tristynalxander

@tristynalxander@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists at CERN successfully transported antimatter by truck for the first time, marking a breakthrough that enables moving these volatile particles to external laboratories for advanced precision⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  So, how long until antimatter missiles?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alien Life Could Look Nothing Like What We Expect. Here's How Microbes Beyond Earth Might Live Without Liquid Water⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I admit that the ionic liquids are an interesting concept for strange life. That said, most the ones they have look far too complex to have formed by any natural process in any meaningful amount, and anything that could form naturally doesn’t seem likely to have good a temperature range for compatible polymers. Maybe there’s something weird I’m missing (something that increases the NH3 liquid range and doesn’t react with siloconates or something crazy like that), but I’d be extremely skeptical of life without water.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We keep finding the raw material of DNA in asteroids—what's it telling us?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’'m a molecular biologist, so this is tangentially related to my field. I think there’s even odds life originated on mars then hopped to earth. NASA has been laying the ground work for a sample return mission for a while now to prove this one way or the other, but apparently the evidence has been mounting for decades.

  It’ll be pretty easy to tell once they get some uncontaminated mars rocks. While a lot of life works the way it does because it has to or because it’s optimal for evolution, there’s no accounting for chirality in amino acids (though amino acids in general are arguably inevitable) and nucleic acids are also probably unique to our form of life – at least I haven’t heard or thought of a reason nucleic acids specifically (not some other folding semi-dimer molecule) would be inevitable. There’s also certain amino acid side chains that seem unlikely to be shared; though, unshared side chains would mean little.

  It’d actually be a bit sad if life originated on mars as people would suddenly be a lot more interested in searching the stars for life, but the chances of finding it would dramatically drop as a single panspermia event would strongly suggest that complex life requires much more time to evolve most planets are habitable lifespan. I suppose an optimist could argue that humanity is early and/or lucky.