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Old 2nd July 2021, 09:57 AM   #41
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
It can (and will) if the base is to the side of the equator.

Putting the base at the equator is the simplest option because it makes the cable vertical. But it isn't strictly required. Consider the most extreme case: but the base at the pole, and have the cable start out running horizontal. It's obviously much harder to do that way, but the cable wouldn't come near the equator.

I don't think that's right. It's a tension structure (not a compression one), the COG of which is at geostationary (or areostationary) orbit. If the base is not at the equator the orbit described by the COG is going to criss cross the equator (as do all orbits that are not exactly equatorial).

You absolutely cannot build one at the pole, it just doesn't work that way.

(as ever, I might be missing something)
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:02 AM   #42
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The orbit of the COG isn't dependent on where the base is. The COG has to be in synchronous orbit or the length of the cable has to constantly change, which I assume is not what Ziggurat has in mind. You're not on the equator now right? But you have a (theoretical) "view" of satellites in GEO that are not changing their distance from or orientation to you. A fixed length cable can theoretically run from any point on the surface to any satellite in equatorial synchronous orbit that it can see.

ETA: And note that the more reasonable case that Ziggurat started with, just a few degrees off the equator, actually includes the possibility that the COG and any counter weight could be in off equatorial plane orbits.

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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:08 AM   #43
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Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy View Post
The orbit of the COG isn't dependent on where the base is. The COG has to be in synchronous orbit or the length of the cable has to constantly change, which I assume is not what Ziggurat has in mind. You're not on the equator now right? But you have a (theoretical) "view" of satellites in GEO that are not changing their distance from or orientation to you. A fixed length cable can theoretically run from any point on the surface to any satellite in equatorial synchronous orbit that it can see.
I think the additional strain on the structure from having to go sideways while maintaining structural integrity would be, putting it very mildly, a problem.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:12 AM   #44
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I think the additional strain on the structure from having to go sideways while maintaining structural integrity would be, putting it very mildly, a problem.
Virtually, all space elevator concepts have ridiculous practical problems at the moment.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:18 AM   #45
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I don't think that's right. It's a tension structure (not a compression one), the COG of which is at geostationary (or areostationary) orbit. If the base is not at the equator the orbit described by the COG is going to criss cross the equator (as do all orbits that are not exactly equatorial).

You absolutely cannot build one at the pole, it just doesn't work that way.

(as ever, I might be missing something)
Yes, you missed something, which is that the cable is not vertical both at the base AND at the orbit of your end point. So the cable will exert a lateral force component which will allow the path to remain off equator.

And you COULD build one at the pole. It's a bad idea to, but assuming sufficiently strong materials and launch capabilities (both harder than an equatorial cable), there's nothing that makes it impossible.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:19 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I think the additional strain on the structure from having to go sideways while maintaining structural integrity would be, putting it very mildly, a problem.
Oh, absolutely. It's a very bad idea. But (again, assuming sufficiently strong materials and launch capabilities) not an impossible idea.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:22 AM   #47
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
Yes, you missed something, which is that the cable is not vertical both at the base AND at the orbit of your end point. So the cable will exert a lateral force component which will allow the path to remain off equator.
I'm still missing it.

The counterweight sits at a synchronous orbit and the cable leaves it at an angle?


Quote:
And you COULD build one at the pole. It's a bad idea to, but assuming sufficiently strong materials and launch capabilities (both harder than an equatorial cable), there's nothing that makes it impossible.
I see I misread. I thought you meant at the pole going straight up. You didn't, I think, you mean at the pole running up at an angle to the counterweight, I think.

I'm far from an expert, but I think the concept it way less viable than the already pretty unrealistic space elevator that's all at the equator.

Again, I could be misunderstanding you entirely.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:50 AM   #48
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Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy View Post
The orbit of the COG isn't dependent on where the base is.
That's not quite true. If the base is not equatorial, then the tilt of the cable means there's a lateral force component being applied by the cable. So there has to be a counteracting lateral force component from gravity. Which means your "orbital" plane is actually going to be offset from the equatorial plane, not tilted.

Have you ever seen the TV show Final Space? The logo for the Infinity Guard has a planet with two rings:



It looks nice, but obviously isn't physical for free-floating planetary rings. But the lateral force from an off-equator would pull the center of gravity into an orbit offset like one of those rings. Such a cable isn't free floating. It's constrained.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 10:55 AM   #49
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I'm still missing it.

