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It is grossly incorrect because it does not "produce oxygen from Martian soil". This is extremely misleading, because on Mars Martian soil is abundant, while w

by adrian_b 11mo ago

It is grossly incorrect because it does not "produce oxygen from Martian soil". This is extremely misleading, because on Mars Martian soil is abundant, while water is very scarce, so the title makes the reader believe that this cyanobacterium solves easily the production of oxygen. It does not help at all for oxygen production. If you have water, then it is easy to produce hydrogen by electrolysis, using solar energy. Getting water on Mars is the hard problem. There are chances that such cyanobacteria will be used on Mars, but for producing protein and other useful organic substances, with oxygen only as a byproduct. However I believe that at least for the more distant future there is a better alternative to the use of cyanobacteria: the capture of solar energy by artificial means, coupled with the synthesis of some simple organic substance, e.g. glycerol or glycine, which can then be used to feed a culture of fungi located underground, which can then produce proteins and all the other complex substances needed for human food. There already are genetically modified fungi that can produce whey protein or chicken egg white protein suitable for human consumption. This variant is better because photovoltaic cells have better efficiency for capturing solar energy and without environmental constraints, while genetically modified fungi can produce proteins of better quality than cyanobacteria and also any other complex organic substances that will be needed.

KalMann 11mo ago
I think the problem with your post is that it started a list of "incorrect statements" with a statement that wasn't incorrect.
- adrian_b 11mo ago
  Maybe I have not been clear enough, but there was no list of incorrect statements, as I was criticizing only a title. I did not say that was anything incorrect in calling a blue-green alga as "microbe". I have only mentioned what kind of "microbe" they had in mind in order to explain why the title is incorrect in claiming that the "microbe" makes oxygen from Martian soil, because blue-green algae, like plants and like any other living beings from Earth that can produce oxygen, produce the oxygen by splitting it from water and by using energy captured from solar light. There are no known living beings that can produce oxygen from anything else than water, so if such a "microbe" had been discovered, that would have been a much more important discovery than the possible use of cyanobacteria on Mars. Unlike the capabilities of catalyzing other chemical reactions, which frequently have appeared multiple times in the history of life, the ability to produce free oxygen has appeared only once and then it has been inherited from that source by all living beings that can do this, even if this heritage has been often transferred between very unrelated living beings. Therefore there exists a unique mechanism for this reaction, based on the oxidation of manganese with the help of solar light, which then oxidizes the oxygen from water into free dioxygen. The Martian soil is full of oxygen, but most of that oxygen is tightly bound on metallic cations, so it would require a very high amount of energy to be dissociated from them. Nevertheless, it should be possible to develop an electrolytic process for producing oxygen from the perchlorates that are abundant in Martian soil, saving the precious water for other purposes, i.e. for those that need the hydrogen from water, e.g. for making fuel and food.

KalMann 11mo ago

I think the problem with your post is that it started a list of "incorrect statements" with a statement that wasn't incorrect.

adrian_b 11mo ago
Maybe I have not been clear enough, but there was no list of incorrect statements, as I was criticizing only a title. I did not say that was anything incorrect in calling a blue-green alga as "microbe". I have only mentioned what kind of "microbe" they had in mind in order to explain why the title is incorrect in claiming that the "microbe" makes oxygen from Martian soil, because blue-green algae, like plants and like any other living beings from Earth that can produce oxygen, produce the oxygen by splitting it from water and by using energy captured from solar light. There are no known living beings that can produce oxygen from anything else than water, so if such a "microbe" had been discovered, that would have been a much more important discovery than the possible use of cyanobacteria on Mars. Unlike the capabilities of catalyzing other chemical reactions, which frequently have appeared multiple times in the history of life, the ability to produce free oxygen has appeared only once and then it has been inherited from that source by all living beings that can do this, even if this heritage has been often transferred between very unrelated living beings. Therefore there exists a unique mechanism for this reaction, based on the oxidation of manganese with the help of solar light, which then oxidizes the oxygen from water into free dioxygen. The Martian soil is full of oxygen, but most of that oxygen is tightly bound on metallic cations, so it would require a very high amount of energy to be dissociated from them. Nevertheless, it should be possible to develop an electrolytic process for producing oxygen from the perchlorates that are abundant in Martian soil, saving the precious water for other purposes, i.e. for those that need the hydrogen from water, e.g. for making fuel and food.