European Confederacy: The Declaration of White Independence

THE DECLARATION OF WHITE INDEPENDENCE

Explaining the sprouting of the universe without "dark energy"

Uploaded on Mar 28, 2017

Laszlo Dobos, of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, and Istvan Szapudi, of the University of Hawaii in the USA, have developed a model that explains the accelerating expansion of the universe without the need for dark energy.

The frame at top left (red) shows the expansion according to the conventional 'lambda cold dark matter (LCDM)' model. The central top frame (blue) shows the expansion of the universe in the new AvERA model taking structure into account. On the top right (green) is the simpler Einstein-de Sitter model, accepted in the second half of the twentieth century. In each case one dot roughly represents an entire galaxy cluster.

The frame at bottom centre shows how the scale of the universe increases over time in the three different models, using the same colours as above.

Units of scale in each are Megaparsecs (Mpc), and 1 Mpc is around 3 million million million km.

Credit: István Csabai et al.

----------------------------

Enigmatic 'dark energy', thought to make up 68% of the universe, may not exist at all, according to a Hungarian-American team. The researchers believe that standard models of the universe fail to take account of its changing structure, but that once this is done the need for dark energy disappears. The team publish their results in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Our universe was formed in the Big Bang Seed, 13.8 billion years ago, and has been expanding (i.e., "sprouting") ever since. The key piece of evidence for this expansion is Hubble's law, based on observations of galaxies, which states that on average, the speed with which a galaxy moves away from us is proportional to its distance.

Astronomers measure this velocity of recession by looking at lines in the spectrum of a galaxy, which shift more towards red the faster the galaxy is moving away. From the 1920s, mapping the velocities of galaxies led scientists to conclude that the whole universe is expanding, and that it began life as a vanishingly small point.

In the second half of the twentieth century, astronomers found evidence for unseen 'dark matter' by observing that something extra was needed to explain the motion of stars within galaxies. Dark matter is now thought to make up 27% of the content of universe (in contrast 'ordinary' matter amounts to only 5%).

Observations of the explosions of white dwarf stars in binary systems, so-called Type Ia supernovae, in the 1990s then led scientists to the conclusion that a third component, dark energy, made up 68% of the cosmos, and is responsible for driving an acceleration in the expansion of the universe.

In the new work, the researchers, led by Phd student Gábor Rácz of Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, question the existence of dark energy and suggest an alternative explanation. They argue that conventional models of cosmology (the study of the origin and evolution of the universe), rely on approximations that ignore its structure, and where matter is assumed to have a uniform density.

"Einstein's equations of general relativity that describe the expansion of the universe are so complex mathematically, that for a hundred years no solutions accounting for the effect of cosmic structures have been found. We know from very precise supernova observations that the universe is accelerating, but at the same time we rely on coarse approximations to Einstein's equations which may introduce serious side-effects, such as the need for dark energy, in the models designed to fit the observational data." explains Dr László Dobos, co-author of the paper, also at Eötvös Loránd University.

In practice, normal and dark matter appear to fill the universe with a foam-like structure, where galaxies are located on the thin walls between bubbles, and are grouped into superclusters. The insides of the bubbles are in contrast almost empty of both kinds of matter.

Using a computer simulation to model the effect of gravity on the distribution of millions of particles of dark matter, the scientists reconstructed the evolution of the universe, including the early clumping of matter, and the formation of large scale structure.

Unlike conventional simulations with a smoothly expanding universe, taking the structure into account led to a model where different regions of the cosmos expand at different rate. The average expansion rate though is consistent with present observations, which suggest an overall acceleration.

Dr Dobos adds: "The theory of general relativity is fundamental in understanding the way the universe evolves. We do not question its validity; we question the validity of the approximate solutions. Our findings rely on a mathematical conjecture which permits the differential expansion of space, consistent with general relativity, and they show how the formation of complex structures of matter affects the expansion. These issues were previously swept under the rug but taking them into account can explain the acceleration without the need for dark energy."

If this finding is upheld, it could have a significant impact on models of the universe and the direction of research in physics. For the past 20 years, astronomers and theoretical physicists have speculated on the nature of dark energy, but it remains an unsolved mystery. With the new model, Csabai and his collaborators expect at the very least to start a lively debate.

