Rico Penguin

[ Index ]
Part 1 – The Introduction
Part 2 – From Universe to Solar System

  So where were we? Well science is not my strong point, I’m more about the philosophy of things using science as backup. That being said if you catch any scientific inaccuracies in here don’t be all too surprised. The general idea should be close enough for Jazz however.

  Generally speaking the further away from a star you are the larger you are. I’m not entirely sure why but I’ve read a few times that it has to do with the lower temperatures. As planets are forming there was probably an issue with certain matter being burned away from inner planets (like say Ice) which didn’t burn off on the outer planets. This would give them much more mass to pull in even more matter until they hit whatever limit (that is before they’d start hitting those uncomfortably large star sizes).

  While there are other planets in our Solar System and I’m sure with a good drink and a weekend you could get to know any of them and find them to be quite friendly folks. However there is one that is substantially more important at the moment. That would be Earth, which in the beginning like all other matter was in a fairly hot state. This molten sphere was spinning quite merrily, getting belted by frozen comets and meteor rocks and probably a unicorn or two (okay likely not the latter).

  According to a report I read (and subsequently watched on FORA.tv, again you all should check it out), the Moon was formed from a rather large impact during the early days of the Earth. A massive object smashed into the Earth launching a fairly large, dare I say moon sized, chunk of rock into the atmosphere. Interestingly as the video notes the composition of the moon fits quite nicely with this theory and frankly I see little reason not to believe it, I imagine otherwise it would be quite hard for something the size of the moon to be flying by and get stuck in our orbit.

  About 4 billion years ago, which frankly isn’t all that long when thinking about non-living things, the first life sprouted up. The presence of water on Earth is not exactly all that surprising. I’d be willing to bet that any planet in the relative range that we are from our star (that is further if their star is larger or closer if their star is smaller) would find quite a lot of water on them. Comets which were, amongst other things, pretty icy were pummeling anything they could get attracted to. Those planets too close to stars would have it subsequently evaporate and those further would have it freeze (special exceptions aside). However for your average planet in this area like that of ours found themselves covered in water. This is helpful because, generally speaking, you are going to be hard pressed to find water and not find life in it. Even extremely toxic, extremely hot, or extremely cold (see ice) water can have life either living merrily or at least being in stasis within them.

  I personally wonder if Virus’s were not the first ‘life’ on the Earth. An in-between stage moving from the many non-living (see incapable or acting on own) things to the living. They have very simple processes and a very simple goal. Simply to sustain their existence through whatever means possible. There is and likely never will be any evidence of this and it is merely a thought. However what I can say is that once the acidity of the Oceans (volcanic activity is hell on a PH balance) were friendly enough the bacteria that sprung forth was quite happy to do so.

  It seems almost silly to imagine hundreds of millions of years, in which every fraction of a second there is a reaction of chemicals and elements across an almost unfathomably large space would not return some sort of unusual side effect. It’s a very good side effect because without it we wouldn’t have chicken…oh or us. I keep forgetting you need to exist before you eat chicken.

  The fact that life is so happy in water makes much sense. Ultraviolet light and other radiations that do well to destroy the genetic makeup that comprises life have relative difficulty permeating water as easily as other substances (exceptions like Lead aside). Unlike Lead and rock, Water is also easy to move through which is a very helpful addition. Though even without water I’m sure that some sort of extreme bacteria would live quite happily in a mercury rich cave dining on the walls.

  At some point it became apparent that there was a massive orb blasting endless levels of ultraviolet light onto the planet. Organisms began converting this matter for energy creating a seemingly endless supply of food. They began to convert the CO2 flowing through the air (and wherever else it could squeeze its deadly butt into) into Oxygen. This process would help bolster the atmosphere and probably for a bit was actually quite extreme. Anything that wasn’t prepared to process Oxygen would have found the result quite fatal.

   But whenever a massive supply of new food arises something arises to consume it. At some point in here there was surely something that noticed everything around it could produce energy if consumed. Carnivores likely arose at this point. Indeed on thinking back carnivores probably popped up before even the photosynthesis, I just get ahead of myself.

  We now had carnivores, herbivores, water, and copious levels of oxygen. However all things included in this conversation are still so small that unless there is an absolutely grotesquely large collection of them we couldn’t see them with the naked eye. Stuff that would make plankton squint…well maybe not but it would sure as hell be hard for us to see.

  Tomorrow we’ll move onto the first plants and hope that I don’t butcher too much while trying to make my various points. Who knows in a few decades I might have a nice solid little lecture out of this thing (I redo it yearly).

  I wonder just how large of a cake you should buy for an organism that is 32,000 years old? I know for the Galapagos Tortoise they have some mighty fine parties around a century and a half (not living much longer than that) and to be perfectly serious here you have not lived until you’ve seen a Tortoise dancing around with shell tassels.

  So what on earth am I talking about? Well in 2005, beneath the nose of many (myself included) there was a discovery in a frozen Alaskan pond of some bacterial life. Well that in itself was hardly interesting, the bacteria had been frozen for 32k years and again while that’s a long time finding really old frozen matter is not exactly uncommon. However, and here is where it gets interesting, once they thawed out the organisms they began moving. It would appear that another wonderful tag to slap on to extremophiles (Organisms that live in extreme circumstances) and that would be the ability to reduce genetic damage caused from oxidation when frozen (and likely some other biological degenerates I don’t understand at this point).

  So what does this entail for people? Well from what I’ve read nothing immediately, on my birthday (as usual) there were some skeptics that said it was fake. However there are always skeptics, for some reason anytime something challenges previous held views people get extremely militant and rarely for good reasons. That short rant to the side I’ll provide the curious with some sources.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7064
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-8444250_ITM
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/131785/32000yearold_bacteria_found_in_alaska/
For the interest of Fairness here is the Birthday Complaint:
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/August/28080702.asp

  So with that out of the way this gives me a new goal in life. I would like to see this sort of technology take off so that I could potentially experience cryogenics! How amazing would it be to freeze yourself in time and return at a predetermined time in the future? It certainly would be an interesting proposition. Albeit it would be terrible to be frozen and have some sort of religious war cause the end of humanity (I have heard in the last few years that biological weaponry is becoming a target but that may just be propaganda).

  I’m also curious to see if discovering how this organism halts (or retards) oxidation could create a process for humans to slow our own oxidation rates. This would, other factors aside like injury and disease, make us live a good deal longer. While with current reproductive rates that would not be a good thing (unless people start in large actually caring about their education and global impact) however if there was some control brought to reproduction it would be absolutely amazing to live for hundreds of years. However as it stands my understanding of this sort of thing is very limited, so I suppose it’s another topic I need to add to yee old Amazon wish list.

  If anyone else finds some more informative sources I’d be interested in them. Feel free to drop them (or input of any kind) by the comments section.