Moss

Palomar · 2005-01-27 10:20:25

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … 05]Shuttle study

*...might have implications for future endeavors on Mars.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-01-27 10:40:00

Had posted like item to the gravity thread in this grouping:

MOSS IN SPACE PROJECT, SHOWS HOW SOME PLANTS GROW WITHOUT GRAVITY

At least some work is being done.

Experiments on moss grown aboard two space shuttle Columbia missions showed that the plants didn't behave as scientists expected them to in the near-absence of gravity.
The common roof moss (Ceratodon purpureus) grew in striking, clockwise spirals, according to Fred Sack, the study's lead investigator and a professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State University.

C M Edwards · 2005-01-28 08:44:06

Moss doesn't grow in a deformed fashion in zero-gravity, unlike more complex plants.

Hmm...

Moss is photosynthetic. Perhaps it can be used for life support? Are there edible varieties of Moss?

SpaceNut · 2005-01-28 11:14:21

Not only would it be a first crop to plant for the added O2 that it might provide but it would also get the process for other more edible plants a chance to grow a little more easily.

Shaun Barrett · 2005-01-28 18:36:31

This is a fascinating study.
And it has a kind of irony, too. When I was very young (a space nut even at 6 and 7 years of age! ), I remember my mother finding articles about Mars and other planets in the newspaper and helping me to read them. Those were the days when the old paradigm of Mars hadn't yet been laid to rest; it was still thought (hoped?) that Mars' atmosphere consisted of some 85 millibars of nitrogen and that the surface probably supported hardy plant life.
Some scientists hypothesized that primitive plants similar to mosses and lichens might be responsible for the seasonal colour changes observed on Mars by telescope!

Now, of course, we're toying with the idea of finding terrestrial plants, like mosses, which might be able to flourish in zero-g or the low gravity of Mars, a planet far less hospitable than we'd fondly imagined all those years ago.
How things have changed! :bars:

I love a good mystery, so the following section of the article caught my attention:-

"The fascinating question is why would moss have a backup growth response to conditions it has never experienced on earth? Perhaps spirals are a vestigial growth pattern, a pattern that later became masked when moss evolved the ability to respond to gravity."

Maybe moss, being a primitive plant, has retained the genetic instructions of its ancestors for growth in a marine environment, a setting analogous to zero-g (?).
Just an idle thought.

Palomar · 2005-01-30 08:42:50

I love a good mystery, so the following section of the article caught my attention:-
"The fascinating question is why would moss have a backup growth response to conditions it has never experienced on earth? Perhaps spirals are a vestigial growth pattern, a pattern that later became masked when moss evolved the ability to respond to gravity."
Maybe moss, being a primitive plant, has retained the genetic instructions of its ancestors for growth in a marine environment, a setting analogous to zero-g (?).
Just an idle thought.

*Yes, that is quite a mystery. Wish I could offer a theory or two. :hm: I think your "idle thought" (such modesty!) is excellent, Shaun.

--Cindy

C M Edwards · 2005-01-30 14:54:10

Ok, did some research...

Saddly, there are only two known species of edible moss (facai moss and harbunia), and those are used only as spices. Lots of other edible plants like seaweeds and lichens are referred to as "moss", but are not true mosses. Moss has no food value.

Still, faster-growing varieties could be employed for oxygen generation.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-30 21:00:48

Even if the moss does not need much water, nitrogen and such, It however does need warmth. That make plant section that would grow in mars climate problematic. One thought was to use the lander as if it were the center pole in a very large tent. One might get away with using 3mil plastic sheets to create a chamber to gradually warm. This would also act to capture any heat loss from the ships crew cabin or habitat module with each excursion outside to explore mars.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-22 13:16:45

We had Martian 'Moss' discussion already in terraform topics, soil making topics, Crops and 'Trees'

On news feeds, I come across a lot of Farm or 3D-printing stuff, new space exploration designs and 'Moss' turns up that I decided to now bump an old thread on 'Moss' itself

We already have forum topics dedicated to certain chemicals or speculation about algae or Mars biospheer farm animals or species.

