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00:00 Has alien life ever been to Earth?
00:02 Is it on Earth right now?
00:04 If not, then does it know of our planet and is it watching us?
00:07 In answering these questions, we could go one of two ways.
00:11 The conspiracy theory route is well-trod, claiming, as it so often does, that there's
00:16 more than likely some kind of massive, global cover-up that's messing with our heads.
00:21 However, the question of aliens is one that a number of less contentious scientists and
00:26 researchers are trying to answer as well.
00:28 And with one theory in particular, we might finally have solved one of cosmology's biggest
00:33 problems.
00:34 This is Unveiled, and today we're answering the extraordinary question; have aliens already
00:39 sent their DNA to Earth?
00:43 Do you need the big questions answered?
00:45 Are you constantly curious?
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00:49 And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
00:54 The Fermi Paradox is really a cornerstone of contemporary scientific inquiry.
00:59 Famously put forward by the Italian-American, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi
01:04 sometime in 1950, during a lunch break conversation with his friends and colleagues, it asks,
01:10 where are all the aliens?
01:12 Despite the seemingly overwhelming likelihood that they must exist, Fermi wanted to know
01:16 why we hadn't heard from them.
01:18 More than seventy years later, and the situation is unchanged.
01:22 The paradox is still in play, as we still haven't discovered alien life.
01:26 So, what's going on?
01:28 Are we just a seriously slow species?
01:31 And despite all of our apparent technological advancement, are we just still so hugely behind
01:36 the rest of the universe that we can't even reach or recognise new life in general?
01:41 Well, actually, that is one possibility.
01:43 But another is that, in recent times especially, we have gotten closer and closer to uncovering
01:49 the truth.
01:50 It's just that we're looking in ever-so-slightly the wrong places.
01:54 Theories on information panspermia suggest that everything we need could be all around
01:59 us already.
02:00 It's simply a matter of identifying the data that's required, and decoding it.
02:05 General panspermia is the theory that life could pervade throughout the universe.
02:09 Of course, we know it's on Earth.
02:11 But panspermia says that maybe our planet isn't so special after all.
02:15 Instead, life is carried via a number of means through the cosmos.
02:19 Even dust and gas, for example.
02:21 And so it actually collects and distributes anywhere and everywhere.
02:25 In fact, according to advocates, it's potentially how life got to Earth in the first place.
02:31 Rather than abiogenesis during the earliest stages of evolution, it was panspermia that
02:36 seeded this world to flourish into what it's become.
02:39 Or that's the idea, anyway.
02:41 There are extensions to and specifications of the theory, though, including directed
02:46 panspermia - which is the notion that none of this universal spreading is at random.
02:51 For those backing the directed kind, life not only exists throughout the universe, it's
02:56 also deliberately guided to where certain, higher groups want it to go.
03:00 Interestingly, the British biologist Francis Crick, most famous for his role in unpicking
03:05 the double helix structure of DNA, was said to be an early proponent for this way of thinking.
03:11 In the early 1970s, almost twenty years after his DNA breakthroughs, Crick suggested that
03:17 advanced, intelligent lifeforms may have sent the first bits of life - namely proteins - to
03:22 Earth via a futuristic means of high-speed space travel.
03:26 It should be said, though, that in later years Crick did row back on some of those ideas.
03:31 Nevertheless, there are other versions of panspermia, too.
03:34 And when it comes to alien DNA, perhaps "information panspermia" is where we should really be looking.
03:40 Information of the term is attributed to the Armenian physicist Vahe Gherzadyan, and while
03:45 it doesn't have quite as full a history as most other panspermia models, many believe
03:50 that this one really could provide the answers we've been searching for.
03:53 In short, that it really could solve the Fermi Paradox.
03:58 Information panspermia envisages that life might easily be passed around through space
04:02 if it's compressed down into reconstructable data.
04:06 By way of explaining this, Gherzadyan expands on a term usually more closely associated
04:11 with computer science - Kolmogorov Complexity, otherwise known as Algorithmic Complexity.
