Scientist speculates on speciation of colonial humans on planet Mars.
In recent years, many prominent futurists have been discussing the need for humans to seriously consider the potential colonization of Mars for numerous reasons, from protecting our species to advancing technological and scientific discovery (eg. Elon Musk, Stephan Hawking, Buzz Aldrin, etc...)
Speciation is a new subject that has drawn more discussion as of late. The idea of speciation is, more or less, the development of a new and distinct species through the process of evolution due to separation and environmental differences. On planet Earth, it takes 100s of generations of separation over hundreds of thousands of years for a species to change. Dr. Scott Solomon, evolutionary biologist at Rice University in Houston and the author of "Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution," has conjectured that, "... while speciation on islands can take thousands of years, the accelerated mutation rate on Mars and the stark contrasts between conditions on Mars and Earth would likely speed up the process. In just a few hundred generations — perhaps as little as 6,000 years — a new type of human might emerge." Yep, potentially 6000 years and we would have a completely different species that could no longer procreate - pretty far out projection if I may say so myself.
In addition, he speculates that bigger bones will be advantageous in evolutionary terms on Mars as gravity is only 38% that of Earth and that would favor humanoids that were born with bigger bones because it would result in fewer bone fractures and increasing survival rates for those with the high bone density. He also suggests that humans may develop orange skin as they would have less exposure to the Sun's radiation on Mars and human skin would potentially be pigmented by carotenoids instead of melanin as is the case with Humans on Earth (melanin protects us from radiation from the Sun), which would turn our skin orange (like a carrot - carrots are orange because of carotenoids...).
In other words, our cousins on Mars will be big headed and orange.
OMG - Could Trump be a Martian?
Kidding... kind of...
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Donald-Trump-have-orange-skin-1#!n=24
