7 ms·
Common yeast can survive Martian conditions
- oh_my_goodness 1y agoSo send the yeast.
- pbhjpbhj 1y agoMy first thought on reading the title of the OP was 'I wonder if we've already ruined Mars with unhelpful yeast?'. Surely there's nothing for it to eat there yet though.
- IsTom 1y agoWhen jupiterians come to explore mars they'll face a horror movie scenario with long dormant alien pathogen eating through their carbohydrate shells.
- gus_massa 1y agoMore seriously, they send only sterilized landers to Mars, to avoid killing all life there (if there is any), and to avoid the problem of finding in a few years the contamination we sended there. More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
- dib258 1y agoYeah, we can make beers on mars!
- iancmceachern 1y agoI came here to write this. We could call it "The beer at the end of the universe"
- merek 1y agoAnd the Martian beers can drunk in Mars' bars
- Coneylake 1y agoBe careful, everyone on Mars will be a lightweight!
- alexpotato 1y agoGiven that the "percentage of stars with planets" part of the Drake equation has recently been determined to be close to 100%, Panspermia is starting to feel more and more likely.
- malfist 1y agoSomething to blow your mind with. The early days in the universe there were millions of years were the average temperature in the universe supported liquid water.
- kaashif 1y agoI don't think millions of years is long enough for anything interesting to happen life-wise, is it?
- vizzier 1y agohard to know with so few data points
- ben_w 1y agoOn the one hand, (primitive) life appeared on Earth almost as soon as conditions allowed it. On the other, the early universe — this particular "warm bath" era — had approximately zero oxygen with which to make water. Right temperature, just (IIRC, but I'm not certain) zero stars yet, so nothing to make things heavier than what came out of Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
- metalman 1y agoI think by "survive" they mean that yeast spores can briefly be put in a "mars jar" and then be revived, not that they can become metobolicaly active, or even last for an extended time on mars
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoIs there any food for them on mars?
- jqpabc123 1y agoTheir primary food source is sugars. There are none on Mars. Let's face facts, Mars is now a dead planet that virtually no life can survive for very long. And even Elon Musk money is not enough to change this.
- mhb 1y agoAnd yet the stuff in my freezer went bad.
- WalterBright 1y agoWe should be dropping bags of extremophile organisms into the Martian atmosphere to get a start on terraforming it.
- schwartzworld 1y agoThe best time to start terraforming a planet is 500 years ago. The second best time is now.
- glenstein 1y agoTo your point, one of the most remarkable things I've read about both Mars and Venus, is that there was a time billions of years ago when they had more moderate temperatures and liquid water. In a way, it's a tragedy that human civilization has only emerged at a time when both Mars and Venus have become much more uninhabitable than they used to be.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoOr we cycle through them and forget every time.
- lavelganzu 1y agoIt's a fun idea to explore in fiction, but it certainly didn't happen. The evolution of our species is too recent.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoI’m only 1% serious, but how do we know for sure which direction evolution went in within the ape family? It seems not entirely unplausible that we have at some point in the scientific chain of custody assumed the “lesser” apes “evolved into” the “more advanced” human. But a species could easily branch and have the branch lose its geographic portability features (e.g.ability to manipulate environment, most exogenous behavior learning-based) if they are no longer selected for in a particular environment, and I’m not aware of anything in the fossil record that firmly establishes directionality. Am I wrong?
- BurningFrog 1y agoAll the study says is that their lab yeast survived shock waves and perchlorate levels similar to those on Mars. That's all.
- 7373737373 1y agoHow likely is it that we have already accidentally "contaminated" other planets or moons, despite procedures to prevent this? It seems unlikely to be possible to completely prevent all lifeforms from hitching a ride
- 3eb7988a1663 1y agoTardigrades (crash) landed on the moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beresheet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beresheet
- Mistletoe 1y agoIt’s pretty likely or at least plausible. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2011.0738 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2011.0738 I worked with these organisms from the space station. Their resistance to things like hydrogen peroxide (what we wash space probes with) is incredible.
- jjk166 1y agoBig difference between "some organisms hitched a ride and didn't immediately die" and "we created a self sustaining ecosystem that will spread across a wide area in a human relevant period of time." The venn diagram of organisms that can survive on mars, those that can use martian conditions to produce all the energy and nutrients they need to survive long term, and those that would be likely to contaminate a spacecraft likely doesn't have a lot of overlap.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Coneylake 1y agoWhat about uncommon yeast?
- yreew 1y agoThey can't surive Mars Condition.
- shevy-java 1y agoAt the end of the day, there are tons of organisms, many of which can survive epic conditions. My personal favourite is still Deinococcus radiodurans but there are many other contenders. This here is odd because it seems to follow a "life must be everywhere". I never understood this. Aka NASA wants to find life elsewhere, but ... why? Life is already here and evolution occurs. See dinosaur. So, adaptability is an intrinsic property. Why does it have to be shown that yeast can adapt to martian conditions? Do we want to grow yeast on mars? And if the question is humans on mars, why would yeast matter? The conditions do not allow humans to live on mars, unless sheltered. Even genetically modified humans will most likely not be able to live on mars freely. The temperature alone makes this impossible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Temperature You'd need to be in a suit all of the time or in some building with higher temperature. Mars is not Earth. What is the point of having some bacteria or yeast on mars?
- nertirs1 1y agoI imagine it is related to the first step of colonizing mars, which is figuring out the most efficient way to terraform mars.
- philipwhiuk 1y agoIf your hab blows out it would be ideal if not everything died immediately.
- MattPalmer1086 1y agoThe point is not to put yeast on Mars. The research isn't part of some terraforming or settlement program. It is to understand whether Mars conditions are inimical to life entirely. Turns out that some common modern earth life forms can survive Mars like conditions. That is interesting in and of itself and raises further questions on why life doesn't appear to have existed or survived on Mars today. It's just science, making small steps in our understanding of the universe.