From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Mar 26 2002 - 09:05:33 MST
On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Amara D. Angelica wrote:
> Sending out DNA could possibly expose us to risk long before that. This
> relates to the "active SETI" issue:
> http://www.setileague.org/editor/earthxmt.htm
> http://www.seti-inst.edu/iaa-position-paper.html
Good references.
> One possibility is that the DNA might provide clues to biophoton (See "Body
> Talk," New Scientist, Feb. 23, 2002, pp. 30-33) emission signatures that
> would enable a hostile civilization to remotely sense life on Earth and
> perhaps even determine its evolutionary level or basic thought processes,
> if, as Hameroff speculates, biophotons control consciousness in
> microtubules.
Blech. Skeptic meter pegs an 8.4!
Do the math. Compare the energy released from a single molecule
of ATP vs. the energy content of a photon. As far as detecting
such energy across interstellar distances -- it going to require
one *huge* array of telescopes (I'd guess *much* larger than
the size of the solar system).
[snip]
> it's possible that an advanced civilization, aware that biophotons are basic
> to intercellular communications, would have sophisticated life
> pattern-recognition systems that could detect such signatures by integration
> of quantum-coherent biophoton emissions from all life forms for target
> spectral-distribution and statistical windows.
That's *if* biophotons are part of intercellular communications, something
I'd highly doubt.
> For an even more speculative approach, also see "Detecting Biodynamic
> Signals" http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/detectin.htm.
Speculative is correct. While I have no problem detecting changes
in resistance in tissues based on things like blood volume, salt
content, etc. and no problem with electrical signals due to ion
pumping (basic neural signaling) and would even grant that cells
may self-regulate their ionic & redox states -- when the crowd starts
raising such physiological phenomena to the level where the twilight
zone music starts playing in the background is when my eyes start
to roll back in their sockets.
Robert
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