Category Archives: Terraforming Mars

Sure, theres a lot of entertainment value in grand set piece battles, personal duels, or even two wizards engaging in a magical combat to the death. But there are those of us who enjoy a more arcane pleasure: edge of the seat thrills as protagonists struggle to build vast infrastructure projects. I would argue that providing London with a functional sewer system was more exciting than defeating the French at Trafalgar. Why read Riders of the Purple Sage when the same author wrote what is, to my mind at least, a much more engaging book: Boulder Dam, a thrilling historical account of the building of the dam!

A few other SFF authors have embraced the romance of large-scale engineering projects. Here are five inspirational examples.

The traitor George Washington is almost two centuries dead. The once rebellious colonies are now content within the British Empire. The Atlantic still divides the imperial children from their doting British mother. It falls to Washingtons descendant Captain Augustine Washington, to tether Britain to America with nothing less than a transatlantic tunnel! Hurrah!

Many might (and many have) expected Augustine to be a bad seed, carrying as he does within his veins the blood of one of historys greatest villains. Nevertheless, Augustine is a dutiful subject and a superlative engineer. He is highly motivated. Not just by patriotism, but by passion of a more personal variety. Completing the tunnel will not merely unify an empire; it may win him the hand of the woman he loves.

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Located sixty degrees ahead of Venus, the Venus Equilateral Relay Station and the three thousand people working within the converted asteroid are a critical element in interplanetary communications. Without Venus Equilateral, contact between Earth and Venus would be disrupted whenever orbital dynamics placed the Sun too close to line of sight between the worlds. With Venus Equilateral, messages can flow back and forth without interruption. The stations services are indispensable.

One might expect therefore that Venus Equilateral would be sacrosanct, spared the machinations of the ambitious. Not so! The hard-working engineers and the women to whom they explain things at great length are forever defending Venus Equilateral from officious bureaucrats, would-be space pirates, and not least, the hard-working engineers themselves, none of whom ever pause for consideration before unleashing their latest paradigm-breaking inventions on a poorly prepared world.

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At first glance, Steerswoman Rowan lives in a fantasy world, one in which the common folk depend on lore gathered and disseminated by a guild of Steerswomen. They are also subject to the whims of powerful, aloof wizards. Wizards and Steerswomen do not mix.

Readers eventually learn that this is no fantasy world. The Steerswomen are busy creating pure science from scratch. The wizards in contrast might be called engineers, shaping their world with applied sciences whose basis they do not completely understand and which they will not share with others.

Although Rowan is not aware of the fact, her world is the stage for a centuries-long project, an epic struggle to reshape a world. A few hints have fallen into Rowans hands, enough to lure her out into the Outskirts where human-compatible organisms rub shoulders with biochemically incompatible plants and animals. The quest should be straightforward. After all, how dangerous could the innocuously named Routine Bioform Clearance be?

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The Ring Collapsiter exploits certain useful properties of hyperdense matter to provide humanity with superluminal, high-bandwidth communication across the inner Solar System. There is but one small flaw in the system, the very one that compels Her Majesty Tamra-Tamatra Lutui, the Virgin Queen of All Things, to visit a scientists isolated Kuiper Belt retreat.

As long as the Ring Collapsiter functions properly, all is well. Should something a natural mishap like a flare, perhaps, or deliberate sabotage disrupt the systems holding the ring in place above the Sun, all is somewhat less well. If the hyperdense collapsium in the ring fell into the Sun, the side-effects could well exterminate life across the Solar System. This would be bad. Accident and malice are inevitable. It falls to scientist Bruno to prevent doomsday.

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Bridging the wide river that divides the Empires Nearside from Farside would be challenge enough were it to span a conventional river. In this case, the river is concealed within a caustic mist. If that were not enough, creatures, some quite massive, lurk within the mists. Each trip across the river is a calculated risk.

