# How much will these dark streaks cost?   :)



## BANDERSNATCH (Jan 13, 2017)

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017...eaks-in-venus-clouds-be-signs-alien-life.html


Love how these articles mention "microbial life" as if it just pops up at anywhere there's dirt and water.   lol    Glad you guys can read articles like this and relate it to our past discussions on the odds of life ex-nihilo.


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## ambush80 (Jan 13, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017...eaks-in-venus-clouds-be-signs-alien-life.html
> 
> 
> Love how these articles mention "microbial life" as if it just pops up at anywhere there's dirt and water.   lol    Glad you guys can read articles like this and relate it to our past discussions on the odds of life ex-nihilo.



It doesn't matter what they might find or even if they learn to create life from nothing.  It doesn't effect religious belief based on feelings or  a "personal relationship".  I'd rather the money be spent on discovery than many other things it gets spent on.


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

What are you doing reading those silly scientific articles anyway?
Just ignore them. If it is not in the bible then it isn't possible.


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## swampstalker24 (Jan 13, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017...eaks-in-venus-clouds-be-signs-alien-life.html
> 
> 
> *Love how these articles mention "microbial life" as if it just pops up at anywhere there's dirt and water. *  lol    Glad you guys can read articles like this and relate it to our past discussions on the odds of life ex-nihilo.



Everything we have observed so far tells us this is in fact the case.....  even in the places where scientists would have never expected to find life (thermal vents 2 miles under the ocean, or 2 miles below huge ice sheets in Antarctica) guess what?  They found life....  and not just any life, but thriving life...  isn't life great?


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## ambush80 (Jan 13, 2017)

swampstalker24 said:


> Everything we have observed so far tells us this is in fact the case.....  even in the places where scientists would have never expected to find life (thermal vents 2 miles under the ocean, or 2 miles below huge ice sheets in Antarctica) guess what?  They found life....  and not just any life, but thriving life...  isn't life great?



...and mysterious and resilient and evolving.


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## 660griz (Jan 13, 2017)

Alien skid marks. Awesome.


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## BANDERSNATCH (Jan 13, 2017)

and another!   Same day!   lol

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5281329543001/?#sp=show-clips

despite 1 in 10^150th power odds of life coming about by chance, scientists still hold out hope that, purely by accident, astronomically complex life comes about by chance.       first life would have had too many parts, and it would have had to copy all the parts, all by chance and for no reason other than just being an accident.   lol    

at some point scientists have to start thinking outside the box.    oh wait, they already have.....panspermia.   lol


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## BANDERSNATCH (Jan 13, 2017)

Something to consider when you're discussing the origin of life and all these planets and moons that might have 'microbial life'.   This microbe is as simple as it gets; anything less can't live or replicate.  anything less is pure speculation and hope...  keep in mind a cell didn't want to be.   The cell in the image would be an accident


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> and another!   Same day!   lol
> 
> http://video.foxnews.com/v/5281329543001/?#sp=show-clips
> 
> ...


That number represents a one time , one condition "try". It does not account for the billions of years that unknowable amounts of various matter mixed with more unknowable amounts of various matter under countless conditions that existed in various extreme states throughout the entire universe.


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> Something to consider when you're discussing the origin of life and all these planets and moons that might have 'microbial life'.   This microbe is as simple as it gets; anything less can't live or replicate.  anything less is pure speculation and hope...  keep in mind a cell didn't want to be.   The cell in the image would be an accident


Keep in mind, On which day did God create the cell?


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> Something to consider when you're discussing the origin of life and all these planets and moons that might have 'microbial life'.   This microbe is as simple as it gets; anything less can't live or replicate.  anything less is pure speculation and hope...  keep in mind a cell didn't want to be.   The cell in the image would be an accident


The cell in the image is a result of the available chemistry set.


