How Tiny Worms Could Help Humans Colonize Mars 101
Pierre Bezukhov writes "The roundworm has about 20,000 protein-coding genes — nearly as many as humans, who have about 23,000. Furthermore, there is a lot of overlap between our genome and theirs, with many genes performing roughly the same functions in both species. Launching C. elegans roundworms to Mars would allow scientists to see just how dangerous the high radiation levels found in deep space — and on the Red Planet's surface — are to animal life. 'Worms allow us to detect changes in growth, development, reproduction and behavior in response to environmental conditions such as toxins or in response to deep space missions,' said Nathaniel Szewczyk of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. 'Given the high failure rate of Mars missions, use of worms allows us to safely and relatively cheaply test spacecraft systems prior to manned missions,' he adds."
What can go wrong with this? (Score:1)
Wait in welcome to our Martian roundworm overlords.
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Wait in welcome to our Martian roundworm overlords.
In Soviet Russia worms colonize YOU!
Re:What can go wrong with this? (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia worms colonize YOU!
I think you meant to say In the Amazon Basin worms colonize YOU!
Are you saying Futurama == Soviet Russia? (Score:1)
Futurama: Parasites Lost [wikipedia.org].
Re:What can go wrong with this? (Score:5, Funny)
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Sadly, the only time spice flows for me is when the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices are flowing out my thermal exhaust port.
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use of worms allows us to safely and relatively cheaply test
Tell that to the worms !
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Can't we just... you know... measure the radiation levels and then use what we already know about the effects of radiation?
What do we know about long-term effects of interplanetary radiation on humans?
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In my opinion, their proteins are irrelevant to the experiment. C. Elegans lives two to three weeks. Even under perfect circumstances, the trip to Mars is going to take longer than the average lifespan of these worms. That means the worms have to reproduce in order for any to reach Mars alive. The radiation might not kill them by damaging their proteins in that short time, but it could sterilize them (they're hermaphrodites, each worm can impregnate itself, but must have working reproductive organs).
What do we know about long-term effects of interplanetary radiation on humans?
Chronic
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More importantly, I think people would survive the trip, but suffer from being sterile long before cancer becomes an issue.
Maybe they could just wear lead-lined underwear.
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I'm always amazed when Anonymous Coward is able to solve, by thought alone, problems that all of NASA is only able to solve by tedious experimentation, and the collection and analysis of empirical data.
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Not the best model for radiation (Score:5, Informative)
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How do you know that's not what all so-called "moving" entails? Displacement over time.
Re:Not the best model for radiation (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps the choice of test subject had more to do with the ease of tending to them automatically over such a long time frame; using larger organisms like lab mice would likely be impractical. Methinks the similarity in the size of the genome is a happy coincidence.
What puzzles me is why it's necessary to send animals to Mars at all. Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?
Re:Not the best model for radiation (Score:5, Informative)
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Well that explains why none of the astronauts and cosmonauts who have stayed on the ISS for months at a time have come back with super powers.
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That's what 'they' WANT you to think!
Re:Not the best model for radiation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not the best model for radiation (Score:5, Funny)
GP in first sentence says yeast is better than C.elegans. So I say send a beer to Mars, say a nice Belgian Trappist Ale.
And you can send a few cans of Bud Light to see how the trip would affect water.
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Throw in some rabbits for zero-g sex, and you'd see the effects of the trip on fucking close to water.
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GP in first sentence says yeast is better than C.elegans. So I say send a beer to Mars, say a nice Belgian Trappist Ale.
Having beer there would help. I know of quite a few people who wouldn't even think about a trip to mars unless they were sure they could get a beer there.
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Re:Not the best model for radiation (Score:5, Informative)
What puzzles me is why it's necessary to send animals to Mars at all. Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?
Courtesy of the Magnetosphere [wikipedia.org], yes. The ISS is only about 300km up, while the magnetosphere extends over a dozen Earth radii (tens of thousands of km), blocking most radiation. There is far more in space than in Earth orbit.
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It actually blocks charged particles. You'll notice radiation (like, say, visible light) penetrates quite readily. Ironically, the ISS is in the Earth's radiation belt [wikipedia.org].
So you're all wrong, just not in the ways your wrong opponents think.
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Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere [wikipedia.org] -- see some of the graphics for scale - ISS is at a few hundred miles.
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Are there really that many more cosmic rays en route to Mars than there are where the ISS is?
Actually, yes.
You see the ISS orbits in Low Earth Orbit [wikipedia.org] due to the altitude of between 300 and 460 kilometers. This is well inside the magnetosphere [wikipedia.org] which extends for tens of thousands of kilometers into space. It is this Magnetosphere that protects both us here on earth and the astronauts up in the ISS from the same levels of radiation found in open space - even within our solar system.
There are concepts to build a small magnetic field (similar to the Earth's Magnetic Field [wikipedia.org]) around spacecraft to protect th [nextworldweb.co.uk]
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tl;dr
Yes, because Earth has fucking magnets all over it.
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Yes, because Earth has fucking magnets all over it.
No, because the molten iron in the outer core of the earth produces immense amounts of electricity as it flows around making it basically a huge electromagnet with the magnetosphere as the electromagnetic field around it.
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That's what I fucking said.
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That's what I fucking said.
Duty called. [xkcd.com].
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all we need to send (Score:5, Funny)
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is a single kudzu seed
Mars is mostly sandy - African Ice Plant
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Mutant worms and sand (Score:4, Funny)
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How are they going (Score:2)
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How are they going to survive the sub freezing weather on Mars? And I'm guessing the frost line is pretty deep as well.
By eating warm-blooded, human settlers of course!
