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New Findings Indicate Gene-Edited Rice Might Survive in Martian Soil:
As outlined in the team's abstract, Rice Can Grow and Survive in Martian Regolith with Challenges That Could be Overcome Through Control of Stress-Related Genes, one of the biggest challenges to growing food on Mars is the presence of perchlorate salts, which have been detected in the planet's soil and are generally considered to be toxic for plants.
The team was able to simulate Martian soil using basaltic rich soil mined from the Mojave Desert, called the Mojave Mars Simulant, or MMS, which was developed by scientists from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The teams then grew three varieties of rice, including one wild-type and two gene-edited lines with genetic mutations that better enable them to respond to stress, such as drought, sugar starvation or salinity. These varieties were grown in the MMS, as well as a regular potted mix and a hybrid of the two. While plants were able to grow in the Martian simulant, they were not as developed as those grown in the potting soil and hybrid mix. Replacing just a quarter of the Martian simulant with potting soil resulted in improved development.
The team also experimented with the amount of perchlorate in the soil, finding that 3 grams per kilogram was the threshold beyond which nothing would grow, while mutant strains could still root in 1 gram per kilogram.
Their findings suggest that there might be a way forward for genetically modified rice to find purchase in Martian soil.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by VLM on Wednesday May 17, @04:42PM (3 children)
The standard hard sci fi answer as of late 2010s decade was perchlorate eating bacteria "bioremediation" helpfully they poop out oxygen when they eat perchlorate.
Note this is not genetic engineered bacteria, comes naturally from mine tailing in central america, although I suppose you could genetically engineer the bacteria to be more Mars-friendly.
Its a kind of serious problem IRL on earth. Much like you 'can not' store diesel without algae and similar crap growing in it, if you try to store perchlorate solutions at "sub one molar" concentration, regular ole earth dirt bacteria WILL eat your perchlorate solution. So if you want to have a standardized 10 ppm solution of sodium perchlorate perhaps to test your groundwater safety or whatever typical test lab purposes, you have to add a biocide to perchlorate standards or your 'standard' will drift over time as the bacteria eat it. Its much like the challenge of storing wine/ethanol long term, if its not distilled up to a higher concentration or pasteurized or something, there's microbes that would love to turn your precious ethanol into vinegar.
Anyway the point of the above ramble about earth bacteria/fungi eating perchlorate because they think its delicious, why bother GE plants that survive in perchlorates if plain old dirt bacteria will rapidly eat the perchlorate soon enough anyway? I don't think Martians will pay for GE seeds they don't technically need...
I would propose "maybe" the idea is parallel processing, seed the fresh Martian dirt with perchlorate-tolerant plants for their first crop, meanwhile the bacteria eat the perchlorate and poop out oxygen, and the SECOND crop is normal earth seeds because the perchlorate is all gone. Or it could ease contamination issues where a shovel full of fresh Mars dirt could theoretically kill a small (well, a raised bed's worth) field of plants.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday May 17, @04:59PM
First, that is a needlessly simple solution to a problem where a much more complex solution would have sufficed.
Second, you did not even point out the patent revenue opportunities of GE plants that Martians would send back to poor struggling Monsanto.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 17, @05:46PM (1 child)
Presumably the bacteria need oxygen to respire. So bacteria solution requires a MOXIE plant, along with a heat source (to stop them freezing).
I guess the GE rice solution requires a heat source, light source and a pump (to bring CO2 pressure up to something reasonable). I think this is easier infrastructure to bring to Mars, in terms of weight.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 17, @05:48PM
Apologies, I read your comment again and see that you assert that the bacteria makes Oxygen. My bad.