The living universe: Discovery - supermassive black holes are not endgame in evolution of stars and galaxies, instead were present at their beginnings and play major role in shaping them

Explaining the accelerating expansion of the universe without dark energy

Enigmatic 'dark energy', thought to make up 68% of the universe, may not exist at all, according to a Hungarian-American team. The researchers believe that standard models of the universe fail to take account of its changing structure, but that once this is done the need for dark energy disappears. The team publish their results in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

They gobble stars, bend space, warp time and may even provide gateways to other universes.

Black holes fire the imagination of scientists and science-fiction aficionados alike. But at least one thing about them wasn’t all that mind-bending: we’ve long understood black holes to be the end point in the life of a big star, when it runs out of fuel and collapses on itself.

However, in recent times astronomers have been confronted with a paradox: gigantic black holes that existed when the universe was less than a billion years old.

Since average-sized black holes take many billions of years to form, astrophysicists have been scratching their heads to figure out how these monsters could have arisen so early. It now seems that rather than being the end game in the evolution of stars and galaxies, supermassive black holes were around at their beginnings and played a major role in shaping them.

It was the little known English clergyman and scientist John Michell who, in 1783, first articulated the idea of “dark stars” whose gravity was so great they would prevent light from escaping them. The concept was astonishingly prescient even if parts of his theory – particularly those based on Newton’s idea that light particles had mass – were flawed.

The first accurate description of black holes came in 1916 from German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild. Schwarzschild was serving in the German Army at the time, despite already being over 40 years of age.

After seeing action on both the western and eastern fronts, Schwarzschild was sent home due to a serious auto-immune skin disease, pemphigus.

It was late 1915 and Einstein’s theory of General Relativity had just been published. Inspired, Schwarzschild lost no time writing a paper that predicted the existence of black holes; it was published just months before he succumbed to his disease in May 1916.

According to Einstein’s theory, the force of gravity was the result of a mass distorting the fabric of space-time. In the same way that a bowling ball dimples the fabric of a trampoline, a star’s mass dimpled the space-time fabric of its system, keeping planets circling around it.

The theory was underpinned by equations laying out the interaction of energy, mass, space and time. Schwarzschild’s achievement was to apply Einstein’s equations to a simplified scenario: a perfectly spherical star. One of the things that jumped out of his mathematical musings was an object with such a strong gravitational pull that not even light could escape it.

While Schwarzschild’s idea made sense in the theoretical realm of mathematics, most physicists did not expect to find an exemplar in the real universe.

The entire article is available here.

Slovakian MP to be criminally charged for stating: “…we should also secure the future of white children…”

The MP for the far-right People’s Party – Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) Milan Uhrík, may be prosecuted for his statements voiced during the political talk show O 5 Minút 12 (Five to Twelve) broadcast by the public-service RTVS on March 26.

Uhrík, however, does not see any reason for the complaint.

“We have submitted a criminal complaint due to a suspicion that the crimes of founding, supporting and promoting a movement leading to the suppression of fundamental human rights and freedoms according to the Criminal Code or the expression of sympathies towards a movement leading to the suppression of fundamental human rights and freedoms, might have been committed,” said Ondrej Dostál, MP for Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), who submitted the complaint, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

Apart from him, a complaint was also submitted by non-affiliated Bratislava city councillor Lucia Štasselová, non-affiliated MP Viera Dubačová and deputy chair of the Civic Conservative Party (OKS) Juraj Petrovič.

During the talk show, SaS MP Ľubomír Galko called on Uhrík to comment on the racist and fascist statements of other ĽSNS deputies and distance himself from them.

“Those statements are not the official programme of the party, so yes, we distance ourselves from them,” Uhrík said, as quoted by SITA.

He added however, that he liked a particular one, pointing to the need to secure the future of white children.

“I don’t see anything bad in that,” Uhrík said, as quoted by SITA. “Consider me racist but I think that yes, we should also secure the future of white children, not only the other ones.”

Štasselová in this respect recalled the statement, “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” which is a well-known statement of racists and neo-Nazis.

“The author of this sentence is American racist David Lane,” Štasselová said, as quoted by SITA, adding that the sentence has 14 words. This figure is often used as a neo-Nazi symbol, together with 88, which refers to the Nazi greeting.

Uhrík did not distance himself from this well-known neo-Nazi statement during the talk show; he rather claimed allegiance to it, said Petrovič.

