Re: Mars Life Question

From: Martha Ayscough duPontabela (bluegoose_at_WhiteShrine.org)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:35:53 -0600

I have no idea how the cockroach would do but speculate in some warmer
niche it might survive for a while. Radiation is no problem for the
***-a-roach.
Mars has extreme cold so we are probably talking about simple robust organisms
subterranean, and possibly bacteria at most. Water and warmth are the key to
everything and by warm I mean relative warmth at least on the Antartic scale.

The key question for Mars life is its former warm wet period - what got started
during such a period to mutate quickly and survive to the present. Because
so far as I know, there are no examples of life (even primitive bacteria)
beginning
in very cold conditions. To begin life seems to require warmth and water or
something chemically useful as water. But warmth is essential. Nothing that
exists in Antartica began there during its cold period - everything there is a
holdover which sits in niches (waiting for warmth?). If we ever find an example
of life that actually began in extreme cold conditions, that will change
everything
so far as life models are concerned. Prelife chemistry may evolve to some
extent in extreme cold but that is quite some distance away from 'celular' life.

jw

Dusty wrote:

> Who knows if on one of our machines sent there that a *** roach was not
> hiding in some place and is now populating Mars with their kind? :)
>
> "Bard Chainlink-duPont" <epheb@shalchum.org> wrote in message
> news:421C3199.424A51C8@shalchum.org...
> >
> >
> > MostlyH2O wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Folks,
> > >
> > > Sorry if this is OT, but...
> > >
> > > I keep reading about speculation for current or recent life on mars -
> most
> > > recently, the space.com article about methane signatures. Scientists
> often
> > > point toward terrestrial organisms that survive in the most extreme
> places -
> > > bone dry deserts, deep ocean vents and so on. My question is: don't
> > > these terrestrial organisms owe their existence to a rich and diverse
> gene
> > > pool - from which their few lucky ancestors were selected?
> >
> > Not necessarily - just stubborn simple organisms that have been around
> > for a couple of billion years. The more stable the conditions however
> hostile,
> > the less pressure for mutation and natural selection once a genetic strain
> has
> > managed to find a niche sufficient to its diet. It can sit basically
> unchanged
> > for a very long time with many of the more complex rules of genetic
> > diversification (we know on Earth ) suspended and not active. Diversity is
> not
> > always the key to success or longeivity ... it would depend more on how
> stable
> > the Martian
> > environment has been for how long following a short period in which simple
> forms
> > of life may have evolved, some of which survived (if any did).
> >
> > We usually associate activity with life. Passivity is also a basic
> important
> > quality
> > of some life forms.
> >
> > There is also a seldom discussed aspect of evolution called 'anticipatory
> > selection' which may affect basic life 'forms' some of which survive
> precisely
> > because they somehow anticipated hostile conditions and evolved to be
> > in place (and in condition) to survive, while the majority of species went
> > extinct.
> >
> > Simplicity sometimes outperforms diversity and proves most important in
> the
> > end, for subsequent generations.
> >
> > Kalab
> >
> >
> >
> > > Wouldn't mars
> > > also have needed a rich diversity of life in order for these *extreme*
> > > organisms to have evolved? It doesn't seem likely that life would start
> and
> > > flourish in very inhospitable areas - would it?
> > >
> > > just curious about what y'all think,
> > >
> > > Jack Coletti
> > > St. Petersburg, FL
> >