Kit Meinem of Atyar has been tasked to build a bridge over the river. The project will take years, long enough for Kit to get to know and become fond of the people on either side of the river. It was one thing to plan the bridge without knowing those it would affect; its quite another when you know the people who will lose their livelihood. Especially when some of those people are friends and lovers.

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No doubt you have your own favourites, many of which you feel are vastly superior to the ones I selected. Comments are below.

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Five Thrilling SFF Works About Meticulously Planned Infrastructure - tor.com

Hints within the X-Men titles since House of X suggest that mutantkind is about to re-settle on Mars during this summer's Planet-Sized X one-shot.

This summers Hellfire Gala event promises major, sweeping changes for the X-Men line of books and may finallysee mutantkind embrace its destiny among the stars by colonizing Mars. Since the X-Men were redefined in 2019 with Jonathan Hickmans House of X/Powers of X series, the power and influence of the mutant species has been rapidly expanding within the Marvel Universe. And they may have the resources required to claim a new homeworld away from Earth.

Junes double-sized Planet-Sized X one-shot from creative team Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz follows the Hellfire Gala, which will comprise 12 issues and see the debut of a new X-Men team. The one-shot has been described as a cant-miss book and one of the most pivotal chapters in Jonathan Hickmans X-Men era. The cover features four omega-level mutantsJean Grey, Magneto, Iceman, and Stormstanding on barren rocks before a distinctly red background littered with stars.

Related:X-Men Theory: Charles Xavier Is Demon-Possessed

Perhaps the greatest hints toward mutantkinds colonization of Mars comes in the very first issue of House of X from summer 2019. During a sequence in which the X-Men are gathering and planting Krakoa seeds across the world, young X-Man Armor is seen digging a hole on the surface of Mars while surrounded by plant life. This small, silent panel has yet to have been addressed or referenced within the X-Men line since.Another hint to the X-Men's eventual settlement in space came in the pages of Powers of X #1. In an alternate future for mutantkind, it is revealed that mutant leadership endorsed/approved the creation of the Sinister breeding pits of Mars. This shows that some time within one of the futures outlined within Powers of X, mutants laid claim to the red planet. Although, later information suggests they lost control of the planet and most mutants relocated to Shiar space.

Considering the power set of X-Men featured on the cover of Planet-Sized X, these four mutants play be key in terraforming Mars and converting the atmosphere into a livable habitat. Jean Grey is possibly the most powerful telekinetic on Earth. Magneto has, in the past, been able to change the polarity of planets under the right circumstances. Storm and Iceman are both mutants who share close to total control of natural elements.On their own, none of these mutants may be able to transform the living conditions of a barren planet, yet on Krakoa, the X-Men have been seen experimenting with mutant science, and discovering new, effective ways to combine powers in ways never seen before.

The X-Men have also been strengthening and reestablishing their connections out in the Marvel cosmos. They recently helped quell a rebel uprising on the Shiar throneworld and named one of their own as the King of the Brood. On top of everything, mutants currently make up most of the staff on the S.W.O.R.D. space stationheaded up by Abigail Brand. How the planets within Marvel cosmos, particularly the recently-unified Kree-Skrull Empire, would react to a new, mutant planet may cause a few problems.

If mutantkind is finally able to live free of human oppression for good, settling on an independent planet far away from Homo sapien jurisdiction may be worth the risk. Given how humans were able to operate an outer space sentinel Master Mold facility close to the sun during House of X/Powers of X, hopping over to the next neighboring planet of Marsmay not be enough forthe X-Men to escape their doomed fate.

Next:Emma Frost Hints She Knows The X-Men Reboot's Biggest Secret

Captain America is Teaming Up With WandaVision's Agatha Harkness

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X-Men Theory: Mutantkind is About to Colonize Mars | Screen Rant - Screen Rant

An architecture firm has released ambitious plans for Nwa, a sustainable city on Mars that could hold up to 250,000 people in mostly underground cave systems.