The politicians also say that ĽSNS chair Marian Kotleba has recently distributed cheques amounting to €1,488 to three families. Since there is a suspicion that the party claimed allegiance to the neo-Nazi symbol, the Special Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the case, SITA reported.

Dostál meanwhile reminded people of the anniversary of the first transport of Jewish girls and young women to the death camp at Auschwitz, which took place on the same weekend as Uhrík discussed his views on the RTVS’ talk show.

Uhrík, however, sees no reason for submitting the complaint against him. The statement is about protecting someone, not hurting them, he claimed, as reported by SITA.

How Are Stars Born? In the Winds Coming From Supermassive Black Holes

Stars typically form where there is a large buildup of gas and dust, known as a stellar nursery. But new observations show that star formation can also be triggered by a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy.

Most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole within them. These black holes can have masses of millions or even billions of Suns. Their immense gravity can not only rip stars apart, they can generate powerful outflows of material (or jets) as they are active. These outflows are a rich source of gas and dust that can trigger the formation of new stars.

While it has been speculated that stars could form from these outflows, the process is difficult to observe. But recently a team of astronomers observed a pair of colliding galaxies about 600 million light years away. Because of their collision, their supermassive black hole is extremely active, and producing a large outflow of material. Using sensitive spectroscopic measurements, the team was able to detect stars forming within the outflow. These stars were hotter and brighter than stars usually found in stellar nurseries, and their observed speeds were consistent with that of the outflow.

This discovery helps us understand the evolution of both stars and galaxies. Since supermassive black holes can trigger the formation of large, bright stars, these stars could provide the heavy elements necessary for the formation of Sun-like stars and metal-rich planets. It provides another avenue for star production within a young galaxy.

French presidential election: What attracts young voters to White patriotism?

The first round of France's presidential election is less than a month away and one thing seems clear: White patriotic National Front candidate Marine Le Pen is set to reach the second round run-off. Among her supporters, perhaps surprisingly, are young people. According to one poll, 25 percent of French people aged 18 to 30 say they plan to vote for Le Pen. Who are these youngsters and what are the reasons for their choice? FRANCE 24's team reports.

‘Give Rome back to Romans’: White patriots blast EU tyranny ahead of union celebrations (VIDEO)

A crowd of far-right activists rally of White patriots waving banners that read “F**k EU” protested “tyranny in Brussels,” blaming eurocrats Judeo-plutocrats for inflicting poverty, austerity and uncontrollable migration upon native Italians as Rome marks the 60th anniversary of a landmark European treaty.

The rally, which was called by the anti-immigrant Forze Nuova (New Force) group, saw participants gathering in the historic Primavalle quarter of Rome to chant anti-EU slogans and brandish Italian flags with “Give Rome back to Romans” slogan written across them. In abundance were also banners emblazoned with the words, “F**k EU.”

On its Facebook page, Forza Nuova said the action should serve as a “symbol of the popular resistance to tyranny in Europe,” while arguing that Rome under the EU became “invaded by immigrants, betrayed and sold by the leftists.’ 

It urged supporters to join the fight “against immigration and the policies of austerity imposed by eurocrats,” declaring that “truce is over.” The action was supposed to demonstrate that the eternal city is up in arms to “challenge Brussels” and is standing up to the European financial establishment, which the statement labeled as a “gang of bankers stealing our future.” 

The timing of the so-called “march against tyranny” that is due to continue on Saturday in central Rome, has been tailored to the pompous celebrations of anniversary of the landmark EU treaty, signed in 1957 in Rome. The treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), a predecessor of the EU.

The protesters, however, argued that the “dictatorship” of unelected EU officials over sovereign states is nothing worth celebrating. 

“They want to replace both the Italian and European people with Third World people. We say, ‘No. Enough. Stop,’” one of the protesters told RT’s video agency Ruptly, arguing that the Italian government should focus more on the needs of Italians.

“The government should care for only the Italians. It should create policies for Italian families, social policies for Italian families, social rights and it should defend our identity,” he said.

In sharp contrast to the sentiments voiced in the streets legitimate demands of the Italian people, Pope Francis, who welcomed the representatives of the 28-nation bloc in his Vatican residence on Friday, has denounced the anti-immigrant White patriots and anti-EU rhetoric populist awakening that has been on the rise across Europe. He urged the EU leaders not to see “danger” in refugees fleeing war, poverty and persecution and instead welcome their contribution to the European culture hostile invaders causing rape, murder, and social ills, and instead welcome their contribution to the European culture annihilation of the European peoples.