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

The cell is a result of it's parts. Only until those parts come together does it become a cell. Before that it is amino acids, sugars, proteins, etc which are formed by even less simple molecules.
What makes it live is as mysterious as how it gets together and how it's RNA and DNA dictate what it will become that is unique to itself.

Some people give all that credit to something that is even more mysterious than the cell they use as an example. They cant explain the life in the cell but expect others to believe they have figured out the creator of the cell.....and keep on bringing it up as if it hasn't been addressed before.


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## bullethead (Jan 13, 2017)

> Using computer models and statistical methods, biochemist Douglas Theobald calculated the odds that all species from the three main groups, or "domains," of life evolved from a common ancestor—versus, say, descending from several different life-forms or arising in their present form, Adam and Eve style.
> 
> The domains are bacteria, bacteria-like microbes called Archaea, and eukaryotes, the group that includes plants and other multicellular species, such as humans.
> 
> ...



That is even more impossible than the impossible odds Bandy likes to use.


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## ambush80 (Jan 14, 2017)

bullethead said:


> The cell is a result of it's parts. Only until those parts come together does it become a cell. Before that it is amino acids, sugars, proteins, etc which are formed by even less simple molecules.
> What makes it live is as mysterious as how it gets together and how it's RNA and DNA dictate what it will become that is unique to itself.
> 
> Some people give all that credit to something that is even more mysterious than the cell they use as an example. They cant explain the life in the cell but expect others to believe they have figured out the creator of the cell.....and keep on bringing it up as if it hasn't been addressed before.



Like^

Bandy,

Be real.  You're not hinging your faith on any of this science stuff anyway, are you?


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 14, 2017)

If life didn't happen by chance then there is a pretty good chance nothing else does.


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## bullethead (Jan 14, 2017)

Artfuldodger said:


> If life didn't happen by chance then there is a pretty good chance nothing else does.


So chance works one way for you but not another?


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## bullethead (Jan 14, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> Something to consider when you're discussing the origin of life and all these planets and moons that might have 'microbial life'.   This microbe is as simple as it gets; anything less can't live or replicate.  anything less is pure speculation and hope...  keep in mind a cell didn't want to be.   The cell in the image would be an accident


Actually that image of the cell is as simple as it gets now. It has had 4.5 billion years to evolve to that version. Can you tell us what a cell consisted of 3 billion years ago? Science thinks even more simple and basic than now.


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## drippin' rock (Jan 14, 2017)

I have a hard time rationalizing something from nothing.  I also have a hard time with an all knowing being in charge of it all, just waiting and hoping we will acknowledge its presence and off to hades if you don't. If some great being did spark us into existence, my bet is he/she/it/they have long forgotten this experiment and are off somewhere else starting another.


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## Artfuldodger (Jan 14, 2017)

bullethead said:


> So chance works one way for you but not another?



No, either everything is from chance or nothing is.


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## bullethead (Jan 14, 2017)

Artfuldodger said:


> No, either everything is from chance or nothing is.


Re-read your initial post, I know what you meant but the way you worded it you left it up to chance twice.


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## Israel (Jan 15, 2017)

bullethead said:


> The cell is a result of it's parts. Only until those parts come together does it become a cell. Before that it is amino acids, sugars, proteins, etc which are formed by even less simple molecules.
> What makes it live is as mysterious as how it gets together and how it's RNA and DNA dictate what it will become that is unique to itself.
> 
> Some people give all that credit to something that is even more mysterious than the cell they use as an example. They cant explain the life in the cell but expect others to believe they have figured out the creator of the cell.....and keep on bringing it up as if it hasn't been addressed before.


I don't expect anyone to believe anything. They already do.


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## bullethead (Jan 15, 2017)

Israel said:


> I don't expect anyone to believe anything. They already do.



Oh we know.
My comment was more directed at the people who mainly include tangibles in their conversations.


