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posted by janrinok on Friday January 26 2018, @02:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the sounds-simple dept.

A new study suggests a biosignature that the James Webb Space Telescope could search for:

The new study looks at the history of life on Earth, the one inhabited planet we know, to find times where the planet's atmosphere contained a mixture of gases that are out of equilibrium and could exist only in the presence of living organisms — anything from pond scum to giant redwoods. In fact, life's ability to make large amounts of oxygen has only occurred in the past one-eighth of Earth's history.

By taking a longer view, the researchers identified a new combination of gases that would provide evidence of life: methane plus carbon dioxide, minus carbon monoxide.

"We need to look for fairly abundant methane and carbon dioxide on a world that has liquid water at its surface, and find an absence of carbon monoxide," said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. "Our study shows that this combination would be a compelling sign of life. What's exciting is that our suggestion is doable, and may lead to the historic discovery of an extraterrestrial biosphere in the not-too-distant future."

Also at Popular Mechanics.

Disequilibrium biosignatures over Earth history and implications for detecting exoplanet life (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao5747) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 26 2018, @05:22PM (5 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday January 26 2018, @05:22PM (#628345) Journal

    Christianity has a lot more challenges ahead. Historically, the church hasn't handled it too well. 400 years ago, the fact that the Earth may not be the Center of the Universe after all didn't go down well with a lot of Christians. In the Middle Ages, the church backed a lot of astronomy. It's like they felt they had to, to maintain and enhance credibility with the masses by having superior knowledge of the heavens and celestial events, and not because they were genuinely curious. Within that context, their attitude towards Galileo is more comprehensible. Some priests must have felt he was a traitor for contradicting their astronomical dogma.

    Today, many so called Christians are still fighting to deny evolution. It's so damaging to the religion. Makes Christians and Christianity look stupid. Painted themselves into a logical corner again, and now they're trying to rip up the canvas to get out. Why can't we be closely related to monkeys, and still be "created in the image of God"? And then, some adopt denial of Global Warming and idiotically and with barely any justification, treat that position like it's a pillar of the faith that if proven wrong, will bring all Christianity down with it!

    The core of Christianity is the morals that Jesus preached. The miracles are merely a sideshow, very likely hugely exaggerated or entirely invented events hoked up to wow the credulous. They're not that important, and if Christians had more sense, they'd quit clinging to them as "proof" of the divine provenance of the Bible and Jesus.

    Those of weak faith, who lean on the miraculous, who are shaken to the core every time a book and movie like The Da Vinci Code comes out, could really use some help understanding faith and science. If only they'd listen, which, sadly, most won't.

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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 26 2018, @06:22PM (4 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Friday January 26 2018, @06:22PM (#628384) Journal

    Believe it or not, there's a lot of Protestant descendant Christians who also think the Catholic Church was and / or is corrupt and that the Catholic Church doesn't follow the core teachings of Jesus. The core teachings of Jesus are embodied in the Ten Commandments with Jesus himself having given a summation of the "Laws of the Prophets". "37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." --Matthew 22:37-40 A Christian who doesn't follow the Ten Commandments, is living in ignorance.

    Christians deny evolution as the "Science" of evolution takes giant leaps of faith that their wacko scheme of billions of years ago we started as a big bang or whatever happens to be popular to describe the evolution of life, nonsense. I have a greater likelihood of growing a leg out of ear than some of the the pseudo scientific evolution teachings. Evolution is built on the faith that we came from something, so why not monkeys. I know that the evolution of the species is likely true in that some species of birds and / or frogs, etc. may adapt to their environment in such a way that they evolve. Just stop trying to feed me the billions of years life creation story or the millions of years dinosaur theories. How likely is it that we're coming across Huge deposits of dinosaur remains that are recognizable as such after millions of years of them being buried? Why would there be evidence of anything after that length of time? Or even more crazy is finding Fully Frozen Woolly Mammoth carcasses. 40,000 years in frozen ice and it isn't some sort of unidentifiable yuck? Sure, ice, it keeps things frozen / preserved better. But, for 40k years, you've got to be kidding me.

    Global Warming has nothing to do with the "Evolution debate". I could have a relatively sane conversation about Global Warming, if it wasn't punctuated with Crazy talk. Yes, I don't want the world to become some kind of desert. No, I don't think we're going to have that issue in the next 100 years. No, I don't think the polar ice caps are going to melt in that time, either. That Doesn't make me a Global Warming / Climate Science Denier. That makes me a fairly reasonable human being. Yes, I don't like bunches of smog in the air and Coal Stacks pouring pollutants in the air. Guess what, I like breathing, that seems to be a novel concept to some people. I really do like the idea of Solar Power, but it's not as proven of a source as Coal / Oil. Sure, it may be the golden rainbow we need, but that knowledge will hopefully come in the future. Yes, greedy people/corporations will be greedy and not care one bit about the environment or anyone else. There's a huge uphill battle for anything that encroaches on well entrenched industries. That doesn't mean we'll stick with the horse and buggy, though. Change doesn't usually happen overnight, unless it's violent and / or forced in some way. Whether through rule of law, violent enforcement, or due to sheer survival. We're surviving just fine at the moment, government and certain corporations don't have much incentive to push it, and there are no rebellions happening because of Global Warming. While the USA is huge, and we can do better, we aren't "The Problem" when it comes to pumping vast amounts of pollutants into the air. Developing countries are much more of a problem in comparison. Especially large economies and industries in India and China. http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/countries-with-the-worst-air-pollution-ranked-by-world-health-organisation/news-story/524a5b1df6311d122892c0b7de940934 [news.com.au] Though, according to the WHO, China's not as bad as some when considering Air Pollution.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:43PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:43PM (#628457)

      You are telling us that your issue with evolution is that you just can't imagine a rock lasting millions of years?

