Peterkin

Is this relevant to a concern for an unknown life-form, minding its own business on its own planet?

I did that in California; you could get some pretty good and plonk at the supermarket. (awful beer, though) It's okay for some Canadian wines - mostly white, so there is a refrigerator space issue. But we don't have a big choice of boxed French at my LCBO outlet.

Yes! And let dry completely. The ever-nagging, unpleasant chore of manual washing and sterilizing of bottles was one main reason I stopped making wine. How often I longed for my big, energy-hog of a laboratory glass-washer!

We have no trouble with bubbly wine - because we don't like it anyway. A modestly priced red quite happily withstands occasional visits over a week or longer, just so we screw the top back on. A slightly higher priced one comes with a cork, which can be replaced with a tight-fitting nylon one (I learned about those temporary corks when I was making my own wine.) I've only ever had one red wine go sour (during a course of antibiotic treatment) and it still made a lovely tofu au vin. Screw-cap whites do well in the fridge or cold pantry for at least a week. The home-made was all in small bottles, and usually shared out immediately on uncorking. Lesson, I suppose: don't buy the good stuff in bulk. But, come to think of it, my uncles in the old country used to keep a geroboam of Bull's Blood or something red, for whenever male company might turn up, and sweet white or liquor in small bottles for the ladies. In the cold pantry, on the stone floor. I know, because it was rite of passage for a child to be big enough to bring it in.

If you have a very tight cork and you bung it in right away. Not if you leave it sitting in a glass. I put the screw-cap tightly back on the bottle when I pour ginger ale, and it lasts, with a little less energy each time, for three or four more pourings. Containment makes a difference. I'll toast you with whatever British beer I can get quickly. Never could stand the poser!

'preciate it

Do they? huh! Yes, that's the one. The Earth Imperial Doctrine. I would prefer the people who direct and fund scientific endeavour to stop short of self-immolation. But I think that's a forlorn hope, given the hard-wired pragmatism of one's species. No, but that discussion is so far off-topic as to belong on a whole different board. It should have offered, but failing that, the universe should at least reveal. In any case, the onus is on the universe to show why we shouldn't, not on us to show why we should. Check. There was a context: to which I respond: "we" are not leaving the planet we overpopulated; only a handful of microbes get away. Lucky microbes! https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/iss-space-junk-sensor-4324/ P: the doctrine which includes the tenet "Life as we know it must not end." All of you, in one way or another: the world will end; use-by date; must make sure it continues after we're gone, eggs in one basket - all that tedious we're-too-precious-for-the-universe-to-get-by-without dramaticals. I didn't make them up - I don't give a stuff is life ends here.

Does that oblige/entitle an individual of a more complex evolutionary form, to boost the inherent proliferative capabilies of microbes beyond the solar system of their origin? Only, Mautner and Matloff, et al, are not defending their own lives or promoting their own survival, nor yet that of their offspring. We are to form a collective with the life-forms we have been extirpating with great deliberation, ingenuity and industry on the planet of their origin, so that they may carry "our collective" to other planets. While some humans are incapable of keeping their amino acids inside their atmosphere, other member of the same-wired species are capable of practicing homo-, geno-, specie- and suicide, as well as conscious self- and birth-control. Having trashed one planet is That's not what the discussion was about. It was about seeding, not fleeing.

Because the answers are both off-topic and personal. Exactly what the universe was supposed to prove is unclear, but you claim that it has failed to do so: Only by those who subscribe to the belief system which includes the tenets: Life is inherently good and valuable. Life as we know it is most valuable of all possible kinds of life. Life as we know it must not end. Life is the property, not of the creature that experiences it, or to the planet that engendered it, but of the species most capable of manipulating and disposing of it. Such a species has a mission to propagate its chosen kind of life, when and where it possibly can. The destiny of such a species is to carry out any and every project that it is capable of, regardless of known costs and unknown consequences. And, after thousands of pragmatic decisions, here we are, dying by the millions....

