Related papers: Physical Constraints on Motility with Applications…
The present Martian climate is characterized by a cold and dry environment with a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxides (CO2). In such conditions, the planetary climate and habitability are determined by the distribution of CO2 between…
Mars provides a critical analog to once habitable exoplanets that have since lost their surface liquid water. The current atmospheric state of Mars retains the chemical fingerprints of that transition, including isotopic signatures of…
Some microbes appear to be able to metabolize in glacial ice or permafrost. The rate depends on temperature, nutrient level, and bioelement availability, among other factors. I have developed a plausible argument that they do this while…
How systems are endowed with migration capacity is a fascinating question with implications ranging from the design of novel active systems to the control of microbial populations. Bacteria, which can be found in a variety of environments,…
This roadmap outlines research pathways to determine whether Mars could be warmed with non-biological methods. It does not presuppose that warming Mars is desirable; its purpose is to identify what would need to be true for Mars to be…
Organic material in anoxic sediment represents a globally significant carbon reservoir that acts to stabilize Earth's atmospheric composition. The dynamics by which microbes organize to consume this material remain poorly understood. Here…
Establishing a human colony on Mars is one of the most ambitious endeavors of our time. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the challenges and solutions related to Mars colonization, emphasizing sustainability, efficiency, and…
The decay of the martian atmosphere - which is dominated by carbon dioxide - is a component of the long-term environmental change on Mars from a climate that once allowed rivers to flow to the cold and dry conditions of today. The minimum…
Present-day Mars is cold and dry, but mineralogical and morphological evidence shows that liquid-water existed on the surface of ancient Mars. In order to explain this evidence and assess ancient Mars's habitability, one must understand the…
Recent detections of potentially habitable exoplanets around sunlike stars demand increased exploration of the physical conditions that can sustain life, by whatever methods available. Insight into these conditions can be gained by…
We shortly discuss the observable consequences of the two hypotheses about the origin of life on Earth and Mars: the Lithopanspermia (Mars to Earth or viceversa) and the origin from a unique progenitor, that for Earth is called LUCA (the…
We study the prospects for life on planets with subsurface oceans, and find that a wide range of planets can exist in diverse habitats with ice envelopes of moderate thickness. We quantify the energy sources available to these worlds, the…
Characterizing the Martian atmosphere is an essential objective to understand its meteorology and its climate. The lower atmosphere (< 40 km) and middle atmosphere (40-80 km) of Mars appear dynamically coupled at much higher levels than in…
A model for the formation and distribution of sedimentary rocks on Mars is proposed. The rate-limiting step is supply of liquid water from seasonal melting of snow or ice. The model is run for a O(10^2) mbar pure CO2 atmosphere, dusty snow,…
For over half a century, scientists have contemplated the potential existence of life within the clouds of Venus. Unknown chemistry leaves open the possibility that certain regions of the Venusian atmosphere are habitable. In situ…
Turbulence is ubiquitous, from oceanic currents to small-scale biological and quantum systems. Self-sustained turbulent motion in microbial suspensions presents an intriguing example of collective dynamical behavior amongst the simplest…
Microbial populations in the natural environment are likely to experience growth conditions very different from those of a typical laboratory xperiment. In particular, removal rates of biomass and substrate are unlikely to be balanced under…
It is often desirable to enhance the motility of active nano- or microscale swimmers such as, e.g., self-propelled Janus particles as agents of chemical reactions or weak sperm cells for better chances of successful fertilization. Here we…
An origin of Earth life on Mars would resolve significant inconsistencies between the inferred history of life and Earth's geologic history. Life as we know it utilizes amino acids, nucleic acids, and lipids for the metabolic,…
We study the transport of bacteria in a porous media modeled by a square channel containing one cylindrical obstacle via molecular dynamics simulations coupled to a lattice Boltzmann fluid. Our bacteria model is a rod-shaped rigid body…