Sometimes, as we eye the vast reaches of outer space and search for extraterestial life within our own system and elsewhere, we tend to forget how foreign parts of our own planet are as well. Even life we've never seen before. And thus, to help us in our next step towards moving into space we have to look back home.
Satyagraha
[ July 11, 2004, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: Insanity Plea ]
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
No one wants on their tombstone: 'I polluted Lake Vostok.' " How true! One of science's biggest challenges is truly understanding something without completely destroying it in the process.
fallow, Actually I found that abstract to be very interesting. (Yes, I am a nerd). I just have one question after reading it--Isn't the current model that the earliest forms of life were extreme thermophiles? So, then why would there be loop deletions in mesophilic proteins to allow them to become more thermotolerant? That would seem to be evolving in the wrong direction! Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
Excellent question. The abstract was probably written from a meso-centric viewpoint as no psycrophiles had been sequenced at that point and only a handful of extremophiles.
also, all organisms that currently exist (whose sequences are in our databases) are the product of evolution from some (unknown) ancestory. It's a bit tricky trying to figure out which way adaptations may have occurred.
fallow
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Sweet baby jesus. He typed in standard English in such a way that I didn't want to gouge my eyes out while I was reading it. Hooray!
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
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