No problem! If I could not clarify in six pages, it just wasn't meant to be. Not qualified to respond on a science thread.

I make a pot from one bag at lunch and keep the rest in a thermos for whenever.

Citing statements made either by posters on this thread or the authors of papers that have been extensively quoted. Of course, nothing done that way has ever gone wrong. Exactly. If the universe can't or won't mount an adequate defense, it's fair game for human specialness.

BTW - Not all 'spoiled' food is necessarily harmful. One way fruits, grains and legumes go 'bad' in a warm environment is through fermentation. Soured milk can become cheese or yogurt; bad barley might eventually turn into good scotch.

In two hours, pop will lose its fizz, and ice cream will melt, cookies may harden and whipped cream will collapse; they may become unpalatable, but not unsafe. Even a glass of wine won't go sour in any room where the temperature is bearable for humans. Any hotter, and food might denature, but not spoil in that time. Of course. And method of preparation, and container. If you leave a teabag in a dry cup without water, the leaves inside will dry and you can reuse it hours later. Nothing can 'restart the cycle', because every time you pour water on it, more of the chemicals dissolve out and the tea is depleted of its tea-ness, so you're drinking warm paper-water. That's to prevent steaming/icing up the freezer, and trapping condensation in the food container. It's also a waste of cooling energy, like opening the door to stare inside. ...and thus ideal for someone suffering from that hard-to-spell word. They used to give rice-water to sick babies who lost too much fluid through vomiting and diarrhea and couldn't get enough nutrients into their system.

I lack sufficient information to agree or disagree. My yea or nay is irrelevant, given that one tiny word at the start of my footnote, denoting a full coverage of bases, rather than a stand on the issue. They're sure they can. They're sure the chosen target is not only sterile and suitable to sustain life at the moment it's detected, which was between 4 and 50 years ago, but that it will remain in the same orbit and the same condition for all the thousands of years it ill take the mission to arrive there. They're sure they can aim a space-vessel that far accurately, avoid colliding with anything on the way, and land exactly where they intended. They're sure their cargo will have survived the journey unharmed and unchanged. They're sure .... And if it doesn't work out that way, and some nascent indigenous life gets wiped out, they don't care. The galaxy is their sandbox and they are entitled to build whatever they want, or do in it whatever they please. To claim it in the name of Life and Science and The Human Purpose.

No, they're supposed to highlight the attitude of the author.

True scientific objectivity!

Correct! And I wasn't answering you in that quote, either. Nice One! Try killing all of them and see what happens. Just as a scientific experiment.

Certainly, when anyone contemplates undergoing a cosmetic procedure, some counselling is advisable; in the case of major remodelling, extensive consultation with several specialists is the norm. That's why I mentioned the psychological aspect of the matter, but didn't want to get sidetracked into its intricacies in a thread about the technical feasibility of bone reconstruction in the Anatomy forum. It's not always easy to find the right mix of factual objectivity and concern for another's sensibilities.

... on which all other life depends... Right. You are entitled to destroy whatever kind of life is unworthy in your sight. You own all the universe and make all the value judgments. In mine, that's bordering on megalomania. It's also, I suspect, an invitation to some Vogon rezoning project.

I'm not trying to discredit it. Its Biological Imperialism under a missionary banner.

Full circle. Fourth time? Fifth? Enough.

To us: none. To them: infinite. What can we learn from blindly shooting off sperm we can never see land, let alone fertilize anything? It costs nothing. Sending contaminants into space cost plenty. So, it's an ego thing. OK - that, I comprehend. Why disguise it as science?

Are you saying those are the only two choices? Invade or stagnate? Me, if I saw more scientific endeavour, political commitment and financial investment going into climate mitigation, alternative energy sources, family planning, health and nutrition, food security, and maybe killing off fewer native species, I wouldn't call it hand-sitting stagnation. But that's an ideological position and doesn't answer the original question: What's the purpose of seeding other planets with life?

I like that one best! Plain old universal curiosity.