Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues scientists

Re:Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues ... by BurningFrog on Monday September 28, 2020 @05:52PM (#24621610)

I'd be very surprised if something from a completely separate evolutionary line was (1) interested and (2) capable of attacking Earth organisms.

I'd even be surprised, though less so, if they can even survive here.

Of course we have zero empirical observations of such life, so predictions are guesswork.

That said, if something managed to survive and multiply on Earth, I can imagine it could be a a huge nuisance without attacking our bodies directly.

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Re:Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues ... by dragonsky67 on Monday September 28, 2020 @07:16PM (#24622292)

What about something that eats proten and requires water. A fungus comes to mind. If you are talking Virus, it needs to be able to highjack teresterial DNA, a fungus or similar only needs to find us tasty.

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Re:Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues ... by BurningFrog on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @04:34PM (#24632633)

Yeah, viruses need to coevolve with their prey. Which is why the computer virus in * Independence Day* was so silly.

And I think terrestrial immune systems can handle microorganisms, whether they're DNA based or not. It hunts based on shape, as I understand it.

I was thinking microorganisms, since anything big we can just kill on sight. But when you mention it, something insect size could be very hard to fight.

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Re:Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues ... by m463 on Tuesday September 29, 2020 @01:59AM (#24624548)

Our life has been here 4 billion years. What if it meets with life that has existed for similar timescales, or a billion times that?

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