Beneath Deep Space

A silent battle started at this moment. The fifteen people in Nakata Village, representing the entire human race, bet with their lives and had their first confrontation with alien life...

These Martian lifeforms do not have any intelligence, but are the result of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection. But these fifteen people from Nakata Village represent the highest courage and wisdom of mankind.

"These microorganisms are suspected to be the size of viruses and may be more complex than viruses. They all live in uranium mining areas." Nakatamura wrote down the existing facts in the notebook on the left, and then wrote down his conjectures in the notebook on the right for future generations. refer to.

He knew he didn't have much time, so he studied the basics as much as possible.

"The temperature of Mars is too cold, even reaching minus 120 degrees at night. The environment is too harsh for life to survive. But in uranium mining areas, due to the slow nuclear fission of uranium and polonium ores, the temperature will be stable at minus 30 degrees. To about 10 degrees Celsius. This temperature is very suitable for the survival of these microorganisms.”

"This also explains why no life forms can be found in other places, except in uranium mining areas."

"The uranium mining area not only has temperature, but also a small amount of energy supply. If you leave this area and lose the energy supply, these microorganisms will gradually die."

"In harsh environments, they have evolved the ability to reproduce quickly. Humans are like fat sheep without the ability to resist, almost becoming a breeding ground for them. The existing human immune system has no time to respond..."

After writing this, an assistant ran over with a "dong dong dong" and took a pile of information in his hand, "Doctor, the information of more than 300 patients has been prepared."

"Okay, you can do the statistics first and then report them to me."

Nakatamura shook his head. He felt his throat was a little itchy and had a headache. He should have symptoms of an illness. He immediately recorded in his notebook: "2 hours and 11 minutes, dizziness is mild, body temperature is 37.6, and consciousness is still clear."

Immediately afterwards, he scraped a little mineral material with a knife, put it under a microscope, and observed it carefully.

"I think there are at least thousands of species of these microorganisms, and perhaps only a few of them are pathogenic. Under a light microscope, you can clearly see the process of killing an ordinary cell. My guess is correct, the attack of these microorganisms The process is similar to that of viruses.”

"However, the interferons we already have are basically ineffective against them. This means that their structure is different from all known viruses." (Interferon, a broad-spectrum antiviral agent)

"Doctor, I did some statistics and found that patients with low fever have symptoms such as difficulty breathing. However, patients with high fever are better. Why? Strange..." the assistant said with some confusion.

Is it better to have a high fever than a low fever? Why? why? Also in coma...

"Why?" Nakatamura murmured to himself.

He stood up and walked back and forth, as if he had overlooked something.

At this time, an idea struck Nakatamura's mind like lightning, and he suddenly jumped up, "Yes, temperature! It must be temperature! If these Martian lifeforms stay in a cold environment for a long time, then their ability to resist heat must be It’s very bad!”

That must be the case!

As soon as this idea came out, Nakatamura felt excited. He had a hunch that he was right. He must be right.

An ordinary cell can be completely invaded by a virus in just a few dozen minutes. Why have humans been able to endure for so long? There have been no deaths so far, it must be the temperature!

The human body's body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius is not very adaptable to these viruses. When the high fever rises to 40 degrees, the adaptability of the Martian virus becomes even weaker.

It is high temperature that protects humans!

"Quick! Conduct a temperature test!" Nakatamura shouted excitedly...

Four hours later, Nakatamura was infected and fell into a coma. But he left a valuable message. These Martian microorganisms are extremely afraid of high temperatures!

They are extremely cold-resistant and can survive in an environment of minus 60 degrees. Zero degrees Celsius is the temperature at which they are most active. However, at 20 degrees Celsius, their activity generally drops by 50%. When the ambient temperature is 40 degrees, their activity drops by more than 90%!

It is high body temperature that saves mankind!

The reason is due to biological natural selection. Natural selection of life applies not only to Earth but also to Mars.

There is a kind of blind fish on the earth. Because they have lived in caves for a long time without light, their eyes have slowly degenerated, but their hearing, smell and touch are extremely sensitive.

