1
Mad Cow disease doesn't use DNA or RNA. Its a prion. Martian prions?
Posted by: The Phantom at July 29, 2005 11:56 AM (nAMT1)
2
Maybe.
But did prions come first? Or did they come into being by virtue of a cell's protein-making machinery getting something horribly wrong? We don't know (or maybe we do -- I'm not up-to-speed on the latest). If the latter is true, then you need RNA-DNA life first, and prions get formed later.
Posted by: Angry in T.O. at July 29, 2005 12:02 PM (AvjIr)
3
Didn't you see/read War of the Worlds? We shouldn't be upset that our microbes may kill the Martians! Look what they've been planning for millions of years!
Posted by: Jonny_eh at July 29, 2005 02:28 PM (U2GJM)
4
If Martians exist then I would expect that they live underground.
Maybe they are tired of shooting down our myriad satellites and probes by now?
Posted by: Brian Walsh at July 29, 2005 05:34 PM (7tLLA)
5
Martian soil may contain all sorts of microbes. The evidence suggests that the soil is saturated with briny water - indeed, the magnesium sulfate salts which make up a large fraction of Martian soil are about half water, by weight. There is also strong evidence that there is a frozen sea at the equator, and there is one crater near the north pole that has a glacier containing the equivalent of 8 cubic kilometers of water ice.
Given the high moisture content of the soil, it is highly likely that if life ever developed on Mars there would still be remnants of it around today.
Posted by: Ed Minchau at July 29, 2005 06:30 PM (pPVQ0)
6
One of my favorites is the book Sphere by Micheal Chreiton, there is a spot in there where they discuss what alien life is like, and one guy says "what if when they go to talk to us, they emit a high frequency sound that shatters all the bones in our bodies and turns us into a big pile of goo"
Posted by: DazzlinDino at July 30, 2005 12:12 AM (WFplk)
7
To the best of my recollection nobody knows where prions came from first. Presently they get produced by infected cells in the brain and spinal cords of mad cows, but that's a chicken/egg problem.
Probably a bizzare mutation, which means DNA comes first. But you never know, some alien may have dumped a pop bottle out the hatch while snatching cows for mutilation. ~
Posted by: The Phantom at July 30, 2005 09:01 PM (nAMT1)
8
"what if when they go to talk to us, they emit a high frequency sound that shatters all the bones in our bodies and turns us into a big pile of goo"
What, Crichton's never heard of a heavy metal concert before?? The answer is "Afterwards, you go home and use the word "dude" a lot for the rest of your life."
Duuuuuuude.
;-}
Posted by: E.M.H. at August 01, 2005 04:03 PM (xHyDY)
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The Russians are circling the waggons, refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. The former spy died in Britain, after being exposed to a lethal poison incorporating the radioactive element polonium-210. You know the Russians are hiding something when they resort to bald-faced lies. The Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika made the outrageous statement that the poison could not have come from Russia. That would only be true if the Soviet space program used up every last bit of polonium for the Lunokhod moon walker program. They certainly had enough polonium on hand in 1970 to keep not one, but two moon rovers warm through the frigid lunar night.
