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A comment on NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Is a Smashing Success. Parent comment

Re:NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Is a Smashing Suc... by gumby on Monday January 16, 2023 @12:15PM (#34402859)
> Searching for resources, gathering them, and controlling territory from competitors are basic biological behaviors we see in most (all?) life.

The vast majority of the mass of life on this planet does not participate in all (and probably in most cases any) of the behavior you describe. Stromatolites, various parasites and symbiotes, most bacteria, etc do little to none of that.

Importing resources from other planets or other extraterrestrial bodies can and would better be done by robots than humans.

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Re:NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Is a Smashing Suc... by htag on Monday January 16, 2023 @04:19PM (#34405635)
Organelles such as flagellum are used for moving to find more resources. A large benefit of cell membranes is to provide a safe place for resources. I'd argue the entire lifecycle of parasites is to find (scout) suitable resource rich environments and to consume them all (gather), often in a way that wrestles territory control from it's host. Here are some articles describing bacteria doing the exact behaviors (search for resource, gather them, and territory control).

* A good summary of group compeitive behavior of bacteria, including several territory control strategies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879262/

* "Distinct foraging strategies generated by single-action behavioural flexibility" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.434602v2....

* Marine bacteria changing behavior around resource rich locations to improve resource gathering. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113346.h...

* Description of bacteria predators, and complex hunting behavior (scout and gather) https://www.llnl.gov/news/predatory-bacteria-bite-their-own

* Description of properties of bacteria colonies and territory expansion https://nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/bacteria-colonies-of-b...

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