[X] My Assistant

[nprev]

Your "deadly organism" scenario is kind of what I envisioned, Stephen. I don't think that it's beyond the pale to envision such a bug that would be highly resistant to oxygen, re the UV-produced superoxides on the Martian surface hypothesized from Viking results...

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Gil Levin has a new document on the Spherix website: Modern myths of Mars (1.3 Mb PDF).

Two more newly published papers on the Spherix website:

"Analysis of evidence of Mars life," G.V. Levin, The Carnegie Institution Geological Laboratory Seminar, May 14, 2007.

"Detecting Life and Biology-Related Parameters on Mars," G.V. Levin et al., 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2007.

Also note that Levin has a new paper ("Possible evidence for panspermia: the labelled release experiment") in press (click here for abstract) with the International Journal of Astrobiology. For those without access to IJA, Levin said a couple of weeks ago that he'd post the paper on Spherix's website once it's published.

Finally, Joop M. Houtkooper and Dirk Schulze-Makuch have a new paper ("A possible biogenic origin for hydrogen peroxide on Mars: the Viking results reinterpreted") in press with the International Journal of Astrobiology. For those without access to IJA, a preprint is available on arXiv.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: May 24 2007, 06:50 PM

[Harkeppler]

Some interesting facts about H2O2 can be found here:

http://www.h2o2.com/intro/properties.html

It should be mentioned hat mixtures of water and H2O2 are difficult to handle above 50 % H2O2. They can be stored if they are absolutely free of organics and heavy metal ions. Otherwise they start to decompose quickly, starts boiling under the energy release from 25 % H2O2, and mixtures with more than 60 % H2O2 explode. So, such mixtures are not likely to be found inside cells made up of carbohydrates or proteines. Furthermore, acidic compunds like hydrogen sulfates or free sulfuric acid make H2O2 unstable. Alkaline and Earth alkaline peroxides (salts) are also unstable in a water bearing soil, because the H2O2 is set free quickly.

In World War 2, the german V1 was catapulted from the ramp with 75 % H2O2-water-solutions and a permanganate as catalyst.

It may be said that these fluids are enclosed in cell like structures and not exposed to the hevy metal bearing soil, but it is difficult to explain how that material of the cell walls should be composed not to be oxidized and - at the same time - formed without problems by biochemical reactions. Furthermore, in Earth´s biochemistry, most proteins contains heavy metal ions at their reactive sites because carbon-oxygen-nitrogen-compound alone are not able to give the wide spectrum of catalytic reactions necessary for building op chemical structures. H2O2 would allow only a verry small part of the possibilities.

I would focuse more on: nitrates, chlorates, perchlorates which are more stable than peroxides if a oxidizer is searched. Some years ago there was an idea that irion oxides are able to oxidize and to give similar results like those of the experiments of the Viking Landers.

Possible fluids on Mars could be made up from solutions of soluble hydrogen sulfates, sulfates or chlorides which stay fluid to - 50°C in some cases. Additional sulfuric acid (only a few percent) works also as an anti-freezing additive.

Harkeppler