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Microbes grow in Mars conditions
Iguana writes "A methane-making, oxygen-hating microbe is able to thrive in Mars-like laboratory conditions, according to a researcher who says the experiment raises fresh hope about the possibility of life on the Red Planet. Check the whole story on MSNBC " "And kids, that the story of how hemos grew cmdrtaco". Oh...er.
Anaerobic organisms have the ability to live without oxygen. Many (perhaps most or all) of them cannot survive in the presence of oxygen. Byproducts of anaerobic metabolism include ethanol and lactic acid. Anaerobic bacteria are not so uncommon. They live in the guts of humans and many other organisms. They also live in many extreme environments such as hot springs, ocean vents, etc.
Photosynthetic organisms (commons ones, anyway) produce oxygen as a byproduct. They use light energy directly to make their own food molecules. Early photosynthetic organisms were probably also anaerobic, but photosynthetic and anaerobic are distinct concepts.
Possible evolution:
1. Anaerobic organisms live and obtain their energy from molecules in their environments.
2. Some anaerobic organisms gain the ability to photosynthesize, being able to use simpler molecules than their predecessors along with light energy from the sun while producing oxygen as a byproduct.
3. Oxygen levels increase due to the prosperity of photosynthetic organisms.
4. Anaerobic organisms die in large numbers as the atmospheric oxygen level rises.
5. New, more efficient aerobic organisms appear and further the decline of anaerobic organisms.
Although I cannot currently access my password to log in, I am
Yet Another Coward
Many people would like to study Mars before we completely alter it. Biologists, geologists, certain classes of physicists and meteorologists, among many others, might learn a great deal from Mars. If we slap on some life too soon, we destroy some opportunities to see into Mars' past. If there is life on Mars, the arguments becomes even strong. Competition between earth organisms and Mars organisms could greatly alter both before we can study the Martians.
Posted by tha_skunk:
That is really very cool.
Let's fly a couple of spaceships packed with
those microbes to the mars.
They will start producing methan.
Once we run out of fuel. We can just fly to Mars.
compress all that methan they have produced in
50 years or so and use it as a replacement.
come on lets do it
call your senator today
Posted by tha_skunk:
:-)
Jupiter is virtually a ball of hydrogen. There should be fuel a plenty to burn.
but also a little bit farer away....
But a ball of H2!!!!!!!!!!
Jesus, and I thought a Methanized Mars would be
a great firework!!!!!!!
But I wouldn't want to LIVE there.
can you imagine how hard it would be just to get something like fresh fruit?
I'll stay here on Earth, thank you.
If we can contimplate adjusting Mars' climate, we can contimplate fixing Earth's broken climate too.
Something I think that is a bit more worthwhile.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yeah, that's the plan. Ship-off all the human inhabitants of Earth (non essential MS employees included) to Mars, and then corner the Oxygen market. Sell it with a per-breath license fee.
Then, he won't have to worry about Linux anymore.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The answer to the question is probably: yes. There's a lot of stuff in the universe, and only a little bit of life. Life is a good thing; spreading it to another planet is too.
--
--
You know, with all the emphasis given to landing stuff on Mars, I'm surprised that I haven't heard any talk of NASA sending these microbes (as well as a variety of life forms that don't qualify as animal -- wouldn't want to enrage the environmentalists, now would we?) in a controlled experiment to the Martian surface. We do our darndest to prove that life could possibly exist on Mars here on Earth, but the best Martian simulation is Mars itself. If we can send a robotic probe to the Martian surface and turn cartwheels in the dust all day, we can certainly set up rudimentary experiments that determine what kinds of lifeforms truly do live in such a harsh environment.
I hope someone from NASA reads Slashdot and can comment on this. Hopefully, an engineer inside NASA's organization has already thought of this. I can't see why it would be that difficult.
I know...off topic...but how did this anonymous post get a score?
I personally think this post deserved a score...but I didn't think anon posts were even allowed to get a score.
<tim<
That sentence just looks and sounds hillarious.
