Building Blocks of Life // Giant Volcanic Activity of Io // Bacteria Outside the ISS

[@lyledal]

I love NIAC awards season! The interviews are some of the most interesting and fun things you provide us!

[@GRILL332]

Your interviews with NIAC is some of your best work. It gives a voice for those innovators. And since not all of them are great public speakers, your questions are great to help us understand their work and tease out information they might not have considered talking about.

[@bluesteel8376]

I am loving all the interviews and am excited you have many more coming up

[@MCsCreations]

Thanks for all the news, Fraser! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@nmcaver6611]

You are the best! Keep on Keeping On

[@robbob1866]

Checking for bacteria on the outside of the space station is super cool! I can't wait to hear the results. I'll say yes, they will find some 👍

[@mr.metaphysic1336]

I guess, NASA is going to send up Mr. Clean then?

[@damnablethief]

I am just imagining different space stations acting as "nodes" between Earth and the rest of the solar system. I am going to go play homeworld after this. Hell yes!

[@kamiylahlawson8437]

You're awesome!

[@coulie27]

Can't wait for the flood of interviews!

[@jamesfowley4114]

It's interesting that Io has almost ten times as many volcanoes erupting as Earth does.

[@richardreumerman5449]

You must be quite a celebrity among astronomers by now with so many interviews

[@frasercain]

It does make it easier to organize interviews when they've already heard of me.

[@richardreumerman5449]

@frasercain I bet!

[@noodgenoodgerson2660]

Fraser, How can I vote for my fav story, when "community" is not showing up on your YT video? I am subscribed.

[@MrSimonw58]

KZbin might have banned you

[@johnbennett1465]

Is it only this channel or all channels? My Android device did not support Community until the last few years. I have used KZbin for a couple of decades.

[@rogermiller2159]

They better get going with the space elevator

[@geitemans]

Sad that the recently announced ESA moonlander didn’t make the cut!

[@frasercain]

We'll get to that next week. The announcement was after we'd prepped the episode.

[@geitemans]

@@frasercain cool! Look forward to that

[@AEFisch]

Andromeda is both much larger than the milky way and relatively close. Can we get data from the SMBH at its center? The Woman on the Trappist interview expanded my vocabulary substantially!

[@T.Ty7]

3:10 “the prospects of asteroid mining” hehe

[@rhoddryice5412]

7:08 What’s the name of the system?

[@rodgerraubach2753]

Hey Fraser--Asteroid mining will only become viable financially from a base on Mars. I foresee it will become a major part of a future Martian economy.

[@Zach-ku6eu]

If The Asteroid Is That Small, Why not just grapple and slow it into L3 or L4 Lagrange orbit?

[@thekaxmax]

Small is relative. Changing the orbit of something the size of a mountain takes a /lot/ of energy to do at a reasonable speed, and the same again to stabilise into a new orbit. And you have to get that energy into orbit and then to the asteroid.

[@bbartky]

Fraser, I read an article on _Universe Today_ about Dr. Michael Hecht, who was the principal investigator on MOXIE for Perseverance, who has been awarded a MAIC for the Exploring Venus with Electrolysis (EVE) project. Will be interviewing him again about this NAIC award?

[@frasercain]

Yes, Andy used my interview to get more information for his article. It was an amazing conversation. It’s coming soon

[@bbartky]

@ Awesome! Can’t wait to see it!

[@frasercain]

The video is live, by the way.

[@AlviAli123]

Hey Fraser!!! Curious have you heard about the work Charles Buhler and his team been doing about anti gravity no fuel propulsion system If not can you please look into it and try to interview him. Pretty please

[@thekaxmax]

That has been debunked several times. Fraser does science stuff, not wishful thinking.

[@CyrilleParis]

As Stephen Colbert would say : I'm tired of blocks of life. I want life! Oxygen is a block of water but if I'm thirsty I blocks of water ! ;-)

[@undertow2142]

Enzymes and protein binding sites function only by being incredibly specific. If life used both enantiomers of AAs the specificity would be decreased and inappropriate interactions would be an evolutionary disadvantage.

