Oxford scientists say: Looks like no other intelligent life in whole universe (but keep looking)

[BAYLOR]

I think that the two big issues here are

A.intelligent life at the same time as us

B.the likelihood of contact between the two

It's extremely unlikely that all of space is lifeless and that every single planet in the universe is a dead rock (or amalgamation of gasses). We know that there are the building blocks of life 'out there' , so at some point in time somewhere in the galaxy , the right combination will have combined in the right way to produce some form of life. It may only be miroscopic, it may have died out millions of years ago, but I'm convinced that it is out there in some shape or form. I'm equally convinced that human beings will be around long enough to make any kind of meaningful contact with it outside of viewing it under a microscope.

Given the this is a rather big universe that we live in and the fact we've not yet traveled and explored the Stars . It kind of reduces this whole analysis to an opinion with no real concrete facts to back it all up . Or The South Park episode Cancelled , in which the boys find out that Planet Earth is in fact the most popular television series in the Galaxy , might in fact be true.


Yes , im being very silly and. was about bring the Vogons into this conversation.

 

[RJM Corbet]

On reflection I realize the fine-tuning argument does not apply to the possibility of other life existing in a universe that is tuned for it to exist, although it does show-up the stacked coincidences of the existence of this universe

So the second part of my post #180 is not actually relevant to the discussion.

Sorry ...

 

[RJM Corbet]

@Vertigo
@Stephen Palmer

Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event

Last time this happened, Earth got plants.

newatlas.com

Scientists have caught a once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event in progress, as two lifeforms have merged into one organism that boasts abilities its peers would envy. Last time this happened, Earth got plants.

The phenomenon is called primary endosymbiosis, and it occurs when one microbial organism engulfs another, and starts using it like an internal organ. In exchange, the host cell provides nutrients, energy, protection and other benefits to the symbiote, until eventually it can no longer survive on its own and essentially ends up becoming an organ for the host – or what’s known as an organelle in microbial cells …

In the 4-billion-odd-year history of life on Earth, primary endosymbiosis is thought to have only happened twice that we know of, and each time was a massive breakthrough for evolution. The first occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, when an archaea swallowed a bacterium that became the mitochondria. This specialized energy-producing organelle allowed for basically all complex forms of life to evolve. It remains the heralded "powerhouse of the cell" to this day.

The second time happened about 1.6 billion years ago, when some of these more advanced cells absorbed cyanobacteria that could harvest energy from sunlight. These became organelles called chloroplasts, which gave sunlight-harvesting abilities, as well as a fetching green colour, to a group of lifeforms you might have heard of – plants.

And now, scientists have discovered that it’s happening again. A species of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii was found to have engulfed a cyanobacterium that lets them do something that algae, and plants in general, can’t normally do – "fixing" nitrogen straight from the air, and combining it with other elements to create more useful compounds.

Nitrogen is a key nutrient, and normally plants and algae get theirs through symbiotic relationships with bacteria that remain separate. At first it was thought that B. bigelowii had hooked up this kind of situation with a bacterium called UCYN-A, but on closer inspection, scientists discovered that the two have gotten far more intimate …

“That’s one of the hallmarks of something moving from an endosymbiont to an organelle,” said Zehr. “They start throwing away pieces of DNA, and their genomes get smaller and smaller, and they start depending on the mother cell for those gene products – or the protein itself – to be transported into the cell.”

Altogether, the team says this indicates UCYN-A is a full organelle, which is given the name of nitroplast. It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts
Read full article ...

 

[Parson]

I have a hard time believing this is a "once-in-a-billion-year" event. The odds of our catching so a rare event all but literally make it impossible for us to find it.

 

[Harpo]

I have a hard time believing this is a "once-in-a-billion-year" event. The odds of our catching so a rare event all but literally make it impossible for us to find it.

So rare an event to happen only once, but continuing to happen for a hundred million years - it’s always been there, compared to us being here.
STP said that one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I have a hard time believing this is a "once-in-a-billion-year" event. The odds of our catching so a rare event all but literally make it impossible for us to find it.

Yes, the chances of us stumbling across a billion-to-one event are implausible. It's clearly happening much more often.

 

[Astro Pen]

Yes, the chances of us stumbling across a billion-to-one event are implausible. It's clearly happening much more often.

It's designed you know, the universe. Pure energy fielding itself into particles with exactly the right masses and charges, then atoms, hydrogen and helium forming stars and spitting out all the periodic table, followed by impossible by chance viable DNA - You, Me and a Ford Capri.
Where it is going I have no idea, I'm not the watchmaker. But it is absolutely incredible to behold, and to be, literally, part of.

 

[Harpo]

It's designed you know, the universe. Pure energy fielding itself into particles with exactly the right masses and charges, then atoms, hydrogen and helium forming stars and spitting out all the periodic table, followed by impossible by chance viable DNA - You, Me and a Ford Capri.
Where it is going I have no idea, I'm not the watchmaker. But it is absolutely incredible to behold, and to be, literally, part of.

Probably not that simple - maybe pure energy *also* tries trillions of other combinations which don’t work, and therefore we haven’t been able to detect any evidence of those failures.
Just because we can’t find them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, however briefly.

 

[Astro Pen]

Probably not that simple - maybe pure energy *also* tries trillions of other combinations which don’t work, and therefore we haven’t been able to detect any evidence of those failures.
Just because we can’t find them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, however briefly.

