May 22, 2019 06:11 PM
Humans colonizing Mars will be a rapid evolutionary roller coaster
https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-ma...ans-deadly
EXCERPT: . . . Scott Solomon’s 2016 book, Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution, argues that evolution is still a force at play in modern humans. In an awe-inspiring TEDx talk in January 2018 — which inexplicably still has fewer than 1,000 views — Solomon outlined how humans would change — literally — after spending a generation or two living on Mars.
Far from waiting thousands of years to witness minuscule changes, Solomon instead believes that humans going to Mars could be on the verge of an evolutionary rollercoaster. He expects, among other things, that their bones will be stronger, their sight shorter, and that they’ll, at some point, have to stop having sex with Earth-humans. “Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage there is to having a certain mutation,” 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.”
Outside of Solomon’s field, discussion of this topic is relatively sparse... (MORE)
A Violent Splash of Magma That May Have Made the Moon
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/scien...ision.html
EXCERPT: . . . A study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience suggests that the moon was forged from the fires of an ocean of magma sloshing over baby Earth’s surface. If correct, this model may solve a longstanding paradox. Lunar meteorites and samples collected during the Apollo missions show that the moon and Earth have remarkably similar geochemical fingerprints. Scientists suspect that this was likely the result of a giant impactor the size of Mars, known as Theia, that slammed into a young Earth and sent into orbit a spiral of material that coalesced into the moon.
Countless computer simulations show that this is possible, but there’s a problem. Such an impact on a relatively solid Earth would have created a moon made mostly out of Theia, not Earth (at least in simulations resulting in the Earth-moon system we observe today, complete with our 24-hour days). [...] The new research, led by Natsuki Hosono of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, adds what may be the recipe’s missing ingredient.
During Earth’s earliest days, it was covered by a sheet of molten silicate rock. Dr. Hosono’s team wondered what would have happened if Theia had crashed into Earth at that time, rather than during a later, cooler, more solid phase. The team used a standard moon-forming simulation but adjusted it to better replicate density changes throughout the objects. With these tweaks, they found that the magma ocean made all the difference. Immediately after Theia’s impact, Earth’s hot, squishy layer would have violently cascaded into space in huge volumes. This material orbited and coalesced around the young Earth, forming a moon made of about 70 percent terrestrial material, far more than in older, largely solid Earth models, which came out at around 40 percent. (MORE - details)
https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-ma...ans-deadly
EXCERPT: . . . Scott Solomon’s 2016 book, Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution, argues that evolution is still a force at play in modern humans. In an awe-inspiring TEDx talk in January 2018 — which inexplicably still has fewer than 1,000 views — Solomon outlined how humans would change — literally — after spending a generation or two living on Mars.
Far from waiting thousands of years to witness minuscule changes, Solomon instead believes that humans going to Mars could be on the verge of an evolutionary rollercoaster. He expects, among other things, that their bones will be stronger, their sight shorter, and that they’ll, at some point, have to stop having sex with Earth-humans. “Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage there is to having a certain mutation,” 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.”
Outside of Solomon’s field, discussion of this topic is relatively sparse... (MORE)
A Violent Splash of Magma That May Have Made the Moon
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/scien...ision.html
EXCERPT: . . . A study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience suggests that the moon was forged from the fires of an ocean of magma sloshing over baby Earth’s surface. If correct, this model may solve a longstanding paradox. Lunar meteorites and samples collected during the Apollo missions show that the moon and Earth have remarkably similar geochemical fingerprints. Scientists suspect that this was likely the result of a giant impactor the size of Mars, known as Theia, that slammed into a young Earth and sent into orbit a spiral of material that coalesced into the moon.
Countless computer simulations show that this is possible, but there’s a problem. Such an impact on a relatively solid Earth would have created a moon made mostly out of Theia, not Earth (at least in simulations resulting in the Earth-moon system we observe today, complete with our 24-hour days). [...] The new research, led by Natsuki Hosono of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, adds what may be the recipe’s missing ingredient.
During Earth’s earliest days, it was covered by a sheet of molten silicate rock. Dr. Hosono’s team wondered what would have happened if Theia had crashed into Earth at that time, rather than during a later, cooler, more solid phase. The team used a standard moon-forming simulation but adjusted it to better replicate density changes throughout the objects. With these tweaks, they found that the magma ocean made all the difference. Immediately after Theia’s impact, Earth’s hot, squishy layer would have violently cascaded into space in huge volumes. This material orbited and coalesced around the young Earth, forming a moon made of about 70 percent terrestrial material, far more than in older, largely solid Earth models, which came out at around 40 percent. (MORE - details)