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Synthetic biology and the search for extraterrestrial life. “Are we alone?” is one of the primary questions of astrobiology, and whose answer defines our significance in the universe.
- Lynn J. Rothschild
- 2015
The first section will explore epistemological areas such as (a) dealing with the limitation of knowing only one kind of biology, (b) challenges of discerning an independent origin of life, and (c) challenges for assessing the biological status of a region or entire planet.
- Mark L. Lupisella
- Planetary Science
- Planetary Systems
- Origins of Life
- Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence
In the wake of the demise of the idea of canals on Mars, the red planet remained a focus for the search for life in the Solar System. After Lowell’s death in 1916, with the close approach of Mars in 1924 attention focused on the possibility of Martian vegetation rather than intelligence. In one particularly important case this was still tied to the...
Long before the Viking results were in hand, attention had turned beyond the Solar System to the possibility of the existence of other planetary systems—a prerequisite for life in the realm of the stars. Since they could not be directly observed, belief in such systems was greatly affected for most of the century by theories of their origin (Dick 1...
Even as the idea of abundant planetary systems was being revived in the 1950s, work was also progressing on the biological question of the origins of life, a crucial factor in the question of extraterrestrial life (Fry 2000). In the 1920s the Russian biochemist Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin (Oparin 1924, 1936) and the British biologist J. B. S. Haldan...
All these questions in the origin of life arena are multiplied when it comes to the nature of consciousness, mind, and intelligence. In many ways defining “intelligence” remains more problematic than defining “life,” with many different possible approaches undertaken in a very large literature (Sternberg 2000, 2002). To frame it another way, there ...
- Steven J. Dick
- 2020
In a nutshell: Use tentative (vs. defining) cri-teria to search for potentially biological anomalies (vs. life per se). Unlike defining criteria, the purpose of tentative criteria is not to provide a decision procedure for estimating the probability that an extraterrestrial phenomenon is the product of life.
May 12, 2020 · The Biological Universe (Dick, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996) analyzed the history of the extraterrestrial life debate, documenting how scientists have assessed the chances of life beyond Earth during the twentieth century.
- Steven J. Dick
- 2020
Jan 1, 2013 · Scientists learned how to culture and identify bacteria in the laboratory, and we began to see the integral role that the microbial biosphere played in exploiting and maintaining the habitability of Earth (e.g., Waksman 1927; Van Niel 1931; Werkman and Wood 1942).
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Are there any books about extremophiles?
This paper evaluates extremophiles and extreme environments in the context of astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life. Key Words: Extremophile—Microorganism—Genomics— Methanogen—Lake Vostok—Psychrophile—Hyperthermophile—Extraterrestrial. Astrobiol-ogy 2, 281–292. DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD.
