[meteorite-list] Texas State Research Sheds New Light on Panspermia

From: Marc Fries <m.fries_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Feb 22 13:54:05 2006
Message-ID: <1232.10.14.9.1.1140634441.squirrel_at_webmail.ciw.edu>

Howdy

   Was it luck, though? Exhibit A from the article:

>> Microbispora wasn't one of the three species McLean expected to find.
>> The slow-growing organism is normally found in the soil, and McLean

   Note that this is a common soil microbe. The fragment landed on the
ground. That's where these guys live. Let me offer an alternative
conversation for our "hardy" microbes:

   (Scene opens. Two microbes are lying comfortably in a dirty, wet
parking lot. Large fragment of spacecraft enters stage left, splatters
itself with goo, including the microbes.)
   Microbe 1 (to Microbe 2): What the _at_#!@! was that?!!

   Microbe 2: Dunno, but it shore is tasty! Look at all this mud!

Cheers,
MDF

> Hi, All,
>
>> survivors he found--a bacteria called Microbispora. Ironically,
>> Microbispora wasn't one of the three species McLean expected to find...
>> McLean determined that it had contaminated the experiment prior to
>> launch...
>
> There's a beautiful demonstration of the way Life, the Universe, and
> Everything (equals 42) works! The shuttle was intelligently designed. The
> experiment was intelligently designed (to make a pun on that silly
> notion).
> Everything was carefully planned. What happened?
> An Opportunist was the winner, some little bug too dumb to die.
> Microbispora didn't plan to take a trip to outer space and return to the
> Earth, but in the end he fared better than the much more capable lifeform
> that accompanied him. To those who say Evolution can't work (or Life can't
> arise) through the workings of chance, take a look at Microbispora's
> vacation trip.
> So, they're sitting in a Texas parking lot, and one Microbispora turns
> to the Microbispora next to him, and says, "Well, that wasn't so bad, was
> it?"
> "I dunno. We were awfully lucky."
> Life favors the Opportunist (Exhibit One: Bill Gates)
> Loren Eisley wrote a fine essay on the primordial fish who, when his
> pond or puddle dries up, stakes everything on a wild leap in the hope of
> landing in a better pond or puddle. Many die. Enough land in or near a new
> pond or puddle and survive that the impulse to make that hopeless suicidal
> (for a fish) leap is inherited.
> Those suicidal fish who struggle hardest to find new water, clawing at
> the mud with their fins to crawl, are most likely to survive. This favors
> strong "footy" fins. Before you know it, some of their children just get
> up
> and RUN to the nearest pond in a gill-searing dash to find breathable
> water.
> Well, you can see where this is going. Eventually, fish are getting
> out
> of the water to eat plants and hunt insects and dance by the light of the
> moon, no doubt to the dismay of their ancestors. Why, you could hardly
> call
> some of them "fish" anymore!
> All because of an Opportunist who was willing to gamble, senselessly,
> against the odds.
> I hope McLean takes these Opportunists back to the lab and gives them
> a
> good home. Make a little sign for their petrie dish that says, "Bacterial
> Astronaut Retirement Home."
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> ------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
> To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 3:25 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Texas State Research Sheds New Light on
> Panspermia
>
>
>>
>> http://talbot.mrp.txstate.edu/currents/fullstory.jsp?sid=689
>>
>> Texas State research sheds new light on panspermia
>> By Jayme Blaschke
>> Texas State University-San Marcos
>> February 21, 2006
>>
>> When the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry Feb. 1, 2003,
>> more than 80 on-board science experiments were lost in the fiery
>> descent.
>>
>> Texas State University-San Marcos biologist Robert McLean, however, has
>> salvaged some unexpected science from the wreckage. A strain of
>> slow-growing bacteria survived the crash, a discovery which may have
>> significant implications for the concept of panspermia. The findings
>> will be published in the May 2006 issue of Icarus, the international
>> journal of solar system studies.
>>
>> Panspermia is the idea that life--hitchhiking on rocks ejected from
>> meteorite impacts on one world--could travel through space and seed
>> other worlds with life under favorable conditions. Because the
>> conditions under which panspermia could function are so harsh, however,
>> there's been little direct testing of the hypothesis.
>>
>> "That might have been in the back of my mind when we recovered our
>> payload," McLean said. McLean, along with a team of Texas State
>> researchers, had placed an experiment package aboard the Columbia to
>> investigate the interactions of three different bacterial species in
>> microgravity. When the shuttle broke up over Texas, they assumed the
>> experiment lost--until it turned up, relatively intact, in the parking
>> lot of a Nacogdoches convenience store. "My first thinking when we found
>> our payload was, 'Let's look for survivors.'"
>>
>> And survivors he found--a bacteria called Microbispora. Ironically,
>> Microbispora wasn't one of the three species McLean expected to find.
>> The slow-growing organism is normally found in the soil, and McLean
>> determined that it had contaminated the experiment prior to launch. With
>> the Icarus publication, McLean anticipates request for samples of this
>> rugged strain to come in from researchers around the world.
>>
>> "This organism appears to have survived an atmospheric passage, with the
>> heat and the force of impact," he said. "That's only about a fifth of
>> the speed that something on a real meteorite would have to survive, but
>> it is at least five or six times faster than what's been tested before.
>>
>> "This is important for panspermia, because if something survives space
>> travel, it eventually has to get down to the Earth and survive passage
>> through the atmosphere and impact. This doesn't prove anything--it just
>> contributes evidence to the plausibility of panspermia. Realistically,
>> that's all it can do," McLean said. "Out of respect for the seven people
>> who gave their lives for this research, I feel it's very important these
>> results don't get lost."
>>
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>
>
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Marc Fries
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Geophysical Laboratory
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Washington, DC 20015
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FAX: 202 478 8901
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Received on Wed 22 Feb 2006 01:54:01 PM PST