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NASA discovers life!
Topic Started: Mar 16 2010, 05:45 AM (494 Views)
Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
On Earth!

It's actually a pretty cool discovery, and makes us rethink where and how life can evolve.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Quagmire
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Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:35 AM
Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
Pretty damn human though.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Let's think about this for a minute. Scientists should go gaga about wonderful discoveries like this. It shows that life can indeed thrive in harsh environments that we heretofore suspected would be lifeless or that would contain simple microbes at best. Even life that would look good on your plate. :whome:

But the article then goes off the deep end by making comparisons to Europa or other such environments in the solar system. This is a rather flawed analogy at best. Here on earth we have a life incubator that produces a huge diversity of forms and structures in very benign and advantageous environments. Some of those forms then can adapt to the harshest edges of the environment. When we discover life in those harsh places we're astounded, but we cannot then draw a simple connection to Jovian moons that might have similar harsh, but now apparently survivable, environments. Those Jovian moons don't have the life incubator of the rest of the earth producing the wide variety of experiments that can then adapt to the harshest conditions. All those moons have are the harsh conditions.

Just because some shrimp-like creature can survive beneath our ice sheets doesn't mean that Europa's lightless sub-ice ocean is likely to have the same kind of creatures. Where is the benign part of Europa that is churning out new life forms? It doesn't exist.

This is the reason why journalism like this amuses me. Amateurs writing about things too complex for them to understand.
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Quagmire
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Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 06:51 AM
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:35 AM
Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
Pretty damn human though.
:shrug:

Some humans, I guess..... I dont get it.


Like if we discovered life on Mars, "I wonder what it tastes like!" wouldnt even cross my mind as it would be racing with the enormous implications of the discovery, which I think is the human response.

When I read the article, I was fantasizing about whats going on under the ice, how they could have gotten there, what else is there, what does this mean. The plate remark hit me in the face like WTF? who cares! I'm thinking about the real issues.
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Aqua Letifer
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Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:59 AM
Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 06:51 AM
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:35 AM
Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
Pretty damn human though.
:shrug:

Some humans, I guess..... I dont get it.


Like if we discovered life on Mars, "I wonder what it tastes like!" wouldnt even cross my mind as it would be racing with the enormous implications of the discovery, which I think is the human response.

When I read the article, I was fantasizing about whats going on under the ice, how they could have gotten there, what else is there, what does this mean. The plate remark hit me in the face like WTF? who cares! I'm thinking about the real issues.
"How can we use it" is a much more human response than "wow, the universe is a wond'rous place."
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Quagmire
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Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:00 AM
"How can we use it" is a much more human response than "wow, the universe is a wond'rous place."
says who?

I guess it depends on what human you're talking to. I would say Sagan and Einstein would utter the latter, while Bill Gates and Dubya might utter the former.
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Quagmire
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Piano*Dad
Mar 16 2010, 06:55 AM
Let's think about this for a minute. Scientists should go gaga about wonderful discoveries like this. It shows that life can indeed thrive in harsh environments that we heretofore suspected would be lifeless or that would contain simple microbes at best. Even life that would look good on your plate. :whome:

But the article then goes off the deep end by making comparisons to Europa or other such environments in the solar system. This is a rather flawed analogy at best. Here on earth we have a life incubator that produces a huge diversity of forms and structures in very benign and advantageous environments. Some of those forms then can adapt to the harshest edges of the environment. When we discover life in those harsh places we're astounded, but we cannot then draw a simple connection to Jovian moons that might have similar harsh, but now apparently survivable, environments. Those Jovian moons don't have the life incubator of the rest of the earth producing the wide variety of experiments that can then adapt to the harshest conditions. All those moons have are the harsh conditions.

Just because some shrimp-like creature can survive beneath our ice sheets doesn't mean that Europa's lightless sub-ice ocean is likely to have the same kind of creatures. Where is the benign part of Europa that is churning out new life forms? It doesn't exist.

This is the reason why journalism like this amuses me. Amateurs writing about things too complex for them to understand.
Not at all. I think you're reading things into this.

The point is (as articulated by the last line in the article) that this requires us to rethink the boundaries of life existence. Re-examine the model. We thought we understood it all, but that shrimp is there telling us we dont. So that forces us to re-evalute what else we might not understand. You're making a huge assumption that any world would have to have an earth-like "life incubator" cranking out life forms in order for harsh enviornments to have any. Whats your research leading up to that conclusion?

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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 07:04 AM
Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:00 AM
"How can we use it" is a much more human response than "wow, the universe is a wond'rous place."
says who?

