New Animal Discoveries!

[RJDiogenes]

Well, this is amazing. I never would have anticipated a cold-blooded Mammal. This presents some interesting ideas about Evolution and Exobiology; it certainly could have SF applications.

I've never heard the idea that Crocodiles may have had warm-blooded ancestors. I don't see how that can be, considering how ancient they are.

[Lupine]

Well it goes back to the idea of warm-blooded dinosaurs. Some have suggested that dinosaurs inherited their warm-bloodedness from the Thecodonts, which makes sense as it's very likely that pterosaurs were endothermic as well. So if birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and probably other Archosaurs were warm-blooded why aren't crocodiles?

[RJDiogenes]

Interesting. I don't think I was aware that Crocs descended from Thecodonts. But not all Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, either. However, a little quick research divulges that reptiles diverged into two lineages in the Permian, one leading to Dinos and Crocs, the other leading to all other existing reptiles. So it is an interesting question....

[Lupine]

I think starlings are getting annoyed with us...

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... -the-bird/

[RJDiogenes]

Now I know Hollywood is going to remake The Birds, just to include that scene.

[Lupine]

Not exactly animals but microbes....

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... aterfalls/

It's interesting about the water being "incredibly salty" since there evidence that the former oceans of Mars were quite salty. It kind of ups the odds for something being able to survive there.

[RJDiogenes]

Rusty and salty; yeah, that's good news for the Martians.

Also interesting is that they may use sulfur in place of oxygen. That's almost as exotic as using silicon instead of carbon. It really does give hope for finding alien life in strange places.

[mudshark]

I think it's not so much that they use sulfur compounds that's new--there are bacteria living around sea-floor thermal vents which do that--it's that there are no sulfides present as a by-product of sulfate reduction. Also, the ferric ions figure into it in some weird way they don't fully understand.

[RJDiogenes]

Weird is good. Maybe they crawled out of one of those Martian meteorites and colonized.

[mudshark]

"Take me to your microbe!"

[RJDiogenes]

"Ehhh, what's up, Doc?"

[scottydog]

Just curious: Is it known for sure yet whether there is any life on Mars? If not, how many more years will it take to get a definitive answer? I'd like to know before i die!!!

[Lupine]

^So would I.
But at the moment there are tantalizing hints, but nothing anyone's willing to take to the bank. The most recent evidence involves methane plumes that turn up during the spring on Mars's north and south hemispheres. It has been suggested that these plumes occur as melting of the permafrost causes some kind of life to come out of hibernation. There are still come questions about the results of the Viking lander's experiments with a few claiming that the tests did in fact detect life.
But more exploring with be necessary before we get an answer we can be sure of.

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, there's evidence, but nothing definitive. Also encouraging is research done on Terrestrial extremophiles in the past few years, showing that it's very possible for Martian life forms that evolved in a more benign environment to survive a large-scale environmental collapse.

[Lupine]

Leap'n lizards!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100406/sc_ ... nce_lizard

Who know what else might be lurking out there....