In any case, what would the time frame be for methane producing microbes to actually impact the atmosphere on mars? I have to imagine we are talking about thousands (maybe more) of years.
What we really need is a nitrogen-eating oxygen producing microbe.
PS: It's too bad these things dont eat methane. I could use some in my girlfriends restroom. ;-)
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
If I'm not mistaken, bacterial life started as anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that procuce oxygen as a byproduct of their metabolism). When there was sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere for it to become toxic to many anaerobic bacteria, aerobic (oxygen-loving) ones evolved.
The one thing that many scenarios for terraforming Mars forget is that Mars has no plate tectonics. At first glance that doesn't seem important, but actually it is.
The oceans of the Earth absorb an amazing amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. In the water that CO2 reacts with the water to form carbonates, which settle on the ocean floor. The carbonates are recycled back into CO2, back into the atmosphere by underwater volcanos along the Atlantic and Pacific ocean ridges. The amount of CO2 that is put back into the atmosphere that way is exactly the same as the amount of CO2 that is absorbed by the oceans.
A very delicate balance, that didn't, doesn't, and never will exist on Mars. When Mars was young it was probably quite similar to the Earth. Nice and warm. Life might have, and probably did, begin. But the oceans sucked in the CO2, the carbonates settled on the ocean floor, and there were no plate tectonics, no volcanos to recycle those carbonates back into CO2, back into the atmosphere. Slowly but steadily Mars ran out of CO2, the temperatures dropped because the main greenhouse gas was gone, and the planet froze.
Now what would happen if we terraformed Mars? There'd be liquid oceans again. And again the same problem would arise. CO2 would be absorbed into those oceans, carbonates would settle on the ocean floor, and eventually Mars would again freeze up. Sure, then you could terraform again, or you could introduce other greenhouse gasses to keep Mars' temperature elevated, but eventually you wouldn't be able to keep up.
The balance on Earth is so delicate that even a small change can screw up the climates all around the globe. Mars is completely different, it'll have a completely different balance.
Venus, Terra and Mars all started alike. Venus' greenhouse effect got completely out of control and the planet heated up, probably even before life could form. Mars' greenhouse effect screwed up aswell, and the planet froze up before any complex life could form. Terra is right inbetween. A delicate balance that becomes upset after only minute changes. A delicate balance that imho is doomed to fail if attempted on any other planet.
Terraforming mars is nice stuff for fiction, but I'm convinced it will never happen. And if it does, it probably won't last for more than a few hundred or maybe a few thousand years.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
where are the moderators when you need them? :-)
I had never heard of that... anybody know any online sources on terraforming Venus? Venus is indeed only a fraction smaller than the Earth, so if it could be terraformed, it would be a perfect Terra II. And Venus is closer than Mars too... Strange that something so obvious is completely overlooked due to the Mars Craze...
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
(probably not a new Idea, but what the hell)
Seed the universe with life. Lets say intelligent life evolved somewhere (not necessarily Earth). They get lonely. Being the patient species that they are, the figure that they only way to get some company is to make some.
So: They load up a few zillion asteriods with a variety of different microbes, each type tailored to survive in a particular environment. Having sc attered these asteroids throughout the known universe, they sit back and wait for something "interesting" to evolve (say a billion years, give or take).
The universe isn't so lonely any more.
--Mark
I don't think I've ever heard of any group taking up for the rights of bacteria.
"Penicillin must be stopped. End the killing now!"
Genetic modification is a different matter, but I think you get the idea.
--Mark
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."
Life on Europa, as intriguing as it seems, hasn't been around long and won't be around longer. Almost all the heat out there is caused by volcanic activity on the moon; as its not very big, chances are that heat won't last very long.
It's the same reason why Jupiter (a big ball of hydrogen (and some other gasses) with tremendous electrical storms beneath the "surface") hasn't exploded lately. H2 combines swell with 02, but if there's no 02 around, no fire.
And what was the atmospheric pressure in his experiments?
