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The Andromeda Strain; Plausible?
Topic Started: Oct 28 2008, 08:36 PM (2,083 Views)
Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Have you ever heard of Michael Crichton's novel The Andromeda Strain?

In it, an alien bacteria, named Andromeda, lands on Earth and kills an entire small town. It only functions between pH ranges of 6.5 and 7.5. It has a crystaline structure, no proteins, and no DNA.

The bacteria kills by coagulating blood in the brain and by solidifying the blood. Though, in some cases, the blood does not solidify. But the pressur on the brain causes the victims to be suicidal.


How likely is this bacterial life form to exist? How likely is it to cause these symptoms? And how likely is a bacteria, Andromeda or otherwise, to cause the extinction of the human race?
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Yorick
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Hated the book (nothing happened!) but loved the miniseries.

Sorry. No real insight. I'm no virologist. Just wanted to make a shout-out when I saw one of my fave authors (despite this misstep) mentioned
"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger"

-The Dark Knight (2008)
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Yeah, the book was terrible. Too little action. Mini-series was great though.

And I thought I was one of the only Crichton fan around. :lol:

It's alright that your not a virologist. I wasn't until I saw teh mini-series.
Edited by Canis Lupis, Oct 30 2008, 06:29 PM.
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Xenophile
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Formerly known as alienboy.
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The Andromeda Strain is actually one of the more likely situations to happen between an alien organism and a human. Plenty of invasive species on earth have completely devastated native populations like the kudzu vine from Asia. N.A.S.A. has something called a planetary protection protocal to protect earth or other planets within the solar system from forward or back contamination. Something like the Andromeda Strain is a real threat that has been considered by N.A.S.A. and other space agencies. All spacecraft sent to other planets are sterilized to prevent forward contamination.
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sam999
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N.A.S.A. is makeing such a thing up so they have an excuce for wasting their funding on spysats. Any alien bacteria would by defenition nothing like life on earth so it would be harmless to humans.
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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CarrionTrooper
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Well, maybe most of the time, but what if we're dealing with similar carbon-based virus or bacteria analogy? There is always a chance an extraterrestial microorganism adapts to our biology.
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lamna
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NASA don't operate spy satellites, that is done by the the Air Force, Naval and the National Reconnaissance Office of the CIA. Once they are up NASA gets back to doing more important.

Spy satellites are not all that useful in my opinion. Blackbirds can respond faster and are harder to shoot down.

The Rhododendron is nothing like UK flora. Nothing infects them or eats them. They are effectively alien and they are far from harmless. Same with Kudzu. The just out grow everything and poison the soil.

NASA is probably the worse agency to hide funds in given how little the get compared with the Army or Navy. And then there is the fact that they actually do the sterilization that the money was for. If I wanted to hid money for Reconnaissance satellites, I'd pretend to be developing a new Main Battle Tank that comes to nothing.
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sam999
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lamna
Sep 7 2009, 07:26 AM
NASA don't operate spy satellites, that is done by the the Air
NASA don't operate spy satellites, that is done by the the Air Force, Naval and the National Reconnaissance Office of the CIA. Once they are up NASA gets back to doing more important.

Spy satellites are not all that useful in my opinion. Blackbirds can respond faster and are harder to shoot down.

The Rhododendron is nothing like UK flora. Nothing infects them or eats them. They are effectively alien and they are far from harmless. Same with Kudzu. The just out grow everything and poison the soil.

NASA is probably the worse agency to hide funds in given how little the get compared with the Army or Navy. And then there is the fact that they actually do the sterilization that the money was for. If I wanted to hid money for Reconnaissance satellites, I'd pretend to be developing a new Main Battle Tank that comes to nothing.

Yes but an alien is NOT LIKE ANYTHING ON EARTH! This is kind of the defenition.
Edited by sam999, Sep 7 2009, 07:56 AM.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Aliens, even if not like anything on Earth, are still dangerous.

Ever hear of viruses? Prions? Completely unlike 99.99999999999999999999999% of Earth organisms.

It's not that Andromeda, or something like it, wouldn't effect human populations. It's HOW it effects them will be the question.



I've actually been arguing with myself on how Andromeda actually kills (the mini-series and the book don't go into much detail on this). Here's my theory:

We all know that Andromeda works without proteins or amino acids or any nucleic acid. So I was thinking: maybe on its homeworld it was a parasite, using other organisms to produce proteins for it. Since creatures on its homeworld would be of the same biochemistry, they'd be largely unaffected by this.

