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Don’t you know, life needs oxygen, anything else isn’t life. (A jab at searches for extraterrestrial life that maintain oxygen as a key criteria)

gameswithgo 6y ago
Its a waste product or a necessity so either way its a chemical signature to look for.
- Razengan 6y ago
  Do our robots use or emit oxygen?
  - harperlee 6y ago
    Coupled with the infrastructure that feeds them the energy they need: they consume it in CO2 emissions.
cheph 6y ago
> (A jab at searches for extraterrestrial life that maintain oxygen as a key criteria) I am not aware of any searches that have oxygen as a necessary condition for life and I doubt they exist. It is not even considered a very good biosignature[1][2] because there are potential abiotic process that can replenish it, but it can be used as a biosignature, but that would work for life even if the life does not use oxygen, so using oxygen as a biosignature is not saying that life needs oxygen. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosignature#False_positives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosignature#False_positives [2]: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2017.1727 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2017.1727
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> life needs oxygen, anything else isn’t life. No. "An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism FYI, yeast for bread or beer is anaerobic.
- novaRom 6y ago
  Strictly speaking every living thing needs oxygen atoms (for example from water), because they are a necessary constituent of the RNA/DNA machinery.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Every living thing on Earth. The point they're making is that life off Earth might not use DNA/RNA at all.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The poster is sarcastically pointing out the fact that a lot of our current SETI searching revolves around assumptions like "extraterrestrial life will have the same chemical basis as Earth life does". Like needing oxygen.
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    I mean SETI is literally looking for radio signals so this doesn't track at all. A lot of astronomy is looking for familiar chemical signatures yes, but it's more in the vein of "looking for chemicals which could not, to our knowledge, have been produced through natural processes". Which is not unreasonable IMO.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
    > The poster is sarcastically pointing out Maybe. If so, the poster is playing stupid games, and winning stupid prizes. We can't be sure - imitation stupidity is functionally equivalent to the real thing > SETI Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Intelligence, not life. Radio-astronomy not microbes. Poster is not successfully talking about SETI in any way, sarcastic or not. Why they would attempt to do so in response to an article about Cyanobacteria is a mystery. tl;dr: As attempts to communicate go, it lacks many things.
  - Voloskaya 6y ago
    You are completly mischaracterizing it. No one assumes that ET life will necessarily be similar to life as we know it on earth, but we know life like we know it is possible, and we know what to look for to detect it, so it is certainly much easier than just trying to detect "something else", it's hard to find something when you don't know what you are looking for.

gameswithgo 6y ago

Its a waste product or a necessity so either way its a chemical signature to look for.

Razengan 6y ago
Do our robots use or emit oxygen?
- harperlee 6y ago
  Coupled with the infrastructure that feeds them the energy they need: they consume it in CO2 emissions.

cheph 6y ago

> (A jab at searches for extraterrestrial life that maintain oxygen as a key criteria) I am not aware of any searches that have oxygen as a necessary condition for life and I doubt they exist. It is not even considered a very good biosignature[1][2] because there are potential abiotic process that can replenish it, but it can be used as a biosignature, but that would work for life even if the life does not use oxygen, so using oxygen as a biosignature is not saying that life needs oxygen. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosignature#False_positives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosignature#False_positives [2]: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2017.1727 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ast.2017.1727

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago

> life needs oxygen, anything else isn’t life. No. "An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism FYI, yeast for bread or beer is anaerobic.

novaRom 6y ago
Strictly speaking every living thing needs oxygen atoms (for example from water), because they are a necessary constituent of the RNA/DNA machinery.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Every living thing on Earth. The point they're making is that life off Earth might not use DNA/RNA at all.
ceejayoz 6y ago
The poster is sarcastically pointing out the fact that a lot of our current SETI searching revolves around assumptions like "extraterrestrial life will have the same chemical basis as Earth life does". Like needing oxygen.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  I mean SETI is literally looking for radio signals so this doesn't track at all. A lot of astronomy is looking for familiar chemical signatures yes, but it's more in the vein of "looking for chemicals which could not, to our knowledge, have been produced through natural processes". Which is not unreasonable IMO.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > The poster is sarcastically pointing out Maybe. If so, the poster is playing stupid games, and winning stupid prizes. We can't be sure - imitation stupidity is functionally equivalent to the real thing > SETI Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Intelligence, not life. Radio-astronomy not microbes. Poster is not successfully talking about SETI in any way, sarcastic or not. Why they would attempt to do so in response to an article about Cyanobacteria is a mystery. tl;dr: As attempts to communicate go, it lacks many things.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  You are completly mischaracterizing it. No one assumes that ET life will necessarily be similar to life as we know it on earth, but we know life like we know it is possible, and we know what to look for to detect it, so it is certainly much easier than just trying to detect "something else", it's hard to find something when you don't know what you are looking for.