Nwa, named for the Chinese mythological goddess who melted five stones to give robust societal pillars, would be housed inside a sheer rock face where residents would be protected from damaging cosmic and solar radiation.

If you decide to move to Mars, your $300,000 ticket will include a one-way trip to Nwa, a residential unit of 25 to 35 square meters, full access to facilities, life support services and food, and a binding work contract to devote between 60 [percent] and 80 [percent] of [your] work time to tasks assigned by the city, according to ABIBOO, the architecture studio behind the concept.

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What will it take for people to safely live on Mars? ABIBOO has nailed the biggest requirement by planning for ways to shelter residents from radiation. (Well need some similar protective deus ex machina for people to get all the way to Mars without being irradiated, but thats for some other group to solve.) And the residents will need to be able to produce food crops in order to sustainits simply too complicated and risky to plan to bring all required food all the way from Earth.

To solve both problems, ABIBOO worked with SONet networkan international team of scientists led by astrophysicist Guillem Anglada, who discovered the exoplanet Proxima-Band carved Nwa out of a Martian cliff called Tempe Mensa. The cliff is part of Marss Tharsis region. By choosing this particular location, the group envisions both protecting residents from radiation and exposing them to direct light to grow crops.

People will live in cliffside terraces and only visit the more exposed surface when necessary. Theyll travel by train and bus outside the cliffside and by huge elevator systems inside the cliffside. More from ABIBOO:

ABIBOO says it imagines the city only requiring supplies from Earth for a limited time before the city becomes sustainable. With designs like this one, its worth thinking about the margin for error associated with different features. What if 250,000 people populate the city, but half are temporarily disabled by an illness that rides along from Earth? Theres an equilibrium point where everyone must do their part to ensure that all citizens get to eat, for example.

The plans for Nwa include crop plants as well as farm animals. Residents can socialize in shared areas separate from the terraced housing. The design is familiar for people who already live in mountainous places, where terraces and elevation are nothing new. But usually, people want to live in the flatter place while making the mountainous terrain into terraces for farming. (If youre not sure why, think about the challenges of moving from one home to another when the home is the side of a cliff.)

While Elon Musk has said he plans to have a city on Mars by 2050, an ABIBOO spokesperson told Popular Mechanics there isnt yet an exact year to start building Nwa, despite false reports of construction beginning in 2054.

Most plans for habitation on Mars have opted for residents to occupy underground caves. Putting people into the side of a cliff is novel, but its a great way to combine the benefits of underground shelter without the downsides of becoming a mole person.

As with Musks discussion of a Mars settlement, everything about Nwa looks and sounds great, but the X-factor of sustainability is still a huge question mark. ABIBOO writes:

ABIBOO residents will have access to a shuttle to and from Earth every 26 months, with launch windows lasting between 1 and 3 months. But even if people urgently needed medicine or other supplies from Earth, the wait will be at the very least a number of months. This will be the farthest travel time that humans have lived from each other since the earliest days of sea travel thousands of years ago.

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See the Astonishing Plans for the Very First City on Mars - Popular Mechanics

Elon Musk has insisted his company will be landing rockets on Mars "well before 2030".

The SpaceX CEO also warned European space agencies should watch they don't become obsolete as they're out-competed by the likes of his mammoth company.

Responding to reports that Europe will only begin to study competitive rocket computing technology from 2030, Musk tweeted: "SpaceX will be landing Starships [reusable rockets] on Mars well before 2030."

He said of European space companies: "They are aiming too low. Only rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable will be competitive.

"Everything else will seem like a cloth biplane in the age of jets."

In recent years Europe has lagged behind competitors in the space travel sphere while SpaceX has eaten away at the bloc's market share through cost-cutting measures such as reusable rockets.

In a follow-up tweet Musk said: "The really hard threshold is making Mars Base Alpha self-sustaining."

Mars Base Alpha is the codename for SpaceX's planned human colony on the Red Planet.

