This is an I-Hart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Longtime listeners of DKEU will know that I'm a wet blanket about, okay, well, I'm a wet blanket about just about everything, but in particular, I'm a wet blanket about the topic of settling Mars.

But hear me out.

Okay, let's imagine a world where we do actually have thousands of people living on the Martian surface, and they live, they survive, and they start to have children.

What might that be like? This future is imagined by my friend, colleague, and regular DKEU

podcast guest, Dr. Scott Solomon, in his new book, Becoming Martian, How Living in Space

will change our bodies and minds. Scott is an evolutionary biology. in his new book, Becoming Martian, How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds.

Scott is an evolutionary biologist, and his new book asks questions like whether evolutionary

changes might happen to Martians across many generations, and whether we might even see a new

species of human emerging on Mars.

So today we're going to chat with him about some of these evolutionary questions about what might

happen to humans if we settle on the red planet.

Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Alien Universe.

Music Hi, I'm Daniel.

I'm a particle physicist who has evolved to live on Earth, and on Earth I will live.

Hello, I'm Kelly Weiner-Smith.

I am a space settlement wet blanket, and I love it here on Earth.

You like snuggling up under that wet blanket and getting all cozy and damp?

Well, I throw it in the dryer first, and then I snuggle up underneath it, and it's really

wonderful there. And then I look at the moths,

which we find on this planet alone. Well, since we're extending this analogy, aren't you supposed to be throwing that wet blanket on other people's plans rather than snuggling up under it? You know, I, I don't want to, uh, dampen other people's joy, really. And, you know, I could be wrong. I just want to make sure...

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