I guess it depends on what human you're talking to. I would say Sagan and Einstein would utter the latter, while Bill Gates might utter the former.
Says me. Human beings are by definition utilitarian. Much more so than we are curious, or else we'd have had a much harder time making it past building fire.

I suppose you also think that we went to the moon on a sightseeing trip. If we care that much about the wonders of the universe then why have we not sent a human mission to Mars, when we've had a complete plan for such a mission for about a decade? What do you think you're more likely to find in someone's home, a toolbox or a telescope?

Our ingenuity trumps our curiosity, absolutely.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 07:04 AM
Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:00 AM
"How can we use it" is a much more human response than "wow, the universe is a wond'rous place."
says who?

I guess it depends on what human you're talking to. I would say Sagan and Einstein would utter the latter, while Bill Gates and Dubya might utter the former.
Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin would utter the former.

Wavy Gravy and Timothy Leary would utter the latter.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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Quagmire
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Red Rice
Mar 16 2010, 07:15 AM
Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin would utter the former.

Wavy Gravy and Timothy Leary would utter the latter.
:lol2:

But they're all 'human' arent they?

But actually, I have NO doubt whatsoever, that Edison and Franklin uttered the latter first, and thats what drove them to the former. The two arent mutually exclusive.
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Piano*Dad
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Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 07:10 AM
Piano*Dad
Mar 16 2010, 06:55 AM
Let's think about this for a minute. Scientists should go gaga about wonderful discoveries like this. It shows that life can indeed thrive in harsh environments that we heretofore suspected would be lifeless or that would contain simple microbes at best. Even life that would look good on your plate. :whome:

But the article then goes off the deep end by making comparisons to Europa or other such environments in the solar system. This is a rather flawed analogy at best. Here on earth we have a life incubator that produces a huge diversity of forms and structures in very benign and advantageous environments. Some of those forms then can adapt to the harshest edges of the environment. When we discover life in those harsh places we're astounded, but we cannot then draw a simple connection to Jovian moons that might have similar harsh, but now apparently survivable, environments. Those Jovian moons don't have the life incubator of the rest of the earth producing the wide variety of experiments that can then adapt to the harshest conditions. All those moons have are the harsh conditions.

Just because some shrimp-like creature can survive beneath our ice sheets doesn't mean that Europa's lightless sub-ice ocean is likely to have the same kind of creatures. Where is the benign part of Europa that is churning out new life forms? It doesn't exist.

This is the reason why journalism like this amuses me. Amateurs writing about things too complex for them to understand.
Not at all. I think you're reading things into this.

The point is (as articulated by the last line in the article) that this requires us to rethink the boundaries of life existence. Re-examine the model. We thought we understood it all, but that shrimp is there telling us we dont. So that forces us to re-evalute what else we might not understand. You're making a huge assumption that any world would have to have an earth-like "life incubator" cranking out life forms in order for harsh enviornments to have any. Whats your research leading up to that conclusion?

Why so aggressive?

All I'm pointing out are the rather big assumptions that are being made implicitly when people glibly bring up the Europa comparison. Did that article mention the point I made about the rest of the earth being a huge life incubator spinning off countless forms of diversity? No, it didn't. I brought something new to the table precisely to show how important it is to think clearly about how your assumptions affect your conclusions. Ignoring the fact that earth IS a life incubator seems to be a rather large omission in any thinking about life elsewhere in the solar system, and I think any reasonable evolutionary biologist would make the same point. We do not KNOW that a life incubator is crucial, but if it turns out that our shrimp-like creature descends from creatures born in more environmentally benign circumstances, then that would be evidence of the incubator effect.
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Quagmire
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Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:15 AM

I suppose you also think that we went to the moon on a sightseeing trip.
what a ludicrous remark.

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If we care that much about the wonders of the universe then why have we not sent a human mission to Mars, when we've had a complete plan for such a mission for about a decade?
We actually have multiple competing plans, none of which are without their obstacles and problems. But they all require a whole big pile of cash to accomplish. Where's that coming from? Gov't keeps allocating money for it, but keeps pulling it back. Funding is not allowing it to happen. And please dont tell me that demonstrates your point, unless you're willing to say the gov't is a valid embodiment of the human spirit.

Quote:
 
What do you think you're more likely to find in someone's home, a toolbox or a telescope?
A toolbox of course, but flawed comparison here. Those toolboxes are to fix things that break, thats necessity, not ingenuity. How many of those toolboxes are being used to engineer new things for our own utility? Some but few. Lots of telescopes are marveling at the skies tho.

