TED talks: Penelope Boston on life on mars...

Great vid...

Lot of interesting questions asked. Particularly if Earth animals and organisms should be brought to mars. My personal opinion is we need to know if there is any life on Mars before we can even begin to even think about transplanting earthly organisms there.

Fun stuff.

She estimates that in her opinion the chances of life on Mars existing or having existed in the past are about 25% or maybe even 50%.

I think we should definitely wait off on introducing even bacteria to Mars, due to the reason that unforeseen consequences could happen to the planet if we let it get out of control. Also, we should look thoroughly for current life like you said, instead of already introducing it to Mars.

Great video, very interesting.

I agree we should not even begin to think about taking any life form there before we figure out if anything is there or not.

Saying that though could we have already taken bacteria life to Mars without knowing it? If so the consequences could already be to great for us to even imagine...

I don't see any problem bring life to mars (probably in the form of genetic modification to withstand the environment) as I don't see any reason to assume there could be anything more than microscopic alive/dormant on mars now anyway. So no real harm done to the potential indigenous life forms.

What I would have a problem with is bring life from Mars back here, even life we seeded there. One can only guess what kind of mutation would happen over so many generations that could make things difficult for us if it ever got back here (such as hurting our food chain at the very bottom due to bacteria/viruses, etc that could potentially kill off the good bacteria we depend on. Not the most scientific or intelligent answer, but that is just off the top of my head.

Originally posted by Deus Ex Machina 42
I think we should definitely wait off on introducing even bacteria to Mars, due to the reason that unforeseen consequences could happen to the planet if we let it get out of control. Also, we should look thoroughly for current life like you said, instead of already introducing it to Mars.

Yeah I've got no idea why anyone would want to do more species introduction without an absolutely huge search for existing life on that planet. If there is no life on Mars then that's a different story, but considering our species introduction history between continents here on earth, I think humans have to stay away from transplantation until a definitive conclusion about whether there is any life on mars would have to be put to rest first. Just take Australia for example.

I don't know very much about Penny Boston, but after posting this link I read this interesting interview with her. You might enjoy it as well. The end of the interview is really wonderful.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by bloodline]

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts



Surely though it works both ways, we could accidentally sabotage other bacteria life on Mars if it does exist. (which it does in my opinion)

If you believe in evolution think of the implications of not just what we could lose but what also we could destroy for others, a long time ago we were all just amoebas in my opinion.

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
I don't see any problem bring life to mars (probably in the form of genetic modification to withstand the environment) as I don't see any reason to assume there could be anything more than microscopic alive/dormant on mars now anyway. So no real harm done to the potential indigenous life forms.

What I would have a problem with is bring life from Mars back here, even life we seeded there. One can only guess what kind of mutation would happen over so many generations that could make things difficult for us if it ever got back here (such as hurting our food chain at the very bottom due to bacteria/viruses, etc that could potentially kill off the good bacteria we depend on. Not the most scientific or intelligent answer, but that is just off the top of my head.

I like the fact that you are concerned with martian life brought this way but not the other way around. I'd like to see if I am getting you right? Hypothetically, if we had a transplanted deer on Mars and we let it stay for 1000 years, it might have drastically different muscle structure because of it's time on the surface of another planet. Quite possibly, Mars might make animals weaker since life is formed and transformed to a specific certain environment. The breeding of a martian deer and an earth deer producing a deer on earth would then create some strange problems in musculature and if it got out we could be dealing with a weakening of deer structurally when considering it's earth environment. have I got it right? It's a fun thing to think about for sure.

Who knows? The frigid environment there could possibly house some interesting cold resistant moss as a first step towards terraforming, but wouldn't you also want to understand the environment there fully first? Microbial and non-microbial aside, I think this is where we find major problems in human transplantation methods worldwide.