There are 550 species of beetles on the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, 200 of which have poorly developed wings and cannot fly. Among 29 endemic insect genera, 23 genera have all wings reduced. These beetles hide when the wind blows and come out when the weather is nice and sunny.

Insects that occasionally land on the island have their wings degraded and cannot fly, so they are not blown to the sea by the wind and are preserved. But flying insects were blown into the sea by strong winds...

Some psychrophilic microorganisms live in the Earth's Arctic and Antarctic regions, ice cellars, mountains covered with snow all year round, deep seas and frozen soil areas. Obligate psychrophilic bacteria can live in an environment below 20°C, but have difficulty surviving above 20°C.

This is natural selection, the fittest survive and the unfit are eliminated!

Martian life has been in a cold environment for a long time. Their cold resistance is greatly enhanced, but their heat resistance is almost non-existent!

Because they don't need heat resistance at all, this ability has not evolved.

This also gives humans a way to kill viruses: high temperature! According to Nakatamura's research, as long as it reaches 60 degrees Celsius, all microbial activity drops to almost zero.

Therefore, the thermal air conditioner in the entire laboratory was turned on to the maximum, almost burning it with high temperature.

Patients with fevers should not be taken care of. Those with low fevers should take some medicine to prevent them from developing high fevers, as long as they do not exceed 41 degrees. The high temperature that humans can withstand for a long time is about 41 degrees!

41 degrees, now becomes the protector of mankind!

…

"How's it going?" Yu Yifeng took care of the internal affairs of the spacecraft and hurried to the Mars base. "Has there been any results?"

"Dr. Nakatamura has fallen into a coma, and now the biologist Mr. Constantine is taking over." A scientist replied, "Dr. Nakatamura has made great discoveries. These viruses have poor resistance to high temperatures, so It can effectively alleviate the condition of patients with high fever.

Now, Dr. Constantine is observing the virus with a scanning tunneling microscope..."

Yu Yifeng nodded, clenched his fists anxiously, and paced back and forth.

His assistant Yuriko also came over, and she was not as calm as before. Because her father is Dr. Roman, he is still comatose in the ward, and she doesn't know what the situation is like... Although she is not her biological father, she is still a little anxious.

Yu Yifeng let out a long sigh. Keeping people with high fevers is only a delay, treating the symptoms but not the root cause.

Although it is said that viruses can be killed at 60 degrees Celsius, people will die at 60 degrees Celsius... A fever of 44 degrees Celsius is almost the limit for humans.

"Can you hurry up..." As soon as Yu Yifeng opened his mouth, he knew that this request was really unreasonable, but he really couldn't help it, he was in a hurry.

…

In the biochemical laboratory of the Mars base, after a high-temperature disinfection, the current scientific research manpower has been expanded to 30 people.

"The protein composition test results are out. Oh my God, their cell walls generally contain metal elements. They actually contain a lot of lead and copper elements... Could it be an organic metal shell?" a scientist exclaimed.

"Dr. Wen Lan, the outer layer of the virus is not called the cell wall, it is called the capsid..."

"Hey, don't worry so much, this is not necessarily a virus... I think it is precisely because of this metal shell that they can effectively absorb nuclear radiation. Otherwise, the DNA inside these viruses would have been penetrated by the neutron flow. Yes. If we have this kind of radiation-resistant material, tsk tsk..."

"Yes, I heard that the concentration of uranium ore is very high, and there may also be strong radiation elements such as plutonium and radon. Because of the existence of these metal shells, their radiation resistance is very strong, but their heat resistance is not Worse."

"Okay, don't say any more. We still have to find a drug that is both suitable for the human body and can kill them... Our time is still limited." A scientist said.

Everyone nodded and continued to work.

Although the laboratory is highly sterilized, the risk of infection still exists. They have to contact patients, obtain first-hand information, conduct biological experiments, and observe active specimens. If they are not careful, they may be infected. No matter what, they still have to hurry up...

During SRAS (SARS) in 2002, even if you were wearing protective clothing, you could still get infected accidentally. The Mars virus is more powerful than SARS, so don’t say that protective clothing is safe...

Thanks to Jian Niang Chu, Shu Shan Stress Ying, and Great Power-class Battleship for the rewards, thank you!