Posted inAstrobiology Life on Mars NASA
How to Search for Life on Mars
This post provides additional discussion and references for How to Search for Life on Mars (Robert Zubrin, Steven Benner, and Jan Spacek, submitted to Scientific American)
Posted inAstrobiology Synthetic Biology
But We Have More Than One Example …
Carol despairs of having truly agnostic biosignatures to detect alien life, as it is impossible to extrapolate from the one example of life that we know. But that is the gift of synthetic biology, inductive logic, and reductionism. We induce agnostic biosignatures by understanding the chemistry required for biology.
Posted inAstrobiology Life
The Problem with Agnostic Biosignatures
Agnostic criteria, which are currently very popular among NASA scientists, are not truly agnostic and share many of the same problems with a definitional approach for searching for unfamiliar forms of life.
Posted inAstrobiology Life
Grave Expectations
The problem with trying to codify an official protocol for recognizing biosignatures:
We can try to devise rules for how detecting alien life should unfold, but E.T. might not play along.
Posted inLife Life on Mars NASA Synthetic Biology
NASA Headquarters Misses the Ball. Polyelectrolytes as the Key to Agnostic Life Finding
Synthetic biology, 20 years ago, taught NASA how to search generally, agnostically, and universally for alien life. NASA still does not understand the opportunity
Posted inAstrobiology NASA
Is ignorance bliss? NASA’s NfoLD Workshop
Cite as: Benner, S. A. (2022) "Is ignorance bliss? NASA’s NfoLD Workshop". Primordial Scoop, e20220403. https://doi.org/10.52400/TMUG1175 One approach to find new ways to solve an old problem begins by throwing…
Posted inAstrobiology Life NASA
2022 State of NASA Address: Astrobiology at NASA no longer looks for life on Mars
NASA gave up on looking for life on Mars, while planning to irreversibly biologically contaminate its surface. It is now up to private philanthropists to support life searching missions, while Mars is still biologically pristine. We know how to do it.
Posted inAstrobiology NASA
Science traceability matrices. Organized thinking, or organized biases?
NASA's workshop this week seeks to use STMs to speed the creation of new ideas to guide missions to detect life in the Solar System. But do STMs simply provide a veneer of respectability to old ideas, blocking the emergence of the new?
Posted inAstrobiology NASA
Is NASA making itself irrelevant to the search for life in the cosmos?
NASA holds this week a workshop to consider looking (again) for existing life on Mars … but only 20 years from now. By then, humans may have been on Mars for a decade, thanks to Elon Musk, or (maybe) someone less interested in planetary protection. Thus, in 2042, detecting indigenous Martian life will likely be much more difficult. NASA will be too late.
Posted inSingle Scoops
Thoughts on Benner’s “Life, the Universe, and the Scientific Method”
Does the neologism "definition-theory" have any value when exploring our understanding of life.
Posted inAstrobiology Life Origin of Life
Why searching for extraterrestrial life with a universal biosignature detection framework is a mistake.
A couple of weeks ago a group affiliated with NASA released a “white paper” claiming that scientists need a universal biosignature detection framework for searching for extraterrestrial life.
Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with the first part of their proposal.
Posted inAstrobiology Life on Mars Single Scoops
Benzoic acid on Mars. A 20 year old prediction come true?
Millan et al. just reported the discovery of benzoic acid in the dunes on Mars. Remarkably, benzoic acid was predicted 20 years ago to be on Mars as a product of organics falling to Mars via meteorite. And possibly ... life. Simply by understanding basic organic chemistry.