Bacteria From Beer Lasts 553 Days In Space 138
An anonymous reader writes "Some specific bacteria colonies from Beer (the place, not the beverage) left for several days outside the ISS actually survived extreme temperatures, UV and other radiations, lack of water and all the like. They were later brought back to Earth for examination: such resistant bacteria may be the base of life support systems or bio-mining on colonies off Earth, and of course for terraforming, eventually. No clue in the article about how dangerous those bacteria might have become after the exposure or when they'll start eating their examiners."
we may be "Martians" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Complication for mars missions? (Score:3, Interesting)
billions of years of evolution may have resulted in wildly different genomes and selected behaviours.
I remember in my BioII class we were given an 'experiment' to flip a penny one hundred times and record the results. We were the only group that did not record 50% heads and 50% tails. Our professor insisted that we had made a mistake, and that with this 'large' number of flips we would have absolutely reached 50%.
Personally, I think we were the only group stubborn enough to actually flip the coin that many times.
Anyway, there's a bit of a gap from what the numbers should do and what they actually do. Which is why we conduct experiments.
Back to topic, it could well be that those same evolutionary selections played out in the same, or perhaps a very similar, order up there on Mars.
reading stuff like this (Score:5, Interesting)
i begin to think less about the idea that we can seed the universe with hardy bacteria
and i begin to think less about the idea that life on earth was seeded exobiologically
i begin to think less about sending life out there, or about how life got here, and i instead think more about the idea that it simply doesn't matter, that it's been a wide four lane two way street forever, and everywhere, that life is boringly common
i begin to entertain the notion that the reality that is most likely, as we explore more and more outside our planet (and eventually, our solar system), that we're just going to find that the basic chemical machinery of life everywhere, dormant or vaguely active, is on the surface of everything, waiting to seed and grow on anything it touches
that life is simply mundane and ubiquitous (although mostly hibernating and waiting and unable to realize its full potential)
and then the REAL story will be looking for and finding what i'll call "complexity magnifiers": special intersections of energy source and hospitality (like liquid water and a sun) where the machinery of life is allowed to turn into amazing agglomerations of increasing complexity... until things like us humans can become reality
and then the real search, the ultimate game of discovery, will be to classify, find, and otherwise make contact with other "complexity magnifiers," wherever they may be or whatever they are, across the universe. and that this will be our ultimate promise in existence, what you could call our purpose (self-discovered)
whether we choose to exploit and destroy those "complexity magnifiers" and whatever or whomever we find there, and grow like a virus, or whether we choose to communicate with whatever is there already, as take care to hold our darker nature in sober check: that will be the ultimate commentary on the entire existence of homo sapiens: tragic mistake or wise benevolence?
Re:Sounds like a sci fi movie (Score:2, Interesting)
How well to African honey bees do in Antarctica?
The differences in the environment between Africa and South America are not big. For that matter, the differences between the environment in Africa and Antarctica are not that big relative to the differences between the environment between Earth and Mars. When African honey bees take over Antarctica, we'll consider your argument not entirely silly... but still flawed.
Re:Complication for mars missions? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://imgur.com/iVLp9.jpg [imgur.com]
It looks like about 8% chance to get 50/50 and better than 2% chance of getting either 40/60 or 60/40.