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The novel paradigm also makes clear why human history and the lives of many individuals often look like "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (William Shakespeare, Macbeth)

Many roads lead to the vector. A quest for the Hidden Alpha which is governing my life, your life, all matter, and all life forms in this Universe is a must. If you think, you are in control of your life, after reading of this text, think again.

DINOSAURS ON THE MOON

Dinosaurs could have landed on the Moon 65 million years ago, if they have not been wiped out by a gigantic asteroid. This seems to contradict the equal start hypothesis.
Ian Crawford, astronomer in the department of physics and astronomy at University College London, states in his article Where Are They? Maybe we are alone in the galaxy after all, published in Scientific American, July, 2000, that without their extinction, a result of a chance event, evolutionary history on Earth would have been very different.

Dr. Dale Russell of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Ottawa, Canada, coined the word dinosauroid, an intelligent creature that evolved from the dinosaurs. He claims that some dinosaurs had all the ingredients of success that we see later in the development of the apes, and were well on their way to becoming sentient species. Dr. Russell even sculpted a catchy model of the supposed brainy dinosauroid. It depicts what may have happened if Troodon, a dinosaur species, had not died out at the end of the Cretaceous but had instead continued to evolve.
Several dinosaur species were very manlike: they stood around two meters high on their two hind legs, had a relatively large braincase, stereoscopic vision, and hands with opposable thumbs; their forelegs with slender flexible fingers were ready for use as hands. They were well organized, hunted in groups, and coordinated their attacks.
Some dinosaurs were nearly warm-blooded, an important step toward intelligence.

It is often speculated that several bipedal dinosaurs were in a good position to develop intelligence, civilization, and sophisticated technologies, enabling them to start exploring the Galaxy 65 million years before us, if they haven't been killed off by some natural disaster. It is supposed also that dinosaur-like creatures on other planets were not wiped out by a chance event, and they have been traveling all across the Galaxy for many millions of years now and are already colonizing it.

It is interesting to note that some dinosaurs bear a striking resemblance to descriptions of aliens given by witnesses during UFO encounters: had large, elongated eyes, absence of ears, long, clawlike fingers, reptilian nostrils and skin. The "reptoids" are the most common alien species after the so-called Grays. There are researchers who assume that the reptilian/dinosaurian visitors from outer space are not extraterrestrial in origin but survived descendants of an intelligent race of dinosaurs which roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous or Jurassic period. According to this belief, the hypothetical dinosaur civilization could have started on Earth during the Cretaceous and would have had at least 65 million year head start on humans.

Dr. Michael Magee coined the term anthroposaurus sapiensis for intelligent dinosaurs. They are also called dinomen, saurornithoides, lizard men, dinosauroids, reptoids, humanoid dinosaurs, dinosauropods, dinosaur hominids, draco, dinosaur men, and so on.

In recent years, the idea that without the extinction of the dinosaurs, life history on Earth would have been much different has become a very popular belief. But did the dinosaurs have all of the attributes considered necessary for intelligence in the intelligent mammal? Was it really possible for dinosaurs to outsmart mammals, dominate our planet, and start colonizing the Galaxy 65 million years ahead of us? According to many recent articles and books written by academic scientists, independent researchers, and nonprofessionals, yes!

But there is a very big problem with a supposed dinosaur civilization at the end of the Cretaceous: the method of breeding.

Because of the extensive fossil record of extinct dinosaur eggs, eggshells, and embryos, it is well established that dinosaurs laid eggs and like most living reptiles and birds, built nests. The nests were excavated in soils and in wet sands. In order to provide temperature stability and elevated humidity, the eggs were covered with sand, soil, or rotting vegetation which produced fermentation heat. Many dinosaurs were simply too big to sit on their eggs.
The typical reptilian reproduction model is oviparous?the eggs are hatched outside the maternal body.

