Background And Objectives: Whether and how it might be possible to imagine a habitable planet through food and health.
Methods: Reflection on childhood happenstances, sociodemographic circumstances, educational opportunities, persons of influence and lifetime experiences insofar as they might have shaped a view of the past, present and future world as the sole rational home of us all. Confirmation of these notions by personal, kindred, and other contemporary records and publications.
Results: The need to live with uncertainty and an appreciation of connectedness with things animate and inanimate; and for this to be belief, identity, reason and professional imprimatur. That these things have unwittingly informed a near lifetime of interest and enthusiasm for how food and health systems are best served by socioecological approaches.
Conclusions: That we are socioecological beings with a destiny dependent on reconciling ourselves, as earthlings, as to how well we keep our place in the cosmos habitable. To that end we must dream and work.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-0672-x | DOI Listing |
Life (Basel)
January 2025
Centre sur la Vie dans l'Univers, Université de Genève, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
Studying exoplanet atmospheres is essential for assessing their potential to host liquid water and their capacity to support life (their habitability). Each atmosphere uniquely influences the likelihood of surface liquid water, defining the habitable zone (HZ)-the region around a star where liquid water can exist. However, being within the HZ does not guarantee habitability, as life requires more than just liquid water.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrobiology
January 2025
Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, USA.
Waste heat production represents an inevitable consequence of energy conversion as per the laws of thermodynamics. Based on this fact, by using simple theoretical models, we analyze constraints on the habitability of Earth-like terrestrial planets hosting putative technological species and technospheres characterized by persistent exponential growth of energy consumption and waste heat generation. In particular, we quantify the deleterious effects of rising surface temperature on biospheric processes and the eventual loss of liquid water.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Plant Pathology, Space Life Sciences Lab, University of Florida, 505 Odyssey Way, Exploration Park,, Merritt Island, FL, 32953, USA.
Mars, with its ancient history of long-lived habitable environments, continues to captivate researchers exploring the potential for extant life. This study investigates the biosignature potential of Martian methane by assessing the viability of hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis in Methanosarcina barkeri MS under simulated Martian surface conditions. We expose M.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA.
In-space biomanufacturing provides a sustainable solution to facilitate long-term, self-sufficient human habitation in extraterrestrial environments. However, its dependence on Earth-supplied feedstocks renders in-space biomanufacturing economically nonviable. Here, we develop a process termed alternative feedstock-driven in-situ biomanufacturing (AF-ISM) to alleviate dependence on Earth-based resupply of feedstocks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrobiology
January 2025
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Eccentric planets may spend a significant portion of their orbits at large distances from their host stars, where low temperatures can cause atmospheric CO to condense out onto the surface, similar to the polar ice caps on Mars. The radiative effects on the climates of these planets throughout their orbits would depend on the wavelength-dependent albedo of surface CO ice that may accumulate at or near apoastron and vary according to the spectral energy distribution of the host star. To explore these possible effects, we incorporated a CO ice-albedo parameterization into a one-dimensional energy balance climate model.
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