But, when Andromeda was sent to Earth, things changed. They tried to use humans for their protein production (that could actually work. It all depends on if the creatures on its homeworld were DNA based). But humans were completely unadapted to it.

The blood completely dried, as Andromeda tried to extract proteins from the blood stream, which no doubt has a lot. However, certain individuals have a higher than average pH level. In these individuals, Andromeda (who can only tolerate similar pH levels to humans, leading me to believe that it has evolved to a DNA based organism) migrates to the brain to get out of any liquid. There, it produces a large mass, which constricts the brain, producing suicidal/homicidal behavior. But some individuals with a way higher than average pH (higher than 7.5 and lower than 6.5) are completely immune to Andromeda (hence Kyle Tobler and the baby).
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Ànraich
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Personally I think it's a good work of fiction, but it's just that; fiction. Viruses don't kill cells, they insert their own DNA/RNA into a living cell and use that cell's organelles to reproduce, which in turn ends up destroying the cell. However if they have no DNA, then they're not going to attack a cell that is unfit for reproduction. Viruses aren't living organisms, they're biological particles. They don't use energy, they don't need it. A virus is the most basic kind of biological entity their is; purely reproductive in nature.

If an alien virus, given its more akin to a virus than bacteria, came to Earth it would simply go dormant or die. Without DNA there is no way for it to bind to our genetic structure, and therefore no way to reproduce or kill our cells.

Alien bacteria, on the other hand, could be very dangerous. With no way for our bodies to even recognize it as something alive or familiar, it could wreak havoc on any organisms it infects and end up killing millions, if not billions of people until we developed some kind of agent to kill it.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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lamna
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I'm fairly sure that the aliens in H.G Wells original War of the Worlds don't catch earth diseases, they decay while still alive.

The point is they are alien, so our ecosystem would not notice them. Alien bacteria could live harmlessly among earth life. In fact there is a possibility that there are organisms living on earth right now that are totally unrelated to us that evolved here.
Or they could spread so that earth life could not possibly keep up.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Or another possibility: given the high reproductive and high mutation rate of Earth bacteria, one would be safe to assume that any asexual creature has these high rates. Thus, if an alien bacteria, virus, prion, or something else came to Earth, it wouldn't take it very long (maybe a year or two) to evolve into something that could actually interact with us.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

lamna
Sep 7 2009, 11:25 AM
I'm fairly sure that the aliens in H.G Wells original War of the Worlds don't catch earth diseases, they decay while still alive.

The point is they are alien, so our ecosystem would not notice them. Alien bacteria could live harmlessly among earth life. In fact there is a possibility that there are organisms living on earth right now that are totally unrelated to us that evolved here.
Or they could spread so that earth life could not possibly keep up.
There's actually a theory that fungi, being so different from Earth life and capable of existing (for limited periods of time) in the vacuum of space might have come here from elsewhere. Of course considering that they aren't too different from Earth life that theory is probably just bull. But then again they were the first things on land, long before plants or animals...

The thing that gets me is that there could be organisms so vastly different from anything we have ever seen right under our noses and we wouldn't even recognize them simply because they are so different. Personally I feel we should rethink the definition of life, as viruses are indeed alive but don't fit the definition (which is why they are considered "biological particles"). That and certain minerals and crystals fit the definition of life, and they're certainly not alive.

But really I feel that a definition of life isn't necessary. Life recognizes life, we instinctively know if something is alive or not when we observe it, why bother with a definition?
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Basically, if anything reproduces and evolves naturally, it's alive. Plain and simple (though if anyone finds a flaw with this definition, let me know).


Not related to Andromeda, but what is the possibility that a microorganism that exists on a comet could come to Earth in the comet's coma and wreak havoc?
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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

The key to the question here lies in the idea that something from outside Earth's pattern of evolution can be introduced into it and have enough chemical similarity to be able to even interact with us on a cellular level. If the strain of virus can even gain a metabolic foothold on earth-life, then it's more possible that it can adapt to our physiology and potentially cause mass or even total extinction.

So if that's simply outside the realm of possibility, then Andromeda Strain (and any other relevant sci-fi story) is little more than a well thought out work of implausibility.

But given that our universe is always talked about as one of infinite possibilities, it seems a little silly to say that something inside it is impossible.
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food for thought
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