The principal disadvantages of dinosaur reproduction to mammalian are:

1. The nutrients inside the egg are very limited compared to the continuous supply the mammals receive inside the womb;

2. The oxygen supply is much lower as well;

3. The temperature of the reptile embryo is not constant like the mammalian fetus;

4. The dinosaur newborns don't get the mammalian high-nutritious food, milk.

There is a small group of modern and extinct reptiles which are almost viviparous (live-bearing), but their embryos still develop in shells. They are nourished only by the egg yolk. Such reptiles retain the eggs in the body for most of the developmental period. Hatching occurrs shortly after the eggs are laid.

A few MODERN reptiles have developed a simple placenta, a structure similar to the placenta of mammals: several Australian snakes and lizards, the common European viper, and some lizards.

The developing sophisticated brain needs more oxygen, more nutrients, constant temperature, and more time.
The mammalian fetus develops inside the maternal body and can receive the continuous, generous supply of oxygen and nutrients needed to build a complex brain. The milk of mammals contains all essential nutrients, important antibodies, and white blood cells. This is perfect food for infants and for their energy-hungry developing brains.
Mammals are born in a much more advanced state than reptilians; along with the other factors, it is also a result of longer gestation period.

Eggs hatch between 60 and 105 days after they are laid. The human fetus develops about 266/270 days. The mammalian brain develops from three to four and a half times longer, in a much better inner environment than the dinosaur brain, and the mammalian fetus and newborns get high-nutritious food for their growing unfolding brains.

In short, the brain of live birth mammalian animals is evolutionarily higher than the brain of animals reproducing through the hatching of eggs and is far more sophisticated. The dinosaurs laid eggs, and their brains couldn't develop enough to outsmart mammals. Thus, the dinosaurs couldn't land on the Moon in the Cretaceous.

But as a matter of fact, the reptiles evolved intelligence, a great civilization, and now they are investigating the Solar System via robotic probes and manned spacecrafts. Therapsids are reptiles of Permian and Triassic time (from 286 to 208 million years ago). They are considered ancestors of mammals, and thus humans. So we are the survived "reptoid-men" who are exploring the Solar System and are planning to colonize the Galaxy.

The Cretaceous mammals were evolutionarily higher species than the dinosaurs and their successors. They had much bigger potential, and life on Earth proved that.

Even if the dinosaurs survived the Cretaceous extinction, it would not make much difference to humans. Most dinosaurs were already declining 65 million years ago. There were left only a limited number of dinosaur species, and they were much smaller. The surviving dinosaurs developed into modern birds. Scientists agree that present-day birds are smarter than most of the Cretaceous dinosaurs.

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

In 1987, R. Cann, M. Stoneking, and A. Wilson published the article Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution in Nature, reporting their discovery of the common matriarchal ancestor of all humans. Their theory is based on the use of DNA from the mitochondria to trace all human genetic diversity back to one female, hence the name "Mitochondrial Eve." She originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
Mitochondrial Eve, thus the emergence point of modern man, is one-time evolutionary event. Why animals which are fit candidates to become intelligent species don't do that? This is one of the biggest mysteries of biological evolution. According to the Darwinian theory, appropriate lesser species should constantly evolve and turn into sentient beings. But after the emergence of humans it is as if evolution stopped producing other intelligent species. Why? The environmental conditions were, and still are, suitable, and there are enough appropriate animal species?apes, monkeys, dolphins, and others.

What is wrong with these animals or with the theory of evolution, or there is an unknown factor (or factors) influencing the development of species?

The natural history on Earth indicates that there are windows of opportunity giving start to the different phases of evolving life: a window for turning a lemur-like animal (but not lemur) about 2 feet high into prehuman, a window for starting intelligent life on Earth and in our Universe, etc. After the new species emerge, the window closes and the newly appeared creatures become subject to natural selection, until the new quantum leap. The evolution does not seem to progress smoothly, but rather has large jumps of complexity in very short time periods, the most famous example is the Cambrian explosion.

Life on Earth has a very long evolutionary history, long before the origin of our home Universe. That's why life on our planet seems so incredibly successful and beyond evolution governed by chance events. Life appeared on Earth as soon as the environment became stable enough to make it possible. After the death of our Universe a new one will start, and our evolutionary history, together with the previous ones, will be a basis for new life and intelligence. The past of the previous evolutions is, in general, our future.