04:17 It's a measure used to determine the simplest and shortest way that any one thing or object
04:23 can be translated down into a code that could then be used to reproduce that thing or object
04:30 at some other time or place.
04:32 In general, it's an essential idea in the terms of the speed, efficiency and accuracy
04:36 of digital programming.
04:38 With theories on information panspermia, though, the same concept is applied to something far
04:43 more consequential from our point of view - life itself.
04:46 To some degree, human DNA - the human genome - is also just a long line of bits of information.
04:53 The same goes for any animal, plant or any life form at all.
04:57 Strip it all back to the very bare essentials and the genetic code is, well, a code.
05:02 And it can be reproduced.
05:03 What's especially interesting is that, with human DNA in particular, contemporary research
05:08 suggests that it isn't even that complicated to begin with.
05:12 There are changing perspectives at play here, but in some sense all that we really are is
05:17 a trackable series of repeating patterns.
05:20 It may have taken millions of years to flesh us out with bodies and brains, but that can
05:25 still be boiled down to "just information" presented in a certain way.
05:31 So, could that information then be sent elsewhere?
05:34 That's what information panspermia would be.
05:37 DNA translated into radio waves, sent across the cosmos at the speed of light, so that
05:42 life may naturally appear essentially anywhere that will allow for it.
05:46 It's a potentially history-breaking and world-shattering thought, both in terms of our own life story
05:52 and in the search for alien life, as well.
05:54 On the one hand, it could be speculated that life on Earth is only here, as the result
05:58 of information panspermia, at some point in our planet's distant past.
06:02 Much as Francis Crick had once suggested that physical proteins may have been beamed here
06:07 from some distant galaxies, is it actually more possible that just the "information"
06:12 for those proteins was sent as though ahead of time?
06:15 On the other hand, and in taking ourselves out of the picture for the moment, if information
06:19 panspermia is viable, then might advanced enough civilizations already be doing it?
06:25 It would certainly be one way to travel at the speed of light.
06:28 And we of course know that the universe is full of variously unidentified light signals,
06:33 many of which do reach Earth.
06:35 Could it be, then, that we're already seeing alien life all around us?
06:39 It's just that we've so far been unable to identify it?
06:42 It's certainly one implication of the information panspermia theory, and as a result, one potential
06:47 answer to the Fermi Paradox, suggesting that aliens do exist, and they are here… it's
06:53 just that we need to catch up enough to view and eventually host them.
06:56 Quite how the receiver of this kind of panspermia would do that - would convert and rebuild
07:01 it into life at their end of the communication - is difficult to imagine.
07:05 But then, that would make sense if it's simply the case that humankind is simply not
07:09 advanced enough to do so at the moment.
07:11 That might bruise the ego of our species, but in a universe of infinite possibilities,
07:16 that doesn't really matter.
07:17 So, what do you think?
07:19 Modern ideas on panspermia have been discussed for more than a century.
07:23 The first mention of information panspermia came in 2005, in a paper written by Vahe Gurzajan.
07:30 Our understanding of the human genome has rapidly improved in just the last few years.
07:35 But does that mean that we could one day send ourselves to other worlds, in the hope of
07:39 our species being rebuilt and recovered there?
07:42 And on the other side, does it suggest that a more advanced alien force might already
07:47 be doing the same thing - waiting patiently for the penny (and their data) to drop on
07:53 Earth?
07:54 Importantly, panspermia of any kind is not the leading theory for how life emerged on
07:58 Earth itself.
08:00 Science is reasonably confident in models on abiogenesis, most notably involving the
08:05 organic emergence of life in and around deep-sea thermal vents billions of years ago.
08:11 The idea, then, that we could be the result of information panspermia is highly speculative
08:16 and controversial.
08:17 However, the notion that it could be possible in general does seemingly hold some merit.
08:23 The algorithmic complexity of life as we know it could, it seems, enable it all to be reduced
08:29 down enough to truly travel the universe.
08:32 That's a pretty exciting prospect, when you think about it… and it's why aliens may
08:37 well have already sent their DNA to Earth.
08:41 What do you think?
08:42 Is there anything we missed?
08:43 Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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