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Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-05zm.html]Click

*Definitely some of this -not- a "strong suit" subject for me.  As it could pertain to Mars, will place it in this folder. 

Will copy and paste points which stand out, IMO:

Everyone since Darwin has said there's only one kind of life on Earth -- our good old DNA life. And yet, we do not know if that's true on other planets.

Discusses DNA 'vs' RNA.

So if there's not DNA life, what else could there be? What are the alternative forms of chemistry?

Then we can think about the variable histories of life that a planet might have. The first is that life never evolves. The second is that it does evolve, it has a history, and then it dies out as the life systems age.

A third option is that life may get cut short by termination through mass extinction. Or life on a planet evolves, is exterminated, and then re-evolves.

Re-evolves.  Could whatever rudimentary native Mars lifeforms re-evolve (if they are there)?

Especially intriguing, IMO:

I'm not in any position to say when life on Earth moved from a RNA world to a DNA world. But the switch probably occurred because DNA is so much more efficient, due to copying fidelity. Steven Benner and Jack Szostak are working on artificially producing RNA segments, and their work has shown that RNA makes lots of mistakes in copying itself.

Mentions viruses and genomes as well.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Cobra Commander

Member

From: The outskirts of Detroit.

Registered: 2002-04-09

Posts: 3,039

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

Interesting article. Dominions and Arboreas, I suppose that makes sense.

Remember when there were only two Kingdoms instead of five?   ???

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

*Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. 

Sorry (your question about Kingdoms brought back my elementary-school memory of memorizing that list -- in order.  <grin>)

But to answer your question, no.  Of course your school days are a bit more "recent" than mine. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Cobra Commander

Member

From: The outskirts of Detroit.

Registered: 2002-04-09

Posts: 3,039

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/a … angetially related to this subject, an article I read a few months ago.

In short, the creation of totally artificial life. Not copying or modifying existing life, but building something entirely new from the ground up.

Do you name it, or just give a year, make and model?  ???

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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

reddragon

Banned

From: Earth

Registered: 2005-01-24

Posts: 193

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

n short, the creation of totally artificial life. Not copying or modifying existing life, but building something entirely new from the ground up.

Do you name it, or just give a year, make and model?

And how do you classify it? Maybe it's time for a new kingdom. Or another classification level above Kingdom: Make -- natural or artificial (or something like that; it would probably be in Latin).

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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

             -The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
              by Douglas Adams

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Seeing Forests in the Tree of Life

A fascinating overview of the possibilities for life and its classification. I particularly liked the last part:-

This is why, at the end of this book I've just written, I'm suggesting that we think about a manning a mission to Mars with a paleontologist, and a manning a mission to Titan with an organic chemist."

    I second that!  :up:   

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner