OllytheBrit wrote:'they're doing research' Like 'If only we had more research funding we could find out all the answers to life, the universe and everything. It might take a while though.' (which is what I meant by 'jobs for life' - that's their motive.)
Well, they
ought to have 'jobs for life', because they are doing precisely that, they are finding the answers that people want to know about.
OllytheBrit wrote:Tell me this: Why Mars, which is at the far end of the universe? Why not one step at a time, and begin with closer planets? I'll tell you why - it's because Mars is the one with mystique, and bound to promote more public interest. You might have another theory though??? :?:
Firstly, Mars is not at the 'far end of the universe', it's the planet
right next to this one!
It's also because the existence of boron and molybdenum on Mars form part of the building blocks of life on Earth, and that is something that is confirmed by the presence of those elements on Mars.
Like this:
Guardian UK, 'Life on earth 'began on Mars'', 29 Aug 2013 (emphasis added) wrote:
Sunrise over the Gale crater on Mars. Was this where life began? Photograph: Stocktrek Images, Inc/Alamy.
Evidence is mounting that life on Earth may have started on Mars. A leading scientist has claimed that one particular element believed to be crucial to the origin of life would only have been available on the surface of the red planet.
Professor Steven Benner, a geochemist, has argued that the "seeds" of life probably arrived on Earth in meteorites blasted off Mars by impacts or volcanic eruptions. As evidence, he points to the oxidised mineral form of the element molybdenum, thought to be a catalyst that helped organic molecules develop into the first living structures.
"It's only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidised that it is able to influence how early life formed," said Benner, of the Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the US. "This form of molybdenum couldn't have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago, the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.
"It's yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely that life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."
All living things are made from organic matter, but simply adding energy to organic molecules will not create life. Instead, left to themselves, organic molecules become something more like tar or asphalt, said Prof Benner.
He added: "Certain elements seem able to control the propensity of organic materials to turn to tar, particularly boron and molybdenum, so we believe that minerals containing both were fundamental to life first starting.
"Analysis of a Martian meteorite recently showed that there was boron on Mars; we now believe that the oxidised form of molybdenum was there too."
Another reason why life would have struggled to start on early Earth was that it was likely to have been covered by water, said Benner. Water would have prevented sufficient concentrations of boron forming and is also corrosive to RNA, a DNA cousin believed to be the first genetic molecule to have appeared.
Although there was water on early Mars, it covered much less of the planet. "The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock," said Benner, speaking at the Goldschmidt 2013 conference in Florence, Italy. "It's lucky that we ended up here nevertheless, as certainly Earth has been the better of the two planets for sustaining life. If our hypothetical Martian ancestors had remained on Mars, there might not have been a story to tell."
And:
wiki (emphasis added) wrote:The most important role of the molybdenum in living organisms is as a metal heteroatom at the active site in certain enzymes.[55] In nitrogen fixation in certain bacteria, the nitrogenase enzyme, which is involved in the terminal step of reducing molecular nitrogen, usually contains molybdenum in the active site (though replacement of Mo with iron or vanadium is also known). The structure of the catalytic center of the enzyme is similar to that in iron-sulfur proteins: it incorporates a Fe4S3 and multiple MoFe3S3 clusters.[56]
In 2008, evidence was reported that a scarcity of molybdenum in the Earth's early oceans was a limiting factor for nearly two billion years in the further evolution of eukaryotic life (which includes all plants and animals) as eukaryotes cannot fix nitrogen, and must therefore acquire most of their oxidized nitrogen suitable for making organic nitrogen compounds, or the organics themselves (like proteins) from prokaryotic bacteria.[57][58][59] The scarcity of molybdenum resulted from the relative lack of oxygen in the early ocean. Most molybdenum compounds have low solubility in water, but the molybdate ion MoO42− is soluble and forms when molybdenum-containing minerals are in contact with oxygen and water. Once oxygen made by early life appeared in seawater, it helped dissolve molybdenum into soluble molybdate from minerals on the sea bottom, making it available for the first time to nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and allowing them to provide more fixed usable nitrogen compounds for higher forms of life. In 2013, Steven Benner suggested it was possible that boron and molybdenum catalyzed the production of RNA on Mars with life being transported to Earth via a meteorite around 3 billion years ago.[60]
Although oxygen once promoted nitrogen fixation via making molybdenum available in water, it also directly poisons nitrogenase enzymes. Thus, in Earth's ancient history, after oxygen arrived in large quantities in Earth's air and water, organisms that continued to fix nitrogen in aerobic conditions were required to isolate and protect their nitrogen-fixing enzymes in heterocysts, or similar structures protecting them from too much oxygen. This structural isolation of nitrogen fixation reactions from oxygen in aerobic organisms continues to the present.
Though molybdenum forms compounds with various organic molecules, including carbohydrates and amino acids, it is transported throughout the human body as MoO42−.[61] At least 50 molybdenum-containing enzymes were known by 2002, mostly in bacteria, and their number is increasing with every year;[62][63] those enzymes include aldehyde oxidase, sulfite oxidase and xanthine oxidase.[5] In some animals, and in humans, the oxidation of xanthine to uric acid, a process of purine catabolism, is catalyzed by xanthine oxidase, a molybdenum-containing enzyme. The activity of xanthine oxidase is directly proportional to the amount of molybdenum in the body. However, an extremely high concentration of molybdenum reverses the trend and can act as an inhibitor in both purine catabolism and other processes. Molybdenum concentrations also affect protein synthesis, metabolism and growth.[61]
In animals and plants a tricyclic compound called molybdopterin (which, despite the name, contains no molybdenum) is reacted with molybdate to form a complete molybdenum-containing cofactor called molybdenum cofactor. Save for the phylogenetically-ancient molybdenum nitrogenases discussed above, which fix nitrogen in some bacteria and cyanobacteria, all molybdenum-using enzymes so far identified in nature use the molybdenum cofactor.[64] Molybdenum enzymes in plants and animals catalyze the oxidation and sometimes reduction of certain small molecules, as part of the regulation of nitrogen, sulfur and carbon cycles.[65]
So there you go. That's how research is delivering a decent return on investment. I don't mind if some of my tax money goes toward finding those things out.
OllytheBrit wrote:'signature of the "big bang' 
- looks like they've got you already - you're starting to space-babble. 
I don't know, I think that if it were possible to 'win' this thread, I've just won it. The boundaries between military-science-
fiction and reality are being blurred on a daily basis, by the relentless march of progress.
There could be Mars colonies one day, I bet.
[Soundtrack]
Look TBD2, your 'associates' on this thread have given up now, so why don't you? Then I'll be able to say 'My work here is done!' 
Dave, Potemkin, Ombrageux: the three pillars of Western civilization. - Donald
Don't you fret though TBD - defeat is not disgrace, as they say. 
- By FiveofSwords
- By KurtFF8
- By Puffer Fish
- By litwin