Reminds me of the Gamma Forest at Brookhaven National Labs. From 1961 thru 1978 they irradiated a section of the pine barrens forest with a cesium-137 source just to see what would happen. It sterilized the soil and hardly anything grows there, almost 50 years later. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pJYr6qiZnMdVwLJS6 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/brookhaven-gamma-forest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsuiLxcDuHY&t=925s
What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
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Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#12It feels next would be trying isolate the component that make CO2. Try to use smaller sample. Put them under microscope, etc.
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#13This is huge news if true for evaluating soil experiments on Mars. They could give false positives for life if they only look for metabolic products.
Not as much as you might think. We've found amino acids almost everywhere we look, including astroids [1]. It seems that the building blocks of life pretty naturally and readily form. Which is a pretty strong indicator that life is likely fairly common outside earth. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-asteroid-bennu-sampl...
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#14This is huge news if true for evaluating soil experiments on Mars. They could give false positives for life if they only look for metabolic products.
Not as much as you might think. We've found amino acids almost everywhere we look, including astroids [1]. It seems that the building blocks of life pretty naturally and readily form. Which is a pretty strong indicator that life is likely fairly common outside earth. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-asteroid-bennu-sampl...
The other 11 amino-acids from proteins have never been found where life does not exist. They are more complex and they seem to have been developed by living beings long after the appearance of life and the appearance of the genetic code (they seem to have substituted later the simpler amino-acids in certain locations of the map of the original genetic code, which encoded fewer amino-acids).
Moreover, while the simple amino-acids, including the ten that are used in proteins, can be found pretty much everywhere, wherever they were not produced by living beings they have been found in racemic mixtures, i.e. in equal amounts of left-handed and right-handed isomers, while in proteins only the left-handed isomers are used, so the living beings normally produce almost only left-handed isomers. Very small quantities of right-handed isomers are produced by some living beings, for other purposes than making proteins.
So it is relatively easy to distinguish amino-acids that have been produced by living beings from amino-acids that have been produced in abiotic conditions (i.e. the amino-acids produced in abiotic conditions are recognized by the absence of complex amino-acids and by the presence of great quantities of right-handed isomers).
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#15Reminds me of the Gamma Forest at Brookhaven National Labs. From 1961 thru 1978 they irradiated a section of the pine barrens forest with a cesium-137 source just to see what would happen. It sterilized the soil and hardly anything grows there, almost 50 years later. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pJYr6qiZnMdVwLJS6 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/brookhaven-gamma-forest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsuiLxcDuHY&t=925s
That's a bit odd - why wouldn't wind blown non-sterile organic matter from the surrounding forest re-colonize the area?
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit odd - why wouldn't wind blown non-sterile organic matter from the surrounding forest re-colonize the area?
If there's enough radioactive material and it is mobile enough (due to ground water or wind driven mixing) to stay near the surface it could sterilize any organic material that comes in faster than it can accumulate.
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit odd - why wouldn't wind blown non-sterile organic matter from the surrounding forest re-colonize the area?
If there's enough radioactive material and it is mobile enough (due to ground water or wind driven mixing) to stay near the surface it could sterilize any organic material that comes in faster than it can accumulate.
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#18Reminds me of the Gamma Forest at Brookhaven National Labs. From 1961 thru 1978 they irradiated a section of the pine barrens forest with a cesium-137 source just to see what would happen. It sterilized the soil and hardly anything grows there, almost 50 years later. https://maps.app.goo.gl/pJYr6qiZnMdVwLJS6 https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/brookhaven-gamma-forest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsuiLxcDuHY&t=925s
That's a bit odd - why wouldn't wind blown non-sterile organic matter from the surrounding forest re-colonize the area?
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#19It feels next would be trying isolate the component that make CO2. Try to use smaller sample. Put them under microscope, etc.
Re: What appear to be biochemical processes may be a natural feature of geology
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing the distinct lack of Google Streetview on that circular bit of road nearby and the tracks implies a certain amount of resistance to access if you get off that dual carriageway to the west?
That "circular bit of road" is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the second highest-powered particle accelerator on the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_Heavy_Ion_Collide...
The dump load for one of my wind turbines is a pair of 22Ω resistors recovered from one of CERN's "free for all" scrap piles :-)