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Having said that, I think that it's very unlikely that NASA will send any microbes to Mars. To quote David Dubov concerning the Mars Pathfinder:
Imagine putting a match to that!
--
Yeap that's quite cool. Microbes... Three years ago NASA made some fuss about microbes from Mars. It got so burned up that forgot completely about the matter.
Now it is thinking on making a missionary mission. With microbes. Ok don't forget to send the Bible with them.
Lyrics...
Maybe NASA should have always take for serious its own "case for the Face". At least it would have got a loot of publicity. Or search for li'll green men. Then it would never quit newspapers last page.
Yeap it is time for NASA to turn into a masonic house. Every night a session of shamanism... Hoagland will not loose his job for the next 100 years...
PS: One of you guys was talking about the "lack" of plate tectonics in Mars. Mars had them. There are several relicts of it in Mars. Recently NASA
added some fire to this on publishing the results of Surveyor's geomagnetic data. Do not get surprised by this positive note on NASA. That thing is not an organisation. It is a battlefield. Unfortunately the dodos are on some of the tops of it...
I'm assuming that the experiment was conducted above the freezing point of water at whatever pressure they chose. How deep into the Martian surface does one have to go to be permanently above freezing? (I know, I know; it depends on where you are on Mars.)
BTW, imagine a Beowulf cluster of Martian methanogens. Sorry.
I can understand what your saying. It does put a damper on complex life that has evolved how we have from existing on mars But who says that all complex life has to breath oxygen?
I wonder if those who want to terraform Mars have forgotten why Mars is in its current situation. Mars doesn't have the requisite gravity to hold liquid/gaseous water or any significant atmosphere. So, if we were to terraform Mars we would exhaust all of its water and atmospheric resources in a few hundred years leaving a dry stripped rock in our wake. I would hope our entry into colonizing the universe could be a little more considerate of our surroundings.
Maybe we could just colonize the planet using domes and other resource conservation techniques and have an outpost for a good long time.
Just call me an interplanetary tree hugger!
...We'll stripmine the rest of the planets later"
So, assuming these little critters can (be adapted to) survive and prosper in the Martian atmosphere, what effect will bumping up Methane levels have on Greenhouse-type effects?
If it has a warming effect, would it (eventually) rise enough to thaw any liquid water near the surface?
--The more you know, the less you know.
Whole last paragraph answered my first question.
--The more you know, the less you know.
Unless you're talking about satelites, which beam the energy down to earth (And you thought the powerline-cancer scare was bad....) I suggest you look a little deeper...
Blar.
Actually, you're not that far from Mars. It might take light a second or two to get from here to Mars. In stellar circles, that's just blinking.
Just trying to keep things in perspective. :)
jaz
Death to Argument by Slogan!! (This post twice-encrypted with ROT-13. Replies not using same will be ignored)
Here's my dad's response, pretty much verbatim. Enjoy knowing the truth, ya'll.
jaz Beez,
(Arrgh...) There were only a few howlers in that Mars story. A major one, though, is the suggestion that bacterial methane might "power" a Mars colony in an atmosphere that contains "no" oxygen. (Whatcha gonna burn it with?) Actually the martian atmosphere doesn't have "no" oxygen, but it's a little scarce: something like 0.1% if I remember right, which is actually enough for a pretty high redox potential, but not a good bet as a fuel burner. Also, in spite of the subhead, the bugs don't "make hydrogen and nitrogen" - which requires Big Bang/ stellar core conditions respectively - nor could they possibly "use hydrogen and nitrogen to make methane" without the intervention of alchemy.
I'd be more impressed about the "martian conditions" if their petrie dishes had been bathed in UV and whiffed with ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and OH radicals like actual martian soil (that's why it has no organics left) and held at 200 - 250 K temperatures.
Finally, they're going to have trouble with that methane-powered rocket back to Earth without an oxidizer. Of course, they could use (faint) solar power to make oxygen out of (scarce) water, - but then why not just use the hydrogen from that as fuel instead of methane?
All of which is not to say that I don't love the breakthrough news. But you gotta watch that MSNBC. Would you trust them for news of a new PC virus?
