Me: "Trump's set the bar so low, they'll call him the winner unless he strokes out or curses/"

My 7 year old: "What's 'curses'?"

Me: "Language that would get you in trouble in school."

My 7 year old: "I hope Trump curses."

Popcorn ready! Hopefully I don't fall asleep in the first half hour!

I just think I got enough of clintons, bushs and trump. I drop out from the US election.

OK, so did he?

According to what I heard on the BBC radio on my drive to work this morning, no. He did, however, appear frail. Someone questioning his opponent's stamina turned out to be the one displaying less stamina.

Did it make a difference? I doubt it. The recent EU referendum in my country has taught me a lesson. Before the result was announced, I thought, "who could possibly take clowns like Johnson or Farage seriously!" I am not so optimistic any more. Such clowns appeal to the lowest common denominator and ultimately win elections. History tends to repeat itself.

Most of the media and polls taken right after the debate said Hillary was a stronger debater. Indeed, some said she even crushed Trump. But that does not necessarily mean that folks will change who they will vote for. It will take a few days for the dust to settle before we really know what impact this debate had.

Which color do you like?
http://m.gsmarena.com/new_leaked_ren...news-20737.php

It is possible. I am a human, after all. It is hard for me to escape my human setup. I am an Earthling too. It is equally hard for me to escape my biological setup shaped by the 4.6x10^9 or so years of Earth history.

However I believe that the basic physical, chemical and biological laws are the same everywhere. It is tempting to imagine life based on chemicals other than carbon but is important to realize that carbon was not a random choice. Elements from the Group 14 of the periodic table have very special properties. They all have 4 electrons in the outer shell. Every atom wants to have a full set. A full set means eight. Atoms can fill this shell on their own or borrow electrons from other atoms (this is called a molecule). Elements with a full set of electrons in the outer shell are inert. Elements with just one electron or with just one electron missing are the most reactive. Four is a golden middle, allowing for a huge variety of different configurations, which is why carbon makes more compounds than any other element.

Silicon, germanium, tin and lead are also in this group, a property that makes the first two the perfect semiconductors. But other properties start prevailing as the atoms get heavier and the number of possible configurations decreases. Some carbon compounds are also water soluble. Being soluble in something is crucial for transporting nutrients around the body and getting rid of waste. That something would better be both inert and abundant, as well as staying liquid and allowing chemical reactions at moderate temperatures. It is possible to imagine a life form based on germanium, using concentrated sulfuric acid as a liquid medium and needing a temperature over 400°C to operate but it is rather unlikely.

In short, it is much more likely that alien life is also going to be carbon based.

Other laws dictating how life operates are IMO even more general than that. Regardless of the chemistry, the basic law is the law of evolution. Evolution is not about the struggle between species, it is (predominantly) about the struggle within the species. The primary drive is the competition for the same resources. The same or similar species are more likely to compete for the same resources than would completely different species. The individuals who can harvest more resources or use them more efficiently are more likely to leave descendants. It is as simple as that.

In short, evolution will drive life on other planets in the same way as it does on Earth.

Putting those two together, it is easy to conclude that any alien life would be carbon based and familiar with the elementary concept of the competition for resources. It will also be familiar with aggression ("you want the same stuff as I do, so you are my rival") and indifference ("we are not rivals, so you are of no concern to me"). Their detailed setup might be very different from ours: our atmosphere may be toxic to them, our concepts of love, lust, hate or war may be totally alien to them, but things like aggression and indifference, cooperation and conflict, are the very basics that are IMO universal for any living thing anywhere in the universe.

They may not come here with the intention to wipe us out. All I am saying is that the most likely outcome of aliens coming here would be that either us or them would be wiped out. Given their superiority, as demonstrated by the very fact that they came here and not us getting there, it is easy to predict who would draw the short stick. The only condition this would not be the case is if they are more similar to us, not less. In that case the chance of a mutually beneficial coexistence is increased and so is our chance of surviving the experience.

That is how I see it. The fact that we do not see beacons all over the galaxy advertising the presence of other civilizations may not mean that there aren't any. It may simply mean that they all have figured out the same thing and are keeping a low profile.

That was a good post! I concur.

I think the signs are there. It's just that when we look att lights that was sent million of years ago. Hubble have made it possible to see amazing stuff. Still not any details at all.

the periodic table will be irrelevant any day
The majority of space is built by something we don't even know. Dark matter. That just tell us that we can scrap most of our knowledge at any time, reconsider the impossible

There are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe! The number of stars in a galaxy varies, but assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy means that there are about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion trillion) stars in the observable universe!

I don't think we need to concern ourselves with aliens from other galaxies. Even within our own, the interstellar distances are prohibitively large. Mutiply that by several orders of magnitude and add the fact that galaxies speed away from each other and you quickly arrive at a conclusion that an intergalactic invasion is not something you need to lose sleep over.

Dark matter? It may be a convenient shortcut to explain certain aspects of the universe expansion but to me, it reeks too much of "horror vaccui", the medieval idea that nature abhors empty space and wants to fill it. That's why when you suck on a tube whose other end is immersed in water, the water fills the tube, right? Wrong, as it turned out. It is the weight of the surrounding air that pushes the water into the tube. I suspect that dark matter and dark energy will find a similar, more natural explanation one day. I wish science were more humble and honestly admitted, "I don't know yet, but I may one day", rather that coming up with esoteric conceps like dark matter. Though I admit that "dark matter" sounds catchier.