Scientist: Mars colonists 'will become super-mutants but could die if they mate with Earthlings'

The Sun ^ | May 21, 2019 | Harry Pettit, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter

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Full title:

Mars colonists ‘will become super-mutants with cancer-immune skin’ – but could die ‘if they mate with Earthlings’, scientist warns

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.

[Larry Lucido]

Mars mutants are easy.

[Larry Lucido]

Why haven't we developed cancer-proof skin here on Earth?

We haven't raised enough taxes.

[TigersEye]

D’oh! {slaps forehead} I’m ashamed. How could any FReeper miss that?

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The ‘Canali’ and the First Martians

In the 1800s, observatories with larger and larger telescopes were built around the world.

In 1877, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910), director of the Brera Observatory in Milan, began mapping and naming areas on Mars.

He named the Martian “seas” and “continents” (dark and light areas) with names from historic and mythological sources.

He saw channels on Mars and called them “canali.”

Canali means channels, but it was mistranslated into “canals” implying intelligent life on Mars.

Because of the then recent completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 (the engineering wonder of the era), the misinterpretation was taken to mean that large-scale artificial structures had been discovered on Mars.

The importance of canals for worldwide commerce at that time without a doubt influenced the popular interest in “canals” on Mars.

In 1894, Percival Lowel, a wealthy astronomer from Boston, made his first observations of Mars from a private observatory that he built in Flagstaff, Arizona (Lowell Observatory).

He decided that the canals were real and ultimately mapped hundreds of them.

Lowell believed that the straight lines were artificial canals created by intelligent Martians and were built to carry water from the polar caps to the equatorial regions.

In 1895, he published his first book on Mars with many illustrations and, over the next two decades, published two more popular books advancing his ideas.

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/features/F_Canali_and_First_Martians.html

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[dfwgator]

“Leave the gun, take the Canali”

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Correction:

Re: Cosmic Ray-induced genetic mutation is ONE of the supposed mechanisms for evolution. Not THE (only) mechanism.

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[ETL]

“Leave the gun, take the Canali”

"Canali"? Dont u mean, "cannoli", boss?

No! Canali! Now just do what I friggin said!

[steve86]

This is why peoples living in the Andes and along the Himalayas have strong, dense femur and tibia.

[steve86]

“Why haven’t we developed cancer-proof skin here on Earth? “

Well, not cancer-PROOF, but dark-skinned people near the equator have considerably less incidence of melanoma, even with far more sun exposure.

[TigersEye]

Fair enough. Good fact-based answer. :)

Someone should ask the prof. how many generations that would take.

[logi_cal869]

Your posted article.

[FlyFisher]

Strangers in a Strange Land.

[PIF]

Cleopatra 2525

[Wuli]

It is an idiot’s assumptions, not a true “scientist’s”.

Only an idiot would assume that human habitats on Mars will be above ground and being above ground subject to the above ground temperatures and solar radiation as 24/7/365 constants. Only an idiot would assume that when humans on Mars venture outside of their well protected habitats they will not done space suits designed to protect them from the ground level conditions outside on Mars.

As for the issue of gravity and the effects of a constant great change in the gravity humans are used to, for now it will have to be up to medical science to help humans offset the physiological effects of those changes.