Is Nasa about to announce the discovery of life on titan?

[Danny]

http://io9.com/5702433/is-nasa-about...rrestrial-life Honestly weve heard lots of scientists say something like 'if titan is an early earth level atmosphere with arsenic contained within photosynthesis can occcur' and titans been a competitor for mars in discussions about our first offworld colonys so if they are announcing theyve found some bacteria or traces of such life finding it on titan wouldnt be surprising by now. The cynic in me however says its probably a boondoggle in a bid to get nasa some sorely needed funding and might just be "we think found what might be a dead worm. or something entirely benign, maybe" just to buzz up interest. If it is life though does anyone really think it will have this 'ending of religion' fervour attached like most seem to think? I mean for one thing its not going to be little grey men in saucers because lets face it, for a sentient societal machine developing lifeform we are kind of a 1 in a billion freak show to have turned out how we have compared to everything else that came from the sea way back when so it probably will just be some primordial ooze style pools of goo. and secondly, this isnt 'bizaare creatures from another galaxy' this is titan, we can see it. we have sent machines there, its made from the same stuff as earth and orbits the same sun. is it really going to cause a crisis of faith in people if this is legit? maybe its just cold rational logic on my part but wouldnt this just be a mild tweaking at best? Maybe i am just in an unusually positive mood about humanity right now but i cannot see religious folk getting there shit all kicked up over bacteria yknow? Anyway my best guess is theyve found not life but a possible life sustaining 'magic combination of elements' which means there would now be two possible biospheres that could be found out there and not just another copy of earths which would make the possibility of life being out there slightly more likely.

[Kaos]

Wow, this is pretty exciting. I wonder if there is visual evidence or some form of secondary evidence like spectral analysis of the atmosphere or something along those lines. Can't wait either way!

[MikePizzoff]

is it really going to cause a crisis of faith in people if this is legit? maybe its just cold rational logic on my part but wouldnt this just be a mild tweaking at best? Maybe i am just in an unusually positive mood about humanity right now but i cannot see religious folk getting there shit all kicked up over bacteria yknow? You're right, but hopefully it'll shut up all the morons. "We're the only living creatures in the universe. God created us! There's nothing in the Bible about any other planets having life!"

[Mike70]

i don't think it would do much to religion at all. i think that religious minded folks would look into their holy books and find a passage that fits, then go with it. see, the bible/koran/torah/veda/insert-holy-work-from-any-religion was telling us this 2,000 years ago, blah, blah, blah.

[darth los]

[Maybe i am just in an unusually positive mood about humanity right now but i cannot see religious folk getting there shit all kicked up over bacteria yknow? Bacteria= Zygote. Nuff said.

[BillyRay]

i don't think it would do much to religion at all. i think that religious minded folks would look into their holy books and find a passage that fits, then go with it. see, the bible/koran/torah/veda/insert-holy-work-from-any-religion was telling us this 2,000 years ago, blah, blah, blah. Hey, let's send all the Fundimental Evangelical Missionaries we can to Titan. Right now! I'll chip in for rocket fuel!

[Danny]

i don't think it would do much to religion at all. i think that religious minded folks would look into their holy books and find a passage that fits, then go with it. see, the bible/koran/torah/veda/insert-holy-work-from-any-religion was telling us this 2,000 years ago, blah, blah, blah. I think its just that it doesnt seem so crazy, like anyone can get a telescope and see titan, you can point at it and go "thats it over there" and if you have enough dough for the fuel and life support and food you could eventually go there already. I think it makes it seem more mundane and 'local' if you know what i mean. I could honestly just see any priests asked about it by people having a crisis of faith just replying with a shrug and 'god did it there too, thats a near insignificant distance between the two locations for him" or something like that yknow? at least, more easy to accept than a probe from the andromeda galaxy landing on the white house lawn going "stop broadcasting those charlie chaplin videos at us. its not funny" know what i mean?

[krakenslayer]

Apparently it's just something to do with the discovery of bacteria in a hot spring that, unlike all other life on Earth, uses arsenic instead of phosphorous for a specific part of its metabolic process. It's not about aliens on Titan or, as some lay-bloggers are mis-reporting it, bacteria with "alien DNA". It is important, however, because it is the only life form we have found so far that deviates from the normal metabolic process, and it shows that planets do not have to possess exactly the same chemical environment as Earth to harbour life. If bacteria on Earth can use arsenic instead of phosphorous, then there is no reason that alien life cannot function using completely different elements from those available on our planet. Essentially, it broadens the number of places we can expect to look for alien life.

[bassman]

I can see it now. This bacteria will cause the end of the world in 2012.

[krakenslayer]

It also implies the possibility that life originated more than once on Earth, and that this organism could be a survival from a wholly different, and much older, genesis than all other life that we have so-far encountered.

[EvilNed]

The only religious people whose view this would go against are the ones who deny evolution and "science" in the first place. So I doubt another groundbreaking scientific discovery would shake them up.

[MikePizzoff]

The only religious people whose view this would go against are the ones who deny evolution and "science" Isn't that what the most common religions do, though?

[EvilNed]

Depends. Do you interpret the bible literally or figureatively?

[MikePizzoff]

Depends. Do you interpret the bible literally or figureatively? I think you should know me better by now! It's all figurative. The bible is just a book that tells you what's right and what's wrong, only expanded to epic proportions. Anybody who thinks there was REALLY once a guy that could walk on water, then turn said water into wine with the wave of a hand, needs to wake up.

[EvilNed]

I don't mean "You" as in "You, Mike Pizzoff the Third, Lord of Essex and Conqueror of the Southern Babes", I meant "You" as in... You know. Other people.