Topic: Growing Lettuce on Mars

[Stormbringer]

I'm not certain but it may also be true of the left behind portions of the LEMs as well. I dunno how they would tell. And obviously they would be anerobic.

[Ravok]

 The ones on Mars eating the insulation blew me away!! I would love to see what they evolve into. In acouple of Billion years.  

[Stormbringer]

If the little bugger's ever make the transition down into the soil then we can say the terraforming has already begun! Of course there *may* already be martian microbes there. If so I'd like to see what the differences in the DNA is like. A close similarity would be harder to explain as parallel evolution and would argue a common origin for both sets of DNA. Say the organic material from comets? The archea order of microbs might have been originally space farers themselves.

[Ravok]

 Ive thought the same if they find life in the Oceans of Europa, Personally i favor the comet theory my self.
 But what the heck I'm nothing but an arm chair astronomer anyway.  

[Stormbringer]

Speaking of which:

 microfossils and mars rocks

This article shows strong evidence for rock munching bugs from 3.5 million years ago and mentions a link (URL is in article)  to possible mars or cometary origins for the critters. Rock munching bacteria are the sort which could survive in a present Mars environment. Now they are waiting for peer reviewed confirmation of thier work. Gotta love space.com.

[SPQR Renegade001]

Quote:
Probes are supposed to be sterile but the viking landers were contaminated and now have bacteria happily eating thier insulation. This has been reported in releases from NASA and has resulted in the tightest clean room standards for any probes since then.  

Are we positive the probe was contaminated here? I mean, was there a recorded incident, or is it the most plausable theory?  

[Ravok]

 Thats a good question!!!!  

[Stormbringer]

I'd say that the "clean room" protocol was breached due to a gantry emergency repair. I think I remember something like that. Then near the end of thier mission photos of the eroded insulation were examined and what they saw was concluded after study to be most likely due to anaerobic bacteria eating the insulation. As to the LEMs I beleive they added that because the LEMs were not quarantined t o such a degree as later probes that they likely suffered the same fate.

So, parsing it literally yes it was a recorded incident and yes it was the most plausible theory as to whats eating the probe since it had no instruments to verify microbes. The evidence is all indirect.



EDIT:  No critter mug shots. darn it.

[Ravok]

 I was just thinking those bacteria must be taking a heck of a pounding with all the radiation there. Do you know how well the part of the probe they live in is shielded?
 I wonder if they have already started to mutate to fit the new environment.
 I know I'm going on and on, But this really has my mind going!!!    

[Stormbringer]

Bacteria mutate a lot anyway. The radiation is not all that intense relative to open space in high earth orbit for example. It is a concern because it is higher than we have to worry about here. But DNA and other cell structures have self repair mechanisms that work pretty good so long as the organism is not instantly killed. When the self repair system is overwhelmed then you get accumulated damage which is eventually lethal. But is it lethal before the organism reproduces? Bacteria are rapid reproducers. Some bacteria have been found in nuclear reactors cooling pools not only subjected to boiling heat but intense ( very lethal) radiation. More radiation than found on Mars. Plus the bacteria on the underside o fthe probe would have pretty good shielding.

[SPQR Renegade001]

Ravok, Google Extremophile sometime. You'd be surprised where bacteria can not only live, but thrive. The frozen tundra of Antarctica. In the standing salt water pools of The Great Salt Flats. In the deepest mines. In water so alkali that it would be caustic to you and me. In the superheated volcanic water vents 2 miles below the ocean. In the hard vacum of space. And believe it or not, inside nuclear reactors.

There's no place on this planet where we've been able to go, that bacteria haven't already set up shop.  

[Ravok]

Quote:
Ravok, Google Extremophile sometime. You'd be surprised where bacteria can not only live, but thrive. The frozen tundra of Antarctica. In the standing salt water pools of The Great Salt Flats. In the deepest mines. In water so alkali that it would be caustic to you and me. In the superheated volcanic water vents 2 miles below the ocean. In the hard vacum of space. And believe it or not, inside nuclear reactors.

There's no place on this planet where we've been able to go, that bacteria haven't already set up shop.    

 Thanks for the info  Yes i was aware there is no place we have found so far the little buggers haven't moved into.
 Thats why I'm so excited about this there have been untold generations of these bacteria growing and evolving to suit the martian conditions ( Bacteria and viri reproduce rapidly there fore mutating rapidly.) I'm dieing to know if they are taking the first steps!! Remember if there is something to eat and a place to live bacteria will find it.  

[Stormbringer]

Perhaps some one here in medicine or biology could tell us how many generations of bacteria there have been since the landing and a bit about the mutation rate for likely anaerobic bacteria would be. Even the number that could have been created if all of them survived long enough to reproduce. Just for giggles.  

[Ravok]

 i would truly love to know!!!!! ANYBODY??????  

[Stormbringer]

Plus if the studie of micro-fossils (In my link a few posts up) is verified independantly then there is no reason that such bugs could not be alive to this day on mars as well as they would have evolved under similar conditions present at the time on both worlds. There is already (disputed) physical evidence of such in Mars rocks. The article is analysing similar structures in earth rocks whilst claiming for them the status of evidence of early life on earth.

[SPQR Renegade001]

 Bacteria by contrast may divide every 20-30 minutes, and yeast cell and other protozoans may divide in 6-8 hours.

Assuming they divide once an hour for the 28 years since they launched in '75... 24*365*28= 245,280 generations.

then add in this...

 Mutation Rate in Bacteria
 

Quote:
 When thinking about the rapid rate at which antibiotic-resistant bacteria become selected for in nature, it is important to remember how very small bacteria are and how relatively small volumes can hold astronomical numbers of bacteria.

As an example, the "normal" mutation rate for a gene in nature is about one mutation in every million to every billion divisions. Let's assume then that only one bacterium in 100,000,000 has a mutation in a particular gene. (A mutation rate of 1/100,000,000.) If we compared this with the population of the United States, that would be equivalent to only 2 people in the whole country having that mutation.

However one milliliter of bacteria (about 10 drops) contains approximately 1,000,000,000 bacteria. This is around four times the population of the United States! That means that approximately 10 bacteria in each milliliter from that tube would have a mutation in that one particular gene. Furthermore, since a typical bacterium has in the neighborhood of 3500 genes, that means that each milliliter of that culture contains approximately 35,000 mutations!
 

You get a lot of potential mutations. I guess the real question would have to be the initial population and the survival rates.

 

[Ravok]

 They have detected hot spots with significant water vapor that are probably hot springs, frumorols ,or geysers. I think if any are still present. Thats where we will find them.  Or perhaps living in caves.  

[Stormbringer]

 Mars Greenhouse

Apparently plants can grow in the mars atmospheric gases and pressure. I'm amazed.

[Sirgod]

If anything, I wonder how the gravity will affect the plants.

man Genetics itself would be Incredible on that planet given the current amosphere.

Great find storm.

Stephen

[Stormbringer]

A low gravity environs wouldn't do much to little plants so long as there is enough for them to detect which direction is up and which is down. A low G environment might have profound effects on Big plants (like trees) that are limited by gravity as to how tall they can get. There might be giants.