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."
all we need to send (Score:5, Funny)
Mutant worms and sand (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What can go wrong with this? (Score:3, Funny)
Wait in welcome to our Martian roundworm overlords.
In Soviet Russia worms colonize YOU!
Re:How are they going (Score:2, Funny)
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!
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!
Re:What can go wrong with this? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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!
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? :)