All 26 phyla - these are classes of organisms that have the same body plan - came into existence on our planet simultaneously at the beginning of the Cambrian Period. The sudden Cambrian explosion around 580 million years ago is an example of a window of mass replacement of old species with new ones. This can't be done without previous evolutionary experience stored somewhere. All structural blueprints of all different species appeared suddenly and simultaneously, and since then no essential changes have taken place, no new types ever were added; there are no transitional forms. This is not compatible with Darwinism, neo-Darwinism, or any natural selection-based evolution theory.

But what would be the evolutionary benefit for Nature of such windows of opportunities?

The biological life and all human history on Earth are actually a story of hard competition and struggle for survival: between the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals, between cells, states, companies, species, languages, individuals... Nothing and no one can escape it.

Homo sapiens have had no rivaling species since the extinction of the Neanderthals, kept in reserve to serve as a substitute in case the Cro-Magnons couldn't make it. Now humans are competing amongst themselves, divided into many varieties of competitive groups: sport teams, family clans, sexes, political parties, countries, social movements, art movements, and so on.

The scale of competition is going up. In the early days of humans it was between the tribes, now it's between the states, tomorrow it goes into the space between the civilizations inhabiting the Universe.

The ideas of fast development and fitness are central to evolutionary biology. The hard competition between the civilizations in the Universe is among the major factors which guarantee numerous cosmic offspring of high quality for the shortest possible time period.

The space civilizations can compete successfully only if they are at about the same level of development. The means to success is competition (and cooperation) between equals. Too big differences in the development levels mean destroying of the late-emerging civilizations.

Thus, there is a relatively limited window of opportunity for starting intelligence in the Universe, and the space civilizations emerged at about the same time in order to provide diversity, quality, and quantities of sentient species.

ALIEN BUGS

Alien life forms spreading throughout space by robotic probes or spacecrafts with extraterrestrial crew is a well-liked notion in science fiction works, popular science literature, and even in academic papers.

Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, proposes direct panspermia: dispersal of single-celled organisms throughout the Galaxy. In 1973, Crick and Leslie Orgel wrote the article Direct Panspermia, published in Icarus, issue 19. They presented the hypothesis that life was exported to Earth by an extraterrestrial source as a deliberate act of an extraterrestrial society. The microorganisms were delivered in unmanned spacecrafts designed with adequate protection to keep them alive during the long journey.
Professor Frank Tipler has the idea of space probes that carry artificial wombs in which human fertilized cells are placed, and the babies to be raised by surrogate parents. Both proposals, made by scientists, look like a perfect way to colonize the Galaxy, but what would happen if in the Solar System and on Earth probes begin to arrive with all sorts of alien viruses, bacteria, cells, quasi-alive nanobots, genetically engineered microorganisms, and they all begin to reproduce themselves fabricating lots of natural and artificial organisms; or DNA reproduction machines and artificial wombs start producing legion of extraterrestrial creatures? The answer is only and inevitably one?a total catastrophe for life and all humans!

The technological means for such "controlled seeding" of life and intelligence are very simple for advanced civilizations. We should expect that alien professors would have similar bright ideas concerning artificial panspermia and colonization of the Galaxy.

In War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, the Martian invaders died out, because they couldn't resist the germs on Earth. But can we resist alien microorganisms, engineered germs, quasi-alive nanomachines, or ordinary alien microfauna that normally would live in the spacecrafts and in the bodies of the extraterrestrial intelligent beings?