A future plant based engineered Moss creature like Marvel comicbook movie Groot, Little Shop of Horrors, or Frascape creatures might one day not be so ridiculous?

Moss repair team also works in humans
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 132442.htm
Researchers transplant RNA editing machine of a moss into human cells

‘Like finishing a marathon, only to be told it’s an ultra-marathon’
https://www.smh.com.au/national/like-fi … 5b1qo.html

If you’d been in Antarctica for 537 days, living with colleagues through 23 hours of darkness a day at minus 30 degrees in winter, what would you miss the most?

Fresh milk, for one thing, says David Knoff, sipping a magic (a double ristretto with steamed milk) on a balmy 16-degree day in Melbourne.

Science has been part of Antarctic exploration from the start. In 1912, for example, when the bodies of Robert Falcon Scott and two of his team were found in a tent – perished on their return from the South Pole – with them were several kilos of rock fossils they’d collected. The fossils turned out to be the long-extinct Glossopteris indica plant, found in other southern continents, suggesting Antarctica had been part of the ancient super-continent Gondwana. “Near some of the Australian stations there are preserves of ancient megafauna fossils,” says Knoff. “I’ve never seen them up close, I’d love to see what a fossilised giant penguin might look like.”
But it’s Antarctic moss that blows Knoff away. Australian scientists have found it in rocky areas once too cold to support plant life, more evidence of the continent’s warming. “It’s the simplicity of moss and its ability to adapt to the climate in Antarctica that, for me, was a smoking gun in the climate change debate,” he writes.
Outer space is another big focus, too, not only for scientists – “ourselves, the Americans, the Chinese, the Russians, anyone’s who’s got a station down there, they’re capitalising on that clear shot up in space” – but for the expeditioners too. “Everyone down there was an amateur photographer,” says Knoff. “So we’d be getting out seeing the Southern Lights and taking photos of the Milky Way. It did mean, occasionally, if there was a really good aurora the night before there’d be a lot of sleepy eyes.”

Grass and trees might outgrow and cover areas in the Arctic more often than reindeer moss?

Main Earthly commercial significance of mosses is as the main constituent of peat, although they are also used for decorative purposes, such as in gardens, house decoration and in the florist trade.

Undiscovered Healing Factors, Physcomitrella patens has been used as a model organism to study how plants repair damage to their DNA, especially the repair mechanism known as homologous recombination. Some genes are necessary for repair of DNA damage as well as for normal growth and development.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3333855
Mosses may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts but typically small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division 'Bryophyta'.

a quote from the Crops forum discussion

SpaceNut wrote:

What We Can Learn From Moss — Mosses can grow in space, survive in ice for 1500 years, clean up oil spills, remove arsenic from water, and grow everywhere on Earth. Moss teaches us there are no limits to how versatile an organism can be.
https://www.countere.com/home/what-we-c … -from-moss
Is this something that can be adapted to our diet or is it for another purpose?

Spruce Trees Are Invading the Arctic. Here’s What That Means for Our Planet.
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-a … te-change/

Frozen Antarctic moss brought back to life after 1,500 years
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26614092

British scientists have successfully revived mosses that have been frozen under the Antarctic ice for 1,500 years.
The researchers thawed out the ancient vegetation and were surprised to see new shoots rapidly appear.
While bacteria of a similar age have been recovered before, the scientists say these are the oldest plants to be brought back to life.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-22 13:29:27)

SpaceNut · 2022-09-22 20:50:15

seems that we are on repeat....

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-26 06:25:34

‘Blood-oozing’ fungus and a cranefly in disguise: Weird woodland nature revealed
https://www.thenational.scot/news/natio … -revealed/
– Knothole yoke-moss (Zygodon forsteri): This globally rare moss only survives at three sites in Britain, living in the water-filled rot holes of old living trees such as ancient beech pollards in the New Forest, Epping and Burnham Beeches near London.
The Woodland Trust says the moss is a good example of how protecting ancient and veteran trees supports a host of other wildlife.

15 Popular Types Of Moss Plants
https://gardeningbank.com/types-of-moss/
Moss is in the division Bryophyta which is a spore-producing nonvascular plant. Moss is referred to as a nonvascular plant because it has no roots and stays low on the ground as opposed to vascular plants that stay rigid and grow upright with roots.

