09.23.05

Acetylene-Based Life?

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An interview with David Grinspoon in Astrobiology Magazine posits acetylene-based life on Titan:

What’s really new in our paper is that we go into the question of energy sources. If there’s life there, what’s it going to eat? What kind of food is there? And it turns out there’s abundant food because of all this photochemistry in the upper atmosphere, where methane is being turned into other organic molecules. Some of those organic molecules are very energy-rich, and one that we consider in the paper is acetylene. We know it’s being made in the atmosphere, we know it’s raining down on the surface, and it’s been detected at the surface with the Huygens probe. We calculated that, if acetylene is reacting with the hydrogen gas to turn it back into methane, quite a bit of energy is being released. So that’s our basis for saying there is something to eat on Titan. We don’t know if there are any customers, but there’s something on the menu.

When we discover these gassy critters, I’m going to make a mint on this domain name.

02.03.05

Yum!

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Anyone got a few hundred bucks for dinner?

01.26.05

Nova ScienceNOW

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There’s a new science show on PBS called Nova ScienceNOW—and, silly capitalization aside, if you’re at all interested in recent developments in the world of science, you owe it to yourself to TiVo this show. If you don’t have a TiVo, this is the perfect excuse to buy one. It’s for science!

The first episode featured segments on hurricane prediction, an engineer’s attempts to engineer every aspect of his life, “booming” desert sands, and—most interesting to me—mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are, in short, the reason we can learn by imitation, the driving force behind human culture, and the biological basis of empathy. If you missed it, check out the ScienceNOW web site for clips, updates, bonus materials, links to further resources, an RSS feed, and even the complete episode in streaming video.

Update: I had thought Nova ScienceNOW was a completely new show; turns out it’s just a recurring feature within the Nova series. Disappointing, but I’ll take what I can get.