Recent content by Terracrete

;) Ninja'd!

This is 100% correct The most credably accepted "spark of life" is that established by the Miller-Urey experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment This experiment shows how amino acids are formed (organic material) from inorganic material utilizing the exact conditions...

Interesting side fact, sentience and self-awareness are not requirements for life. Bacteria for example has no concept of self-awareness and is most definitely not sentient. This makes these two qualities independent of the life definition. So just because you meet a talking cloud specimen on...

This is stepping into a definition consideration rather then a science one. Humans have a strong tendency to establish arbitrary classifications to the universe, it is through these classifications or definitions that we are able to rationalize and apply the above mention techniques of...

To this noted point I must say, "on the contrary". Our universe is governed with and by rules. The nature of the rules may forever be shrouded from us, however the rules exist non-the-less. Knowing the "input" as termed above and the subsequent "output" is the basis of science. In a word...

While this is correct in a purist scientist view, we have come a long way in understanding the significance that the chemicals water, NH4, CO2, etc have played in the development of life. From this understanding it is suitable to postulate the preliminary conditions that would be suitable to...

Slightly less short an answer: It is less dense then air so over time it will accumulate at the upper levels of the atmosphere while your new attempts at life will be on the surface of the planet in direct exposure to the more dense oxygen gas or potentially in any liquid on the surface...

Short answer is that Ammonia is immersible with O2, which is highly destructive to new forming life.

To answer this question I pose the following facts: 1. There are four phases of matter, and of these four solid and plasma are not life conducive. 2. For the early stages of life development (IE. before the development of an enclose cellular structure when all the internal interactions of...

Believe it or not oxygen that is to say the gas O2 is a very destructive molecule. Oxygen is an excellent oxidation agent (a molecule that oxidizes or causes other molecules to give up electrons and takes up the removed electron itself). The significance of this is energy. Oxidation reduction...

The electronegativity of oxygen is critical to the the formation of hydrogen bonding. The electron from each hydrogen is pulled toward the oxygen forming pseudo charges for the hydrogens and oxygen, from each hydrogen-oxygen intermolecular interactions are enabled. It is also the small size of...

Okay I was strolling along minding my own business after watching some Zero Punctuation when I came across your question. Water due to interactions between the 2 hydrogen protons of one water molecule being strongly attracted to the electrons of oxygen atoms of adjacent water molecules...