Moss usually spreads via spores. Before now, moss was seen as a weed and a big nuisance! But with time, it was discovered the flowerless plant adds a unique beauty to gardens, flora arrangements, and lawns.

All mosses have similar features but with different growth habits – acrocarpous and pleurocarpous.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-09 16:19:24

Metabolic profiling and gene expression analyses provide insights into cold adaptation of an Antarctic moss Pohlia nutans

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 … 06991/full

ability of Antarctic mosses adapting to the extreme habitats

Five of the best aquarium mosses
https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/ … ium-mosses

Country diary: A meat-eater among the moss
https://www.theguardian.com/environment … g-the-moss

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-18 08:33:16

Perhaps a Moss could one day be engineered to prove more nutritional to human, there are many things a human cannot consume and this is because our bodies simply cannot digest it, with many plant and other thinsg to eat their are expection, a human will die if they try survive on just eating grass for example but you have ryegrass, bluegrass, barley and bristle grass, wheatgrass is one of the wild grasses you can eat in case of a survival situation. Humans or omnivores might vomit up raw plant, some green contain lots of silica an abrasive substance that can wear down human teeth, some plant have little or no fat content that humans need and we do not have the proper digestion facility like the herbivores or grazing animals such as deer who have high acid content in their stomachs.The animals brought to Mars might eat any grass or Moss, Caribou a 'Reindeer',Shrimp, Oxen, the Worms, Snail, Fish, tadpoles, some Species of Fruit Bat flying fox eat moss and caterpillars eat moss and Norway Lemmings, the pika is a small Rabbit with small mouse like ears, mountain-dwelling mammal found in Asia and North America, the average lifespan of pikas in the wild of planet Earth is roughly seven years.

Moss genome study identifies two new species
https://www.ornl.gov/news/moss-genome-s … ew-species

What do grasshoppers eat?
https://www.dane101.com/what-do-grasshoppers-eat-uk/
They are also known to eat flowers and plant stems and when food becomes scarce they can eat moss, fungi, insects, and animal feces

‘Superhero’ moss can save communities from flooding, say scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment … s-flooding
Is Spanish Moss Flammable?
https://homeguides.sfgate.com/spanish-m … 86996.html
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is an epiphyte, a plant that grows on other plants. Spanish moss doesn’t feed off the other plants, though. It's a common sight in places like Florida and hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 to 11. The hanging moss can be used as a decoration in homes and art projects, as well as in potted plants, and Floridata notes that it can be used for privacy screens. However, its flammability makes it less than desirable as a decoration in your home or garden, especially if you live in a dry area prone to wildfires.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-10-18 09:01:50)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-26 18:37:44

Mars might have protected farm and parks of moss? Sometimes called a Moss but something else, a species of seaweed or algae.

Moss Mountain protected with Islands Trust covenant
https://www.gulfislandsdriftwood.com/mo … -covenant/

The Health Benefits Of Sea Moss, According To Experts
https://www.forbes.com/health/body/sea-moss-benefits/

SpaceNut · 2022-10-26 19:30:16

Lichens may also be present which seems likely with the low moist content of mars.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-09 11:04:20

There are types of 'Moss' which are red algae growing abundantly along the rocky parts of the Atlantic coast of Europe and North America.

Is Sea Moss Good For You?
https://www.outlookindia.com/outlook-sp … ews-258485
Sea moss is a natural source of many vitamins and minerals

Scientists find sex differences in mosses play key role in carbon storage
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientist … -play.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-14 05:29:53

Drones Detect Moss Beds and Changes to Antarctica Climate
https://www.enn.com/articles/72102-dron … ca-climate

Siberian musk deer they look like 'Deer' have fangs like a legendary vampire, although they are called Deer they are more closely related to Cows and Bison, wild Sheep or mouflon and Bovidae, they will eat almost anything lichens, moss, pine needles, leaves and bark rotting tree, young shoots.

