Posted on 05/21/2019 6:06:35 PM PDT by ETL
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THE FIRST humans on Mars will quickly become too fragile to have sex with.
That's according to one scientist, who reckons colonists will warp into super-mutants who'll keel over the moment they bonk an Earthling.
Nasa is keen to land humans on Mars in the 2030s with an eye on setting up a permanent Martian colony.
Settlers will have to survive suffocating temperatures and deadly radiation – an experience that may strip them of their humanity altogether, says Rice University professor Scott Solomon.
He told Inverse that colonists' DNA will rapidly mutate to help them ride out Mars's brutal conditions.
Over time, they'll develop cancer-proof skin to survive the extra solar radiation, and denser bones to cope with Mars's low-gravity conditions.
On top of this, inhabitants will be exposed to almost none of the bacteria and viruses found on Earth, effectively nullifying their immune systems.
According to Professor Solomon, who is an evolutionary biologist at Rice, it will only take Mars colonists two generations to become super-mutants.
"Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage there is to having a certain mutation," Professor Solomon says.
"If a mutation pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-percent survival advantage, that’s a huge advantage, right?
And that means that those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much higher rate than they otherwise would have."
He added that contact with humans may become deadly for Martians.
With no immune system, they'll quickly succumb to any illnesses or diseases carried by their human lovers.
These are all issues that Nasa will have to consider as it prepares to land man on the Moon by 2024, before heading to Mars in 2033.
The space agency is already pumping cash into research on the long-term effects of space travel.
One study in Germany has seen participants handed £14,000 to sit in bed and watch telly for two months.
Scientists are testing how prolonged periods of low-gravity during long-distance spaceflight affects the human body.
It ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.
... but sadly, the coffin lid would close easily.
So this ninety-year old billionare married a twenty-five year old gold digger. At their honeymoon hotel, the groom can stumbling out of the bridal suite and went to meet his friends poolside.
His eyes were bloodshot and blurry, his thin hair even thinner.
One of his friends said, “Harold, you know this could be fatal.”
Harold said, “So what? If she dies, she dies.”
In fact, it’s cold as hell...
In fact, it’s cold as hell.
It’s called speciation. When groups of the same species become separated into different environments, they evolve differently until they reach the point in which they are no longer able to interbreed. Then they become two different species.
Need Martian Saunas.
Re: “THE FIRST humans on Mars will quickly become too fragile to have sex with.”
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Unless that was all just an excuse.
:)
They say Venus is hot as the north pole.
Let’s be honest. We’ll have genetic engineering to engineer colonists to suit the environment well before evolution has that kind of effect.
Who says? My post to dfwgator was in like fashion to his from the Elton John Song “rocket man.” It was the next line. you missed that....
Probably to offset the thinning of bones in low gravity.
I know that. I was just pointing out the absurdity of the line "cold as hell".
I Watched the movie, “The Martian”. What’s not to like?
Besides, I LOVE potatoes !
And you don't think the people doing the planning are aware of this and have figured out various solutions to it? What you could argue, though, is that the enclosed surface habitats or underground facilities they are proposing won't work for one reason or another.
In any case, what are you concerned about? Fungi can survive almost anywhere, maybe even Mars. :)
But how is the super-mutant?
Send Keith Richards there, if anyone could survive Mars, it would be him.
“Over time, they’ll develop cancer-proof skin to survive the extra solar radiation, and denser bones to cope with Mars’s low-gravity conditions.”
Evidence of idiocy.
Every once of energy, product, and supply must come from Earth. Sure they are “aware” of it but they are fools to even consider it. Who will pay for this fanciful idea? And no, fungi cannot exist anywhere. Where did you get that novel idea?
Yeah. All this science, I (and the author of the article) don’t understand.
I do know Venus is burnin’ like a silver flame.
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