[HN Gopher] Student uses black soldier flies to grow pea plants ...
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Student uses black soldier flies to grow pea plants in simulated
Martian soil
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 155 points
Date : 2024-07-09 10:13 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| Qem wrote:
| Does simulated martian soil include all the perchlorates?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Don't think so.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/11/22/1213643383/can-we-grow-veggie...
|
| > Now, he's running an experiment growing English peas in
| simulated Martian soil at the Forensic Laboratory for
| Investigative Entomological Sciences (FLIES).
|
| > "[This] Martian soil is manufactured on Earth. It uses data
| from Martian landers, and it's kind of expensive on a per-
| kilogram unit basis," Mendoza said, which limited the types of
| plants he could grow.
|
| https://greenhouse.bios.uic.edu/news-stories/new-york-times-...
|
| > "When they came to me and said, 'Hey, we want to get Martian
| soil,' I was like, 'Where did you get Martian soil?'" he said.
| "They're like, 'Oh, no, we've got a supplier.'" It was the
| Martian Garden, a company based in Texas.
|
| https://www.themartiangarden.com/tech-specs doesn't make any
| mention of perchlorate that I can see, even in the MDS sheets.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| There are possibilities for removing and/or using the
| perchlorates as solid rocket propellant:
|
| "Students Alex Hoganson, Hetal Rathore, and Chase Wernex used
| data from NASA's 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander to determine that
| Martian soil contains a 60/40 mix of calcium perchlorate and
| magnesium perchlorate. They worked under professor Steve Son
| at Zucrow Labs to synthesize and test a solid rocket
| propellant using that 60/40 mix as an oxidizer." [1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwD0a_VdS_4
|
| [2] https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/News/2022/can-we-turn-
| mart...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yeah, it's a built-in easy source of oxygen for a base,
| too. Not all bad, but something to deal with.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| There's a general principle for in-situ resource
| utilization that you want to eat the whole pig from the
| nose to the fingernails and twisty little tail.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| As long as the extra equipment to do so isn't
| prohibitive, at least.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Also depends what it is. In many situations (la Luna)
| volatiles are precious. I'm not so sure you want to
| harvest water from the Moon's north pole and use it to
| make fuel that will be consumed as opposed to maintaining
| an inventory for use in a circular economy.
|
| I'm not sure what attitude about volatiles Martians would
| have. It might be able to support an atmosphere if the
| planet could be protected from solar radiation.
| kragen wrote:
| that was my first question too. but maybe the perchlorates can
| be easily broken down into oxygen and chlorides? plants can
| tolerate a lot of chlorides
| alkyon wrote:
| It seems they already found a catalyst that could facilate
| reduction of perchlorates to chlorides with hydrogen in room
| temperature:
|
| "This catalyst is much more active than any other chemical
| catalyst reported to date and reduces more than 99.99% of the
| perchlorate into chloride regardless of the initial
| perchlorate concentration"
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210604122505.h.
| ..
| avmich wrote:
| I don't see anywhere mentioning that it doesn't. I think it's
| obvious to make the experiment realistic one should aim for a
| close enough analogue of the Martian soil, and that would
| include perchlorates.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Commercially available martian soil simulants don't contain
| perchlorates. Trying to obtain perchlorates is problematic,
| both from the health and law enforcement point of view.
| avmich wrote:
| > Commercially available martian soil simulants don't
| contain perchlorates.
|
| How do you know?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Read the MDS sheets at
| https://www.themartiangarden.com/tech-specs
| thatcat wrote:
| you can remove perchlorates with dissimilatory perchlorate
| reducing bacteria, by rinsing the soil, by thermal
| decomposition in the soil, etc. there are many paths to
| perchlorate free soil since it is very reactive and water
| soluble
| emporas wrote:
| They try to create a biological catalyst and remove
| perchlorates from soil using Bacillus Stearothermophilus.
| Genetically engineered bacterium in order to create chemical
| pathways and break a molecule which otherwise needs huge
| infrastructure and big machines and manpower to operate.