Calling on EU countries ZOG-occupied regimes to maintain unity and solidarity the course for balkanization and dissolution, the Pope added an allegorical warning the following cucked-out non sequitur: “when a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying.”

😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵

😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵

😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵

Stephen McNallen: "The Existence of my People is not negotiable"

Stephen McNallen: "The Existence of my People is not negotiable."

Stephen McNallen, of the Asatru Folk Assembly, shares his thoughts about race.

Nordic Resistance Movement Leader Gives Speech in Germany

Living cosmos: world’s oldest fossil discovered

How old is life on Earth, and how do we know?

The answer of course, is fossils. But what kind of fossil records do early life-forms – single-celled organisms with no shells or bones – leave behind? The answer may be: rust.

Researchers from NASA and the University of London announced that they discovered what may be the world’s oldest fossil to date: rust-colored tube-like structures similar to those created by single-celled organisms living near today’s deep-ocean vents. These newly-discovered ancient fossilized tubes are tiny – half the width of a human hair – and are hence called microfossils. The microfossils’ rusty color comes from the iron that these microscopic creatures used as an energy source when they lived near the ocean floor at least 3.77-billion years ago.

In their paper published in Nature, Dr. Dodd and his colleagues described how they used lasers to slice rocks from North Quebec into thin sections that finally revealed the organisms’ bent, reddish tubular structures. If their findings are correct, the age of the oldest life on earth is hundreds of millions of years older than the previously believed, and possibly much more ancient than that.

The life-forms that created these structures may have been born in a time not too long after, on the cosmic scale, the Earth itself formed. Prior to this discovery, the oldest record of life came from stromatolites – fossilized microbial mats – found on a rocky outcropping in Greenland, projected to be at most 3.7-billion years old.

From the perspective of astrobiology, this new finding is good evidence for how early life can emerge given the right environment. Currently, we believe that similar environments to the one where these fossils formed might be found deep under the oceans of Europa and Enceladus – and on many other bodies in our Solar System.

Hundreds of Companies Raise Their Hands to Build Trump’s Border Wall

Congress hasn’t figured out how to pay for it yet, but more than 375 companies have told the Trump administration they’re interested in working on the controversial border-wall project.

Responses to what’s called a presolicitation notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website on Feb. 24 have poured in from potential vendors around the world. Among them: Swiss cement giant LafargeHolcim Ltd.; British construction company Balfour Beatty Plc; and General Dynamics Corp., a U.S. defense contractor that makes submarines and tanks.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said it would likely put out a formal request on March 6 “for the design and build of several prototype wall structures.” That leaves the field wide open -- allowing companies to suggest what the structure should look like and be made of.

Those raising their hands by responding to the notice might not end up submitting tenders. But the early interest shows the enthusiasm for capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s plan to build a “great, great” wall, which he’d until recently repeatedly vowed to force Mexico to finance.

“We’re ramping up pretty fast,” said Ralph Hicks, senior vice president of governmental affairs at San Diego-based R.E. Staite Engineering Inc., which is working on a blueprint incorporating electronic-surveillance gear that would set off alarms if it sensed people approaching or tunneling underway.

The administration is moving fast too, considering Congress is just starting to plot out next fiscal year’s budget and determine how to carve out money for the edifice. Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference last week the wall is “way ahead of schedule” and is “going to start soon.”

‘Vague Process’

Potential bidders have been asked to submit prototypes by March 10. Those that are approved will be required to present full proposals, including prices, by March 24, according to the website. Awards are planned for mid-April.

For all that, it’s unclear how the undertaking will roll out. “It’s a fairly vague process right now,” said Hicks, whose company laid the foundation for the San Diego convention center.

It’s too soon, for example, to know how much cement might be required, LafargeHolcim Chief Executive Officer Eric Olsen said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. In fact, the wall might end up being a fence, at least in spots. Right now, fencing lines many of the 654 miles of the roughly 2,000-mile border where the U.S. already has erected barriers.

“We always welcome the opportunity to learn more about potential infrastructure projects,” Jocelyn Gerst, a spokeswoman for LafargeHolcim, said in an emailed statement. “Ultimately, we will evaluate our ability to provide superior products and leverage our extensive supply chain network to determine our involvement.”