The counterweight sits at a synchronous orbit and the cable leaves it at an angle?
The counterweight has to be farther out than synchronous orbit, in order to hold up the weight of the cable. In other words, if you release the counterweight, it has to go flying away, not stay in that same orbit.

If the base is not equatorial, then the counterweight will be pulled off the equatorial plane. At the counterweight's position, the cable will be angled slightly off from straight down.

I'll see if I can make a drawing to illustrate.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:09 AM   #50
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Here's a really crude diagram.


The circle is your planet. On the right side, a space elevator at the equator. The force of gravity and the tension in the cable both pull in the same direction, and the counterweight travels in a circular path in the equatorial plane.

On the left side is a space elevator with a non-equatorial base. The cable (black line) pulls downward (relative to our viewing of the diagram) and to the right, parallel to its length. Gravity pulls upward and to the right (dashed red line). The net force is horizontal and to the right. So the counterweight travels in a circular path, in a plane parallel to but offset from the equatorial plane.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:15 AM   #51
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
Here's a really crude diagram.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...f5540de155.png

The circle is your planet. On the right side, a space elevator at the equator. The force of gravity and the tension in the cable both pull in the same direction, and the counterweight travels in a circular path in the equatorial plane.

On the left side is a space elevator with a non-equatorial base. The cable (black line) pulls downward (relative to our viewing of the diagram) and to the right, parallel to its length. Gravity pulls upward and to the right (dashed red line). The net force is horizontal and to the right. So the counterweight travels in a circular path, in a plane parallel to but offset from the equatorial plane.
Okay, thank you, I see what you're saying now. It does make an impossible engineering feat even more imposisble, but yes.

I wonder how much more strength you'd need from the unobtanium over an equatorially based one.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:18 AM   #52
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Originally Posted by Ziggurat View Post
That's not quite true. If the base is not equatorial, then the tilt of the cable means there's a lateral force component being applied by the cable.
Yep, agreed. Thanks for your additions. I realized I wasn't being complete but thought there was risk of opening a can of worms that would be off topic for this thread.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:26 AM   #53
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
Okay, thank you, I see what you're saying now. It does make an impossible engineering feat even more imposisble, but yes.

I wonder how much more strength you'd need from the unobtanium over an equatorially based one.
Depends on how far off the equator you are. Phobos is pretty small and orbits pretty much right in the equatorial plane, so you might not need to be far off to miss it. Might not actually make that much difference.

Not that we're going to be building space elevators on Mars any time soon. They'll come after our interdimensional portals.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:35 AM   #54
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Originally Posted by Bikewer View Post
Hopefully, no Muzak on the way up.....
...and there's always some jerkweed who thinks it's funny to press all the buttons.
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Old 2nd July 2021, 11:38 AM   #55
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
I wonder how much more strength you'd need from the unobtanium over an equatorially based one.

Note that if you've built one you can "just" build a second one. If you want the base to off the equator but the COG to be over the equator you "just" build a second base on the opposite side of the equator attached to the same COG.
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Old 21st November 2022, 07:23 PM   #56
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It's been a while. Here's something that I thought was a bit interesting.

A fungus growing naturally on roots is found to detoxify mercury in soil and water

There's a bunch more to the story, of course, but that makes for an okay summary. The burning of fossil fuels has increased environmental levels of mercury, with detrimental effects all around, but it's one of the many issues that doesn't get much attention. Good to have some better means available to help counter the damage.

Elsewhere...

An entire genome is made from scratch to support a new genetic code; the result is a living organism


One that might be immune to pretty much all current viruses, for that matter.
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Old 22nd November 2022, 02:33 AM   #57
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Originally Posted by Aridas View Post
It's been a while. Here's something that I thought was a bit interesting.

A fungus growing naturally on roots is found to detoxify mercury in soil and water

There's a bunch more to the story, of course, but that makes for an okay summary. The burning of fossil fuels has increased environmental levels of mercury, with detrimental effects all around, but it's one of the many issues that doesn't get much attention. Good to have some better means available to help counter the damage.
Interesting indeed!
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Old 23rd November 2022, 01:59 PM   #58
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Originally Posted by Aridas View Post
It's been a while. Here's something that I thought was a bit interesting.

