Life On Mars Indicated by High Levels of Methane

Planet Comics #33M (1944); © Fiction House. Art by Murphy Anderson

Scientists have ruled out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, raising fresh hopes that the gas might be generated by life on the red planet

Methane has a short lifetime of just a few hundred years on Mars because it is constantly being depleted by a chemical reaction in the planet's atmosphere, caused by sunlight. Scientists analysing data from telescopic observations and unmanned space missions have discovered that methane on Mars is being constantly replenished by an unknown source and they are keen to uncover how the levels of methane are being topped up.

Researchers had thought that meteorites might be responsible for Martian methane levels because when the rocks enter the planet's atmosphere they are subjected to intense heat, causing a chemical reaction that releases methane and other gases into the atmosphere.

When quantities of gas released by the laboratory experiments were combined with published calculations of meteorite in-fall rates on Mars, the scientists calculated that only 10 kilograms of meteorite methane was produced each year, far below the 100 to 300 tonnes required to replenish methane levels in the Martian atmosphere.

This leaves only two plausible theories to explain the gas's presence, according to the researchers behind today's findings. Either there are microorganisms living in the Martian soil that are producing methane gas as a by-product of their metabolic processes, or methane is being produced as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water. link

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Ref.: Investigating the contribution of methane produced by ablating micrometeorites to the atmosphere of Mars. 2009. Richard W. Court & Mark A. Sephton. Earth and Planetary Science Letters: 288: 382-385.

Life On Other Planets: Space Police by Murphy Anderson (1949)

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Planet Comics #58 (1949) © Fiction House

Murderous Plants & Vegetable Carnivory

Batman © DC Comics

ABSTRACT [edit]: Darwin's interest in carnivorous plants was in keeping with the Victorian fascination with Gothic horrors, and his experiments on them were many and varied, ranging from what appears to be idle curiosity (e.g. what will happen if I place a human hair on a Drosera leaf?) to detailed investigations of mechanisms.
Mechanisms for capture and digestion of prey vary greatly among the six (or more) lineages of flowering plants that have well-developed carnivory, and some are much more active than others.

Passive carnivory is common in some groups, and one, Roridula (Roridulaceae) from southern Africa, is so passively carnivorous that it requires the presence of an insect intermediate to derive any benefit from prey trapped on its leaves.

There is no clear way to discriminate between cases of passive and active carnivory and between non-carnivorous and carnivorous plants – all intermediates exist.

Ref.: Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory. 2009. MARK W. CHASE, et al. Botanical Journal of The Linnean Society 161: 329 – 356.

Life on Other Worlds: Uranus by Murphy Anderson (1947)

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From Planet Comics #50 (1947); Art by Murphy Anderson. © Fiction House

Life on Other Worlds: Saturn by Murphy Anderson (1947)

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From Planet Comics #49 (1947); Art by Murphy Anderson. © Fiction House

The Origin of The Bat-Woman (Detective Comics #233, 1956)

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Batman, Robin & Batwoman © DC Comics
Detective Comics #233 (July 1956)
Script: Edmond Hamilton; Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff; Inks: Stan Kaye

The Unmasking of Johnny Thunder by Alex Toth

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The late, great Alex Toth drew a lot of terrific stories in almost every genre. His Johnny Thunder stories, from Bob Kanigher scripts, are some of his best.












Johnny Thunder © DC Comics

All-American Western # 121 (Aug.-Sept. 1951)
Script: Robert Kanigher; Pencils: Alex Toth; Inks: Sy Barry

Three Canids Form A Strange Group

When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands during the voyage of the Beagle in 1835, he saw a wolf-like species, wrote about it in his diaries and correctly commented that it was being hunted in such large numbers that it would soon become extinct. Darwin was baffled by how this animal got on the islands, and it figured heavily in the formation of his ideas on evolution by natural selection.

The wolf was the only terrestrial mammal on the island, but was it brought to the Falklands, less than 300 miles from the mainland of South America, by humans or did it somehow get there by itself?

Scientists have analyzed DNA samples from five Falkland Islands wolves and calculated how long ago those five wolves shared a common ancestor.

"It was at least 70,000 years ago — well before humans came to the New World," Slater said.

"The Falkland Islands wolf clearly precedes any possible human occupation of the New World, which dates back some 12,000 to 13,000 years."

Darwin hypothesized that the Falkland Islands wolf, which became extinct in 1876, may have come to the islands on icebergs. Wayne and Slater think Darwin may be right.

"A large, wolf-size animal could perhaps live on a large iceberg with penguins and sea birds and maybe seals — enough prey to survive the voyage.

The closest relative to the Falkland Islands wolf, the biologists report, is an odd South American dog species called the maned wolf, which looks nothing like the Falklands species.

"The closet living relative of the maned wolf is the bush dog, which is even more different," Slater said. "These three are a strange group." link

Triplicate Girl © DC Comics

Ref.: Evolutionary history of the Falklands wolf. 2009. G. J. Slater. Et al., Current Biology, Volume 19: R937-R938.

"I Found The City Under The Sea" by Jack Kirby

A new study shows that animal communities on the abyssal seafloor are affected in a variety of ways by climate change, some changes occurring within a few weeks.

Available food there is takes the form of bits of organic debris drifting down from the sunlit surface waters, thousands of meters above. It is estimated that less than five percent of the organic matter produced at the surface reaches the abyssal plains. Research shows that the amount of food reaching the deep sea varies dramatically over time.

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Some relevant ocean processes that may be affected by climate change include wind-driven upwelling, the depth of mixing of the surface waters, and the delivery of nutrients to surface waters via dust storms. Climate-driven changes in these processes are likely to lead to altered year-to-year variation in the amount of organic material reaching the seafloor. link

Ref.: Climate, carbon cycling, and deep-ocean ecosystems. K. L. Smith Jr. et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (published online, November 2009).

My Greatest Adventure #15 (May-June 1957). © DC Comics
Story(?) & Art: Jack Kirby