase in mass (which produces gravity) which warps time, but I have never heard anyone explicitly state that gravity is the reason why this time dilation happens and I usually only understand these kind of things if it's on Nova PBS or has been significantly dumbed down for people who have only a mild grasp of the issue to understand.

As for string theory it is as impossible to prove as God as it can't be studied in a lab, but most scientists do seem to believe in it and I personally consider the theory of there being multiple universes as being a strong possibility. You should really check out the three part special PBS had about String Theory called Elegant Universe if you haven't. In my opinion it is one of the best science documentaries out there.

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Watch the Program | PBS

How do we handle the lack of a science thread? There are already several forums, but not the organization of forums I would choose. I want separate religion and philosophy and science and philosophy forums. I have a zillion science questions in my head and no good place to put them.

If one is going forward or backward in time when traveling between planets, may be a matter perspective? I don't know because I can not wrap my mind around the experience of going towards that existed long ago. What if people headed for a visible planet that didn't exist when they began the journey, but was only an image from a distant past? That would be a real bummer.

I don't know about the gravity and time thing, but our bodies turn to mush without gravity. Gravity is needed to keep our bones strong, so if someone travels too long in space, the degeneration of the body could be serious. This discussion is doing strange things to my mind. I am thinking we need to send jelly fish with the DNA for human life. Too weird.