A fungus growing naturally on roots is found to detoxify mercury in soil and water

There's a bunch more to the story, of course, but that makes for an okay summary. The burning of fossil fuels has increased environmental levels of mercury, with detrimental effects all around, but it's one of the many issues that doesn't get much attention. Good to have some better means available to help counter the damage.

Elsewhere...

An entire genome is made from scratch to support a new genetic code; the result is a living organism


One that might be immune to pretty much all current viruses, for that matter.
Along similar lines.

This genetically engineered houseplant does the air-purifying work of 30 plants

Quote:
To program the pothos vine to scrub the air, the team had to go where no lab had gone before. Most bioengineers start with a lab-friendly model organism, like Arabidopsis thaliana or Nicotiana benthamiana, whose genomes are mapped and annotated six ways to Sunday.

But the Neoplants team had to map the entire pothos genome themselves, and then determine which genes to target for maximum VOC filtration. “It’s like trying to build a plane while flying,” Torbey says.

The process took four years of near-constant work, but in the end, the engineers managed to create a plant that can metabolize four major indoor air pollutants, including formaldehyde and toluene. The customized flora can even absorb certain VOCs, like the carcinogen benzene, that are present in wildfire smoke.

But the real breakthrough came from modifying the microorganisms living in the plant’s roots. The team inserted genes from extremophile bacteria, which thrive in inhospitable environments by eating toxic chemicals, into these symbiotic microbes. This tweak in turn boosted the plant’s pollutant-metabolizing capacity.

And to ensure that they comply with FDA standards, the engineers were careful to avoid sections of the genome that could enhance the plant’s survival in the wild. “We don’t give a selective advantage to the plant. We don’t make it grow faster, we don’t increase its resistance to pesticides,” Torbey explains. “We’re not touching any of that.”
It's a bit expensive. A single Neo P1 costs $179
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Old 23rd November 2022, 02:02 PM   #59
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Dupe post.
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Old 23rd November 2022, 02:09 PM   #60
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Originally Posted by Gord_in_Toronto View Post
It's a bit expensive. A single Neo P1 costs $179
Yeah, that is a bit pricey. Even so, if its functionality is actually 30 times as good, the equivalent other plants would need to be about $6 each for similar functionality. That's probably far less than the usual price for them. Also, space and care issues are probably of some note in such a situation. How well it compares to other forms of purification is of relevance, but I can easily see a niche for them even at $179. A caveat, of course, is that those living in situations where it would be most useful are much less likely to have the money available to spend on it.
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Old 23rd November 2022, 03:36 PM   #61
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Originally Posted by Aridas View Post
Yeah, that is a bit pricey. Even so, if its functionality is actually 30 times as good, the equivalent other plants would need to be about $6 each for similar functionality. That's probably far less than the usual price for them. Also, space and care issues are probably of some note in such a situation. How well it compares to other forms of purification is of relevance, but I can easily see a niche for them even at $179. A caveat, of course, is that those living in situations where it would be most useful are much less likely to have the money available to spend on it.
I'm just wondering if you could grow some cuttings from your original purchase. Maybe, given a bit of time, you could have a greenhouse full!
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Old 5th February 2023, 02:39 PM   #62
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Here's something potentially very good -

Practical lithium-air battery shows 3x the energy density of today's best electric-vehicle batteries

A solution may well have been found to address the technical difficulties that have been in play, in short, and hopefully, they'll start appearing relatively soon. Cheaper, safer, lighter, and much more powerful batteries? Yes, please!

Supposedly, the next step being claimed is commercial production, so I'm quite hoping that all goes well there and no notable issues crop up.

I also think that this is a bit interesting -

New Type of Entanglement Lets Scientists 'See' Inside Nuclei
First-ever observation of quantum interference between dissimilar particles offers new approach for mapping distribution of gluons in atomic nuclei—and potentially more
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Old 11th March 2023, 01:28 PM   #63
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This caught my eye as something interesting -

Cancer cells reprogrammed to "switch teams" and join the immune system as informants

Quote:
Dr. Ravindra Majeti and his team at Stanford University School of Medicine have found a way to take a patient’s own cancer cells and directly convert them into immune cells — to “switch teams”, in effect, with all their idiosyncracies remaining in place. This way the immune system gains a whole lot of information about exactly which targets to recognize and attack in that particular patient’s cancer, so that a therapeutic design does not need to rely on best guesses.

