vue - Freeman Dyson: Let's look for life in the outer solar system

1. Larry Niven uses the 'sunflower' idea to wonderfully deadly effect in Ringworld. In that scenario of course, it's a defensive/offensive mutation and not an adaptation to a lack of sunlight.
2. Interesting ideas, but pure speculation.
3. Yeah, but dyson, how is something supposed to evolve reflectors if it needs them to get energy? Wherever life started on Earth it was probably bathed in chemicals and energy. How do you start life on a cold, airless kuiper belt object? There just isn't enough energy to begin with.
4. Life originating below ice giving rise to another/extension form of life. Maybe an earthbound analogy would be ferns. Spores give rise to gametes which give rise to ferns (over-simplified). Also, doesn't the welwichia plant (a desert conifer) do something similar: a deep tap root and surface dna dispersion?
5. life below miles of ice .... not very likely.
6. Foolishness!
   Gene Roddenberry wouldn't even entertain this!
   I even entertain Silicon dioxide based DNA!
   On Europa... perhaps the Abominable Snowman from Dream Works Classics; but no "sun flowers"!
   Wanna get HIGH????
7. lil weird but weirdder things have been discovered in science
8. With all due respect to his achievements in particle physics, by his own admission he's largely clueless about biology. Makes him sound like a crackpot, really. As for his example about radio astronomy, it is indeed remarkable that astronomers ignored the well known phenomenon of synchrotron radiation, as an alternative to black body radiation for the production of radio waves. 20-20 hindsight is wonderful but you can't really use this example as a justification for looking everywhere for improbable things, like sunflowers on the top of Mount Everest. Life, a process that requires chemical disequilibrium, would NOT be cozy in a vacuum, a few tens of degrees above absolute zero and in a high radiation environment. He's also dismissing the asteroid belt as rock and metal, which shows his glaring ignorance of astronomy, a field where he does claims to be an "expert". The outer belt is full of C-type asteroids that are very rich in water and organic molecules, while receiving >100 times more sunlight than the Kuiper belt and 4 times more than Europa. So I'm sorry to say that he's largely talking nonsense.    
9. Why everybody laugh when he said that what happened with toys should happen wtih biotech??
10. I love this man
11. we keep hoping for worm hole travel, particle beaming, warping lightspeed and what not. we don't want to realize 'astronomical distances' for what they are: astronomical. the cubic area of exploration is indeed the new frontier - but we should appreciate, sooner the better, how vast the frontier is, if visiting even 5 or 6 of the millions of obviously existing life bear planets there are in just the Milky Way.
       I'm hoping for realistic Ted talks before I die!, lol.
12. Hey takes a while to get to his point, but it's a good one.
13. Yeah!Nerdfest.
14. What if you were to build a mechanical suit.....have it consumed by programmed nano technology. Molecule by molecule it is then broken down and saved. Then compact it and activate it when you have it saved. Also this man emailed me and told me to keep looking for the answers when it comes to the interior of our planet. Unfortunately this man is chastised for beliefs. You know what's funny Jupiter's warmth and radiation could make Europa able to have life. Who says a star is needed to have life?
15. Sunflowers! Lueeeeewuuuu hates them... and chmeee, too.
16. We got a win-win situation on our hands! I just love this guy.
17. Dyson believes in GOD you delusional atheist morons!!
18. REPTILIANS!@
19. Sorry but we do not have material to make a Sphere it will have to be a Ring World.
     Unless we can sort out this Dark Matter thing loads of that around.
    
    Joking aside even though Freeman Dyson was one of the Nuke eggheads his energy and passion for high end Physic's and Mathematics ( A lot still classified on smaller size stuff) is second to none, I would put him up in the top ten brightest people around today.
    
    Not so sure about his idea on cloning on the kitchen table any one remember Boys from Brazil, or how about that boy David Hahn trying to make a Breeder Reactor in the shed.
    
    Beware the pods from Europa
20. I disagree with Dyson's optimism but I love it nevertheless. ;)