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		</div><p>A simulator in Peru mimicking the harsh conditions found on Mars has produced a hint of life &#8211; a potato plant.<br />
After experimenting in the Andean nation&#8217;s dry desert soil, scientists in the capital of Lima have grown a potato in frigid, high carbon dioxide surroundings.<br />
It is still in the early stages, but researchers at the International Potato Centre believe the initial results are a promising indicator that potatoes might one day be harvested under conditions as hostile as those on Mars.</p>
<p>The findings could benefit not only future Mars exploration, but also arid regions already feeling the impact of climate change.<br />
&#8220;It&#8217;s not only about bringing potatoes to Mars, but also finding a potato that can resist non-cultivable areas on Earth,&#8221; said Julio Valdivia, an astrobiologist at Peru&#8217;s University of Engineering and Technology who is working with Nasa on the project.<br />
The experiment began in 2016 &#8211; a year after Hollywood film The Martian showed a stranded astronaut surviving by figuring out how to grow potatoes on the Red Planet.<br />
Peruvian scientists built a simulator with sub-zero temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations, the air pressure found at 19,700ft altitude and a system of lights imitating the Martian day and night.<br />
The simulator is thousands of miles away from colleagues at Nasa&#8217;s Ames Research Centre in California providing designs and advice, but Peru was in many ways an apt location to experiment with growing potatoes on Mars.<br />
The birthplace of the domesticated potato lies high in the Andes near Lake Titicaca, where it was first grown about 7,000 years ago.<br />
More than 4,000 varieties are grown in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, where potatoes have sprouted even in cold, barren lands.<br />
The Peruvian scientists did not have to go far to find high-salinity soil similar to that found on Mars, though with some of the organic material Mars lacks. Pampas de la Joya on the country&#8217;s southern coast receives less than a millimetre of rain a year, making its terrain comparable to the Red Planet&#8217;s parched ground.<br />
International Potato Centre researchers transported 1,540lb of the soil to Lima, planted 65 varieties and waited. In the end, just four sprouted from the soil.<br />
In a second stage, scientists planted one of the most robust varieties in the even more extreme conditions of the simulator, with the soil &#8211; Mars has no organic soil &#8211; replaced by crushed rock and a nutrient solution.<br />
Live-streaming cameras caught every tiny movement as a bud sprouted and grew several leaves while sensors provided around-the-clock monitoring of simulator conditions.<br />
The winning potato is a variety called Unique.<br />
&#8220;It&#8217;s a &#8216;super potato&#8217; that resists very high carbon dioxide conditions and temperatures that get to freezing,&#8221; Mr Valdivia said.<br />
Nasa has also been doing experiments on extraterrestrial agriculture, for use on spacecraft and perhaps on Mars.<br />
Ray Wheeler, the lead for advanced life support research activities at Nasa&#8217;s Kennedy Space Centre, said plant survival in the open on Mars would be impossible given the planet&#8217;s low pressure, cold temperature and lack of oxygen, but showing plants could survive in a greenhouse-type environment with reduced pressure and high carbon dioxide levels could potentially reduce operating costs.<br />
Most research on growing plants in space has focused on optimising environments to get high outputs of oxygen and food.<br />
&#8220;But understanding the lower limits of survival is also important, especially if you consider pre-deploying some sort of plant growth systems before humans arrive,&#8221; Mr Wheeler said.<br />
In the next stage of the experiment, scientists will build three more simulators to grow potato plants under extreme conditions with the hope of gaining a broader range of results. They will also need to increase the carbon dioxide concentrations to more closely imitate the Martian atmosphere.<a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_1475.jpg"><img src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_1475.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="325" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-109918" /></a></p>
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