Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:16 — 30.8MB)
It Happened Once, A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy…, Planetary Shuffle, Sexy Rats, Babies <3 Robots, The Power of Light, Solar System Weigh-in, Bacterial Thermometers, Mosquitoes Diverge?, And Much Much More…
Show Notes:
The Energy Evolution of Life
Although the universe may be teeming with bacterial life, complex organisms may be a rare occurrence in the universe. Alien life forms could only evolve if an event that happened just once in earth’s history was repeated on another planet. The evolution of complex life might be dependent solely on mitochondria, the power house of cells.
The Oldest Galaxy Found?
Astronomers think they have found the oldest galaxy in the universe. Galaxy UDFy-38135539 was imaged by the Hubble Telescope and it’s light was calculated to have taken 13 billion years to reach earth. Although the light from this Galaxy is incredibly faint, Astronomers theorize that there could be other galaxies nearby, which could have cleared a path through the ultraviolet light absorbing hydrogen fog, by ionizing these gases, allowing the light emitted to reach earth.
Shuffling the Solar System
Our Solar System looks like an orderly place in the cosmos, but something is amiss… In the grand scheme of things, Mars should be bigger, due to it’s position in the middle of the protoplanetary disk. Why are Neptune and Uranus so big on the outer edges of the solar system since they have slim pickings so far away from the sun? And why is Jupiter not shackled to the sun as other giant planets are to their stars? This conundrum may have been solved.
Sisters Decrease Sexiness???
Experiments with rats have revealed, that growing up with a lot of sisters may make you less sexy. According to scientists, growing up with female dominated siblings could have an impact on the sexuality of the male.
Get a free audiobook at Audible.com!
And join in with the bookclub: grab your copy of Dark Banquet by Bill Schutt today!
Babies See Robots as Sentient Beings
Research has revealed that babies may see robots as humans. In an experiment, the researcher and the robot interacted together with the baby, asking questions to the baby and pointing to various objects. The baby’s gaze followed both the researchers and robots movements. Once the researcher left the room, the robot and the baby continued to interact.
Limbs Moved By Light
Scientists have created a bionic arm that can plug into the the nervous system, being controlled directly by the brain. This arm can also feel pressure and heat. They use sensors that pick up nerve signals using light, by employing optical fibers and polymers that will be less likely than metal to trigger a immune response and won’t corrode.
So How Heavy is Our Solar System?
How Bacteria Tell if it is Cold
If you love the show, keep it going. Donate below:
I'm the host of this little science show. 
The article regarding the origin of the Eukaryotic cell is an example of poor statistics.
The argument I heard was that there is a single example of evolution to the Eukaryotic cell, and since this only evolved once here on Earth, it must be an uncommon occurrence throughout the universe.
The opposite is true…
Many essential traits appears to have been evolved once on Earth!
The Eukaryotic cell, the homeobox, even our particular genetic code.
These three are examples of traits, like the eye, that would be beneficial even in a reduced or primitive state, but which provide a superb advantage.
They also fill a niche that makes it nearly impossible for newcomers to oust them, unless those newcomers are better adapted versions of the original.
This is how Evolution works!
There is no reason to expect that the path towards complexity on Earth is special.
There is every reason to suspect that it takes, on average, on the order of 2 billion years for a complex Eukaryotic-like cell to arise on EVERY life-harboring world.
There is no evidence to suggest otherwise!
Right now, the sample size of biospheres we have to study is 1.
!!! REMEMBER !!!
With a sample size of 1, ANY estimate for the variation within the population would be 0/0, which is indeterminate quantity, meaning IMPOSSIBLE; don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!
When I was in college, my physics professor was working on an instrument that would block out a star’s light (just like a solar eclipse) when looking through a telescope. The problem is that when you do this, you create a corona. The corona’s light, when looking in the telescope, extends outward to a radius where you would expect planets to be. The planets reflect the light of the star, unfortunately, the corona is somewhere on the order of magnitude 9 times brighter (a billion), so you don’t see them (like trying to see the north star in broad daylight). He realized that corona light is a form of refracted light. Refracted light has a particular pattern. So his device was a very fancy filter that only reduced this pattern of light. Back in 1998-99, his device was able to reduce the order of magnitude of the refracted light by about 6. If able to reduce the refracted light beyond that order of 9, this would mean that you would actually be able to SEE the planet (reflected light is not the same pattern as refracted light). He worked for JPL when the Hubble first launched and determined why it wasn’t working. Crist Ftaclas is his name. I hope this is still his project. He was teaching at Michigan Technological University back then, then moved to Hawaii to work on this telescope. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~ftaclas/default/ftaclas.html
About the mitochondria.
