NASA announces news conference on "an astrobiology finding", 2nd of December

Jarvitä

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NASA announces news conference on "an astrobiology finding", 2nd of December

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-167


NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2


WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Participants are:
- Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
- Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
- James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe

Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at [email protected] or call 202-358-0918 by noon Dec. 2.

For NASA TV streaming video and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv



For more information about NASA astrobiology activities, visit:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov



- end -

Lots of big announcements coming from NASA lately.
:hailprobe:
 

SiberianTiger

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Astrobiology? I wonder what that can be. Perhaps, something like this?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1703225/...uate-bacteria-that-can-turn-feces-into-energy

unescosat.jpg


First UN Satellite Hopes to Turn Astronaut Poop Into Power Supply
BY Ariel SchwartzTue Nov 16, 2010

For the first time, the United Nations is planning to make its mark in space with an international satellite designed to promote science education and international cooperation in the sciences. But the $5 million satellite (UNESCOSat) won't go up alone--it will be accompanied by a number of payloads, including two from the Florida Institute of Technology filled with bacteria. Why?

The first payload is intended to examine the effects of Shewanella MR-1 (a bacteria) in a microgravity environment to determine its suitability for long-term space travel.

The goal is, to put it bluntly, to see if Shewanella can convert astronaut feces into hydrogen for use in onboard fuel cells. "The bacteria generates hydrogen. If we give waste to bacteria, it converts to hydrogen that could be used in a fuel cell. We're looking at how reliable the bacteria are," explains Donald Platt, the Program Director for the Space Sciences and Space Systems Program at the Florida Institute of Technology. Shewanella's viability will be determined based on its growth rate in space--figuring out, in other words, how different its life cycle is in space than it is on Earth.

The second payload will test the viability of certain bacteria in surviving on the crusts of frozen bodies in the solar system (i.e. the frozen ice caps on Mars) as part of an attempt to evaluate techniques for recognizing evidence of extinct life on future space missions.

Impressively enough, the Florida Institute of Technology went from design to production on its two payloads, which each consist of a storage vessel, a mixing vessel, a solenoid pump, and a testing area, in under three months. Platt attributes the speed to SpaceClaim, an ultra-intuitive piece of 3-D direct modeling software. " A student may work on [the project] during one semester, then get busy and have to move on. Other students could pick right up and move forward with the software," Platt says.

Next up: getting the payloads onto the UNESCO satellite and into space. The satellite is expected to launch in the first half of 2011 and stay in orbit for up to five years. And after that? We may just see Shewanella go up with the next space flight crew.
 

Wishbone

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Somebody mistook a U for an I in "finding"
 
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T.Neo

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Atlanta News- Has NASA found life near Saturn?

I get really annoyed when people say stuff like this. It gets people all hyped up, and then greatly disappointed and annoyed when it turns out to be something mundane, and that hurts NASA's reputation.

This being NASA, they'll probably announce the presence of some phosphorous compound in an Enceladean geyser, which proves the existence of some novel little geological process going on under the crust. Or something like that.

You never know though, but it certainly isn't anything to get hyped up about.

Unless you have a lifelong interest in Enceladean subsurface environments. ;)
 

Lunar_Lander

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German E-Mail Provider GMX annoyed me all day with the question "Did NASA find Aliens?" A few minutes ago they changed that headline with "NASA presents Terran aliens", saying that a blogger allegedly wrote an article with the title "Did NASA find Aliens?"

As T.Neo says, it is disappointing to read stuff like that. Especially when you read the comments on GMX, where people say bogus like

I had hoped NASA found that Beth Ditto is from Saturn's outer ring. No sensation again.

I mean really, what is the point to present research news on a site which claims that FIFA is corrupted because of the decision to hold the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in Russia and Qatar? It only leads to bashing (and that GMX shuts down the comment sections between 6 pm and 6 am).
(Remark: The top news on the site is an article called "Beaten to death because of 20 Cents?")
 

Wishbone

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The Sun violated the embargo, others followed suit. How arsenic of them...
 

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FIFA is not corrupt? THAT would be news.
 

T.Neo

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Take that, "WE FOUND ALIENS" optimists!

Uh... no. There is no "take that" to optimists, only people who got hyped up by, well, the hype.

I am a "finding aliens" optimist. That doesn't mean I start jumping around the room when NASA announces that they're wasting time on a press conference because of some spiffy new bacterium. :rolleyes:
 

Jarvitä

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That's what I meant, the people who were optimistic about NASA finding actual, extraterrestrial aliens this time. Even though the announcement clearly stated this would only change the way they look for habitable planets.
 

orb

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And there's article from NASA:
NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

2010-12-02

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

{colsp=2}
Click on images to enlarge​
| Image of Mono Lake Research area | Felisa Wolfe-Simon processing mud from Mono Lake to inoculate media to grow microbes on arsenic.


"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

{colsp=2}
Click on images to enlarge​
| Image of GFAJ-1 grown on arsenic. | Image of GFAJ-1 grown on phosphorus.


The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the Stanford Synchroton Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, Calif.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth.

For more information about the finding and a complete list of researchers, visit:

 

Mandella

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Atlanta News- Has NASA found life near Saturn?

I get really annoyed when people say stuff like this. It gets people all hyped up, and then greatly disappointed and annoyed when it turns out to be something mundane, and that hurts NASA's reputation.

;)

I'm from the Atlanta area, and I hate to think about AJC's descent into tabloid journalism. I won't pick up a local paper now, or even look at the headlines.

On the other hand, the actual bacterium discovered is kinda a big deal, and is quite exciting in its own right.
 

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I'm really annoyed with all the hype that nasa is trying to generate. When they find life they can take out the front page news in the Times or something like that. Till then, this is all prittle-prattle!
 

orb

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I'm really annoyed with all the hype that nasa is trying to generate.
It is not the NASA, but public media that are getting it wrong and speculating. NASA are always releasing announcements before their news conferences. Should they write in announcement "a news conference about nothing interesting to public, but very meaningful to science" instead?
 
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