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posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 05 2017, @07:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the new-colony-with-curb-appeal dept.

Morning glory seeds could potentially survive a trip between planets:

Natural sunscreens help morning glory seeds survive doses of ultraviolet (UV) radiation that would burn most humans to a crisp, according to a new study. The hardy seeds of the common flowering plant would probably even survive a voyage between planets, say the researchers. This might help researchers decide which species to send on future missions to Mars, a place that is bombarded with UV light because of its thin atmosphere. It also validates the concept of panspermia, the idea that life might have hopscotched through our solar system—or others—by hitching a ride on asteroids or comets.

"These results add to the fast-growing body of evidence showing that panspermia is not only possible, but absolutely inevitable," says Chandra Wickramasinghe, director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study.

The research began a decade ago, when astronauts placed about 2000 seeds from tobacco plants and a flowering plant known as Arabidopsis thaliana on the outside of the International Space Station. For 558 days, the seeds were exposed to high levels of UV light, cosmic radiation, and extreme temperature fluctuations—conditions that are lethal to most forms of life. [...] They found that only morning glory seeds germinated [open, DOI: 10.1089/ast.2015.1457] [DX] after being exposed to light roughly 6 million times the dose typically used to sterilize drinking water, conditions that killed the much smaller tobacco and A. thaliana seeds.

Did somebody say interplanetary trip?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @10:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @10:29PM (#505197)

    Yeah but what kind of a role model for women in STEM could the protagonist possibly be with a mentor who's a rapey all-men who must be sexually harassing her constantly off stage?

    Plus, how is that spoiler going to help girls learn that STEM is filled with sexually harassing misogynists who think a woman's place is in the kitchen?