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Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

#34

Post by ianamartin »

dEnigma wrote: post #7

Penelope Boston, the director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, and her team have spent years exploring Mexico's Naica Mine in Chihuahua looking for extremophiles, which contain caves as large as cathedrals. Is it just because English isn't my first language, or does that sentence sound weird to native speakers too? Like the extremophiles contain "caves as large as cathedrals"

It's not just you. The whole article is full of some really janky and broken English. No offense to the original author intended, but I would really expect the Telegraph to have better editing than this.

Re: Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

#35

Post by gus_massa »

ksikka wrote: post #30

Disappointed - not much on why these life forms are "weird".

I agree. The article is not very clear, but IIUC they only found some bacteria and some archaea. Some of them are weird because they live in place that are very hot or because they get their energy from "weird" sources. Instead of burning something like sugar with the oxygen of the air they use other compounds. They may burn ferrous iron or sulfur. There are many possibilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithotroph

They are very common underground. IIRC the mass of all the "weird" extremophiles is bigger that the mass of the usual life forms that we usually meet.

Re: Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

#36

Post by ams6110 »

andai wrote: post #32
ksikka wrote: post #30

Disappointed - not much on why these life forms are "weird".

They thrive in an environment devoid of organic matter!

I didn't read it as if they were thriving -- more that they were locked dormant within the crystals.

Re: Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

#37

Post by firethief »

twic wrote: post #6
mattkevan wrote: post #4

That headline sounds like the plot of some Roger Corman-style B-movie. Why were they trapped in the first place? And is it a good idea to let them out?

Yes, this is the famous aphorism of Zal-Tar's Fence: > There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a crystal or jewel erected to contain an ancient being. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the danger this being poses; let us release it." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don’t s…

Sounds like a particular application of the more general principle that in order to disagree with someone constructively you first need to be able to articulate their point of view in a way they would agree with.

Re: Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years

#39

Post by moomin »

mattkevan wrote: post #4

That headline sounds like the plot of some Roger Corman-style B-movie. Why were they trapped in the first place? And is it a good idea to let them out?

I swear, there's a scientist who looks suspiciously like Jake Gyllenhal saying "The way they're organising... it's almost intelligent..." just off camera right now.
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