Love -
Dad
Death to Argument by Slogan!! (This post twice-encrypted with ROT-13. Replies not using same will be ignored)
In our AstroPhysics class (taught by a guy with a Nobel Prize) we had a real lengthy discussion about terraforming Mars. Basically, Mars is spinning too fast and is too far (or maybe close, I don't remember exactly) to the sun for it to actually be able to hold water vapor. Mars needs to be warmed up (or cooled down, its been 2 years since the class) and slowed down before an atmosphere with water vapor can exist.
-- toolie
Scientific American has some information on this.
-Ben Shniper
Why do they have to get involved in everything? Geez, isn't it enough that they dominate down here on earth? Now they have to spread to Mars!
Oh, wait.... Microbes.... I thought it said "Microsoft".
Never mind.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
The article really talks about there could be life on Mars...
but if there was life on Mars, and we can't survive in that environment, would we want to?
Sounds much like the Red/Green/Blue Mars series of books that I have read (can't remember the author dammit!). Terraforming with microbes.
This idea isn't too new. Like many things that have since happened (such as Arthur C Clarke's prophecy of a network of satellites), I'm sure this terraforming of Mars will happen in the future.
Now the question is: Do we really want to terraform Mars ?
energy. Do what some people do. Call Oil CEOs at 4:00 in the morning and bitch in 40 different languages.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Nitrogenase dude..N2 -> ammonia, room temperature, 1 atm. It's a miracle of evolution ;)
Although I'm no expert on the subject and all real questions should be asked of Dr. Kral himself, I do have a passing familiarity with his experiments after certain lectures he gave in my micro class (I attend the University of Arkansas and had him for class this past year).
He is really not trying to say anything special about this experiment; his happens to be a field which excites the imagination and draws popular attention. As such, I think that many of the quotes he has are the result of a request to speculate...
Anyway, his experiment was simply to grow microorganisms in a fairly hostile environment which approximates many of the things that we know about current conditions on Mars. He used volcanic ash which is believed to resemble Martian soil. No temperature or pressure differences were attempted in the first run because little is known about below Mars below the surface. Indeed, the surface is too cold for liquid water (apparently around -200C) and higher temperatures must be assumed if life (as we currently understand it) currently exists on Mars. There are plans for a range of growth conditions which include harsher temperatures and pressures (as far as I know, no one has been able to grow microbes in the experimental conditions, let alone less hospitable ones).
As far as radiation goes, both ionizing and non-ionizing forms are incident on the surface of Mars. However, at subsurface depths there is little reason to think that the intensities will remain the same, especially for non-ionizing (such as UV) forms. Since this is the environment which is to be modeled, radiation was ignored.
Questions about nitrogen appear to stem from a misunderstanding, perhaps, of the metabolism of Archaebacteria. These bacteria are believed by many to be ancestral to the more accessible bacteria which abound on earth and in textbooks. Methanogens, from a very basic understanding that I have, can use a variety of molecules to provide the reducing power necessary to produce biologically accessible forms of energy and, as a result, biologically useful molecules. I know
that NO3 is used but am less sure about pure nitrogen. I am not sure that the researchers themselves know the specific nitrogen source the microbes utilized, but it is believed that the nitrogen content of the experimental medium was ~1%, less than the 3% believed to be present in the Martian atmosphere. In any event, the microbes do not tolerate oxygen (it forms radicals which the cell cannot handle) and it is thought that, esp. given the low level of atmospheric oxygen, subsurface levels of O2 would be conducive to cell growth.
Finally, as to previous proof of life on Mars (esp. the ALH001 meteorite), recent research has cast doubt on Zare, et. al's hypotheses. In fact, this past year Dr. Kral coauthored a paper which suggested that similar chemical patterns could be identified on rocks taken from the moon. Because the moon is such an unlikely candidate for life, the meteorite evidence shouldn't stand on its own as proof of life anywhere.
This all just goes to say that no one will really know anything for certain about life on Mars until some redneck terraformer comes down with a cold...
