What's Cool in Science This Week?

[solops]

Acid based oozes that secret a strong base to kill their foes/prey.

[Sir Slash]

I like the idea of giant Blimp-Creatures floating around the atmosphere living off the nutrients in the clouds and hiding from us in the mist, "Hindenberg-lings". Or maybe, "Dirigible Whales".  O0

[Gusington]

Gigantic flying sky monkeys.

[steve58]

[Gusington]

HAHAHA LOOK OUT

[SirAndrewD]

Very interesting. 

I remember reading Clarke's novel 2010 and it postulated something similar in the atmosphere of Jupiter. 

A subplot missing from the movies is that Dave Boman/Monolith Aliens had to choose between the life budding on Europa, or life that existed in a much more advanced state in the clouds of Jupiter.  The Aliens chose Europa and caused Jupiter to go into stellar fusion in a cold calculation that Jupiter's gaseous lifeforms were an evolutionary dead end where Europa had a chance of much further development. 

Fascinating to think of something like that possible at Venus.  I remember Sagan postulating about it in the 80's too.  Maybe we'll stop neglecting it in our exploration.

[Pete Dero]

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/potential-biosignature-found-in-venuss-clouds/

So, Is There Life on Venus?

The surface of Venus is harsh, as seen in this view from Venera 13, which survived only briefly after landing on March 1, 1982. Life, if it exists, has a better chance in Venus's more temperature (but still highly acidic) atmosphere.

David Grinspoon (Planetary Science Institute), an expert on Venus who was not involved in the project, says that the result will be contentious, in part because the discovery is based on a single absorption line.

"People will look very critically at this. As they should," Grinspoon said. "We don't want to jump to the wrong conclusion about something this important."

The team is confident in the analysis but agrees that independent observations are needed to detect other phosphine absorption lines in order to verify the detection. As for whether the phosphine on Venus is a biosignature, they're agnostic.

"My gut tells me an unknown photochemical process is going on," says team member William Bains (MIT). "I think the chances of there being life on Venus are very small."

https://www.space.com/venus-clouds-possible-life-chemical-discovery.html

As tantalizing as the detection of phosphine on Venus may be, scientists not involved with the new research worry that it makes a few big leaps, even before the massive potential implications of a detection of life.

Some were unconvinced that phosphine was a reliable fingerprint of living organisms. The single phosphorus molecule surrounded by three hydrogen molecules is, on Earth, a rarity and short-lived: some industrial processes produce it, and it's affiliated with some types of bacteria living in particularly strange environments. It quickly transforms in Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere and should in that of Venus as well, which is intriguing for scientists looking for alien breath. But the excitement about phosphine may well be premature.

"The phosphine link to the biological world is very, very faint and needs to be corroborated simply by going to the lab and doing experiments," Tetyana Milojevic, a biochemist at the University of Vienna not involved in the new research, told Space.com.

She argues that phosphine has only been found near microbes, not produced by it, and that the compound seems to be released by the chemical decay of biological material. So before scientists can use phosphine as a potential biosignature, they need to get into the lab and really understand whether and how microbes produce phosphine, a process that scientists eyeing Mars completed for methane long ago.

[Gusington]

'unknown photochemical process'  ???

[Sir Slash]

Meanwhile, a whole day and not one reference to Uranus. Superb restraint Gentlemen.  :clap:

[Gusington]

 

[Windigo]

Meanwhile, a whole day and not one reference to Uranus. Superb restraint Gentlemen.  :clap:

I would have made a crass comment, but I was just leaving someone's mom's house

[Sir Slash]

Oh? Mothers are experts on Uranus. Mine was but seemed to believe it needed washing a lot. 

[Labbug]

https://www.foxnews.com/science/24-superhabitable-planets-discovered-close-earth

[Labbug]

https://www.foxnews.com/science/hairy-caterpillar-virginia-puss-caterpillar-venomous-insect-hair

[Sir Slash]

That looks like one of Gus' old hair-pieces. Can't remember if they crawl by themselves too?  ;)