Terraforming Mars!

[Wulf Ratbane]

That's what we don't know and won't ever know if we dump a bunch of terrestrial algae on it and hope for the best. The problem with objectively evaluating blah blah blah on Earth is that we know blah blah blah, which is even starting to look like the blah blah blah of new blah blah blah. Unfortunately, that tends to muddle the blah blah, so it's not really clear whether blah blah blah blah blah. Having a really isolated population, or at least one with a very different history could say a lot about blah. There's also the blah blah blah that blah blah blah blah blah.

I'm convinced. Move over snail darter, it's time to save the Martian microbes.

For humanity!

 

[Turjan]

Some organisms do already use extra pigments to supplement the chlorophyll, though the chlorophyll is still at the heart of the process. There's been a lot of speculation as to why the fundamental photosynthetic pigment has that peculiar absorption gap - there might have been some advantage to it long ago, or maybe it's just the best thing that came along.

It's funny that we still don't know that much about it. The abovementioned blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) use phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin in some extra antennas, and with these pigments they manage to bridge the green gap. It cannot be too effective though, because they generally degrade those extra antennas under stress conditions, where you would think they would need all energy they can get. From an evolutionary point of view, it also does not fit their niche existence. Maybe, the energy transfer properties of those pigments are suboptimal.

 

[Turanil]

<...> phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin <...>

Those three are sylvan elves, aren't they?

 

[Turjan]

Those three are sylvan elves, aren't they?

In blue and red .

 

[Umbran]

I guess we could quibble on about what defines "radically different." I guess my point is that as such time as we discover anything that fits our definition of life, it is then by definition so similar as to offer us little new understanding. (A little unfair, I guess...)

That probably depends on to whom you refer when you speak of "our definition of life". Where I come from, the definition isn't based upon details of chemistry, but more upon the dynamics and energy flow.

So... What have we learned from pre-Cambrian life-- for all intents "alien" life to ours-- that has so greatly enhanced the human condition that (by analogy) it would outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars?

Check back to what I wrote - It doesn't need to outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars. It needs to outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars right now, before we're done studying it. And considering how little advantage there is in startign so quickly, I need little weight on my side.

What did we learn from pre-Cambrian life? Well, we learned that there is more on heaven and Earth that is imagined in our philosophy. Pre-Cambrian life helps form a cornerstone of evidence for evolution, upon which much later biology is based.

I'm confused. Is the life on Mars completely different, and thus completely irrelevant to our own microbes, or is it similar enough to offer us some medical insight?

They don't have to be much like our own for us to learn things from it that are useful. Knowledge of a radically different system would give us information on how living systems work in general. That'd help us to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

 

[Turjan]

They don't have to be much like our own for us to learn things from it that are useful. Knowledge of a radically different system would give us information on how living systems work in general. That'd help us to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

This is a very important point. Many really great observations/inventions are of the kind that make you think why nobody else thought of this before, because "it's so obvious". The human mind does not like to think outside the box and question putatively well-known things once again.