|
| Biocatalysts like that also have the potential for
| desalination.
|
| I thought the microorganism was called Basiliscus and uploaded
| a song to YT called Space Basiliscus. Now i see it has a
| different name. /facepalm
| pfdietz wrote:
| Perchlorates are highly soluble, aren't they? So, leech them
| out.
|
| I anticipate growing things on Mars will be more like
| hydroponics than conventional agriculture. You're investing in
| a pressure vessel to contain the crops, so the cost per unit
| area is already quite high.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| This seems similar to soil amendment approaches like you can get
| from your local big box store. I wonder if it works the same way
| like Scott's Lawn Soil.
| rch wrote:
| Soldier flies are amazing protein generating/converting
| factories, amenable to closed cycle modular environments. Ducks
| love them too.
| wheybags wrote:
| That title is a real garden path sentence
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Picture a comma after the word "soldier" for a chuckle.
|
| Reminiscent of "Let's eat grandma" vs "Let's eat, grandma".
| userbinator wrote:
| With a comma there, it remains ambiguous (is "flies" a noun
| or a verb?) and even more perplexing.
| bankcust08385 wrote:
| It would mean "a black soldier and flies."
| notahacker wrote:
| Think if "flies" is a noun in that formulation you'd put a
| semi colon or full stop in there and leave it to the reader
| to ponder if there actually is any connection between the
| dubious use of the soldier by the student and the ambitious
| experimentation by the flies...
| sbelskie wrote:
| I think it's pretty unambiguously a verb in that case. That
| kind of comma is very commonly used in literary prose and
| essentially always is an "and" like conjunction that joins
| multiple actions together.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Or helping your uncle Jack off a horse.
| walthamstow wrote:
| What's correct there, commas before and after Jack?
| defrost wrote:
| Depends very much on the uncle's name and occupation, he
| may well be an equine veterinarian named Steve.
| sbelskie wrote:
| That avoids the worst ambiguity but you still might be
| helping Uncle Jack murder a horse.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| As in, assuming the grammar on "flies" is wrong and then
| misinterpreting it?
|
| Otherwise I don't really see anywhere to go down the wrong path
| except for very small things like realizing a possible noun is
| an adjective on the very next word.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There's absolutely no grammatical error on the interpretation
| where the student is out hiring mercenaries to stop the
| flies' space colonization program.
| shoggouth wrote:
| I have been trying to find a paper for two decades on how
| daffodils mutate at a higher rate in cities to adapt. Could never
| find it again... hopefully my memory is not playing tricks on me.
| cntrmmbrpsswrd wrote:
| Daffodils or dandelions?
|
| https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/di...
| HenryBemis wrote:
| If the suggestion of user cntr... didn't help, then try to have
| a 'dialogue' with Gemini or ChatGTP. I've used them before to
| re-discoverthings that I had partially forgotten (news
| articles, historical events, scientific papers, movies, songs'
| lyrics, etc.).
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Hydroponics shows that it's possible to grow most plants in
| water, no soil at all. So soil is by no means a requirement for
| plants to grow.
|
| Source: Several Kratky method veggies growing on my balcony.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| But don't you also need to bring fertilizer with you? Also from
| what I remember you can't really grow plans with wooded stalks,
| or at least not as easily as ones with all green stalks.
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| You would need some, but alot less than you might think. For
| my plants, about 3-5ml per litre of water is all thats
| needed.
| westurner wrote:
| Is there a KNF/JADAM hydro / aqua solution that would work?
|
| NPK: Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium
|
| From https://www.space.com/16903-mars-atmosphere-climate-
| weather.... :
|
| > _According to ESA, Mars ' atmosphere is composed of
| 95.32% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, 1.6% argon and 0.13%
| oxygen. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 6.35
| mbar which is over 100 times less Earth's. Humans therefore
| cannot breathe Martian air._
|
| Lichen might grow in Martian soil _and atmosphere_.