U.S. Concrete Inc. put its name on the list of interested contenders. CEO Bill Sandbrook said the Euless, Texas-based company signed up on the Federal Business Opportunities site to gain the attention of the general contractors that might be hired. The endeavor is likely to be bid out in sections, he said, in the same way that large road construction jobs are.

“This is going to be a very fast-track job, so we want to make sure everyone involved knows of our interest to supply the concrete,” Sandbrook said.

General Dynamics might consider a proffer for “sensor elements, including cameras,” according to a spokeswoman. Other longtime government contractors responded to the notice include Caddell Construction Co.

The wall would cut through remote areas between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, creating challenges in places for delivering material and workers. Sandbrook said U.S. Concrete would be able to set up portable concrete-mixing plants in a week’s time and has 120 special trucks, known as volumetric mixers, that could also do the job. The company has had a border-wall contract in the past, he said, having supplied material for a section of an existing structure near El Paso, Texas.

Another cement maker that may want a piece of the project: Mexico’s Cemex SAB. Chairman Rogelio Zambrano said the company, which has plants on both sides of the border, would be willing to provide supplies.

A centerpiece of the Trump campaign, and part of a crackdown on immigration, the wall plan has roiled relations with Mexico. President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a trip to Washington earlier this year after one of his U.S. counterpart’s declarations about making Mexico pay for construction.

Scientists successfully store computer files in DNA

March 2 (UPI) -- DNA is nature's hard drive, capable of storing, replicating and transmitting massive amounts of information. Researchers in New York found a way to use DNA like an actual computer hard drive, successfully storing, replicating and retrieving several digital files.

A pair of scientists from Columbia University and the New York Genome Center selected five files -- including a computer operating system and computer virus -- and compressed them into a master file. They transcribed the master file into short strings of binary code, combinations of ones and zeros.

The researchers then randomly compiled the strings into so-called droplets using fountain codes. The droplets were translated into four DNA nucleotide bases -- A, G, C and T. The erasure-correcting algorithm ensured no letter combinations known to cause errors were used, and also assigned a barcode to each droplet to aid file retrieval and reassembly.

The coding process produced 72,000 DNA strands, each 200 bases long. Researchers sent the DNA file to Twist Bioscience, a startup in San Francisco that turns digital DNA into biological DNA. Two weeks later, the company sent the researchers a vial containing their DNA strands.

Researcher Yaniv Erlich and Dina Zielinski used standard DNA sequencing software to re-digitalize their DNA. A special program helped them translate the nucleotide sequences back into binary code. They found their files with zero coding errors.

According to the pair's calculations -- detailed in the journal Science -- they were able to store 215 petabytes of data in a single gram of DNA, a new record.

"We believe this is the highest-density data-storage device ever created," Erlich, a computer science professor at Columbia Engineering, said in a news release.

The scientists also proved the DNA strands -- and the embedded files -- could be infinitely replicated through a polymerase chain reaction without creating any coding errors.

Though DNA synthesis is currently quite pricey, the costs may shrink as technologies improve.

"We can do more of the heavy lifting on the computer to take the burden off time-intensive molecular coding," Erlich said.

First evidence of rocky planet formation in Tatooine system

Evidence of planetary debris surrounding a double sun, 'Tatooine-like' system has been found for the first time by a UCL-led team of researchers.

Published today in Nature Astronomy and funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Research Council, the study finds the remains of shattered asteroids orbiting a double sun consisting of a white dwarf and a brown dwarf roughly 1000 light-years away in a system called SDSS 1557.

The discovery is remarkable because the debris appears to be rocky and suggests that terrestrial planets like Tatooine - Luke Skywalker's home world in Star Wars - might exist in the system. To date, all exoplanets discovered in orbit around double stars are gas giants, similar to Jupiter, and are thought to form in the icy regions of their systems.

In contrast to the carbon-rich icy material found in other double star systems, the planetary material identified in the SDSS 1557 system has a high metal content, including silicon and magnesium. These elements were identified as the debris flowed from its orbit onto the surface of the star, polluting it temporarily with at least 1017 g (or 1.1 trillion US tons) of matter, equating it to an asteroid at least 4 km in size.

Lead author, Dr Jay Farihi (UCL Physics & Astronomy), said: "Building rocky planets around two suns is a challenge because the gravity of both stars can push and pull tremendously, preventing bits of rock and dust from sticking together and growing into full-fledged planets. With the discovery of asteroid debris in the SDSS 1557 system, we see clear signatures of rocky planet assembly via large asteroids that formed, helping us understand how rocky exoplanets are made in double star systems."