Musk has been adamant that human travel to Mars is possible in our lifetime and has long been working on a supposed plan to send colonists to build a new civilisation on the planet.

These travellers should be "prepared to die" in the process of achieving this goal, he has said.

Although in 2016 he planned to send the first human-carrying rocket to Mars by 2025, he has recently adjusted that timeline, saying it's "possible to make a self-sustaining city on Mars by 2050, if we start in five years".

Musk's ambition has been mocked by many critics from around the world, including the UK's Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees.

"The idea of Elon Musk to have a million people settle on Mars is a dangerous delusion," he told the World Government Summit panel this week.

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"Living on Mars is no better than living on the South Pole or the tip of Mount Everest."

Celebrity scientist Neil Degrasse Tyson also poured cold water on the plans at the summit.

"To ship a billion people to another planet to help them survive a catastrophe on Earth seems unrealistic," he said.

"If you want to call Mars home, you need to terraform Mars, turn it into Earth."

In the past SpaceX had suggested terraforming the surface of Mars to make it more Earth-like would be part of its plan, but NASA dismissed this as impossible in 2018.

Last week even Bernie Sanders took aim at Musk, calling his gigantic personal wealth (approximately $165 billion or 120 billion) "immoral" when so much of our planet suffers in poverty.

"Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don't go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare," the socialist senator tweeted.

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Elon Musk insists SpaceX will land 'starships' on Mars 'well before 2030' - Daily Star

COOL concept plans have revealed what the first city on Mars could look like.

With Nasa currently exploring the Red Planet and Elon Musk hoping to send millions of humans there, architecture studio ABIBOO has released a video of what Mars life may be like.

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The architects have designed the city for a region on Mars called Tempe Mensa.

The ABIBOO website explains: "The city of Nwa is on the slope of one of theMartian cliffswith abundant water access, located at Tempe Mensa.

"A steep terrain offers the opportunity to create a vertical city inserted into the rock, protected from radiation and meteorites while having access to indirect sunlight."

It adds: "Sustainability, but especiallyself-sustainabledevelopment is at the core of the Nwa design.

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"For being self-sustainable, a settlement on Mars needs to be able to obtain all resources locally.

"After a short initial phase relying on capital investments and supplies from Earth, the system should be able to sustain its growth with local resources only."

The creators worked with scientists to work out what humans would need to survive on the planet.

ABIBOO founder Alfredo Muoz told Euronews.com: "We think it is doable from the technical aspects. [What takes time] is more about ensuring that there is enough will and associations in the international community."

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He thinks construction of the Martian city could begin in 2054.

It may be finished by 2100 and then that's when the first human occupants could arrive and live permanently.

Humans will need to live in protective homes on the planet because of the radiation, cold temperatures and lack of oxygen.

Some people think the planet could be terraformed so the atmosphere and environment is more Earth-like.

Terraforming would mean creating the right environment outside the domes so plants could grow just like on Earth and there would be an oxygen supply.

To do this people would need to cause great atmospheric and environmental change, potentially with nuclear explosions.

However, a number of studies have concluded that terraforming the entire planet of Mars and changing its atmosphere may not be possible even if all the ice caps were melted to release CO2.

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ROCKY HORRORBlobs of rock beneath Earth's surface may belong to ALIEN planet, study claims

DIG INLost British fortress that was one of USAs first settlements finally found

BIRD BRAINEDHuge bird that weighed as much as 10 men roamed Australia 50,000 years ago

STAR ATTRACTIONStar just exploded in the sky and YOU can see the supernova tonight

PAY DAYMusk defends space plans after Bernie Sanders accuses him of 'hoarding wealth'

In other space news, a star has just gone into supernova and there's a chance you'll be able to see the explosion in the night sky.

TheDNA of 6.7 million speciescould be stored inside the Moon in case there's a disaster that destroys life on Earth.

And, Nasa has releasedhistoric audio recordingscaptured on the surface of Mars.

Would you like to live in a Mars city? Let us know in the comments...

