quote:
Ever see how big insects and other small animals grow in very humid climates? My friend moved to mississippi for 4 years, and he was screaming on the phone about a praying mantis close to him that was the size of a cat. (I know not that big but thats the idea).
I live in Mississippi and know what you're talking about, and they can carve you up it you prod at them. But most of our bugs don't get
that big, in fact that species may not even be native since gardners occasionally order Chinese praying mantis egg cases and set them out, so that the foreign species are naturalizing.
Of course, that's beside the point you seem to be making, that if I put an anole or a bug from my yard in a terrarium and crank up up the humidity it might get really big. I think somebody would have documented this effect by now were that the case.
When you say the gaseous canopy might have thicker, just to clarify, I presume you simply mean the atmosphere, and not something more complicated like a shell of ice in orbit, since you specifically mentioned the outer planets.
As for DNA not being damaged, I suppose you wouldn't have to worry about skin cancer in that scenario, though I thought you needed UV to produce vitamin D? Maybe a biologist can clear up my misunderstanding. What this wouldn't protect you against, though, is the background radiation you'll still be getting from the Earth itself, from the natural decay of uranium, radon, some isotopes of potassium, some thorium, etc. Also I expect Carbon-14 and Nitrogen-13 will be created at the top of the canopy in the same way it is in today's atmosphere and settle to the surface, to be soaked up by living things, again contributing to a mutation rate.
As for Venus Flytraps, you can grow them without feeding them. They don't get energy from bugs, they simply soak up their nitrogen because they have trouble getting it out of their boggy habitat.
This message has been edited by gene90, 09-16-2005 04:16 PM
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