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Warning, stream-of-consciousness rambling ahead...
I didn't like this section:
My stupid *** remembers a little from IR spec, mass spec, and NMR. When you have contamination, you can get absorption or peaks that can occur in weird places, especially NMR. I figure: These techniques aren't entirely analogous to Chemistry BS-level spec; the authors aren't morons and accounted for this; and Nature isn't going to publish non-peer-reviewed garbage with any kind of regularity (especially on something as monumental as "Sh-t's decaying on Venus guys, dafuq?")
I'm just surprised that a group of researchers who have seemingly spent their lives on finding signatures of chemicals indicative of life haven't found a way to distinguish the fingerprints of PH3 from the rest of the noise (especially when this same research group confidently stated phosphine is an almost proof-positive signal of life just months ago). I know, that's an incredibly naive mouthful. It's just a breathtaking leap to go from "We can't find a pathway for phosphine synthesis on Earth" to "Phosphine is absolutely a marker of life" to "We found phosphine on Venus. Life!" And only then put out a call for help to make sure it's phosphine. Doesn't that seem like they skipped a few steps in the scientific method? If anything, this entire paper is just an opening sentence to an abstract. They're presenting the theory they want to test. So maybe that's what this is, the opening line in the thesis of their life's work.
I really think the better approach would have been "We found what we think is phosphine on Venus. We need help confirming both the data and distinguishing it from other species" before they get into the discussion of life. It just seems... I don't know. The curmudgeon in my brain just keeps asking, "Isn't this backwards?" Perhaps this was a race-to-publish. It just seems off and a lot to stake a hell of a lot of your career on.
This is the best take I've seen so far:
https://twitter.com/BBCAmos/status/1...847927296?s=20
"If you want me to put money on it, I'd say there's an abiotic pathway that simply hasn't been identified yet. The team has worked very, very hard to find it, and is now asking the worldwide scientific community: 'What have we missed?'"
It sums up my thoughts exactly after reading the paper. Which was exhilarating, but needs to be taken with that optimistic but skeptical view. Of course, the media, like a junkie, tossed caution to the wind and went after that sweet, sweet next hit. Then again "Something farted on Venus, we want to find out who"* one way to drum up grant money and jump to the head of the queue for telescope time. I'm going to laugh when this comes back as "She who smelt it, dealt it" and it was some sort of terrestrial contamination or bad data processing.
That said... this section gave me goosebumps:
The lifetime above 80 km on Venus (in the mesosphere22) is consistently predicted by models to be <103 s, primarily due to high concentrations of radicals that react with, and destroy, PH3. Near the atmosphere’s base, the estimated lifetime is ~108 s due to thermal decomposition (collisional destruction) mechanisms. Lifetimes are very poorly constrained at intermediate altitudes (<80 km), being dependent on abundances of trace radical species, especially chlorine. These lifetimes are uncertain by orders of magnitude, but are substantially longer than the time for PH3 to be mixed from the surface to 80 km (<103 yr). The lifetime of PH3 in the atmosphere is thus no longer than 103 yr, either because it is destroyed more quickly or because it is transported to a region where it is rapidly destroyed (see ‘Photochemical model’ in Methods, Supplementary Information, Extended Data Figs. 8 and 9, and Supplementary Tables 2 and 3).
*I really hope that's what the Fark headline was
I didn't like this section:
"We are unable to find another chemical species (known in current databases23,24,25,26) besides PH3 that can explain the observed features" "Thus, it's phosphine.. So let's start talking about what could produce this. Spoiler, it's life! Q.E.D."
My stupid *** remembers a little from IR spec, mass spec, and NMR. When you have contamination, you can get absorption or peaks that can occur in weird places, especially NMR. I figure: These techniques aren't entirely analogous to Chemistry BS-level spec; the authors aren't morons and accounted for this; and Nature isn't going to publish non-peer-reviewed garbage with any kind of regularity (especially on something as monumental as "Sh-t's decaying on Venus guys, dafuq?")
I'm just surprised that a group of researchers who have seemingly spent their lives on finding signatures of chemicals indicative of life haven't found a way to distinguish the fingerprints of PH3 from the rest of the noise (especially when this same research group confidently stated phosphine is an almost proof-positive signal of life just months ago). I know, that's an incredibly naive mouthful. It's just a breathtaking leap to go from "We can't find a pathway for phosphine synthesis on Earth" to "Phosphine is absolutely a marker of life" to "We found phosphine on Venus. Life!" And only then put out a call for help to make sure it's phosphine. Doesn't that seem like they skipped a few steps in the scientific method? If anything, this entire paper is just an opening sentence to an abstract. They're presenting the theory they want to test. So maybe that's what this is, the opening line in the thesis of their life's work.
I really think the better approach would have been "We found what we think is phosphine on Venus. We need help confirming both the data and distinguishing it from other species" before they get into the discussion of life. It just seems... I don't know. The curmudgeon in my brain just keeps asking, "Isn't this backwards?" Perhaps this was a race-to-publish. It just seems off and a lot to stake a hell of a lot of your career on.
This is the best take I've seen so far:
https://twitter.com/BBCAmos/status/1...847927296?s=20
"If you want me to put money on it, I'd say there's an abiotic pathway that simply hasn't been identified yet. The team has worked very, very hard to find it, and is now asking the worldwide scientific community: 'What have we missed?'"
It sums up my thoughts exactly after reading the paper. Which was exhilarating, but needs to be taken with that optimistic but skeptical view. Of course, the media, like a junkie, tossed caution to the wind and went after that sweet, sweet next hit. Then again "Something farted on Venus, we want to find out who"* one way to drum up grant money and jump to the head of the queue for telescope time. I'm going to laugh when this comes back as "She who smelt it, dealt it" and it was some sort of terrestrial contamination or bad data processing.
That said... this section gave me goosebumps:
The lifetime above 80 km on Venus (in the mesosphere22) is consistently predicted by models to be <103 s, primarily due to high concentrations of radicals that react with, and destroy, PH3. Near the atmosphere’s base, the estimated lifetime is ~108 s due to thermal decomposition (collisional destruction) mechanisms. Lifetimes are very poorly constrained at intermediate altitudes (<80 km), being dependent on abundances of trace radical species, especially chlorine. These lifetimes are uncertain by orders of magnitude, but are substantially longer than the time for PH3 to be mixed from the surface to 80 km (<103 yr). The lifetime of PH3 in the atmosphere is thus no longer than 103 yr, either because it is destroyed more quickly or because it is transported to a region where it is rapidly destroyed (see ‘Photochemical model’ in Methods, Supplementary Information, Extended Data Figs. 8 and 9, and Supplementary Tables 2 and 3).
*I really hope that's what the Fark headline was
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