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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

I once got the chance to ask freeman dyson what he recommended educationally, for children, to produce more freeman dysons.

He didn’t hesitate. He said we need to teach children genetic engineering to children in such a way that they could approach it playfully. Only then would we have a chance of developing warm blooded plants which would be essential for colonizing the asteroid belt.

So, if anyone has any ideas for that…!

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Was going to ask for someone smarter than me to explain what warm blooded plants would do, but decided to google it and found this speech by dyson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yzgPMwshqE

Quick excerpt:

"The first species to emerge from a Noah’s Ark egg will be warm-blooded plants designed to collect energy from sunlight and keep themselves warm in a cold environment. “Plants could be engineered to grow greenhouses the way turtles grow shells” The greenhouse would consist of a thick skin providing thermal insulation, with small windows to admit sunlight. Outside the skin would be an array of simple lenses, focusing sunlight through the windows into the interior. Groups of greenhouses could grow together to form extended habitats for other species of plants and animals. In that way, “We will be the machines getting life to grow all over the universe.”

Plants like that already exist minus the exothermy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_window

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesembryanthemum_crystallinu...

Cycads are kinda warm-blooded plants. They heat-up their cones to attract pollinators. Oliver Sacks mentions this fact in his book, The Island of the Colorblind. See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071004143133.h...

Is there a botanist in the house? How do we crossbreed plants this radically different?

Here’s the Wikipedia on thermogenic plants. I did not know skunk cabbage can melt snow! I used to have it in my back yard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenic_plant

Here’s a paper on the genetics and cellular biology of thermogenesis in skunk cabbage:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21955303/

you don't. you make solar panels, which are more efficient than plants at converting solar energy to electrical current, and then use it to run a space heater. Don't genetically engineer what you can engineer in silicon.

Are they thermodynamically feasible, though?

Assuming perfect efficiency in capturing whatever sunlight they get, perfect conversion to chemical storage (i.e. sugars, or any other fancy molecule with energy-intensive bonds) and a perfect conversion from that to heat. Would there be enough energy to keep the plant warm? Against a temperature difference of 40ºC+?

The hot side of JWST is currently 57c, that's a lot of energy to capture.

Ok, but then (and my curiosity is sincere) why would you need a plant to "stay warm" at 57°C. Because of the night? But that could be solved with some sort of passive solution that buffers the temperature along the day, not neccessarily producing its own heat.

Would night have to happen? In lots of orbits couldn't the plant keep the window facing the sun continuously? I assume in general staying warm is a plus for making reactions (like photosynthesis) easier and faster, so better for building a big living colony.

You're absolutely right! Night is a little thing that happens to us but is far from universal, never thought of that.

So, then again, why would you need to warm yourself if you get a warm sun shower perpetually?

If it's an asteroid what is night even like? It seems like it'd be a lot less extreme than a planet.

I could imagine a plant that walks along the surface to stay in the sunlight.

Maybe lay down roots all over the asteroid to do the refining and have long tethered leaves always in the sun.

If the leaf stalks can grow at the same rate as the asteroid rotation, just keep growing and wrapping the asteroid until you're left with nicely spooled refined materials.

I don't think a hot blooded plant is practical or necessary, but there is enough energy that it could be possible.

On that vein I had the idea of engineering floating plants to live in the nice altitude of venuses atmosphere.

Oxygen plants produce would actually be a lifting gas on Venus so pretty doable. Plenty of sunlight and co2 too.

But I hit a wall with the Mack of water in the atmosphere.

I am obsessed with Venus and I have thought a lot about acidophilic prairies floating on the Venus atmosphere. They would be indistinguishable from land if you are standing on top of them, you can build your Hobbit house there. It is an amazing concept!

Wow I love that idea. So the plants would absorb the acid in the atmosphere?

I guess you’d just need to provide your own water?

Sorry about the late reply. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what is going on in HN.

A while ago I posted about it in Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ColonizeVenus/comments/ku55zg/float...

You will have to deal with the insane thermal flux too. Even where the atmosphere is Earth-like in temperature, you will have a very hot radiator below you and frozen space above. (If you were in low Venus orbit, and could "stick your head out" of the spacecraft, Venus would feel as warm on your face as the noon sun on Earth. On the night side. That's how hot the planet is.) So for anything larger than algae, even in the convective atmosphere, you're going to have a side that's burning hot and a side that's freezing.

>a side that's burning hot and a side that's freezing.

Great for power generation though!

I think we've learned a lot about soil complexity since then and how hard soil is to create.

Soil for our plants is hard to create.

That doesn't mean soil for any kind of organism is as hard. There are many of them that don't need all that complexity even on our world that doesn't strongly select for it.

His article, "Warm-Blooded Plants and Freeze Dried Fish", is a classic: https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/space.htm

Highly recommended.

I don't see why we need warm-blooded plants. I had spinach growing in my garden in 2020. Usually I pull up anything in the garden and till it but in fall 2020 I didn't. Spring 2021 and there was the spinach green as emerald. All through -20C, freezing rain, snow, just all around cold weather it was fine. edit: forgot to add frost in the ground probably down 60cm or 75cm so it's also affecting roots. Spinach is cold loving but I though it was amazing. Even more impressive than grass on a lawn which often is fescue, rye, bluegrass.

Just a gamified website that regurgitates textbook material? I could do it this weekend if you like.

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