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## ambush80 (Jan 15, 2017)

drippin' rock said:


> I have a hard time rationalizing something from nothing.  I also have a hard time with an all knowing being in charge of it all, just waiting and hoping we will acknowledge its presence and off to hades if you don't. If some great being did spark us into existence, my bet is he/she/it/they have long forgotten this experiment and are off somewhere else starting another.




More to the point, why would we think we could know how a being like that could possibly operate on any level. 

The deist answer is "It implanted in us a way of knowing itself and gave a very weird book (which book?) telling us what It's like."  

To which I would ask "How could you possibly know that?".

To which they respond "I feel it."


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## Israel (Jan 15, 2017)

ambush80 said:


> More to the point, why would we think we could know how a being like that could possibly operate on any level.
> 
> The deist answer is "It implanted in us a way of knowing itself and gave a very weird book (which book?) telling us what It's like."
> 
> ...



Only if that Being made itself known.


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## ambush80 (Jan 15, 2017)

Israel said:


> Only if that Being made itself known.



OK.  I'll go with the empirical evidence then and believe in the God of the Muslims.


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## bullethead (Jan 15, 2017)

BANDERSNATCH said:


> Something to consider when you're discussing the origin of life and all these planets and moons that might have 'microbial life'.   This microbe is as simple as it gets; anything less can't live or replicate.  anything less is pure speculation and hope...  keep in mind a cell didn't want to be.   The cell in the image would be an accident


How about a virus?
With as little as 10,8 even 4 genes they "find" a host cell and replicate.
Is a virus alive?


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## Israel (Jan 16, 2017)

ambush80 said:


> OK.  I'll go with the empirical evidence then and believe in the God of the Muslims.



You go.


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## ambush80 (Jan 16, 2017)

Israel said:


> You go.



I'll go with the empirical evidence that zero (0) Gods have ever been confirmed.


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## bullethead (Jan 18, 2017)

Bandy, you are very quiet.


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## bullethead (Jan 22, 2017)

https://qz.com/890278/scientists-ha...iral-drugs/?utm_source=YPL&yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp 
Some of the greatest scientific discoveries have been accidental. To that list, Israeli scientists have added one more. They’ve discovered for the first time an instance of viruses leaving messages for other viruses.
What makes the discovery remarkable is that scientists expect such communication systems to exist among other kinds of viruses. If true, we’ll have one more route to attack devastating viruses, such as HIV or herpes.
The search began when Rotem Sorek of Weizmann Institute of Science and his colleagues were looking for “bacterial chatter.” They were studying how viruses attacked a bacterial species called Bacillus subtilis and they knew that, under certain situations, these bacteria communicate. The phenomenon, called quorum sensing, helps bacteria control their behavior based on the number of other bacteria around. It’s crucial in deciding, say, when a pathogenic bacteria decides to launch an attack on its host which could develop into a disease. What they found, however, was that the viruses were chattering too.
Viruses attack bacteria in two ways. Most of the time they take over the cell’s machinery and multiply until the cell explodes and dies. Sometimes, however, they simply inject their genome into the virus, waiting for an environmental cue to reawaken and multiply later.
Sorek’s hypothesis was that, given how frequently viruses attack B. subtilis, perhaps the bacteria have developed a way of warning others when an attack begins. So he took a virus called phi3T and added that to a flask full of B. subtilis. As expected, viruses killed the bacteria in large numbers.
To find if there was any chemical signaling going on, Sorek filtered the mixture to remove bacteria and viruses, leaving behind only proteins. He then added the protein mixture to a fresh flask containing B. subtilis. To his surprise, this time when he added phi3T viruses to that flask, the virus did something else. Instead of killing its hosts like last time, it slipped a part of its genome into the bacteria.
That means, instead of bacteria talking to each other, something in the protein mixture had made viruses change their mode of attack. Sorek had a mystery to solve.
After more than two years of searching through the protein mess, Sorek reports in the journal Nature that his team has found the protein that viruses used to communicate. His team has called the protein arbitrium, which is Latin for “decision.”
Sorek believes that when the levels of arbitrium build up, viruses switch their strategy from killing their host cells to injecting their genome. “It does make a lot of sense,” says Peter Fineran of the University of Otago told Nature. “If the phage is running out of hosts, it would try and limit its destruction, and sit quiet and wait for the host to re-establish growth.”
What’s more intriguing, however, is that Sorek found signs of many more types of arbitrium-like proteins. When phi3T viruses inject their genomes into B. subtilis bacteria, they also copy the DNA coded needed to produce arbitrium. When Sorek looked at genomes of other Bacillus bacteria, he found more than 100 unique DNA-snippets that were similar to the arbitrium DNA snippet. Thus, it’s quite likely that other viruses also use chemical signaling to communicate messages.
Even though viruses are the most primitive form of life, they infect and harm millions of people every year. The possibility of tapping into viral communication has many scientists excited, because it offers new ways to build drugs that could defeat viruses.