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 29 2018, @04:43PM

        by Freeman (732) on Monday January 29 2018, @04:43PM (#629866) Journal

        My issues with evolution are the conclusions that they jump to from what they say are an exact science. When the fact that they are giving such huge ranges of time implies that they have no idea what they are talking about. Yes, rock lasts a long time, but just looking at our own "recent history". We barely have bits of recognizable architecture, and Stone artifacts from recent history. Why would there be such a wealth of evidence of the Dinosaurs, if the dinosaurs lived Millions of years ago? Why wouldn't in that vast time period, something have happened to the evidence. Either through erosion, or earthquakes, or volcanoes, or any of the other supposed catastrophic things that may have happened in the mean time. Why are there fossils on the tops of Mountains that haven't been eroded over the vast time periods? Here's a thought, perhaps, the dinosaurs, and other things lived much, much closer in recent past. The reason why there's such a wealth of evidence of the Dinosaurs and fossils on the tops of the mountains and just lying on the surface of plains is that they lived not that long ago. The elements haven't had Millions of years to erode the evidence that they ever existed. "Q: In what state can you find a lot of dinosaur bones?
        A: Dinosaurs are found in 35 states and on every continent, wherever rocks from dinosaur time on ancient land are now on the surface. The best dinosaur-searching places are deserts and badlands out West. (Don Lessem)" https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/locations-dinosaur-digs/ [scholastic.com]

        There's also the issue of Dinosaur Tracks. Why / How could have a track, survived for Millions of Years in a stream, or even just out on the surface? Shouldn't just air and sand, etc blowing over it have eroded it, or especially in the case of the Dinosaur Tracks in a stream with water eroding them. Erosion is a powerful force!

        "Q: Have you found any dinosaur bones in Austin, Texas? About how far did you dig to find the dinosaur bones?
        A: So far no one has found any dinosaurs here in Austin. But we have found some dinosaur tracks which are in the middle of one of the city's parks. They are from an ostrich-sized carnivorous dinosaur. Most of the rocks around here were deposited in the ocean, so we mostly find marine reptiles like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs inside the city. Strictly speaking, these are not dinosaurs but they are still very exciting to find. We found all of them by looking for bones lying on the surface of the ground. Only after we found some pieces did we know where to dig. The plesiosaur skeleton took about six weeks to dig up. The hole it came out of was not very deep but it took a long time because the rock it was in was very hard. (Tim Rowe)"

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 26 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday January 26 2018, @11:23PM (#628617) Journal

      Well, I'll give it a go.

      > evolution takes giant leaps of faith

      No. Science, including evolution, does not take anything whatsoever on faith. We do have to proceed with the proviso that what we observe is real. There may be an undetectable, deeper, possibly supernatural, reality underlying everything, but without any way to find out if there is and what its nature might be. Besides, no matter how deeply we probe, are able to probe, someone can always speculate that there's something deeper.

      Science and rationality have deservedly achieved a reputation as great tools for answering questions. Consequently, pseudo scientists are always trying to get an easy ride by asserting that some claim they're making is backed by science, when it isn't. Not always easy to spot them, but sadly, some religions are infested with them and those often are easy to spot.

      > stop trying to feed me the billions of years life creation story or the millions of years dinosaur theories.

      What's the basis for your contention that these time scales are too long to be credible? Entropy makes everything decay too fast for anything to occur over such large time scales? That's an assertion that can be tested, and the results are that matter does last an incredibly long time. Think of it from the viewpoint of inertia. Why shouldn't a rock or a fossilized bone, once it has settled into a local low energy state, remain unchanged, for billions or trillions of years, or even longer, absent some external agent to drive a change?

      > No, I don't think we're going to have that issue in the next 100 years. No, I don't think the polar ice caps are going to melt in that time, either.

      Frozen mammoths can't resist decay for 40,000 years, but ice caps can definitely resist melting for over 100 years of warmer weather?

      Anyway, many of the proposals are good ideas whether or not Global Warming is real and a problem. For instance, there's lots of room for improvement in traffic light timings. Red lights frequently delay travelers for nothing because they're too mindless to detect and respond to those cases when the direction with the green is empty of traffic. Making traffic lights smarter would save time and help with the Global Warming problem.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 29 2018, @04:59PM

        by Freeman (732) on Monday January 29 2018, @04:59PM (#629871) Journal

        Evolution, isn't science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method [wikipedia.org] The theory of evolution is just that.

        100 years is a much shorter time span than 40,000 years, so yeah, I stand by that. We can actually gather evidence for hundred year experiments and studies. Anything saying 40,000 years, is wild speculation.

        That being said, I do care about the planet and am hopeful that these "green energy" pushes will be more than political posturing. I hope they will make a difference in our pursuit of a cleaner environment.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"