Quote:
 
Our ingenuity trumps our curiosity, absolutely.

Without curiosity, there would be no ingenuity, absolutely.
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:35 AM
Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
The second post from the comments section was, "Mmmmm.....shrimp!"

FWIW, this is only 12 miles from open ocean. Who knows what currents flow under the ice sheet.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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Quagmire
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Piano*Dad
Mar 16 2010, 07:26 AM
Why so aggressive?

What aggression? This is discussion. :shrug:

Quote:
 
All I'm pointing out are the rather big assumptions that are being made implicitly when people glibly bring up the Europa comparison. Did that article mention the point I made about the rest of the earth being a huge life incubator spinning off countless forms of diversity? No, it didn't. I brought something new to the table precisely to show how important it is to think clearly about how your assumptions affect your conclusions. Ignoring the fact that earth IS a life incubator seems to be a rather large omission in any thinking about life elsewhere in the solar system, and I think any reasonable evolutionary biologist would make the same point. We do not KNOW that a life incubator is crucial, but if it turns out that our shrimp-like creature descends from creatures born in more environmentally benign circumstances, then that would be evidence of the incubator effect.


It didnt need to bring out the life incubator point, because its not relevant to the point the article was making. Its also not suggesting that there are shrimp on europa. A shrimp would probably need the sort of incubator you're referring to, that doesnt mean ALL possible life forms in the unverse would. The article is extrapolating, saying "our box has just been damaged, we're gonna have to think outside of it for a moment". Your remarks are very much inside an earth box. And yes that where we found the shrimp. But there's a bigger picture that the discovery suggests, and the article is getting at. And I dont agree that evolutionary biologists would conform to your perspective. I know Sagan (I know, a different scientist), feels quite differently.
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Quagmire
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Kincaid
Mar 16 2010, 07:30 AM
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 06:35 AM
Quote:
 
It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate.


Odd remark to express the excitement of a discovery that stretches the bounds of what we know about life.
The second post from the comments section was, "Mmmmm.....shrimp!"

FWIW, this is only 12 miles from open ocean. Who knows what currents flow under the ice sheet.
Yet, it survived, regardless of how it got there. (I would imagine they're exploring the currents theory, as well as others).

But what I dont get is why is it so hard to keep marine animals alive in my saltwater tank, unless all parameters are just right, yet this shrimp survives these brutal conditions. Hell, a lobster or soft shell crab stays alive in my fridge until a cook him, yet my cozy warm marine tank had a pretty poor survival rate. :(
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 07:26 AM
Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:15 AM

I suppose you also think that we went to the moon on a sightseeing trip.
what a ludicrous remark.
Apologies. Must have been purely in my imagination.

Quote:
 
We actually have multiple competing plans, none of which are without their obstacles and problems. But they all require a whole big pile of cash to accomplish. Where's that coming from? Gov't keeps allocating money for it, but keeps pulling it back. Funding is not allowing it to happen. And please dont tell me that demonstrates your point, unless you're willing to say the gov't is a valid embodiment of the human spirit.


It does demonstrate my point, because if we were concerned only with the endeavor and whatever discoveries that could follow, we'd have already been there. And no, government is not a valid embodiment of the human spirit.

Quote:
 
A toolbox of course, but flawed comparison here. Those toolboxes are to fix things that break, thats necessity, not ingenuity. How many of those toolboxes are being used to engineer new things for our own utility? Some but few. Lots of telescopes are marveling at the skies tho.


Yes, fixing things that break is one application for a tool found in a toolbox. Making things is another. Are you familiar with Home Depot? It may surprise you but them stores, they be popular. How many Americans do you think physically enter a Home Depot every day as opposed to visit the NASA website?

Quote:
 
Without curiosity, there would be no ingenuity, absolutely.


Doesn't even matter if that's true or not. I'm not concerned with the origins of either, I'm saying that ingenuity is a stronger compulsion in human beings than curiosity.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Quagmire
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Mar 16 2010, 07:46 AM
I'm saying that ingenuity is a stronger compulsion in human beings than curiosity.
And I'm disagreeing. Dunno how we could prove it one way or the other. Just opinion, I guess.

But I really dont get your point about mars. Just because we havent been there, doesnt mean we dont want it bad enough. It takes more than wanting it. Why havent we mastered time travel, or teleporting, or anything else our science fiction is filled with wonderous curiosity. We want to go, but apparently our ingenuity has so far failed us in making it happen. So I guess if we could step of the ingenuity a little, it might be able to support our curiosity. ;)
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 07:51 AM
Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 07:46 AM
I'm saying that ingenuity is a stronger compulsion in human beings than curiosity.
And I'm disagreeing. Dunno how we could prove it one way or the other. Just opinion, I guess.