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They're running a life support check for manned capsules, not releasing the worms on the surface. They would send a chimp, but it would be more expensive to build a test capsule that big.
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It's about time we launched terraforming bacteria at all the planets and moons in the solar system.
Where, if the bacteria didn't outright die, it would proceed at a pace which would make glaciers appear as a blur.
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It's about time we launched terraforming bacteria at all the planets and moons in the solar system.
Where, if the bacteria didn't outright die, it would proceed at a pace which would make glaciers appear as a blur.
That's why we send a shit-ton of them.
I believe the military refers to this practice as "Accuracy by Volume."
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Depends...
I have an interesting idea for venus:
There exists a kind of high temp plastic called aramid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramid [wikipedia.org]
This plastic is soluble in strong acids, like sulfuric acid found in the lower venusian atmoshere, and is thermally stable to 500c. (The surface of venus is slightly hotter, but venus does have mountains.)
The idea is to create an atmospheric extremophile that makes use of the sulfur/hydrogen respiration cycle, which produces thin threads of aramid to help keep small coloni
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Sorry to reply to my own post, but the nitrogen issue was mistaken. Venus's atmosphere is 3.5% nitrogen gas. While this seems like a small amount, the thickness of the atmposhere should be taken into consideration. If looked at in total molar weight, it is about 4x the nitrogen found on earth. That makes it plenty.
The problem is the tiny quantity of hydrogen. A terraformed venus would be even more desert like than mars.
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Carkoon (Score:1)
So then Mars... is.... ACTUALLY TATOOINE!!! How the Pit of Carkoon was REALLY created!
Bullshit (Score:1)
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Ethics? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm, it seems to me that although the idea of sending some biological system to mars might be fruitful in the near term it misses some pretty important ethical questions. Specifically contamination, what if there is some life form on mars? How would the process of decay of the worms effect such a ecology by propagating organic earth native compounds onto martian soil? It seems quiet obvious to me that radiation results in mutation and destruction of organic life especially if exposed for long durations. I a
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Overall, the missing component is realizing that mars has its own history, its own progress and adding earth forms like these into the system might perturb or even destroy any evidence living life on mars.
And you think most people (other than Star Trek fans) would care about this why, exactly?
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Whyever would you think that these worms would be "released" into the Martian environment?
Currently, I would offer that such worms would have a lifespan of about 30 seconds in the naked Martian environment, although that does led the potential pollution of the native environment, it doesn't say much about the worms. There would be no utility in doing this.
I suppose you might consider an end-of-experiment strategy of simply dumping the container of worms on the Martian ground, but this would seem to be a hi
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yes
so, a low cost alternatve.. (Score:5, Funny)
If they are going to send parasitic worms with complex dna into space, I still think they should send politicians and *IAA lawyers instead. By most prevailing opinions, these subhuman creatures would service mankind far more as biological radio dosemeters than in their natural political niches here on earth. Yes, the expense of sending them would be much greater than sending the genetically and biologically similar roundworms, but this is FOR SCIENCE!
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Graboids (Score:1)
I knew they were from space!
Worms Armageddon? (Score:1)
These scientists have obviously never played Worms Armageddon [wikipedia.org]... just imagine the destruction if they control an entire planet!
Should we establish this precedent? (Score:3)
"The miserable human has about 23,000 protein-coding genes — nearly as many as imperialist cyborg space monkeys, who have about 26,000. Furthermore, there is a lot of overlap between our genome and theirs, with many genes performing roughly the same functions in both species, despite the clear inferiority of human garbage. Launching imprisoned humans to Alpha Centauri would allow cyborg monkey scientists to see just how dangerous the high radiation levels found in deep space are to animal life. 'Incarcerated humans allow us to detect changes in growth, development, reproduction and behavior in response to environmental conditions such as toxins or in response to deep space missions,' said Oohoohahah Pooflinger of the University of Bananaland in Cyborgia. 'Given the high failure rate of Alpha Centauri missions, use of sniveling, pathetic humans allows us to safely and relatively cheaply test spacecraft systems prior to monkeyed missions,' he adds."
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Speaking of Alpha Centauri, anyone who is missing it and has Civ IV BTS and somehow hasn't yet discovered Planetfall (not the game, the Civ IV BTS mod) is missing out on something. It's way way different from Alpha C of course, but it's keen.
All is good until (Score:2)
Where are you when we need you, Paul Atreides?
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Sounds like the start of the DUNE world to me......I never knew how to bridge that one,....until now.
It all makes sense now....I just got to wait until we spawn a flying fat man and Sting...and we are good to go....
"from the send-in-the-worms dept." (Score:1)
Way over there?
Me here inside the soil-bed,
You with no air.
Send in the worms.
Isn't it cold?
Don't you get blue?
One who's by oxygen fed,
One CO2.
Where are the worms?
Send in the worms.
Just when I'd stopped
Chewing through gore,
Finally knowing
The spicule I wanted was yours,
Making my wormhole again
In my usual place,
Ready for eggs...
You're off in space.
Don't you love Mars?
It's your abode.
I thought that you'd want what I want --
Alas, nematode.
But where are the worms?
There
two birds with one stone? (Score:2)
Obligatory Simpsons Reference (Score:1)
I can see the Martians now (Score:2, Funny)
I can see us sending round worms to a planet with life. The native life trying to figure out how this space ship with the only life form on it being little worms. How did they fly the spaceship? How to communicate with them? :)
ummmmm..... (Score:2)
Ok, so we send tiny little spaceships filled with worms to see if they die once introduced to the atmosphere, and to see how long they would survive if not....?
On our way to a delicious drink! (Score:2)
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No.
The idea is to see if they do. And if they do to see what bad things happen that don't outright kill them.
Both things we'd rather try out on worms before we try it on people.