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From the paper: "While life can take numerous other forms and could be much more resilient to radiation than on earth, we make here the conservative assumption
by guelo 12y ago
From the paper: "While life can take numerous other forms and could be much more resilient to radiation than on earth, we make here the conservative assumption that life is rather similar to the one on Earth. This common assumption is the basis for searches of Earth like exoplanets as places that harbour life. "
- happyscrappy 12y agoThere are creatures that are resilient to radiation already on the earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
- maaku 12y agoRight, but these are the exceptions for a reason. Something life is exposed to only every hundred(s) millions of years or so is so infrequent that evolution selects against so long as it introduces inefficiencies (and nothing is free). Evolution is an extremely dumb optimization process, and will simply drift away from rad-protecting features as soon as the event is over.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dandelany 12y agoTrue, in places where the only sources of radiation are rare events like GRBs. But I imagine there must be hospitable exoplanets somewhere in the universe that are, for one reason or another, subjected to more intense radiation constantly, in which case rad-protection would have a strong impact on evolution