
Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years - robteix
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/18/newly-discovered-weird-life-forms-may-offer-clue-life-mars/
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ChuckMcM
Fascinating that the organisms can remain viable in geo-preservation mode.
When growing up in Vegas we used to go swimming in some of the side canyons
the lake had filled. And once while swimming we found some gypsum crystals
that were like 1:100th scale models of the ones in the cave (I think the
largest were about 5" long and maybe an inch in diameter.) we carried a couple
of home and for a fairly long time they sat as table decorations. I never even
imagined they could have something inside of them like that. Definitely solid
horror movie material :-)

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niuzeta
I think I have seen enough Hollywood B movies to see where this is going.

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wcummings
This is basically every episode of The X-Files.

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KON_Air
Andromeda Strain!

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JoshMnem
Andromeda strain seems much more likely than Star Trek, considering the past.
(human behavior, microorganisms)

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ksikka
Disappointed - not much on why these life forms are "weird".

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andai
They thrive in an environment devoid of organic matter!

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ams6110
I didn't read it as if they were thriving -- more that they were locked
dormant within the crystals.

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bigiain
<looks around the office on a Monday morning, considers poor life choices and
the option of lying dormant within a crystal>

Yep, sounds like "thriving" to me!

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carapace
As an aside, I find it deeply, poetically beautiful that the world has giant
crystal caves.

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fapjacks
You can buy crystals from this cave on eBay for really cheap. I've got one in
my "weird rock" collection.

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Karrot_Kream
What string would I search for on eBay?

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jdironman
_Weird Cave Rocks_

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halleym
See Rock City

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mattkevan
That headline sounds like the plot of some Roger Corman-style B-movie.

Why were they trapped in the first place? And is it a good idea to let them
out?

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twic
Yes, this is the famous aphorism of Zal-Tar's Fence:

> There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for
> the sake of simplicity, a crystal or jewel erected to contain an ancient
> being. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I
> don’t see the danger this being poses; let us release it." To which the more
> intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don’t see the
> danger, I certainly won’t let you release it. Go away and think. Then, when
> you can come back and tell me that you do see the danger, I may allow you to
> release it."

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blfr
Zal-Tar's? It's Chesterton's fence
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence)

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twic
That's the joke.

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_h_o_d_
can you please help us by explaining the joke (of an updated renamed
Chesterton's fence)?

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twic
You know, i'm not sure i _can_ explain the joke. I can explain what i wrote,
but not why it's funny (if indeed it is). As far as i know, we don't really
understand what 'funny' actually is.

My working hypothesis, though, is that this is mostly funny because of the
conjuction between the familiar and the unfamiliar. There is then a second
layer of funniness to do with absurdity.

So, Chesterton's Fence is a bit of a meme (in the original sense) on HN now.
I've seen it come up a few times, as something people consider obscure, but
are eager to share, because it's interesting. I assumed that people would
recognise it. The re-formulation as a piece of Kryptonian philosophy (Zal-Tar
is the scientist guy from the 1984 Supergirl film) about something fantastical
and over-the-top like an ancient evil trapped in a crystal, on the other hand,
is unfamiliar. There's something about the superposition of the two that is
funny.

However, that feeds immediately into absurdity, because my re-formulation is
rubbish; it's entirely unconvincing, and fails to disguise the origin of the
quote. But that makes it _more_ funny, because now you think i'm an idiot.
Except you know i'm not really an idiot (well, something like that), you
recognise that i'm playing at being an idiot. That isn't a universal element
of all comedy, but it's something i personally lean on a lot - if you can make
a really obviously silly statement the right way, either deadpan or
hyperbolic, it can be funny.

I'm reminded of "You've not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in
the original Klingon.":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsCVuO1yeJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsCVuO1yeJc)

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_h_o_d_
OK, thank you! I think I might have been amused by it on another day. Or
perhaps with a little linguistic style hint that you were up to such ironies
(This possibility had been in my range of possibilities, but not at the top).
Maybe the responder's literalist correction put me off before I had time to
get the joke? Anyways, this helps with the ponderings on the tribulations of
text!

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mempko
More evidence that life could possibly survive traveling through space.

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dzhiurgis
So they found bacteria and archae?

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siculars
Clearly they didn't see the movie Life.

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scrumper
What is the researcher wearing in the first photograph? It looks like a lead
smock for radiation protection, but those bags have gaps between them so that
doesn't seem likely. Sample containers?

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grippn
It's a ice jacket. Temperatures in those caves can reach up to 58 °C (136 °F).

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scrumper
Thanks! I see he looks a bit sweaty, on second viewing.

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m3kw9
Maybe one of those flying alien viruses from Alien: Covenent will come out

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Grangar
Hey, spoilers!

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ambrop7
No pictures (of lifeforms)?

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whatnotests
General Zod.

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dEnigma
_Penelope Boston, the director of NASA 's Astrobiology Institute, and her team
have spent years exploring Mexico's Naica Mine in Chihuahua looking for
extremophiles, which contain caves as large as cathedrals._

Is it just because English isn't my first language, or does that sentence
sound weird to native speakers too? Like the extremophiles contain "caves as
large as cathedrals"

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sillysaurus3
Native speaker here. For what it's worth, I understood it perfectly. And so
did you. It's not possible for extremophiles to contain caves, so obviously
you know what they mean. Much of English is like this in informal
conversation, and informal conversation is arguably the best way to write.

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paulddraper
Native speaker here. Having not previously known what extremophiles are, I had
to read it three times to convince myself they couldn't contain caves.

Geology has a certain reputation for its vocabulary
[https://xkcd.com/1829/](https://xkcd.com/1829/)

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skywal_l
What could go wrong?

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simplyluke
Not nearly as much as you're implying

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tyingq
The storyline, and even the first picture do mirror a lot of
doomsday/virus/zombie/etc plots. I'm sure that occurs to just about everyone
that reads it.

A pointer to some credible source as to why it's not dangerous might be
interesting.

Even being somewhat reasonable, scary things like prions do exist.

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sshanky
I wonder what the frequency of caves like this might be, and how likely they
are to ever be found. Are they typically indicated by some evidence or
indicators on the surface, or might there be unthinkable quantities scattered
all over the globe?