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Stunning video shows what Elon Musks first city on MARS will probably look like and its incre... - The Sun

THE G.O.A.T.America has caught up a bit to the rest of the world's soccer fandom, and Netflix documentary Pele is a valuable look at a man most considered the greatest footballer of all time before names like Messi, Maradona and Ronaldo became famous. The movie has incredible clips of '50s-era World Cup matches that show Pele's brilliance on the field. What makes the doc worthwhile, though, are uncomfortable conversations and thoughtful observations made by the man and his teammates reflecting back on the brutal dictatorship that took over Brazil during their playing days. Pele, now using a walker, is open and emotional about what the game meant to him, his family and his country. You don't need to be a sports fan to be moved. (DAN NAILEN)

RED RISINGA sci-fi-loving friend got me into the Red Rising trilogy, and these books are addicting if you like dystopian class warfare/underdog stories. With elements similar to Hunger Games and Ender's Game, you'll find out all about the ruthless Golds at the top of the food chain and their violent manner of maintaining power over people of all other colors and classes. In this future, everyone's bred for specific tasks, and their class is forever marked in their appearance. Yellows are doctors, violets are creatives, blues are known for their technical prowess flying around the solar system, and at the bottom you have the reds, who mine the bowels of Mars to provide fuel and terraforming power to the rest of the conquered universe. Some of them are done being crushed, so buckle in for tales of betrayal, love and lots of bloodlust. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

RITE TIMEArtists, writers and creators in Washington state have a new place to share their work, the recently launched online journal Rites of Green. A project of the Center for Washington Cultural Traditions, Rites of Green debuts with six podcasts and six short films at ritesofgreen.com. The journal's focus is to document folklore arts and regional cultural traditions, and it's open to contributions from, a press release says, "just about anyone documenting the culture of Washington state, whether modern or traditional." Indigenous artists are especially encouraged to submit. (CHEY SCOTT)

BACK TO ZAMUNDASince its 1988 release, Eddie Murphy's comedy Coming to America has become the sort of cable staple people love to quote. So it's no surprise it gets the legacy sequel treatment 30 years later, and Coming 2 America (streaming on Amazon Prime) reliably reunites Murphy with Arsenio Hall, Shari Headley, John Amos and James Earl Jones, and throws comic ringers like Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan into the mix. It's great to see all of them together, but this follow-up takes a thin story newly crowned King Akeem discovers he has an American son and mostly just regurgitates the greatest hits from the original. Rewatch that instead. (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLISTThere's noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online March 19. To wit:

LANA DEL RAY, Chemtrails Over The Country Club. The singer's seventh set arrives with a folky title track.

JUSTIN BIEBER, Justice. The Biebs' second album in two years. Yay?

LORETTA LYNN, Still Woman Enough. Thirteen new songs from this original American badass. (DAN NAILEN)

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Netflix documentary highlights soccer's G.O.A.T., the Red Rising trilogy, new music and more! - Pacific Northwest Inlander

Life has been detected on the red planet; Surviving Mars is back, and its in the caring hands of a different team. Publisher Paradox has revealed that Abstraction Games is now handling development of the space game, and therell be a new expansion this year.

Revealed during the latest Paradox Insider, Surviving Mars is making its return after a two year break, with a new studio, and some plans for 2021. Development of thestrategy gamehas shifted fromHaemimont Games to Abstraction Games, a Dutch studio thats also contributed to Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Ark: Survival Evolved, and the Hotline Miami games. Paradox reports that five million players have bought Surviving Mars, and this is a newstart for that community.

The tourism update is just the beginning. The game is in good hands with Abstraction, theyre a team of veteran developers with years of experience making AAA titles, and are passionate about Surviving Mars, Magnus Lysell, product manager for Surviving Mars at Paradox Interactive, says in the press release. Were humbled by the overwhelming support for Surviving Mars. five million players is huge and we cant wait to share whats next with all of you soon!