They demonstrated a potent stimulation of essentially customized T cells both in live mice and in cultured human cells. In mice, this led to a complete eradication of leukemia and even a strong response against solid tumors.
It would be great if this works for humans, too.


Also, this might be worthy of some note -

The First Law of Thermodynamics has been revised and extended

Quote:
The basic understanding of the First Law dates back to the 1850s; in simplest form the energy in a closed system may change form, but the total amount remains constant. The qualification is, it has to be a system at equilibrium.

What Cassak and Barbhuiya have done is that they have figured out how to extend it to handle more complex situations, where a system is not at equilibrium. It’s going to take a while for all the implications to be understood and applied.
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Old 23rd September 2023, 11:49 PM   #64
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A little thing that I found interesting -

Jellyfish shown to learn from past experience for the first time

Quote:
"It was once presumed that jellyfish can only manage the simplest forms of learning, including habituation—i.e., the ability to get used to a certain stimulation, such as a constant sound or constant touch. Now, we see that jellyfish have a much more refined ability to learn, and that they can actually learn from their mistakes. And in doing so, modify their behavior," says Anders Garm, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Biology.

<snip>

They learned that jellyfish learning takes place through failed evasions. That is, they learn from misinterpreting contrast and bumping into roots. Here they combined the visual impression and mechanical shock they got whenever they bumped into a root—and in doing so, learned when to veer away.

"Our behavioral experiments demonstrate that three to five failed evasive maneuvers are enough to change the jellyfish's behavior so that they no longer hit the roots. It is interesting that this is roughly the same repetition rate that a fruit fly or mouse needs to learn," says Anders Garm.
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Old 2nd October 2023, 12:10 AM   #65
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This looks like a nice little invention -

Ingenious solar distiller makes fresh water from seawater for less than 1¢ a gallon

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This device breaks the record for rate of fresh water production from seawater by a solar device, and as awesome as that is, it’s actually kind of a charming side note. The bigger breakthrough is that the device can keep running up near this rate for a long time without getting fouled by salt accumulation, and it does this by emulating natural processes that occur in the sea. That cuts costs by about 10x compared to typical solar desalination, making the cost of the fresh water it produces comparable to that of tap water.
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Old 18th October 2023, 02:05 AM   #66
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Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:
YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.
I AGREE

kurzgesagt video about the possibility that life could have started "soon" after the big bang, at a time when the temperature throughout the universe was thought to be right for liquid water.

This is also based on a finding that suggests that DNA record suggests that changes go back longer than the age of the Earth. In fact they go back to about the time that the universe was warm enough to support life!

The film states this is still a hypothesis, and links to the studies are in the description.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 07:47 AM   #67
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I don't see links to studies just to social media and a shop.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 07:06 PM   #68
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Originally Posted by Wudang View Post
I don't see links to studies just to social media and a shop.
It's under the heading "Sources and further reading".
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Old 23rd October 2023, 07:27 PM   #69
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
It's under the heading "Sources and further reading".
I haven't watched the video yet (can't right now) but I think I heard a discussion of it in the latest SGU. They are skeptical, as am I. I see that one of the sources is Avi Loeb. Just sayin!

https://sites.google.com/view/sources-big-bang-life/
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Old 23rd October 2023, 08:02 PM   #70
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Originally Posted by Puppycow View Post
I haven't watched the video yet (can't right now) but I think I heard a discussion of it in the latest SGU. They are skeptical, as am I. I see that one of the sources is Avi Loeb. Just sayin!

https://sites.google.com/view/sources-big-bang-life/
No, it's not the same thing. On the SGU they were referring to the Law Of Increasing Functional Information. Anyway, the Kurzgesagt video clearly states that it is engaging in interesting scientific speculation, rather than reporting peer-reviewed experimental results. And the channel always makes it clear when they are doing that.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 08:24 PM   #71
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The one big glaring issue with that video is they suggest panspermia, unless they are saying one single multicellular organism seeded the Earth. But so far all the genomes we've mapped are related, suggesting life started once, not a number of times with cells raining down.