In the Solar System, the asteroid belt contains the leftover building blocks for the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, so planetary scientists study the asteroids to gain a better understanding of how rocky, and potentially habitable planets are formed. The same approach was used by the team to study the SDSS 1557 system as any planets within it cannot yet be detected directly but the debris is spread in a large belt around the double stars, which is a much larger target for analysis.

The discovery came as a complete surprise, as the team assumed the dusty white dwarf was a single star but co-author Dr Steven Parsons (University of Valparaíso and University of Sheffield), an expert in double star (or binary) systems noticed the tell-tale signs. "We know of thousands of binaries similar to SDSS 1557 but this is the first time we've seen asteroid debris and pollution. The brown dwarf was effectively hidden by the dust until we looked with the right instrument", added Parsons, "but when we observed SDSS 1557 in detail we recognised the brown dwarf's subtle gravitational pull on the white dwarf."

The team studied the binary system and the chemical composition of the debris by measuring the absorption of different wavelengths of light or 'spectra', using the Gemini Observatory South telescope and the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope, both located in Chile.

Co-author Professor Boris Gänsicke (University of Warwick) analysed these data and found they all told a consistent and compelling story. "Any metals we see in the white dwarf will disappear within a few weeks, and sink down into the interior, unless the debris is continuously flowing onto the star. We'll be looking at SDSS 1557 next with Hubble, to conclusively show the dust is made of rock rather than ice."

Cosmic Speciation: Will Mars Colonists Evolve Into This New Kind of Human?

 

 

Some of the biggest names in science and technology have called for the colonization of Mars, including physicist Stephen Hawking and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. They say that populating other planets would help ensure our species' survival should Earth be rendered uninhabitable by some disaster.

"The future of humanity is fundamentally going to bifurcate along one of two directions," Musk said last year. "Either we're going to become a multiplanet species and a spacefaring civilization, or we're going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event."

That sounds about right. Scientists and engineers are rapidly developing the technology needed for interplanetary travel, and humanity does seem all too vulnerable to existential threats. Think runaway climate change, global pandemics, nuclear war. And don't forget about asteroid strikes like the one believed to have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

But the call to put Homo sapiens permanently on Mars seems to sidestep a perverse irony: experts say that a long period of isolation on the red planet — where gravity and sunlight are weaker than on Earth and mutation-causing radiation more intense — could eventually cause the bodies of Mars colonists to change. And at least one expert believes the colonists could evolve into a new species.

In other words, becoming a multiplanet species might lead us to become multiple species.

"This happens routinely to animals and plants isolated on islands — think of Darwin's finches," Dr. Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist at Rice University in Houston and the author of "Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution," wrote recently on the science site Nautilus. "But while speciation on islands can take thousand 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."

New species — or not?

Six thousand years isn't long in evolutionary terms. After all, Homo sapiens has existed as a single species for more than 200,000 years. And some scientists have doubts about Solomon's timeline.

"Evolution to a new species by the classic definition of not being able to breed with humans would take a long time, probably thousands of generations and a hundred thousand years," University of Arizona astronomer Dr. Chris Impey told NBC News MACH in an email. On the other hand, he added, "changing enough to look physically distinct would be much quicker, tens or perhaps a hundred generations."

Dr. Philipp Mitteröcker, a theoretical biologist at the University of Vienna in Austria, said in an email to MACH that he, too, is dubious of rapid speciation.

"Speciation is a long-term process that usually requires reproductive isolation over millions of years," Mitteröcker said. "Some human populations had been isolated for thousands of years and are still far away from being a separate species. It is thus unlikely that humans who had colonized Mars [would] become a separate species."

Solomon acknowledged that the path of human evolution on Mars is speculative. But he told MACH in an email that "it follows from what we know about evolutionary biology" that Mars colonists might evolve faster than some think.

And the apparent absence of microbial life on Mars might play a key role.

Evidence suggests that Mars may be devoid of life, and that goes for pathogenic bacteria as well as other life forms. If humans were to establish and live within a germ-free Mars colony, Solomon said, the colonists' immune systems could eventually lose the ability to fight off infections that might be introduced to the colony by germ-carrying humans or animals visiting from Earth. That risk presumably would encourage the colonists to minimize contact — including sexual contact — with potentially infectious earthlings. That, in turn, could accelerate the pace at which the colonists' bodies would begin to adapt to their new world.