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## bullethead (Jan 22, 2017)

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/resea...ave-just-manipulated-pure-nothingness?ref=yfp

Physicists may have just manipulated 'pure nothingness'
Even nothing is something in the quantum world.

BRYAN NELSON
January 20, 2017, 5:09 p.m.


 quantum fluctuations
What happens when you squeeze a vacuum? (Photo: University of Konstanz)
It's one of those philosophical questions we occasionally ponder: What is nothing? Can nothing be something? If not, then how can something come from nothing?

If there's one scientific field on the forefront of such conceptual paradoxes, it's quantum theory. And in quantum theory, nothing actually is something ... sort of.

See, according to quantum mechanics, even an empty vacuum is not really empty. It's filled with strange virtual particles that blink in and out of existence in timespans too short to observe. Nothingness, on the quantum level, exists on a level of intuitive absurdity; a kind of existence that is paradoxical but, in some conceptual sense, necessary.

Science isn't usually comfortable dealing with phenomena that can't be observed. That's what makes this latest breakthrough, from physicists at University of Konstanz in Germany, so very profound and important. According to their research, recently published in the journal Nature, the nothingness that exists on the quantum level is not only something, but its fluctuations can be grasped, manipulated, and perhaps even observed.

That's not supposed to be possible on the quantum level. One of the truly mind-bending axioms of quantum mechanics is the idea that you can't measure something on the quantum level without fundamentally altering it. In other words, as soon as you attempt to observe some quantum system, the very act of observing it destroys it.

What the University of Konstanz researchers are claiming goes against this fundamental principle. They claim to have peered directly into the darkness and to have seen it for what it truly is. Or at least, they believe they have uncovered a method for actually observing things on the quantum level without destroying it.

Getting a handle on nothingness

How did they do this? Their method essentially involves firing a super short laser pulse lasting only a few femtoseconds (which, if you're counting, is measured on the level of millionths of a billionths of a second) into a "squeezed" vacuum. As the light fires through this vacuum, subtle changes in the polarization of the light can be analyzed to reveal a map, of sorts, of the quantum nothingness.

The "squeezing" of the vacuum is the real magic of this method. Perhaps the easiest way to think about it relates to what happens when you squeeze a balloon. The balloon expands and tightens in some areas and feels depleted in others.

This principle is charted on the graphic seen at the top of this article. As the vacuum is squeezed, quantum fluctuations peak in some parts of the vacuum while other parts actually drop to below the background noise level. If the method proves to be sound, it's a game-changer.

"As the new measurement technique neither has to absorb the photons to be measured nor amplify them, it is possible to directly detect the electromagnetic background noise of the vacuum and thus also the controlled deviations from this ground state, created by the researchers," explains a press release from the university.

The study still has its limitations. At best, it merely represents our first foray into the something that mysteriously permeates the void. It's an encouraging first step, however; one that promises to peer deeper at the philosophical absurdities of existence than ever before.

What is there to see when you squint into the heart of darkness? We may soon find out.


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