Water found on Mars

[Kaylia]

well then, my knowing next to nothing facts about chemistry/biology has not failed me. i'll just end my argument with we cant be 100% sure. unless we can. then fuck it, i give up. 4am why the hell aren't I asleep.

Well, I'm 100% sure every atoms that exist in our universe are in the periodics tables. Every kind of matter is another topic, but that's not what the initial question was about


And just for fun, here is a list of most common element in our universe
Element Parts per million
Hydrogen 739,000
Helium 240,000
Oxygen 10,700
Carbon 4,600
Neon 1,340
Iron 1,090
Nitrogen 950
Silicon 650
Magnesium 580
Sulfur 440
All Others 650

The ratio is obviously not the same on planets and moon, but no matter where you go, it's what you will find the most.

[Xajii]

1) Water is awesome
2) Carbon is awesome

Dont worry this isnt a real fire, but if it was carbon fibre wouldnt care, its non flammable

!?

[Souj]

Element Parts per million
Hydrogen 739,000
Helium 240,000
Oxygen 10,700
Carbon 4,600
Neon 1,340
Iron 1,090
Nitrogen 950
Silicon 650
Magnesium 580
Sulfur 440
All Others 650
[/QUOTE]

I recognize those words!
and Kaylia Smartypants, lets see if you can guess what and where i stole something from you!
we should like just randomly start posting there agian.

[Kaylia]

Answered you in the anime thread...but I seriously spent 30sec wondering why my avatar changed suddently to something 3 years old. I need to go to bed...

Where did you get it? Yarr's or FS's board?

[Souj]

FS. it's been dead for awhile for the most part. since they merged linkshells anyways. I ussually try and randomly post something there when im bored enough.

obligatory underail: I like water.

[Woozie]

There was actually an article in SciAm a few months ago about alternate biochemistries that I found interesting. If there's an online article about it, I'll post it, though I think everything they said is covered in Kaylia's link.

[BarthelloSylph]

Honestly I don't understand why scientists think that all life has to be similar to ours? Why does every form of life have to be made of organic compounds and depend on water to "survive?"

If they find life like us what is there to say they might just look like us, talk like us, and have civilizations like us(not from our solar system at least since we can see the planets surface and we haven't found any evidence.)

I definitely hear ya on this, but from WHAT WE KNOW NOW, life is very, very, very hard to get started. And water and carbon both are incredible unique in terms of compounds and properties, and they can make it happen.

There could be other compounds and elements out there with weird ass properties that can make life happen too... but we don't know about them yet.

[Azalee]

I had the most amazing Astronomy teacher in college, and because of it I was actually able to retain some information.

If I remember correctly, Titan has always had lots of ice with the possibility of there being water far enough beneath the surface.

Mars has always been the same case, I thought. It is still really exciting news though. I love this kind of shit.

[Acturus]

I've been staring at this image for an hour:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/2...5158-hires.jpg

[Khamsin]

How well does science understand life? Has it been discovered how the inanimate molecules that form our cells end up "doing things" that result in the functions of a living cell?

What's the scale of a cell to, say, the head of a pin? What's the scale of a carbon or hydrogen atom to a cell? The structure of a cell is different from protista to plant to animal, as they contain different components, however are the components themselves the same among all entities that share them? e.g. are all golgi apparati made up of the same molecular structure?

What's the molecular makeup of the amino acids that make up DNA? Besides empirical observation by removing genes and seeing what happens, have scientists discovered how DNA and genes and chromosomes actually affect an organism and can trace the chain of effect to it's source?

[Avanarius]

Has it been discovered how the inanimate molecules that form our cells end up "doing things" that result in the functions of a living cell?

No, because that would be on the border of discovering the meaning of life.

Maybe these ever so inanimate molecules aren't so inanimate to begin with ;o

[Charla]

How well does science understand life? Has it been discovered how the inanimate molecules that form our cells end up "doing things" that result in the functions of a living cell?

What's the scale of a cell to, say, the head of a pin? What's the scale of a carbon or hydrogen atom to a cell? The structure of a cell is different from protista to plant to animal, as they contain different components, however are the components themselves the same among all entities that share them? e.g. are all golgi apparati made up of the same molecular structure?

What's the molecular makeup of the amino acids that make up DNA? Besides empirical observation by removing genes and seeing what happens, have scientists discovered how DNA and genes and chromosomes actually affect an organism and can trace the chain of effect to it's source?

Let's see here... a human egg cell is about the size of a grain of sand. The largest cell in the world is a yolk of a ostrich egg. A DNA strand is made up of two long chains each consisting of an alternating pattern of two relatively large molecules, which are chemically speaking a salt and a sugar respectively. Between each 'backbone' chain is the patterned sequence of four different biomolecules called bases, which establish a weak bond with the corresponding molecule connected to the opposite sugar-salt chain.