But I really dont get your point about mars. Just because we havent been there, doesnt mean we dont want it bad enough. It takes more than wanting it. Why havent we mastered time travel, or teleporting, or anything else our science fiction is filled with wonderous curiosity. We want to go, but apparently our ingenuity has so far failed us in making it happen. So I guess if we could step of the ingenuity a little, it might be able to support our curiosity. ;)
Ask around at NASA. If we wanted to go to Mars, today, we could work toward making that happen. We know how to do it (in fact we have our choice of methods), we have the resources. You can't say the same for time travel, teleporting, or anything else in science fiction.

Yes, it's that damnable ingenuity of ours that has kept us from wanting to raise the funds for an expensive ass mission out in space in the midst of a serious economic recession. Well maybe you're right; they don't sell cures for short-sightedness at Home Depot, at least not yet.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Quagmire
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Mar 16 2010, 07:54 AM
Ask around at NASA. If we wanted to go to Mars, today, we could work toward making that happen. We know how to do it (in fact we have our choice of methods), we have the resources. You can't say the same for time travel, teleporting, or anything else in science fiction.

Yes, it's that damnable ingenuity of ours that has kept us from wanting to raise the funds for an expensive ass mission out in space in the midst of a serious economic recession. Well maybe you're right; they don't sell cures for short-sightedness at Home Depot, at least not yet.
i work at NASA. I've worked with the Mars guys, I did a visualization of their mission plan. I know of the the different plans. We ARE working toward making that happen. We DONT have the resources (money is a resource we dont have)
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Aqua Letifer
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Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 08:09 AM
i work at NASA. I've worked with the Mars guys, I did a visualization of their mission plan. I know of the the different plans. We ARE working toward making that happen. We DONT have the resources (money is a resource we dont have)
I think that if you read my post again, you might be able to infer that I'm aware we aren't willing to spend the money. When I meant "resources" I wasn't referring to money, because to be more accurate, we do have the funds necessary, we just aren't willing to spend them. That's a given. My point was regarding why we aren't willing to spend it.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Quagmire
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Aqua Letifer
Mar 16 2010, 08:13 AM
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 08:09 AM
i work at NASA. I've worked with the Mars guys, I did a visualization of their mission plan. I know of the the different plans. We ARE working toward making that happen. We DONT have the resources (money is a resource we dont have)
I think that if you read my post again, you might be able to infer that I'm aware we aren't willing to spend the money. When I meant "resources" I wasn't referring to money, because to be more accurate, we do have the funds necessary, we just aren't willing to spend them. That's a given. My point was regarding why we aren't willing to spend it.
Who's "we"? The gov't is the one not willing to spend it. And you've already said the gov't is not the embodiment of the human spirit. So thats a disconnect to point to lack of funds as a support of your point.
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Mikhailoh
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'To search out new life and new civilizations.. and eat them'.

There are no doubt many new tasty dishes to be found throughout the universe.. new herbs, spices and sauces heretofore undreamed of. I've felt for a long time that life is nearly as common throughout the universe as the elements. It brings to mind however the flip side of that equation ..

Posted Image
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Quagmire
Mar 16 2010, 08:16 AM
Who's "we"? The gov't is the one not willing to spend it. And you've already said the gov't is not the embodiment of the human spirit. So thats a disconnect to point to lack of funds as a support of your point.
Okay, you don't like pronouns.

If you ask the government why the government isn't willing to spend the money on a human Mars mission, you'd receive your answer about where the government places its priorities. The government presumably exists to enact the will of the people, and in this particular case I believe that to be accurate; there is no public outcry to fund a Mars mission. In fact the general populace probably gives less of a **** about the Mars missions than the government.

But that doesn't really have anything to do with the government being "the embodiment of the human spirit."
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Quagmire
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Mikhailoh
Mar 16 2010, 08:22 AM
'To search out new life and new civilizations.. and eat them'.

There are no doubt many new tasty dishes to be found throughout the universe.. new herbs, spices and sauces heretofore undreamed of. I've felt for a long time that life is nearly as common throughout the universe as the elements. It brings to mind however the flip side of that equation ..

Posted Image
Personally, I'm more interested in the other sensual delights that await us? Jamaharung, anyone?
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