One hypothesis I've seen is that there was a period of time in the early evolution of Earth where the organisms exchanged DNA, like tangled roots that leaked into each other. So there are explanations for life landing on the planet already in formed microorganisms.

I did like the video, there was some new stuff there.

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Old 23rd October 2023, 08:29 PM   #72
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
The one big glaring issue with that video is they suggest panspermia, unless they are saying one single multicellular organism seeded the Earth. But so far all the genomes we've mapped are related, suggesting life started once, not a number of times with cells raining down.
Maybe as individual cells spread throughout the universe, which is a big place, only one of them happened to land on Earth, and seeded all subsequent life.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
One hypothesis I've seen is that there was a period of time in the early evolution of Earth where the organisms exchanged DNA, like tangled roots that leaked into each other. So there are explanations for life landing on the planet already in formed microorganisms.
Well, we know that horizontal gene transfer is a thing, so you're not proposing any novel mechanisms there.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 09:17 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
Maybe as individual cells spread throughout the universe, which is a big place, only one of them happened to land on Earth, and seeded all subsequent life.
Another possibility is that life was indeed seeded more than once, but that one instance outcompeted the rest to be the sole survivor.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 09:19 PM   #74
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
Maybe as individual cells spread throughout the universe, which is a big place, only one of them happened to land on Earth, and seeded all subsequent life.

Well, we know that horizontal gene transfer is a thing, so you're not proposing any novel mechanisms there.
Did I say it was novel or even my idea?

You are agreeing with me.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 09:38 PM   #75
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Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Another possibility is that life was indeed seeded more than once, but that one instance outcompeted the rest to be the sole survivor.
That's certainly possible.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
Did I say it was novel or even my idea?

You are agreeing with me.
Why yes, yes I am.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 09:55 PM   #76
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To finally chip in a bit...
Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
Anyway, the Kurzgesagt video clearly states that it is engaging in interesting scientific speculation, rather than reporting peer-reviewed experimental results. And the channel always makes it clear when they are doing that.
It's speculative enough that I'm more inclined to classify it as science fiction than a science story, at present. Fun science fiction, certainly, though. It sorta lost credibility to me at the part where it looked like it was pushing time-based genetic material projection, though, using what sure looks like cherry picking and glossing over issues at a glance.

Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
Maybe as individual cells spread throughout the universe, which is a big place, only one of them happened to land on Earth, and seeded all subsequent life.
Alternately, outcompeting before evidence could be left works. At last check, it's been claimed that abiogenesis could have happened a bunch of times.

With that said, I could easily be mistaken, but it looked like the story was slightly different from panspermia. It seemed like it was dealing more with components and genomes than full cells. Basically, abiogenesis with a big jump start in development by using remnants of precursors. Admittedly, that happening once could very easily produce a huge competitive advantage that would likely sweep away pretty much anything just starting to develop from scratch.
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Old 23rd October 2023, 09:59 PM   #77
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post

Why yes, yes I am.
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Old 24th October 2023, 03:43 AM   #78
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Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Another possibility is that life was indeed seeded more than once, but that one instance outcompeted the rest to be the sole survivor.
If I bet I would put money of it being that there were many abiogenesis events but most were killed off by the environment. We happen to be in a line that - so far - has not been killed off by the environment.
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Old 24th October 2023, 06:15 AM   #79
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Originally Posted by arthwollipot View Post
It's under the heading "Sources and further reading".
Thank you.
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Old 24th October 2023, 07:06 AM   #80
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
The one big glaring issue with that video is they suggest panspermia, unless they are saying one single multicellular organism seeded the Earth. But so far all the genomes we've mapped are related, suggesting life started once, not a number of times with cells raining down.

One hypothesis I've seen is that there was a period of time in the early evolution of Earth where the organisms exchanged DNA, like tangled roots that leaked into each other. So there are explanations for life landing on the planet already in formed microorganisms.

I did like the video, there was some new stuff there.
As said, its possible that there was only one survivor from many that landed on the Earth.

Do you agree that the DNA record suggests that the record of changes goes further back than the age of the Earth ? That seems to be one of the main foundations to the idea. Or is there reliable evidence to suggest that they are wrong in this?
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