Nicolas Walter

University of Kaiserslautern

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Petra Rettberg

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)

Felipe Gómez

Centro de Astrobiología

Francès Westall

Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire

Ricardo Amils

Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa

V. Marteinsson

Matís (Iceland)

Petra Schwendner

University of Florida

Pauline Vannier

Matís (Iceland)

P. Ehrenfreund

Leiden University

Maria Bohmeier

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)

Christine Moissl‐Eichinger

Medical University of Graz

Cooperative Institutions

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)

Max Planck Society

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Université Paris Cité

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

Université d'Orléans

Ames Research Center

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Towards Human Exploration of Space - a EUropean Strategy (THESEUS)

cosp (2012)

Jean-Claude Worms R. Gerzer G. Reitz Nicolas Walter Natalie Leys

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On the Difficulties of Incentivizing Online Privacy through Transparency: A Qualitative Survey of the German Health Insurance Market

arXiv (Cornell University) (2018)

Max Maaß Nicolas Walter Dominik Herrmann Matthias Hollick

Today, online privacy is the domain of regulatory measures and privacy-enhancing technologies. Transparency in the form of external and public assessments has been proposed for improving privacy and security because it exposes otherwise hidden deficiencies. Previous work has studied privacy attitudes and behavior of consumers. However, little is known on how organizations react to measures that employ public "naming and shaming" as an incentive for improvement. We performed the first study on this aspect by conducting a qualitative survey with 152 German health insurers. We scanned their websites with PrivacyScore.org to generate a public ranking and confronted the insurers with the results. We obtained a response rate of 27%. Responses ranged from positive feedback to legal threats. Only 12% of the sites - mostly non-responders - improved during our study. Our results show that insurers struggle due to unawareness, reluctance, and incapability, and demonstrate the general difficulties of transparency-based approaches.

10.48550/arxiv.1811.12775

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Towards Human Exploration of Space:a EUropean Strategy - Roadmap

Jean-Claude Worms Nicolas Walter Olivier White Johanne Martinez-Schmitt Karina Marshall‐Goebel

Past space missions in low Earth orbit have demonstrated that human beings can survive and work in space for long durations. However, there are pending technological, medical and psychological issues that must be solved before adventuring into longer-duration space missions (e.g. protection against ionizing radiation, psychological issues, behaviour and performance, prevention of bone loss, etc.). Furthermore, technological breakthroughs, e.g. in life support systems and recycling technologies, are required to reduce the cost of future expeditions to acceptable levels. Solving these issues will require scientific and technological breakthroughs in clinical and industrial applications, many of which will have relevance to health issues on Earth as well. Despite existing ESA and NASA studies or roadmaps, Europe still lacks a roadmap for human exploration of space approved by the European scientific and industrial communities. The objective of THESEUS is to develop an integrated life sciences research roadmap enabling European human space exploration in synergy with the ESA strategy, taking advantage of the expertise available in Europe and identifying the potential of non-space applications and dual research and development.

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Earth observation

Human life

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PPOSS - PLANETARY PROTECTION OF OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM EC H2020 PROJECT

Nicolas Walter Petra Rettberg Jean-Louis Fellous Gerhard Kminek Pierre Lionnet

The PPOSS (Planetary Protection of Outer Solar System bodies) project, coordinated by the European Science Foundation was selected by the European Commission in August 2015 following the Horizon 2020 call `Space-Competitiveness of the European Space Sector-2015'. In addition to the European Science Foundation, DLR, COSPAR, Imperial College London, EUROSPACE, INAF and Space Technology Ireland Ltd. are also part of the project consortium and PPOSS also has several international partners and observers. PPOSS will run for three years (2016-2018) and has for main objectives to provide an interna- tional forum to consider and approach the specificity of Planetary Protection (biological and organic contamination) for outer Solar system bodies, including icy worlds and small bodies, in the general context of Planetary Protection regulation. While significant effort has been, and is being provided to address planetary protection in the context of the exploration of inner Solar System bodies, and in particular Mars, PPOSS would allow to tackle the scientific, technological and policy-making specificity of Planetary Protection of outer solar system bodies. Project findings will be considered in the general context of the international planetary protection landscape and presented to COSPAR PPP...

European commission

Planetary science

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PLANETARY PROTECTION OF OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

Nicolas Walter Patricia Cabezas Petra Rettberg Jean-Louis Fellous Jean-Jacques Tortora

The PPOSS project (Planetary Protection of Outer Solar System) is an initiative supported by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme. PPOSS focuses on planetary protection of outer solar bodies, in particular icy moons, and tackles scientific, technological and policy-making challenges raised by this topic. This intensive three year programme will provide an international platform and forum where science, industry and policy actors will meet to nurture and catalyse discussions, exchange of knowledge and produce policy recommendations on the matter of planetary protection. Space exploration missions are international endeavours and planetary protection is by nature an issue of global relevance. Thus, the PPOSS project will promote international cooperation bringing partners and observers from non-European countries.