Rare the combining may be, but it only had to happen once to launch evolutionary forces in that direction. So, let’s say it is such a horrendously rare thing, happening once in a bazillion single cells in a near gajillion attempts…
Still, if a cell walks away from the occurrence with just a slight sniffle (or minor nucleus-ache), it’s going to be stronger and more capable, so its kid/clones are on the road to multicellular domination.
In other words; it only needs to happen once. The same is true about all evolutionary advantages.
This doesn’t mean it can’t happen routinely all over the universe. Just give each primordial soup a bazillion single cells and enough patience to make the combo.
I’m with Justin on this. Life is subject to rare influences. It only HAD to happen once.
The New Scientist article suggests that cells enfolding other cells is a huge rarity. But the inference that it might have escaped happening on other planets only makes sense if those planets have no burgeoning commerce with bazillions of singles.
I’m agreeing with Justin on this mitochondrial energy source story. For how long did science believe that Homo Neanderthalensis was a direct descendant of Homo Sapiens? Once the evolutionary victor had been declared it became VERY difficult to look back and see all the losers. If it weren’t for our extensive fossil record there’d be no way to tell otherwise.
How extensive is our fossil record of the first 3 or so billion years of single cell life? The way I see it, that part of the history is going right out our tailpipes and up our chimneys in the form of co2. So there really is no way to tell how many different lines made it to some higher complexity before first being made extinct by our lineage, just like Neanderthals. Maybe without Homo Sapiens on the scene, Neanderthals could have risen to the same cultural and technological stature as us. Just because evolution in our tiny environment didn’t allow it doesn’t mean that it can’t exist.
The thing I love about the universe is it’s tendency toward complexity on all scales. Not only that but how those complexities can create deeper complexities. It makes me ask how unique life is. How many different ways can elementary particles come together to create greater complexity? Atomic, molecular, cellular, cultural, even on an ideological level there is complexity. You could even start thinking on scales of gravity or velocity if you wanted to take that leap. But, the complexity is immense. Just in a single human brain you have the connection complexity of a trillion, at the very least squared, at the very most to the ten thousandth power. And that’s just one brain. Now put all those brains together and you have an even deeper cultural complexity. You have economies, social structures, and even technology.
Personally I find it hard to believe that water is the only solvent in which complex systems can create even more complex systems. You’d have to look at all the solvents, all temperatures and pressures, all velocities, all gravities, and all time scales even to come close. I think eventually we’re going to find that our “goldilocks zone” way of thinking is way wrong. I think we’re going to start to understand that the entire universe on all it’s scales and in all it’s different forms is one big goldilocks zone.
Here’s one possible leap you could take. There are billions of gallexies in the universe. Each contains billions of stars. Each of those stars is like a big radio transmitter emitting a huge complexity of signals in the EM. Those signals are eventually picked up by other stars and then reemitted back out into the universe. What if we were to take the leap and say that there might be a deeper complexity in the universe and how the stars communicated with each other. Like taking the leap from only understanding two neurons and their communication with each other to understanding the entire complexity of humanity. Maybe the only reason we don’t see that greater stellar complexity is because it works too slow for us. i.e. At the speed of light photons travel in no time, but at the human scale of time it takes billions of years. You could say that in the photons scale of time the complexity of interaction between electrons is great enough to form another deeper organized system. Would that be any different then the complexity of interaction between neurons in our brain creating consciousness?
I guess what I am trying to say is that there is far to much unexplored complexity in the universe to say that our linage of life is somehow divine or unique. There’s just to much of it that we do not know or ever could know for that matter.
Anyway, I love your show, although I wish you’d open more doors of communication to your listeners. I especially like Justin and his approach to reality. He’s well informed on the subjects, and he thinks outside the box, playing devil’s advocate whenever possible. If he’s anything like me, he knows science doesn’t know shit in comparison to what the universe has to offer. That right there makes TWiS worth listening to.
Plants don’t have mitochondria?! Um, ya. AND, they have chloroplasts! The result of a second endosymbiosis! Here, on Earth! Twice, on one planet, in one solar system, in one galaxy, etc… twice it has happened. But supposedly it is rare? Sounds like a dumb gimmicky fake idea to get some splash.
By the way, one might argue that chloroplasts are *more* important for life, and multicellular life, on Earth. For without photosynthesis, there is no food for us oh-so-complex animals…
Anyway, for not knowing that plants have mitochondria (extremely basic biology)…. DELETE!