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[Shrugging Khan]

So these guys sell fear?

Yes. Its big business too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAh7S0m8Vn0

[godisdead132]

what really amases me is how the national geographic channel has changed in the past 10 years or so i still remember when they mostly did programs on locations and cultures alot of it was still bunk but it was interesting to watch. now though it has evolved into the consipracy theory channel all they show is programs about things like how JFK was killed by wombats and crazy bs like that i havent even seen any of their old programs in years its just disapointing and national geographic is by far not the only channel to have done this scifi has started doing all the "gost hunter" programs there are so many channels that are following this paradyme that it paints a bleak future for non-fiction documentarys and tv in general

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

So these guys sell fear?

http://www.foxnews.com/

I just burst a blood vessel with anger.

[Il Palazzo]

what really amases me is how the national geographic channel has changed in the past 10 years or so i still remember when they mostly did programs on locations and cultures alot of it was still bunk but it was interesting to watch. now though it has evolved into the consipracy theory channel all they show is programs about things like how JFK was killed by wombats and crazy bs like that i havent even seen any of their old programs in years its just disapointing and national geographic is by far not the only channel to have done this scifi has started doing all the "gost hunter" programs there are so many channels that are following this paradyme that it paints a bleak future for non-fiction documentarys and tv in general

And they never use punctuation, those bastards.

[Virex]

Let's ponder the odds & stuff.

Let's not mix up viruses and bacteria. I'm pretty sure that the simple form of a virus, which can be hardly called alive anyway, could survive undamaged a trip trough space and landing.
There's also no known organisms that "eat" viruses, apart from this one "sputnik virophage" which likes just one kind of viruses, and is itself a kind of a virus(must infect an amoeba, then wait for the other virus to infect it as well. All in all, a very specific relationship). Which is not to say that there isn't more, but they don't seem to be very common, judging by the number of known species.

On the other hand, viruses can infect only those few organisms they evolved with, so I can hardly see how would an alien virus could do anything apart from sitting idly on it's viral ass for all eternity.

And there's always the question of how come there are viruses on comets in the first place? Viruses need other organisms to replicate. They almost certainly evolved from other simple life forms, so unless there's a thriving soup of microcellural life inhabiting those comets(which brings about all the problems associated with sustaining life in space), I don't see where they could come from.

a.) I'm quite sure most viruses have a lot of trouble coping with hard solar radiation. Remember that you can disinfect stuff by bombarding it with hard UV radiation.
b.) Alien viruses living on alien microbes would be... alien phage. Worst it's going to do is to kill stuff living in your intestines. Will give you a bit of diarrhea, but nothing serious.

[Il Palazzo]

a) assuming all "viruses from comets" gathered on the surface of said comet. A few meters of solid rock and dirty ice should be enough to protect their vulnerable parts from ionizing radiation.

This is all nitpicking of course. We all seem to have agreed quite a while ago, that viruses from space is a silly idea.

[gtmattz]

We all seem to have agreed quite a while ago, that viruses from space is a silly idea.

I don't know, some people with a lot more education and resources than me seem to think its not silly at all...

[Eagleon]

This is all nitpicking of course. We all seem to have agreed quite a while ago, that viruses from space is a silly idea.

Dangerous ones from space at least.

Re: Documentry, nothing particularly novel, which was a disappointment. They could have replaced some of the muddling fear-oriented sensationalism ("The core is growing at about a MILLIMETER A YEAR dear gods we're doomed.") with some of current research in geoscience, as well as additional information about the forces involved, such as the phase transition between the outer and inner core. No mention of pressure changing melting point, which will probably serve to confuse some people. Then the "just right" thing at the end, with no mention of the anthropic principle. Ick.

Also, since they seem perfectly fine with surface-layer geological research providing clues to deeper conditions, why not toss in a mention of the possibility of using Mars for some clues about inner-core conditions? Silly geoscientist, talking about the engineering being impossible. Well we'll show them! We'll meet them half-way so hard their grandkid's grandkids will feel it. No, really, literally, it'll take that long to generate interest :/

[Hyndis]

Then the "just right" thing at the end, with no mention of the anthropic principle.

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.' "

[Il Palazzo]

Heh, now we just need to script the rest of the documentary.

[Shade-o]

Part 2: The puddle, now in the form of water vapour, sets about destroying Earth through locally raised humidity and air pressure.

[Virex]

Then the "just right" thing at the end, with no mention of the anthropic principle.

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.' "

Wasn't the Antrophic principle: "The universe's fundamental properties are so that it can support human life because if it couldn't we wouldn't be here now" instead of "This universe fits so well that it must be meant for us"?

[Hyndis]

Then the "just right" thing at the end, with no mention of the anthropic principle.

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.' "

Wasn't the Antrophic principle: "The universe's fundamental properties are so that it can support human life because if it couldn't we wouldn't be here now" instead of "This universe fits so well that it must be meant for us"?

Yes. The planet is not perfectly designed for human life, human life is perfectly evolved to exist on this particular planet.

[Il Palazzo]

Wasn't the Antrophic principle: "The universe's fundamental properties are so that it can support human life because if it couldn't we wouldn't be here now" instead of "This universe fits so well that it must be meant for us"?

Wasn't the whole controversy surrounding this principle based around the fact that the first seems to support the second?
It's like with the Bing Bang theory - what was before BB? We don't know - in fact, we can't know. Ergo, that could've been the domain of god. And so, the Bing Bang theory supports the idea of god.

disclaimer: I do not intend to turn this thread into another religious debate. Any such occurence would be purely coincidental and I cannot be accounted for it.

[qwertyuiopas]

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.' "

Source: Douglas Noël Adams. Yes, that one.

From the same speech by him, "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."