A new expansion is planned for this year, the first since Surviving Mars: Green Planet in 2019. No further information was given, but we did get this nice little teaser.

Two updates, one free, one paid, are due in a couple of days to mark Surviving Mars comeback. If youd like to get started on your terraforming, Surviving Mars is free on the Epic Games Store at the minute.

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Surviving Mars has a new developer, new expansion coming this year - PCGamesN

It is now time for all of todays most notable Android game and app deals. Youll find all of our Android hardware deals right here (along with some highlights below), but we are now tracking quite a notable selection of app deals via Google Play. On top of a slew of classic board games gone digital (Pandemic, Monopoly, Battleship, Clue, Ticket to Ride, and more), we are also tracking price drops on Terraforming Mars, Cessabit, and Twilight Pro Unlock, among others. Hit the jump for a closer look at everything.

Todays Android hardware deals are headlined by up to 32% off unlocked Motorola Android smartphones from $120 alongside ongoing offers on Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 256GB models and TCLs affordable 10/Pro smartphones. On top of todays Garmin smartwatch sale and this Android TV offer, we are now tracking a new all-time low on Googles latest Nest Thermostat as well. Then go check out this price drop on Amazons in-house 11-in-1 USB-C Docking Station along with everything in our smartphone accessories roundup.

***Act fast on these deals from our previous roundup as they are jumping back up in price at any time.

Pandemic is a co-op strategy game adapted from the award winning board game. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. As members of an elite disease control team, youre the only thing standing in the way of the four deadly diseases spreading across the world. You must travel the globe protecting cities, containing infections from spreading, and discovering the cure for each disease. The fate of humanity is in your hands!

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Best Android app deals of the day: Pandemic, Monopoly, Terraforming Mars, more - 9to5Toys

In The Atlantic, Shannon Stirone makes a very clear, very negative, case for not getting too starry-eyed about Mars as a destination. Stirone isnt the only one. Most people whove been looking long and hard at Mars would agree with just about all the arguments made, but not necessarily the dont bother theory. Many, including me, would disagree that its a ridiculous way to help humanity, though. Current news about Mars is a predictable collection of new information and theory. Its not exactly an indicator of anything much. What it does provide, however, is a play-by-play range of information about what Mars might be in the future. The usual story with this level of information is that not-currently-wrong misinformation and ideologically biased disinformation mix with the real info to create a very blurry picture. The case against colonization

Panoramic View From 'Rocknest' Position of Curiosity Mars Rover:A mosaic of images taken by the Mast Camera on NASA Mars rover Curiosity while the rover was working at a site called "Rocknest" in October & November 2012.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

Elon Musk's vision of a Mars Colony

SpaceX

NASA released a full year of data on ocean salinity. The ocean salinity has been tracked since December 2011 using satellite Aquarius. It showed shifts in salinity and NASA hope to find how the ocean's salinity affects climate change

NASA/GSFC/JPL-Caltech

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

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Op-Ed: Yes, Mars is a hellhole That's why it's so vital to go there - Digital Journal

In 2010, Japanese scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programs Expedition 329 sailed into the South Pacific Gyre with a giant drill and a big question.

The gyre is a marine desert more barren than all but the aridest places on Earth. Ocean currents swirl around it, but within the gyre, the water stills and life struggles because few nutrients enter. Near the center is both the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility (made famous by H.P. Lovecraft as the home of the be-tentacled Cthulhu) and the South Pacific garbage patch. At times the closest people are astronauts passing above on the International Space Station.

The sea here is so miserly that it takes one million years for a meter of marine snowcorpses, poo and dustto accumulate on the bottom. The tale of all that time can total as little as 10 centimeters. It is the least productive patch of water on the planet.

Through nearly 6,000 meters of this seawater the IODP team lowered a drill. The strawlike bit plunged into pelagic clay and calcareous nanofossil ooze at three sites on the bottom.

