November 18, 2011

Microbiologists call this quorum sensing. The organisms are effectively taking a headcount, waiting until there are enough of them for a coordinated action to be worth attempting.

We treat a nutrient value as an asset. It is only an asset if something is moving it. Sitting nitrate isn’t fertility — it’s a leaching event waiting on the next irrigation.

We are spending billions of dollars and no small amount of imagination trying to reach a planet whose air would kill us in minutes. Mars isn’t just a world without plants. It’s a preview of the atmosphere Earth would have if photosynthesis ever stopped.