Humans hunt them

In China, musk deer farming and extracting musk from the captive musk deer have been reasonably successful since the early 1950s.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals … 2C40D87FA0
At present three species of musk deer, namely forest (Moschus Berezovskii), alpine (M. sifanicus) and Siberian (M. moschiferus) musk deer are farmed in China and, of these, the forest musk deer is the main captive population.

Here’s how Spanish Moss got its name
https://www.ktalnews.com/news/state-new … -its-name/
Spanish moss is not Spanish, but it was almost French—and these are just a few of the secrets the moss, that’s not even really a moss, has been hiding in the swamps of Louisiana.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-27 16:04:38

Moss on Mars? Plant species being cultivated for astronaut drugs
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg … aut-drugs/

Lichens as survivors in space and on Mars
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 4812000098

12 space medicine findings from 2023 that could help astronauts reach Mars one day
https://www.space.com/2023-space-medici … astronauts

Jophiel Wiis M.Sc. Physics
https://web.archive.org/web/20230731200 … iel-cv.pdf

Mars colonisation with SpaceMoss - International competition iGEM As part of team SpaceMoss, I designed a new type of moss made to survive the hostile environment of Mars. The project was part of the international iGEM competition for where we were awarded gold,
and two nominations for special categories. I was responsible for project management, data collection, outreach, and setting up Martian growth conditions.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-28 09:32:23

I hope the species of Moss that one day than be selectively chosen a Moss helps us easily colonize Mars does not go extinct

Critically endangered moss found in Scotland in 13-year first
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23991 … ear-first/

Anthoceros genomes illuminate the origin of land plants and the unique biology of hornworts
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-020-0618-2

The evolutionary emergence of land plants
https://web.archive.org/web/20221207180 … 1028-9.pdf
There can be no doubt that early land plant evolution transformed the planet, increasing the energy budget 1 , changing atmospheric chemistry and the albedo of the continents ,complexifying biogeochemical cycles2 through fungal symbioses , weathering and modified styles of sedimentation , and carbon fixation and storage , and creating habitats for metazoan terrestrialization 8 . However, understanding of the timing and nature of phytoterrestrialization has been complicated by uncertainty concerning the fundamental relationships among embryo- phytes (land plants), specifically the relationships of three principal lineages of bryophytes to the tracheophytes (vascular plants) which dominate extant land plant diversity (Box 1:Embryophyte bodyplans). Hornworts, liverworts and mosses comprise the bryophytes, all of which exhibit haploid gameto-phyte-dominant life cycles, much like the haploid-dominant charophyte green algal relatives of land plants.

What can hornworts teach us?
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 … 08027/full
The hornworts are a small group of land plants, consisting of only 11 families and approximately 220 species. Despite their small size as a group, their phylogenetic position and unique biology are of great importance. Hornworts, together with mosses and liverworts, form the monophyletic group of bryophytes that is sister to all other land plants (Tracheophytes). It is only recently that hornworts became amenable to experimental investigation with the establishment of Anthoceros agrestis as a model system. In this perspective, we summarize the recent advances in the development of A. agrestis as an experimental system and compare it with other plant model systems.

Could We Grow Moss on Mars?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/696 … -moss-mars

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#1 2005-01-27 10:20:25

Re: Moss

#2 2005-01-27 10:40:00

Re: Moss

#3 2005-01-28 08:44:06

Re: Moss

#4 2005-01-28 11:14:21

Re: Moss

#5 2005-01-28 18:36:31

Re: Moss

#6 2005-01-30 08:42:50

Re: Moss

#7 2005-01-30 14:54:10

Re: Moss

#8 2005-01-30 21:00:48

Re: Moss

#9 2022-09-22 13:16:45

Re: Moss

#10 2022-09-22 20:50:15

Re: Moss

#11 2022-09-26 06:25:34

Re: Moss

#12 2022-10-09 16:19:24

Re: Moss

#13 2022-10-18 08:33:16

Re: Moss

#14 2022-10-26 18:37:44

Re: Moss

#15 2022-10-26 19:30:16

Re: Moss

#16 2023-02-09 11:04:20

Re: Moss

#17 2023-03-14 05:29:53

Re: Moss

#18 2023-12-27 16:04:38

Re: Moss

#19 2023-12-28 09:32:23

Re: Moss

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