Sources for this post come from the university press release:
http://PIGTRAIL.UARK.EDU/NEWS/june99/ mars_life.html
Sears D. W. G. and Kral T. A. (1998) Martian "microfossils" in lunar meteorites? Meteoritics and Planetary Science 33, 791-794,
and correspondence with members of the research group. All information presented herein represent the (somewhat poor) understanding of an
unrelated party (me!) and do not represent the actual researchers' beliefs or opinions.
Invicta{HOG}
I think it makes it sound as if the Red Planet is even more hostile to complex life than we imagine. Still, if microbes are able to thrive there, it doesn't mean they have.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
*Many* years ago, a college friend, whose father worked in the space program, speculated the sterilization for the Viking mission was done with an early 1970's understanding of bacteria and virii. He thought virii like the Epstein-Barr virus might have withstood the 1970's NASA sterilization procedure, since the hardiness of such bugs wasn't widely understood and appreciated at the time. And it is exactly those hardy bugs that could withstand the rigors of sterilization and space travel, and thus would be able to survive on the surface of Mars.
Not a Good Thing.
I'm wholly unburdened with technical knowledge in the area, but I suspect we know less than we think...first, do no harm.
Hello, My name is Curtis Bekkum, I did most of the research for Dr. Kral on this subject. Let me try to answer some questions about our research. First of all, we did not find life on Mars.... yet. All we did was to take Martian soil simulant that was void of a carbon source and add varying amounts of water and detected growth by methane production. We wanted to show that the soil, if it has water and the water was liquid, then life could have and can flourish there.
Everyone thinks we tried to copy the conditions on the surface of Mars, But life can grow underground. On Earth there was a discovery a few years back that bacteris existed in granite aquifers two miles below the surface. So if Mars is like earth and there is liquid water underground, then there,theoretically, could be life. Water is the key, and according to our results not that much water only about 0.5 ml per 5g of soil. Radiation would not be a factor since the organisms would be subterranian. Also methanogens use Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide to make methane, this is it's chemoautotrophic mechanism to make energy. Nitrogen would be used to make amino acids and other compounds.
The atmosphere of Mars is about 1/100th of that on earth, it is composed of CO2, N2, and CO. Some archea bacteria can exist only on CO and water. Also again subterranian water could have dissovled gases, such as hydrogen from various chemical and/or volcanic sources. As evidence I refer you to the above topic of granite aquifers. Also volcanic plums in deepsea vents harbor bacteria.
So as conditions are now, life cannot exist on the surface of mars, too cold, not enough water, oxidation, radiation, ect. But it could have existed at one point, and it still could exist today under ground.
Any other Questions can be asked to me, my email is cbekkum@comp.uark.edu
Thanks, and i hope i answered at least some of your questions.
Discovery Channel had a show on microbes that exist at the bottom of the ocean, next to super hot vents. They also took core samples from pretty far down in the earth (technical??, sorry, I don't have the details). These microbes breath iron. He showed a jar of iron and another that the microbes ate. It was a jar of magnetite...
...cool
They(Discovery ch.) suggested that this microbe could survive in outerspace with a sufficent supply of iron.
...when the mars probe data came back, there was a very small blurb on an excessive amount of magnetism, I beleive I read magnetite. Next probe needs to test for signs of this microbe. Anybody see a picture of the hugh crater on the other side of Mars??? if this microbe needs a carrier, that sucker would've been large enough.
LIFE ON MARS !!!!!
So lets see, if i can just work out how to reinvent myself as a methane-making, oxygen-hating microbe there's fresh hope for me... Back to the lab to see what's on the slab.
This isn't such groundbreaking news, NASA have been aware of the existence of microbes on Mars since August 1996 when scientists publically announced that an ancient meteorite that had plunged to Earth from Mars and revealed signs of primitive life. Astronomer Donald Goldsmith published a book detailing microbe findings which were traced from the rock remnants.
Sure we're doing it now and here but we're still literally light years away.