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Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov suspects an extraterrestrial origin for bacteria found on the exterior of the ISS:
A Russian cosmonaut claims to have caught aliens. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov says he found bacteria clinging to the external surface of the International Space Station that didn't come from the surface of Earth.
Shkaplerov told the Russian news agency that cosmonauts collected the bacteria by swabbing the outside of the space station during space walks years ago.
"And now it turns out that somehow these swabs reveal bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module," Shkapkerov told TASS. "That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface. They are being studied so far and it seems that they pose no danger."
A recent study suggests that interplanetary dust can transport microbes to or from Earth:
Astronomers have long believed that asteroid (or comet) impacts were the only natural way to transport life between planets. However, a new study published November 6 in Astrobiology suggests otherwise.
The study, authored by Professor Arjun Berera from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, suggests that life on Earth may have begun when fast-moving streams of space dust carried microscopic organisms to our planet. Berera found that these streams of interplanetary dust are not only capable of transporting particles to Earth, but also from it.
Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism (DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1662) (DX) (arXiv link above)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @12:14PM (1 child)
The 1%'ers ( the banking elite ) could crash the entire system, sans them, anytime they want to right now. They've got everyone in debt. Just call the debt.
Instant civil war between the middle class and lower class, with the upper class absconding to underground shelter to wait out the melee.
Probably take three to five years for the aboveground melee to sort itself out, leaving maybe 1% of the original population. And of those surviving, they will have street fighting skills, not building skills. The type that hoard ammo, not tools. I believe that in a survival scenario, those best at taking other people's stuff will be better suited for short time survival than those who build stuff. Those who build stuff won't build because there won't be much sense building anything that someone else is going to take. The building class will probably suffer the worst, so when the melee is over, what the elite have to work with is people who are hell-bent on killing for survival, and will be pretty hard to manage. People who will shoot them in the back at the first chance they get. Like today in some "bad areas" of some of our previously prosperous cities.
So there won't be anyone left to do the grunt work of building all their fancy things, running the infrastructure, and preparing the elite all their fancy foods. When they run out of their stored cache of goods, its stone age again for the elite as well. Look at the Biblical account of the Kings of the Earth of the day. I believe all of us today live a better life than even the King of old. I believe few Kings want to regress to that kind of lifestyle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @02:01PM
Offtopic, sure.
Calling the debt but without enforcement of the call means no one will give back anything. All debts will go to zero all of a sudden and we can all start fresh. If some rat-faced banker shows up wanting his money back, he will be hanged from the nearest tree.
Humans when left to their own devices are quite smart and adapt quickly. Turn off the television and the population's I.Q jumps many points (over a period of time).