[@Reyajh]

It's really simple. Life using left handed molecules tells us either one of 2 things: 1) Life, being amazingly complex (Much more so than these so called 'Building Blocks'. It's really a misleading term since, they are actually the building blocks of the building blocks of the building blocks, if you want to be precise.). But life, being super complex, if it EVER got kick started on its own (Extremely, even laughably unlikely) is so rare, and this could be used as an argument supporting the statement: that the first cell to successfully achieve 'Life' just used all left handed molecules and that 'locked it in' because, if we had life using both kinds it would be evidence of 2 pathways to abiogenesis. Or, the most likely scenario, 2) Life was created by a super-intelligent being and He decided to create it using only left handed molecules, perhaps even to point us to this type of very conclusion. Life doesn't just need a mind dizzying series of events to happen simultaneously to kickstart a-biogenesis, it literally also needs an information storage and retrieval system simultaneously, to boot. No matter what all the scientists say. Jack Szostak, a Nobel laureate no doubt, laughingly claimed in the early 2000s that synthetic life could be created within a decade. In fact: No naturalistic process has convincingly explained how homochirality even arose without guided selection. Let alone all the hundreds of other impossibilities that have yet to be shown an abiogenic pathway... Now, I'm all for carrying out all the searches we have planned, in fact even more. Who knows what we might uncover... But as an educator... I just find it misleading.

[@jennifersaar1611]

Since you’re an educator, I have to wonder just how you jumped to the conclusion that having a mysterious creator is ‘the most likely scenario’? The scenario in which you describe chirality as a matter of chance is not all that unbelievable. And considering all the variables we don’t know, it’s ridiculous to think the matter is settled in your favor.

[@Reyajh]

@@jennifersaar1611 I'm an educator? No dear... And as to the rest... lol... One man's common sense is another man's genius... Happy trails.

[@918xD]

awww its developmentally delayed.

[@Reyajh]

@@918xD Exactly... lol

[@blackrat47]

Would this windspeed be a problem, when landing with a starship HLS standing upright on mars (and more or less empty fuel, and if you bring stuff to Mars, you won't let it in the rocket, is it)? Lets say more or less flat terrain.

[@ed4053]

Question: Could you explain what nuclear thermal propulsion is, and what Nasa and General Atomics are working on (new super efficient fuel for ntp) ? Thank you

[@AemilianX]

Why does it need to be delivered to Earth? Are we also not made of star dust?

[@thekaxmax]

Ah, but what composition stardust?

[@reinaldomartinez8825]

Question: What would happen if any left-handed life eats right-handed food?

[@DavidTremblay]

It's NIAC season !

[@sithraeil]

amazing news! what does it mean for the search for life that amino acids and other organic compounds are present on asteroids? is our solar the only one with an asteroid belt? if yes, does it make it unique?

[@thekaxmax]

No, asteroids are everywhere.

[@sithraeil]

@thekaxmax asteroid belt

[@thekaxmax]

@ and asteroid belts are everywhere. What does your reply even mean?

[@sithraeil]

@@thekaxmax never heard about asteroid belts in other systems, so I was curious and asked.

[@thekaxmax]

@@sithraeil they do exist. A number have been detected.

[@Phil_AKA_ThundyUK]

Hi Fraser, question for you. Is anyone building or designing a space station / station modules they are designed with Starship dimensions in mind rather than the current limits of global launch systems like Falcon 9, Ariane, Atlas etc.

[@Leafbinder]

Hit lvl 80 Fraser what lvl are you at? look me up ingame im Leafbinder there too.

[@frasercain]

75 I think. I’ve stopped playing, waiting for an update. I’m playing build 42 of Project Zomboid now

[@jonfr]

Maybe the asteroids where part of a planet that has long since been lost. Planet that maybe formed before our own solar system formed.

[@thekaxmax]

Some are bits of failed planets, we know that. And they formed with the others, then broke up.

[@maughan3061]

Includes one non protein amino acid, Alpha-amino-isobutyric acid, which, we're told, doesn't occur naturally on Earth.

[@unspace]

@@maughan3061 I'd love to see the list! Did they find bases that could make non-canonical nucleotides?

[@maughan3061]

@unspace kzbin.infoVzhL3qDqsjY?si=wa0yadRXX91J9FDb

[@maughan3061]

@unspace The Bennu samples contain over 10 000 substances which include all five of the nucleobases found in DNA and RNA, and 14 of the 20 amino acids that life uses to build proteins. The chirality of these molecules was split equally between left and right handedness, whereas all biology on Earth is composed of chirally left handed molecules. I'm not sure about non canonical nucleotides but the team have published a few open access papers like "An evaporite sequence from ancient brine recorded in Bennu samples" and "Abundant ammonia and nitrogen-rich soluble organic matter in samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu".