In 1995, the British Health Secretary stated that there is no conceivable risk of BSE (mad cow disease) being transmitted from cows to people. And we know the results: dead people and huge losses for the British economy. Both species, humans and cows, have been living side by side for thousands of years. Domestic animals seem harmless to us, but sometimes they aren't, even after all these years of living together. Diseases communicable from animals to man are called zoonoses?from New Latin zo- + the Greek nosos for disease. Concerns with diseases that afflict animals date from the earliest human contacts with them. More than 150 such diseases are known: rabies, brucellosis, plague, salmonellosis, leptospirosis, the deadly herpes B virus, trichinosis, encephalitis, anthrax, staphylococcosis, streptococcosis, tuberculosis, etc. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) also appears to have been transmitted from animals (monkeys) to humans. By now AIDS has claimed more than 30 million lives worldwide.
Some future politicians, scholars, or meeting committees might issue public statements that it is perfectly safe to meet our space brothers because they are no threat to people. Should we trust them? Yes, if we are naive enthusiasts. Our bodies and our environment are teeming with microorganisms. It is normal to expect that the bodies of alien beings are also teeming with microbes (a diverse group of minute, simple life forms that include bacteria and viruses), harmless for their hosts but some could be deadly for us. The alienoses (exonoses) are diseases communicable from extraterrestrial creatures, sentient beings and animals, to humans under natural conditions. They will be the subject of (near) future medicine?shortly after the first contacts with alien creatures.

Normal flora are microbes living in and on the body of the humans; usually, there are no harmful effects for us, their hosts. Many billions of microbes live harmlessly on our skin and in the gut; we breathe them in and out. Numbers of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria reside in certain human anatomical regions: lower intestine, approximately 100 billion microorganisms per gram of fecal matter; mouth, approximately 1 billion microorganisms per ml. of saliva; nose: approximately 20,000 microorganisms per ml. of nasal washing; skin: approximately 100,000 to 1 million microorganisms per cm2, dependent upon the tested skin surface. After puberty, the vagina is colonized by Lactobacillus aerophilus. One or more of the herpes viruses infect nearly 100% of the adult population.

Over 400 distinct species of microorganisms inhabit the various regions of the human digestive tract, making up nearly 2 kg. (approx. four pounds) of every individual's total body weight. This vast population of microorganisms far exceeds the number of tissue cells that make up the human body. We have about 1013 cells in our bodies and 1014 microbes.

Normal flora fills almost all of the available ecological niches in the human body, and produces defensins, bacteriocidins, cationic proteins, and lactoferrin which are working to destroy other bacteria that compete for their niche in the body. If this ecosystem is functioning properly, it guards the body against harmful bacteria, yeast, and viruses. It also stimulates the function of the entire digestive system and produces essential vitamins, such as vitamin K and some of the B vitamins, and regulates their levels, maintaining the body's vital chemical and hormonal balance.

Researchers have detected retroviruses in the genome of every mammal they have examined. The retroviruses spend most of their time asleep; they are present only as extra segments inserted here and there in the DNA. Humans are harboring more than a thousand retroviruses, many of which have hitchhiked with us for well over 30 million years. In placenta and fetal tissues, a select handful of retroviruses awake, commanding the cells to produce proteins and assemble them into retroviruses. The placenta and the unborn baby of a healthy pregnant woman are teeming with viruses as well. This is a normal part of every pregnancy. These endogenous retroviruses are actually encoded in the DNA of every mammal.

The human body can't be fully sterilized because soon after that such a specimen would die?some of these microorganisms take part in vital biological processes, others keep our immune system fit.

Alien and human astronauts would suffer microbic shock upon return to their home planets after adjusting to fewer microorganisms in the spacecraft, responding negatively to renewed contact with potentially pathogenic microbes that were absent during the space flight. Space travelers have to keep their immunocompetence by carrying in the cabins microorganisms native to their home environment.

The inclusion of plants, animals, and bioreactors in spacecrafts facilities in order to provide life support requirements would significantly increase the numbers of microorganisms. There are many millions of bacteria per gram dry weight of plant roots. Fungi are important for baking breads and fermenting wines, beers, and vinegars. Many medicines are produced with the help of bacteria and fungi, most notably, the antibiotics, like penicillin, streptomycin, tetracycline, etc.

The failure to detect on Earth alien microorganisms or alienoses (diseases transmitted from alien creatures to peoples) is a very strong argument against extraterrestrial visitations.

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