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Reducing Plant Stress Leads to Martian Farms
Saint Aardvark the Carpeted writes "NASA is looking for ways to get plants to grow on Mars -- and surprisingly, reducing their stress is a good first step. By splicing genes from Earth-bound extremophiles into seeds whose descendants are destined for the red planet, scientists hope to breed plants that can handle the wide range of temperatures (pdf) that will be found on Mars."
I'm not criticising.. but surely research into plants that can take extremes is of more short-term utility in creating species which can suck up and withhold pollutants as part of a clean-up operation for Earth than in sustaining the "great-post-armageddon-earth-bug-out" destination?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I think if you are engineering life for Mars you need to be developing cold tolerance, more than heat tolerance which is what this experiment seems to be doing. The concept is the same but you have to wonder why they they made their choice of extremeophiles. The averge surface temperature on Mars is around -55C. The hottest you see is 27C which is a very warm summer day. Developing tolerance for 4-100C doesn't quite fit.
You wonder why they aren't working with extremeophiles from the Arctic, Antarctic and high mountains instead of ocean vents.
@de_machina
Wouldn't this contaminate the soil of mars, by introducing lifeforms from another planet? I mean, we still have a lot of research left to do on mars, and I don't think putting plants to grow on mars is going to help at all.
Just don't send up a batch of sicklepod and you will be fine I should think...http://www.cbu.edu/sciences/biology/Debbie UM/sld022.htm