Chapter 1,243 Conjecture About the Oxygen Supply Layer

Research on devil bugs is progressing very slowly.

It’s not because these scientists are not good, but because every breakthrough discovery may bring countless possibilities, spreading the roots of exploration at the boundaries of science, and expanding into unknown soil.

The scientists gathered here are like babies sucking breast milk, absorbing unheard of knowledge from this specimen from 3.7 billion years ago.

And every problem that has been solved in biology, genetics, chemistry and other disciplines will eventually evolve into new research branches.

In the words of a Chinese biologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the very existence of devil bugs has refreshed human understanding of biology.

A few days ago, the world-recognized largest arthropod on earth was the Japanese spider crab with 12-foot-long legs. However, the net length of this devil bug reached a terrifying 15 meters. In addition, its terrifying ability to drill through rock formations can even penetrate metamorphic rock formations several kilometers or even dozens of kilometers underground, giving people a new understanding of the limits that living things can reach.

In particular, the bite ability of its two pairs of front teeth can theoretically even cut an entire rebar, making even the T-3 powered armor vulnerable to it. Only armored units with a tonnage of nearly a hundred, such as Mars rovers and Mars-purpose infantry combat vehicles, can survive its impact and bite.

There is also the hardened horn armor, which can protect it from being cut when swimming at high speed in the broken rock formations. Its defense is enough to be immune to direct fire from 12.7mm heavy machine gun bullets. Fortunately, the Halo Marines used Gauss rifles, and the infantry fighting vehicles were equipped with large-caliber cannons and external rockets, otherwise it would not be that easy to break through the defenses.

When Jiang Chen received the analysis report on the lethality of the devil bug, his first reaction was death claws.

In its impression, only creatures like Deathclaws could fight power armor in a duel.

To be precise, it should be the Death Claw's blade and the Mire Crab's armor. If it were just Death Claws, there really would be no chance of winning against the Devil Bug head-on. Among the creatures Jiang Chen had seen, probably only the Mother of Death Claws could surpass it in terms of individual combat effectiveness.

Later, as more and more discoveries were made from devil bugs, the research sub-topics became more and more detailed, and the fields covered became wider and wider, so that there was actually a shortage of manpower.

In order to solve this problem, more than a dozen scientists jointly requested Jiang Chen for instructions and invited several scientists who are well-known in academia but whose nationalities are not among the four major member states to participate in the research. Because the problems encountered in the study of devil bugs may use the conclusions that these people have reached in their research in their respective fields.

After some consideration,

Jiang Chen exchanged opinions with representatives from China, Russia, and Germany, and finally relaxed the nationality threshold restrictions.

Selecting some candidates from the list provided by the scientists who signed the petition, the Earth Defense Alliance issued a total of 11 invitation letters to South Asian countries, three Eastern European countries, India and other minor member states, granting them permission to participate in some project research. In addition, Finland, the Principality of Donetsk, and Japan, which are actively promoting the joining of the Earth Defense Alliance, have also each had a scientist engaged in research in the field of genetic engineering approved.

However, this also brought about another problem, that is, the news that the devil insects had arrived in Star Ring City could no longer be concealed...

"Verdale Taylor, what's the matter?" Sitting in the lounge next to the laboratory, Jiang Chen put down the newspaper in his hand, looked at Verdell Taylor who walked into the lounge, and said in a gentle tone, " If it is a new joint petition, I am afraid that I will satisfy your request. Now we receive thousands of petitions from Northwestern European University in our mailbox every day, and too many people want to squeeze in here... We are also very Difficult to handle.”

Hearing Jiang Chen's words, Verdale Taylor touched his nose in embarrassment and said sorry.

That joint petition also had his name on it.

Jiang Chen's attitude towards scientific workers has always been very friendly, and their requests have basically been met as much as possible. Later, Verdell Taylor also learned from representatives of his own country how much trouble they had caused to the Star Ring Trade and the Earth Defense Alliance, so he still felt a little guilty about Jiang Chen.

"It has nothing to do with the petition," Verdale Taylor coughed and said softly, "We have made new discoveries in the study of devil bugs."

"Oh?" Jiang Chen glanced at him with interest, "What did you find?"

"You know, from the entire atmospheric environment composed of carbon dioxide, from groundwater to rock formations, everything on Mars is acidic." Verdale Taylor paused and continued, "And according to the conclusions drawn from our previous studies , Devil bugs can survive in an acidic environment, and even their blood is in a strong acid environment, which is probably the result of natural selection during more than three billion years of evolution."

"But later, our new scientists who joined the project team came up with different insights."

"Oh?" Jiang Chen waited for his next words.

"In addition to the highly acidic blood, we also found some special organic compounds in its blood." As he spoke, Verdale Taylor wrote a series of chemical formulas on the whiteboard that Jiang Chen could not understand with his knowledge of chemistry. , "And this kind of organic matter can only exist in a strong acid environment."

"...My chemistry level is only at the undergraduate level." Jiang Chen sweated as he looked at the long list of chemical formulas on the whiteboard.

"You don't need to understand it, you just need to recognize this symbol." Verdale Taylor shook his head and pointed to the letter O in the series of chemical formulas, "These represent oxygen atoms."

"I still know this..." Suddenly, Jiang Chen discovered something strange in this chemical formula.

Almost every few letters, you can see a capital O.

This statement may be too amateurish, but it reflects the problem very intuitively.

"Even if this Martian organism can survive in an acidic environment, it will never survive without oxygen." Verdale Taylor said with certainty. "We haven't named this organic matter yet, but it is this organic matter that can only exist in a strong acidic environment that provides the devil bug with the ability to move in an oxygen-free environment!"

Jiang Chen could understand what Verdale Taylor said.

There is no oxygen on the surface of Mars. Not only the surface, but also the oxygen in the underground mines must be quite lacking. The devil bugs that crawl around the bottom like earthworms must have an organ that can hold their breath for a long time. Jiang Chen initially guessed it was some kind of high-pressure air bag, but he didn't expect the cause to appear in the blood...

Wait, if there is no oxygen on the surface and underground, where do they exchange air?

There is also the Gaia civilization. He has never noticed this problem. How does the civilization established underground solve the problem of oxygen. It can’t be said that they mastered air filtration technology in the Stone Age, right?

How do these Martian creatures survive underground?

Jiang Chen suddenly realized this problem.

The next words of Verdale Taylor revealed the answer to this question.

"The oxygen content of the Martian atmosphere is less than 1%, and it is impossible to provide the oxygen needed for such a large arthropod." Verdale Taylor said with a hint of excitement in his tone, "So we can conclude that there must be such a thing underground on Mars. In this position, there is abundant oxygen inside! We call it the 'oxygen supply layer'!"

"Oxygen supply layer?" Jiang Chen frowned.

"That's right!" Verdell Taylor nodded, the excitement on his eyebrows getting stronger and stronger, "I'm sure that there must be some kind of special anaerobic fungus growing in this special underground space. This fungus can adapt to the Martian environment, survive in an acidic environment, and consume carbon dioxide to produce oxygen. Its energy source may be geothermal heat or the excrement of devil bugs, and it plays the role of producer and decomposer at the same time. It is precisely because of this Only with the existence of this fungus can the underground biosphere of Mars be connected into a closed ring!"

"I was once invited by SpaceX to design an anaerobic bacteria that can survive in a moderately acidic environment for their Mars atmosphere modification project."

"Do you know what this bacteria means to us?" Verdale Taylor said enthusiastically.

Although Jiang Chen had vaguely guessed something, he still couldn't help but swallow.

"What does it mean?"

"It means we will be able to modify the atmosphere of Mars!"