Life Detection – Page 2 – The Primordial Scoop

New project to find existing life on Mars before humans arrive

ALFA Mars (Agnostic Life Finding Association – Mars) is a group of scientists, engineers, science communicators, and volunteers with a goal to determine whether indigenous life is present on Martian surface before the first crewed mission arrives there.

By Jan Spacek August 8, 2022Astrobiology, Life on MarsNo Comments

Astrobiology Single Scoops

NASA’s “Standards” White Paper. Does NASA’s drive for consensus make young scientists susceptible to being trampled by mastodons?

Survival in the Ice Age required youth who were able to balance instruction from their elders with a rebellious streak sufficient to reject their instructions when survival required adaptation. Does NASA's need for consensus upset this balance?

By Mark Harrison May 25, 2022Astrobiology, Single ScoopsNo Comments

Astrobiology Life

Cleland & Grinspoon response to Benner: Do synthetic microbes provide another example of life?

The NfoLD's White Paper on Standards of Evidence in Life Detection opened a discussion on this blog. In this piece Carol Cleland and David Grinspoon tear down Benner's "second example" of life.

By Carol Cleland May 19, 2022Astrobiology, Life1 Comment

Astrobiology 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)

By admin April 21, 2022Astrobiology, Life on Mars, NASANo Comments

Astrobiology 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.

By Steven A. Benner April 21, 2022Astrobiology, Synthetic BiologyNo Comments

Astrobiology 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.

By Guest Author April 19, 2022Astrobiology, Life1 Comment

Life 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

By Steven A. Benner April 16, 2022Life, Life on Mars, NASA, Synthetic BiologyNo Comments

Astrobiology 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…

By Steven A. Benner April 3, 2022Astrobiology, NASANo Comments

Astrobiology 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.

By Jan Spacek April 1, 2022Astrobiology, Life, NASA1 Comment

Astrobiology 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?

By Steven A. Benner March 25, 2022Astrobiology, NASANo Comments

Astrobiology 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.

By Steven A. Benner March 23, 2022Astrobiology, NASANo Comments

Single 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.

By Carol Cleland January 11, 2022Single ScoopsNo Comments