You could possibly frame an argument that your failed attempts at matter ended up as dark matter. Comprising bits of 'nearly matter' that didn't work but retained mass in some kind of near atomic limbo?

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

At the same time, many scientists argue that the universe is billions and billions of moments old. So each of those moments is the opportunity for a once in Billion event. I wonder what the odds makers would do with that?

Is it likely that a one in a billion event will occur if given an infinite amount of chances to occur?

reductionist arguments cut both ways.

 

[paranoid marvin]

There's a lot happening in the Universe - and on this planet - that is beyond our ken. Science tries to rationalise and compartmentalise, because that's what humans like to do. It also likes to come up with answers that match the facts - as we see with dark matter. It's a bit like 'solving' a Rubik's Cube by taking it apart and reassembling it.

 

[paranoid marvin]

At the same time, many scientists argue that the universe is billions and billions of moments old. So each of those moments is the opportunity for a once in Billion event. I wonder what the odds makers would do with that?

Is it likely that a one in a billion event will occur if given an infinite amount of chances to occur?

reductionist arguments cut both ways.

Once in a billion events are ten-a-penny in the timeframe of an almost infinte Universe.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

It's designed you know, the universe. Pure energy fielding itself into particles with exactly the right masses and charges, then atoms, hydrogen and helium forming stars and spitting out all the periodic table, followed by impossible by chance viable DNA - You, Me and a Ford Capri.
Where it is going I have no idea, I'm not the watchmaker. But it is absolutely incredible to behold, and to be, literally, part of.

The "God in the Gap" argument is ancient and rather boring. Anything we can't immediately explain must be an intelligent force, a God forcing its will on the universe, on the weather, on us. Especially singling us out as extra special.

5000 years ago, "Why is it raining." OH, "must be God." We might note that several prominent American Politicians have used the "This disaster is sent by God because a tiny percentage of people in that area have different politics than mine" argument in public RECENTLY.

And, then there are those that look at all scientific questions and say, "Well, if nobody knows "the answer" then it the answer is GOD (intelligent design) or whatever."

Or maybe we (humans) just don't yet understand the universe in its entirety. We don't even have a good understanding of the bottom of the ocean. Every day new deep sea creatures are being discovered. Should we believe that they are being created each day for us to find and wonder about? Or, maybe its because we are just now able to and willing to look at the bottom of the ocean?

Maybe when we are able to look at the entirety of the universe (or even a reasonable portion of it) we'll have a better understanding of it.

 

[Astro Pen]

You need to understand that I am not coming into this from a religious perspective but more taking Occams Razor to the impossible precision and uncanny number of precise processes necessary to create this working physical universe out of pure energy.
If you come across a Pyramid in the desert do you say "Oh there's a funny shaped rock" or do you think "That looks designed. "?

In deference to the ban on religious and political discussion I won't respond to the second pragraph other than to say that certainly ain't me pal, so please don't try the tactic tarring me with that brush

 

[Ursa major]

It's a bit like 'solving' a Rubik's Cube by taking it apart and reassembling it.

Something that works....

 

[RJM Corbet]

I have a hard time believing this is a "once-in-a-billion-year" event. The odds of our catching so a rare event all but literally make it impossible for us to find it.

So rare an event to happen only once, but continuing to happen for a hundred million years - it’s always been there, compared to us being here.
STP said that one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.

Yes, the chances of us stumbling across a billion-to-one event are implausible. It's clearly happening much more often.

But if it happened often, it would be observed often. And there's no evidence of these primary endosymbiotic events ever having happened more than once. There are and have been countless zillions of bacteria and archaea swarming on earth for the last few billions of years, but they have only combined by primary endosymbiosis once 2.2 billion years ago to originate mitochondria -- and it's from that combination that all eukaryote cells are descended. Before that for the first 2 billion odd years, life on earth was restricted to prokaryote bacteria and archaea cells lacking a nucleus etc, incapable of developing to anything more advanced.

In fact the point of posting the article #183 was to bring forward the fact that primary endosymbiosis did occur at least once since then 1.6 billion years ago, when a eukaryote cell absorbed a cyanobacteria that could harvest energy from sunlight. These became organelles called chloroplasts, which gave sunlight-harvesting abilities to plants. All chloroplast cells can be traced back to that singular event.

But the article proposes that primary endosymbiosis happened a third time about 100 million years ago when: "A species of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii was found to have engulfed a cyanobacterium that lets them do something that algae, and plants in general, can’t normally do – fixing nitrogen straight from the air, and combining it with other elements to create more useful compounds."

They have named the new cell nitroplast.

These events are unique.

It's what the latest scientific research is saying. Do we follow the science?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Something that works....

The tried and tested Gordian knot solution!

 

[RJM Corbet]

Entropy can only start to happen once order exists.
For death to happen, birth must happen first ...

In an entropic dimension, why should energy order itself in the first place?

 

[Ursa major]

The tried and tested Gordian knot solution!

Exactly....

 

[RJM Corbet]

It's designed you know, the universe. Pure energy fielding itself into particles with exactly the right masses and charges, then atoms, hydrogen and helium forming stars and spitting out all the periodic table, followed by impossible by chance viable DNA - You, Me and a Ford Capri.
Where it is going I have no idea, I'm not the watchmaker. But it is absolutely incredible to behold, and to be, literally, part of.

In a dimension where entropy rules, and all order dissolves into random disorder, all heat dissipates eventually to absolute zero -- where did the original order come from, against all odds of chance, stacked coincidence, far beyond any calculation of odds?

Just by chance -- of course