Post by schwartzie on Dec 14, 2013 21:30:08 GMT -5
Life may have originated miles underground Matt Cantor, Newser 11:22 a.m. EST December 14, 2013 AFP 521912818
Researchers have found microbes up to 3.1 miles below the Earth's surface Scientists pulled microbes from places as widespread as North America, Japan, Europe, South Africa The samples were more than 97% identical, or practically the same species
The idea of a "primordial soup," in which life theoretically began in lakes and oceans, may be way off.
New studies suggest the beginnings of life on this planet could have occurred deep underground, the Independent reports.
Researchers have found microbes up to 3.1 miles below the Earth's surface — tiny organisms that are almost exactly the same on opposite sides of the planet. That points to a possible common ancestor about 3.5 billion years ago, which is when earthly life began, the paper explains.
Scientists pulled such microbes from fissures in rocks as widespread as North America, Japan, Europe, South Africa, and even, according to Red Orbit, deep hydrothermal vents in the Caribbean.
The samples were more than 97% identical, or practically the same species, according to researcher Matt Schrenk, who notes that some may "live as deep as (6 miles) into the Earth."
He adds: "It is easy to understand how birds or fish might be similar oceans apart, but it challenges the imagination to think of nearly identical microbes (10,000 miles) apart from each other in the cracks of hard rock at extreme depths, pressures, and temperatures."
In other incredible discoveries, an idea is floating around that the universe may actually be ... a hologram.
Post by schwartzie on Dec 14, 2013 21:31:43 GMT -5
Here's the hologram story. Man, they'll believe anything rather than acknowledge a God to whom they have to be accountable!
All the Universe Is ... Just a Hologram? New physics research might prove Maldacena's hologram theory By Arden Dier, Newser Staff
Posted Dec 12, 2013 11:56 AM CST
(Newser) – Prepare for a head trip: The universe may actually be a hologram and everything you see an illusion, according to new research that could prove gravity comes from thin, vibrating strings—holograms of events in a simpler, flatter cosmos. It was an idea first put forth by physicist Juan Maldacena in 1997, but never tested until now. Japanese researchers now have mathematical evidence, via two studies on black holes, that this hologram theory may in fact be right. If proven, it would solve inconsistencies in Einstein's theory of gravity, and be a "solid footing" for string theory, Nature reports.
The Daily Mail likens the theory to the security chip on your credit card: It's a 2D surface that has all the data needed to describe a 3D object. Basically, all the information about our universe is stored in a flattened version that projects everything we see. Trippy, right? The new research shows "that the thermodynamics of certain black holes can be reproduced from a lower-dimensional universe," says physicist Leonard Susskind, but the universes explored by the team don't look like our own, Maldacena notes. Still, it does show hope that our universe can be explained by a similar theory, he adds. Or as Gawker puts it, "Make of the findings what you will. We'll just be over here having an existential crisis."