By the time the cores of sediment were raised to the surface, the tubes contained up to 100 million years of Earth history. What the team wanted to know was how long and in what state microbes trapped in this milieu could survive in an almost-completely raided oceanic refrigerator. They were in for a surprise.

Their results, published in Nature Communications in July, revealed that the sediments contained bacterial cells, which they expected (not many, though: just 100 to 3,000 per cubic centimeter). But when given food, most of them quickly revived, which the scientists did not expect.

The microbes got straight to work doing what bacteria do, and within 68 days of incubation had increased their numbers up to 10,000-fold. They doubled about every five days (E. coli bacteria in the lab double in around 20 minutes). Their progeny contained specially labeled isotopes of carbon and nitrogen that made the scientists sure that the microbes were eating what they had been offered.

Its worth pausing to consider the meaning of these results. In this experiment, cells awoke and multiplied that settled to the bottom when pterosaurs and plesiosaurs drifted overhead. Four geologic periods had ground by, but these microbes, protected from radiation and cosmic rays by a thick coat of ocean and sediment, quietly persisted. And now, when offered a bite, they awoke and carried on as if nothing unusual had happened.

In a sense, it hadnt. If you think it feels like 100 million years since the pandemic began, think about the conditions (and entertainment options) of these poor microbes. It was a really long 100 million years down there. The toll of all that time was not zero, though. The oldest cells multiplied about half as fast as their spryer brethren that had only been there a few million years.

Consider now that 70 percent of Earths surface is covered by marine sediment, whose microbial residents represent somewhere between a tenth and a half of all microbial biomass on Earth. Theres a whole lot of senior citizen microbes down there.

Somewhat surprisingly, the majority of the cells were, like us, forms that breathe oxygen. In fact, the sediment they were pulled from is full of oxygen. Clearly, lack of air is not the problem for the life in gyre sediments. Its the lack of food.

Contributing to the problem is the density of the sediment, which approaches something like flourless chocolate cake: the pore size is an estimated 0.02 micrometers. Given that a typical bacterium is a few micrometers across, you can see the problems inherent to migrating in search of food, or even hoping some blunders into you. Once you end up in South Pacific Gyre seafloor sediment, you are trappedunless rescued by an ocean drilling program.

More surprises lay in store when the scientists checked the identities of the cells by probing their DNA; there was a lack of spore-forming bacteria. Some bacteria make resistant structures called endospores that are fortified and metabolically inactive, seemingly formed to allow bacteria to endure harsh conditions. Yet these bacteria were relatively absent. Spores were not how these superannuated bacteria had survived.

Even more surprising, discovered in one sample was a thriving population of light-harvesting bacteria called Chroococcidiopsis, cyanobacteria with a reputation for survival so formidable that they are being considered for terraforming Mars. (In addition to being able to live under translucent rocks in dry, cold, salty and radiation-drenched places, they have the unusual ability to capitalize on red light, possibly a result of their preferred dim conditions). How these photosynthetic microbes managed to reproduce in the dark after 13 million years beneath the seafloor remains a mystery.

Putting it all togetherthe tight quarters, the lack of spores and the rapid reanimationthese scientists think its likely that the majority of the bacteria in this impoverished sediment have been alive but idling these 100 million years.

A few years ago, I wrote about bacteria that may have been resurrected from coal from the Paleozoic. Now we have reports of bacteria from the Cretaceous seafloor sediment waking apparently nonplussed. Back then I speculated that under certain highly constrained but possibly abundant conditions, bacteria may be effectively immortal. Now it seems even more likely we may be sitting atop a planet thats full of living fossils that are literally thatboth fossils and alive.

The dinosaur people (and to be fair, who among us arent dinosaur people?) have their museums filled with bones and teeth and tracks. The plant people have their petrified forests and fossil fronds. But the microbe people have something even better: our dinosaurs arent dead.

This is an opinion and analysis article.

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100-Million-Year-Old Seafloor Sediment Bacteria Have Been Resuscitated - Scientific American