The Threat From Life on Mars 469
sweetshot97 writes "According to the UK site, Times Online; future trips to Mars that will have probes return with samples of the martian surface may contain deadly microbes of course, foreign to our world. The threat may be incurable bacterial infections we have no cure for. What's funny is that we may have even infected Mars with our own bacteria when we sent several probes there. "
Move along, move along (Score:5, Insightful)
More than unlikely (Score:2, Insightful)
No worries (Score:5, Insightful)
Martian meteors (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:3, Insightful)
Andromeda Strain (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't they make a movie [imdb.com] about this type of thing back in '71?
Incurable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not bacterial... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless these pathogens have evolved from something found on Earth (or vice versa...creepy), it's probably pretty unlikely that they will be bacteria (or viri, for that matter) per se. I think it would be fair to assume that any martian pathogen would be a totally new beast.
That said, however, given that there are no macro-scale living things on Mars to infect, its pretty unlikely that it would have any mechanisms in place to handle our immune defenses. While this cuts both ways (our immune defenses would also be woefully ill-prepared), our immune system is good enough to have generalized responses queued up to handle just about anything (think about inflamation, etc). This is not to mention that the pathogen is unlikely to have any idea (if you'll excuse the anthropomorphism) how to infect the human body in the first place (how to cross from the lungs to the blood stream, how to infiltrate mucous membranes, etc).
I think we'll probably have to look for the apocalypse somewhere other than in the form of a martian plague.
Odds (Score:4, Insightful)
Life May Have Originated on Mars (Score:2, Insightful)
First, we would need to launch a mission to Mars, manned or unmanned, to secure and return to earth core samples that might provide evidence for or against DNA as the organizing scheme for the Mars life form. Having accomplished the return of a biological sample and determined the presence or absence of DNA, we are then faced with a quandary.
Read the full Article [arachnoid.com]
If this is true, we shouldn't worry too much.
Moderate this comment
Negative: Offtopic [mithuro.com] Flamebait [mithuro.com] Troll [mithuro.com] Redundant [mithuro.com]
Positive: Insightful [mithuro.com] Interesting [mithuro.com] Informative [mithuro.com] Funny [mithuro.com]
Re:Move along, move along (Score:5, Insightful)
If only 'twere true... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be great news if there was life capable of surviving both Martian and earth climates, because that would mean we could terriform Mars.
As far as bacteria from Mars that might infect earth, let me put it this way: what about bacteria from the deep sea being brought up by submarines? What about bacteria from deep in the earth's crust being being unearthed by drilling operations? What about all of these micro organism that inhabit exotic environments on our own planet that we risk releasing into our habitat all the time? What happens to them?
Tersely put: they die.
It's evolution, my friends. Organisms have specialized to compete in their own biological niches and developed the best tools available to do so, at the cost of performing well in alternative environments. Any organism introduced from such a foreign environment as I've mentioned, even if it could survive our human environment, it would be horrifically outcompeted by the existing organisms in our ecosystem and die handily.
Notions of a superplague from another planet wiping out life on earth are strictly fantasy stories which ignore real evolutionary fact.
How funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
How funny? +5 Funny? +5 Stupid more like...
/. should have a new subject: pseudo-science (Score:3, Insightful)
an icon with Uri-Geller's face will do fine.
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, maybe not. Terrestrial microbial life-forms have had millenia of evolution and competition to fill every available niche in their available environment; how will Martian microbes compete, let alone thrive? How many extremophiles have been dredged up from their remote terrestrial locations and then caused terrible plagues?
Caution is appropriate here, but the article seems to be hinting at a "let's just stay home and lock the door and hope no one bothers us" attitude that would have kept mankind safely ensconced in the Olduvai Gorge.
Re:No worries (Score:2, Insightful)
Extremely Unlikely (Score:2, Insightful)
Organic life and bacteria/virii have been involved in a never-ending arms race for millions, if not billions of years. They come up with a new vector for infection, larger organics evolve a way to counter that infection and so on, ad infinitum...
The chances of an alien retrovirus having the necessary enymes to inject a DNA strand into a human cell are pretty close to zero. The chances of any bacteria being able to survive a highly evolved immune system are also pretty close to zero. I would call this a non-issue.
Why would this be dangerous? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without serious, plausible answers to these questions, this concern really strikes me as more appropriate to a b-movie than serious space exploration. Now, I *like* b-movies. But still.
Re:Move along, move along (Score:5, Insightful)
Diseases had already adapted to infect humans when they were introduced to the Americas. Very different from the scenario the article is talking about.
Re:I have often wondered why it is... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:2, Insightful)
This is rediculous news akin to people being afraid of meteors for possibly containing alien fungus that will eat their brains.
Re:If only 'twere true... (Score:3, Insightful)
On Earth, bacteria and molds eat just about anything that contains an energy source and has not evolved a way to fight off an attack. What leads you to think that a Martian bug's got some extra mojo that isn't already here in one of our Earth-optimized species?
There's also the fact which many others have already pointed out. If Mars is populated by microbes, they've probably been here already, via meteorites. So to sum up, I think the threat, if any, is minimal.
Re:Move along, move along (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Typical media scare (Score:2, Insightful)
it strikes me that this is one of those things that it is better to be safe than sorry about. the very fact that we have zero experience with non-terran life forms seems a pretty good reason to take precautions against them.
Re:Reality Check (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:3, Insightful)
while i agree with your point (of course) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No worries (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MY GOD! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Viking Landers were "boiled", Pathfinder was no (Score:3, Insightful)
And NASA, at the time, thought that it was
doing the "right" thing about contamination.
The only problem is, is that autoclaving and
UV irradiation DOES NOT KILL all microbal life.
It only makes the "survivors" the very toughest
of the bunch. Microbiologists have discovered
microbes living more than a mile underground
that eat rock! And oceanographers have found
microbes thriving in the hot vents of the ocean
floor, where their thermometers have literally
melted. Re-examination of both the sterilization
process and the materials used, NASA has reached
the conclusion that 100% sterility (no microbal
life) on stars-bound craft was not possible.
That said, there is no reason to believe that
some "cross-pollination" between Earth and Mars
has not been going on since the beginning of
time. Any attempt that NASA or ESA (or PRC)
makes to return "samples" to Earth will only
accelerate that process.
The "war of the worlds" is going on right now,
but on Mars, and at the microbal level, ever
since we landed craft there. Like the line from
the "Alien" movie series stated
with us the entire way".
The push to put men on Mars will far outweigh
the ability to detect and preserve whatever
life already existed on Mars, anyway. And for
true "terraforming" to commence there, someone
is going to have to make the decision to massively
and deliberately contaminate Mars with microbes.
Re:Viking Landers were "boiled", Pathfinder was no (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, a life where nothing ever happens might be worse than death.
Re:No worries (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it can. There is simply no possibility that human virulence could have evolved there. Virulence is a complex process, and it's simply not going to happen "by chance" in the absence of a host. I'd worry far more about new bugs from antarctic ice cores (and I'm not worried about those either).
It would be wiser to send automated electron microscopes to Mars if we want to search for life there, not bring Mars stuff to Earth.
Deal: For one-tenth the cost of that, I will personally volunteer to rub Mars dust all over my body and stay in quarantine for a month (or two, if that makes you feel better)...
Re:Kidnapping of Westerners (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Odds Are Against It (Score:3, Insightful)