Is There an Undiscovered "Shadow Biosphere" on Earth?

 

"The concept of a shadow biosphere is still just a theory. If someone discovers shadow life or weird life it will be the biggest sensation in biology since Darwin. We are simply saying, 'Why not let's take a look for it?' It doesn't cost much (compared to looking for weird life on Mars, say), and, it might be right under our noses."

Paul Davies, director -Arizona State University -BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science

A famous theoretical physicist says we should search for "Shadow Life," unknown or undetected lifeforms that may have been hidden on Earth all along.  We expect his team to consist of one military expert (male, stubbled), one technical expert (female, Asian), and three non-determinate other characters (at least one "funny") and a season cliffhanger after twelve episodes. Except it's real, and it's not unreasonable.

Whenever we talk about the origins of life we assume that there was only one - the one which led to us.  This isn't pure egocentricity, though, as there is a complete lack of evidence of any other kind of life.  Paul Davies says that may be because we don't recognize what we're seeing.

"Life as we know it appears to have had a single common ancestor, yet, could life on Earth have started many times? Might it exist on Earth today in extreme environments and remain undetected because our techniques are customized to the biochemistry of known life?" asks Davies, who also is the director of the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University.

An "alien" biochemistry could have completely different effects from our own.  They won't suddenly turn out to have been stalking us for years, horror-movie style - it doesn't matter if you're based on silicon or soap suds, enough life will leave some kind of visible mark.  But they may exist in extreme environments where anything carbon based would choke or catch fire, and so be squirreled away in the remoter parts of the planet we haven't examined in any detail.

The idea of unconventional life isn't new - Stephen Baxter has made great use of alternatives to organics in his works - but serious rational discussion of "We might be wrong about everything, and what can we do if we are?" is why we've come so far as a species.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Source: Arizona State University (2009, February 26). Cosmologist Explores Notion Of 'Alien' Life On Earth. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/02/090214162626.htm

Comments

[Craig]

"and a season cliffhanger after twelve episodes"

Now THAT, is funny!

[SCUBBA]

no, it don't count if its not self aware.
same for life off of earth, of course there is life out there "slime" who cares, it only matters if it can help us hurt us or be friends or pets.

[fdisk]

The guy is kinda missing the point. Finding extreme life on earth won't provide a possible answer to "are we alone in the universe".

I'm not saying we SHOULDN'T search for further forms of life here on earth.. of course we should. But this isn't an either/or situation. We must search through the universe as well, so start with the most likely places...

[SCUBBA]

No, I'm not missing the point. I understand that if we find lower life forms this increases the chance for higher ones, bla bla bla.
Math also tells us that there should be intelligent life, and lots of it out there, so we should be trying to develop new way of contacting said life and FLD AND EMS to get out there and look ourself, and stop pidding around.
We do have the abilty, do we have the resolve? that is yet to be seen on a planetary scale.

[SCUBBA]

O u ment the writer, opps LOL

[bigjohn]

Lets nuke it then drill for oil

[Dr. Kate]

Is this what you are looking for?

[zack]

this is correct but not exactly, their not as hard to find as you expect, learn how to see energy auras and you will see them everywhere, their in the sky as we know it, and they could possibly be the cause of 2012 be aware of these lifeforms because these shadow auras do think, and can corrupt the bodys of our civilization, if you want proof just look in the sky for blurry hair folical shaped objects moving around, i first noticed them in forms of eye shapes then starting seeing larger ones, the reason their here is thanks to the millitary project "no angels playing this harp" for sending ionic beams into the ionisphere...open air anybody? another thing everyone should think about is obama banning all nasa space weapondry, can you say antichrist? if you have any questions reach me at captain_grindcore@yahoo.com