|
| "'Fixed' nitrogen found in martian soil" (2015)
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.347.6229.1403-a
| :
|
| > _Now, in a study published this week in the Proceedings
| of the National Academy of Sciences, the NASA Curiosity
| rover team reports detecting_ nitrates _on Mars._ ; nitric
| oxides
|
| /? do plants consume protein?
| https://www.google.com/search?q=do+plants+consume+protein
|
| Plants can use protein as a source of nitrogen.
|
| "Plants can use protein as a nitrogen source without
| assistance from other organisms" (2008)
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0712078105
|
| "Solein(r) transforms ancient microbes into the future of
| food" https://www.solein.com/blog/solein-transforms-
| ancient-microb... :
|
| > _In Solein 's case, the bacteria oxidise hydrogen - a
| process involving the removal of electrons from the
| hydrogen molecules. This reaction releases energy, which
| the bacteria use to fix carbon dioxide, transforming it
| into organic compounds, including proteins._
|
| "Scientists Just Accidentally Discovered a Process That
| Turns CO2 Directly Into Ethanol" (2024)
| https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-accidentally-
| di... :
|
| > [...] _Rondinone [@ORNL] and his colleagues had put
| together a catalyst using carbon, copper, and nitrogen, by
| embedding copper nanoparticles into nitrogen-laced carbon
| spikes measuring just 50-80 nanometres tall. (1 nanometre =
| one-millionth of a millimetre.)_
|
| > _When they applied an electric current of just 1.2 volts,
| the catalyst converted a solution of CO2 dissolved in water
| into ethanol, with a yield of 63 percent._
|
| Algae produce amino acids and proteins. Algae also use CO2
| and Hydrogen to produce Omega-3 PUFAs, which are precursors
| to endocannabinoids.
|
| FWIU Hydrogen Peroxide can flush aquarium tanks and Kratky
| systems. From watching YouTube, IDK about pool noodle
| polyethylene foam in the sun (solar radiation) instead of
| rockwool though
| hanniabu wrote:
| It's unsustainable unless we can produce the nutrients there
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Plants mainly need light and CO2 to grow.
|
| But I assume they all need a few more elements to construct a
| real plant.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_nutrition and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_of_fertilizer
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| This article seems misleading. Is it just me?
|
| "As a byproduct of digesting this biomatter, the black soldier
| fly larvae produce frass, which is essentially insect waste."
|
| "Even with 0% frass, he saw flowering and pod growth in plants
| potted entirely in Martian soil."
|
| "Mendoza found that exceeding anything greater than 50% frass
| would destroy the plant's ability to grow but adding 10% frass to
| the Martian soil was the optimum amount for plant growth."
|
| There's no information on growth rate delta between 0% and 10%.
|
| I expected this article to say that plants do not grow naturally
| in Martian soil, but that the frass provides sufficient nutrients
| for them to grow. Instead, I learned that plants do grow in
| natural (simulated?) Martian soil, that an amendment helps an
| undefined amount, but that too much of the amendment kills the
| plants. I didn't find that especially compelling.
| nick238 wrote:
| Article is better titled: "Peas grow and bear fruit in
| unmodified Martian soil analog."
|
| Or: "Student finds that adding crap to soil reduces plant
| growth".
|
| I always thought the whole "can things grow on Mars" had the
| major impediments: A) no atmosphere, B) too cold, C) the
| regolith is full of perchlorates. A/B sure, set up a
| pressurized habitat. And if you're skipping C, then what's even
| the point of pretending.
| inportb wrote:
| It's not surprising that seeds need little more than moisture,
| earth-like atmosphere, and gentle heat to sprout. They contain
| all the nutrients and instructions required to start new life.
|
| It's also not surprising that too much frass would inhibit
| growth. Even in earth-like soil, too much fertilizer is toxic.
|
| But it's good to know that Mars-like soil doesn't inhibit plant
| growth.
| elnatro wrote:
| But the plants would need to be in controlled atmosphere domes.
| Could any plant be genetically engineered to withstand the lack
| of atmospheric pressure?
| arittr wrote:
| Read this as "solder" and really walked away confused
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