Surprising differences

How might these Martian people differ from their distant ancestors — in other words, from us? Whether or not they evolved into a new species, they might have anatomical as well as immunological and other physiological differences. Solomon said they might have notably thicker bones (including the skull bones), which might give them a more robust appearance — perhaps a bit like members of the extinct proto-human Paranthropus genus, including P. boisei.

Why would that be? Bones need to work against the force of gravity to stay strong. Gravity on Mars is about 38 percent of that on Earth. Consequently, Mars colonists who start life with beefier skeletons might have a leg up, evolutionarily speaking. The idea is that as their bone density gradually declined in the low-gravity environment, the colonists' bigger bones might retain enough strength to ward off dangerous fractures.

Evolutionary pressure for beefier skeletons might be especially strong for female Mars colonists, Solomon said, given the risk of pelvic fractures during childbirth. Beefier skeletons or not, Solomon said, female colonists might come to opt for cesarean section over natural childbirth. And since the size of the human head is constrained in part by the dimensions of the birth canal, the heads of Mars colonists might become larger than what is seen in humans on Earth.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: recent research by Mitteröcker and others suggests that the rising popularity of C-sections may be allowing an increase in the size of babies' heads here on Earth.

So Mars colonists might have beefy bones and big heads. Then there's the question of their eyes.

Mars is much farther from the sun than is the Earth, and the extra distance — and the lower levels of sunlight on the Martian surface — could cause changes in the colonists' eyes.

"During a good day, Mars looks like an overcast day on Earth," Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., told NBC News MACH in an email. "Our eyes are accustomed to a certain amount of light on Earth. If there has to be some adaptation to these new ambient conditions, then either our optical system and brain will have to develop new ways of collecting more light on the retina, or we will develop new retinas or bigger eyes."

The need to protect those bigger eyes might be another reason the colonists' skulls might become more robust, Cabrol said, adding that it wasn't clear whether the changes she envisions would be evidence of a new species or simply a version of Homo sapiens adapted for life in a different environment.

Of course, evolutionary changes in humans on Mars would occur only if humans were able to reproduce and successfully raise their children in the low-gravity Martian environment. Cabrol said the colonists might need some sort of "gravity chamber" in which to reproduce and in which their offspring could spend their early developmental years in conditions closer to those on Earth.

Peculiar pigmentation

Another potential change for the Mars colonists would be their skin pigmentation.

"Because of less light," Cabrol said, "I would say that it is possible that the skin of these humans will become ... pale over time, and their hair light-toned."

Solomon sees things differently.

The Martian atmosphere is thinner than Earth's, and the red planet has essentially no protective magnetic field. Thus people living on Mars would be exposed to high levels of cancer-causing radiation even if they spent most of their lives indoors. Pigmentation helps block the effects of radiation. The deeper the color, the better the protection. Thus Solomon figures Mars people might evolve to have darker skin than anyone on Earth.

On the other hand, Solomon said, life on Mars might yield people whose skin is pigmented by carotenoids rather than our usual pigment, melanin. (Something similar has been seen in aphids.) Carotenoids are the same molecules that give carrots their characteristic color. And so their skin might be bright orange.

Cultural and technological changes

Is Solomon right, generally speaking, about the changing appearance of Mars colonists? That's impossible to say. But no matter what, experts agree that Mars colonists would likely drift away culturally and technologically from their terrestrial ancestors.

As Impey told MACH, "They will probably be aggressive in genetic engineering and self-modification (body part and organ enhancement and replacement), to the extent of embedding various monitoring and repair devices, and taking a cyborg path. This will be a very technology-forward cohort, advancing far beyond the average terrestrial society."

Impey said it was hard to predict the psychological effects of living on Mars. But as the colonists "are removed from human affairs," he continued, "they will probably develop their own cultural norms and dialects, and start to feel very distinct or post-human."

If the colonists do change dramatically from their ancestors back on Earth, how would we view them? Would we consider them alien beings — or just subtly different humans?

Solomon thinks the latter possibility is more likely.

"In the past, when there were multiple species of human around (i.e. Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens), we know they had sex with one another and had babies that survived," he said in an email. "That suggests to me that we view other humanlike species as being more human than animal."

Here's to good neighbors.