[@maughan3061]

@@unspace The Bennu samples contain over 10 000 substances which include all five of the nucleobases found in DNA and RNA, and 14 of the 20 amino acids that life uses to build proteins. The chirality of these molecules was split equally between left and right handedness, where all biology on Earth is composed of Chirally left handed molecules. I'm not sure about non canonical nucleotides but the team have published a few open access papers which I can't name here.

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

Beginning with the second book in his "Honorverse," For the Honor Of The Queen, David Weber wrote that the Star Kingdom of Manticore could communicate faster than light by using gravitational waves. Being the only nation whose Navy had a way to communicate faster than light provided the Star Kingdom with a significant military advantage. Of course, we now know that gravitational waves do not travel faster than light, but I don't believe that was proven in 1993 when the book was published. The laws of physics: ruining good space opera since 1905!

[@russellneitzke4972]

What would the magnification be of putting a thumb in front of the sun and finding the sweet spot in the solar orbit to collect all of the light bending around it? It's an 850 thousand mile lens waiting to happen.

[@kkgt6591]

Please cut down on background music.

[@normanwolfe7639]

I didn’t even notice it

[@kkgt6591]

@normanwolfe7639 I have got used to the old format where I usually fall asleep and such I view the videos multiple times.

[@thekaxmax]

Can't hear any

[@HansMilling]

The impact that killed the dinosaurs must have thrown a lot of material out in space. So it might have come from Earth.

[@YeenMage]

Sadly, OSIRIS Rex doesn't have a second sample return capsule since it will study asteroid Apophis in 2029. It would have been nice to have 2 different samples from 2 different asteroids (Bennu + Apophis) in order to further provide more clues as to where life really came from.

[@damanybrown5036]

Came from our Creator YHWH

[@bbartky]

But when OSIS Rex was proposed and then funded the plan was only to go to Bennu. The mission to Apophis is a bonus mission costing a fraction of what a new mission would have cost. So, I think it's great.

[@andreypopov6958]

Catch Pokemon more ))

[@Yutani_Crayven]

Please don't cheapen your videos by using that over-dramatized intro music! It's so unnecessary (and dare I say cringe) and so unlike what this channel represents. I like it here because you've always been above using stuff like that. If I wanted fake, manufactured drama, I'd stick to TV.

[@normanwolfe7639]

God is left handed OBVIOUSLY! Lol

[@halcon2134]

It is like matter and antimatter, it is risky (impossible) to have both directions. That's what my neurons have told me with their Sodium Potassium gates and their quantum nanotubes in the axons...😂😂👍👍

[@RenegadesRift]

I've always said. We are the aliens.

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

So we built the pyramids after all?

[@ColKorn1965]

We're a dumping ground for failed genetic experiments from other worlds

[@gelisob]

this winding up audio fx in the beginning to fake up the excitement is pretty bad. It's science news, interesting science news. Not stupid transformers movie. Sorry.

[@RuralJuror420]

Go listen to PBS then babes

[@GrantTregellas]

Someone always has to moan. Pathetic

[@Robbadobbsoldier]

BuuFukkinHuuu

[@kieranlangley3092]

You must be fun at parties

[@Ashcashcash]

Wholly disagree

[@Zach-ku6eu]

President Trump asked *and thier ten month ordeal was suddenly over* 😒How hard was that blue ties?!

[@Spherical_Cow]

You mean, Trump and his best toady Musk postured and BS'ed, and meanwhile the plan of action continues to be exactly the same as it already was half a year ago. Keep swallowing Trump's BS, and you'll be what you eat...

[@jinkky]

The plan for the two astronauts’ return aboard SpaceX’s Dragon was announced during the Biden administration, and the SpaceX’s Crew-9 that is bringing them home docked at the space station September 28, 2024.

[@grahamcameron7628]

Tired of the building blocks stories. Like a forest could randomly build itself into a sailing ship without supernatural intervention.

[@emanuelpetre5491]

Are humans supernatural?

[@grahamcameron7628]

@ no. The jump from inanimate to living. That’s no random accident.

[@emanuelpetre5491]

@@grahamcameron7628 this is a universe with life in it therefore it is alive. Why does life require ‘supernatural’ intervention?

[@unvergebeneid]

And I'm tired of creationists and their strained metaphors. No, we don't know how abiogenesis happened but invoking a supernatural being just kicks the can down the road. It's complexity from nothing with extra steps.

[@grahamcameron7628]

@ that’s okay, you be you. Don’t stress over others who believe