The information represented by the patterns in this sequence of biomolecules is 'read' via a process called transcription. The exact details of the process vary considerably between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, but in general a DNA strand is split apart by enzymes, and a complementary strand of RNA is created with the same bases as one half of the DNA strand, with the substitution of the molecule uracil for thymine. An RNA strand (specifically messenger RNA, called mRNA) is then 'read' by being inserted into a ribosome (which are usually attached to the golgi bodies you mentioned earlier), which uses enzymes to assemble amino acids in the order specified by the ordering of the base pairs on the mRNA strand and forms a protein.

To summarize, the information in DNA is converted into RNA, then used by a cell to synthesize proteins.

edit: I'm sorry Avanarius, I'm afraid we really do understand how the functions of a cell work, and sometimes we even learn it in high school. Whether any of the biomolecules in question can be considered inanimate anymore is another question, and I'll chalk that up to the inadequacies of the English language.

[Kuya]

I think he meant why do cells, enzymes, etc do that. We may know how they do it, but we don't know why or how they started doing it. In my case, i just chalk it up to reactions.

[Avanarius]

edit: I'm sorry Avanarius, I'm afraid we really do understand how the functions of a cell work, and sometimes we even learn it in high school. Whether any of the biomolecules in question can be considered inanimate anymore is another question, and I'll chalk that up to the inadequacies of the English language.

While we do understand the functions of a cell, the conceptual reasoning behind the purposes of more importantly why is still highly inconceivable.

[Charla]

While we do understand the functions of a cell, the conceptual reasoning behind the purposes of more importantly why is still highly inconceivable.

I don't really understand what you're saying. I'm fairly sure Khamsin asked "how" DNA affects an organism. If it's more important to ask "why" a cell functions, then it can all be explained by chemistry, and by extension molecular physics. As I understand, the only significant unsolved questions remaining relate to how and why the original biomolecules formed and became extremely complex. Why a cell functions is no more mysterious than why a keyboard functions.

[Jotaru]

As much as I believe in science over faith and free will over predistination, I'm starting to think more and more that the former kinda contradicts the latter. If its all just some perfectly oiled working action-reaction chain formed of molecules, that would imply that free will is just our perception of the pre-destined response to any given action. Yay/nay?

[Avanarius]

As I understand, the only significant unsolved questions remaining relate to how and why the original biomolecules formed and became extremely complex.

That basically summarizes the most of what my unexplained non-sense was trying to say.

As far as I remember correctly (I could be wrong), humans aren't yet capable of creating life from "inanimate" base molecules.

[Khamsin]

I was more asking how hydrogen and carbon atoms end up "doing things" when assembled in a particular fashion. Can we create life in a test tube without using something organic to start with?

[Charla]

As much as I believe in science over faith and free will over predistination, I'm starting to think more and more that the former kinda contradicts the latter. If its all just some perfectly oiled working action-reaction chain formed of molecules, that would imply that free will is just our perception of the pre-destined response to any given action. Yay/nay?

It's quite true that science cannot explain free will, but it also does not result in a completely deterministic system.

note: the following is the result of my own interpretation of the available science, and is substantiated by nothing more authoritative than a Man-Kzin Wars story.

The uncertainty principle states that information below a certain energy level cannot be precisely known. Therefore, the precise behavior of a sufficiently complex system cannot be predicted even given the exact state of the system at any given time. If one assumes that the human brain is sufficiently complex to be nondeterministic, then the behavior of a brain is by definition unpredictable. This unpredictability then allows for the possibility of influence from something not understood, and perhaps not understandable. If said "mysterious" thing then determines the behavior of a person, as far as science is concerned, it would be equivalent to free will. Yes, I believe that I am a quantum uncertainty.

As for Khamsin's question, I think it's possible to artificially create "organic" compounds, so it should only be a matter of extreme complexity to construct a living cell. As I said, all the molecular-level interactions are the same whether they're in a biomolecule or not, and at least most of them are decently understood.

[archibaldcrane]

As for Khamsin's question, I think it's possible to artificially create "organic" compounds, so it should only be a matter of extreme complexity to construct a living cell. As I said, all the molecular-level interactions are the same whether they're in a biomolecule or not, and at least most of them are decently understood.

We can create amino acids (also called "the building blocks of life") in a lab, or in a well-constructed middle school science experiment, using the normal non-organic elements in every day life, along with electricity, heat, etc.

However, we can't yet take those and make anything with them that could be considered alive. (I'd consider such a feat to be "the god-killer" personally)