European commission

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Multispectral venous images analysis for optimum illumination selection

Aamir Shahzad Nicolas Walter Aamir Saeed Malik N. M. Saad Fabrice Mériaudeau

Intravenous (IV) catheterization is the most important phase in medical practices of daily life. It is hard to localize veins in patients who have deep veins, minor age or dark skin; hence multiple attempts become indispensable for proper catheterization in such cases. Near Infrared (NIR) Imaging allow to visualize the veins underneath the skin of persons having non-visibility of veins problem. This paper reports the pre-selection of illuminants that ensure best veins/tissues contrast for patients having different skin tone. The sample subjects have been divided in four different classes based on the Luminance value of their skin tone in order to extract the best illuminant wavelengths range for each class. A multispectral approach has been used which provides the flexibility of wavelength range from visible to NIR (380 to 1040nm). The veins/tissue reflectance contrast obtained helps in determining the best wavelengths range where the contrast is maximum for each of the four classes. Using these results, we are planning to build a prototype system which can automatically select the illuminants based on different physiological characteristics of a subject.

Standard illuminant

Visibility

10.1109/icip.2013.6738491

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Dissemination and Communication Activities for Mars Analogues Research – The European MASE project

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) (2017)

Patricia Cabezas Nicolas Walter Petra Rettberg Maria Bohmeier Elke Rabbow

Introduction: The Mars Analogues for Space Ex-ploration (MASE) project is brining new insight about Mars potential habitability but also some new knowledge about Earth organisms and the functioning of extreme terrestrial ecosystems. The overall aim of the MASE project is to study a variety of Mars-like environments in order to further our understanding of Martian habitability, as well as our ability to detect organisms that might be present on Mars. This collabo-rative, 4 research project supported by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme has been running since January 2014 and a variety of dis-semination and communication activities has been per-formed since then to increase visibility of Mars ana-logues research.

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BIOMARKERS DETECTION IN MARS ANALOGUE SITES WITHIN MASE PROJECT

L. García-Descalzo Felipe Gómez Charles S. Cockell Petra Schwendner Petra Rettberg

Life is a physico-chemical process by which tell-tale signals or traces are left on the environment. These signals are indicators of life and are known as biomarkers. Besides, the traces of some kinds of microorganisms can be well preserved, provided that they are rapidly mineralized and that the sediments in which they occur are rapidly cemented [1]. The search for these traces of life is one of the main objectives of Mars exploration [1] and to improve and optimize the search and detection of them forms part of MASE project targets. In MASE project (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) we work to improve approaches and methods for biomarker detection in samples with low biomass from Mars analogue sites. A developed antibody multiarray competitive immunoassay (MACIA) for the simultaneous detection of compounds of a wide range of molecular sizes or whole spores and cells [2] [3] has revealed as suitable option to achieve this purpose.

Life on Mars

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Mars analogues for space exploration (MASE project)

LPI (2016)

V. Marteinsson Charles S. Cockell Petra Rettberg E. Monaghan Kristina Beblo‐Vranesevic

Is life out there? In order to assess the habitability of Mars, which is (or has been) the most Earth-like planet in our Solar System, the first step is to investigate microorganisms thriving in terrestrial biotops with Mars similar conditions (0.13% O₂ in the atmosphere, low nutrients, low temperatures, high salinity and oxidising compounds, acidity) and comparable multi-stresses. The MASE (Mars analogues for space exploration) consortium is a team of researchers from all over Europe, combining a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary expertise. Five major sampling sites (dedicated campaigns: cold sulfur springs in Germany, potash mine in England, cold acidic lake in Iceland; samples already available: Rio Tinto in Spain, permafrost samples from Svaldbard) were chosen with the major goal to cultivate and characterize novel anaerobic microorganisms which are specifically adapted to harsh conditions. Samples from these different Mars analogue areas on Earth were collected and anaerobic microorganisms adapted to these extreme conditions are being isolated. These new strains will be subjected to mars-relevant environmental stress factors alone and in combination in the laboratory under controlled conditions, e.g. radiation, high salt concentrations, low water activity, oxidising compounds. The aim is to understand how combined environmental stresses affect the habitability of a number of Mars analogue environments on Earth, specifically for anaerobic organisms and to find out, if these organisms are also able to survive under Martian conditions. Crucial to assessing the habitability of any environmental system is a detailed understanding of the geological, physiochemical and biological context in which the environment is set. One of the key outcomes of MASE is a comparison and synthesis of just such a collection of context data from a varied set of Mars analogue sites. The future experiments in the MASE project aim at the identification of the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms and the comparison to other new isolates from Mars analogue environments on Earth.

Habitability

Life on Mars

Extraterrestrial Life

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Preservation and detection of biomarkers in mineralized communities and its potential link to the variations in ORP

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) (2017)

L. García-Descalzo Felipe Gómez S. Cockell C.Petra Schwendner Francès Westall

1. Introduction Physic-chemical processes of living organisms leave tell-tale signals in the environment. The search for these signatures is one of the main goals for Astrobiology and improving and optimizing its detection regarding Mars conditions is part of the MASE project objectives. Besides, the traces of some kinds of microorganisms can be well preserved, provided that they are rapidly mineralized and that the sediments in which they occur are rapidly cemented [1]. A developed antibody multiarray competitive immunoassay (MACIA) for the simultaneous detection of compounds of a wide range of molecular sizes or whole spores and cells [2] [3] is a suitable option for biomarker detection in samples with low biomass from Mars analogue sites as well as with biomineralized microorganism communi- ties. Moreover, biomineralization is often the first step of fossilization and produces particular chemical, structural and morphological features that can be preserved in fossil biominerals or microfossils [4] and some parameters as oxido-reduction potencial (ORP) or pH vary over the process. 2. Methods and objectives Samples from the three MASE campaigns in Iceland (Graenavatn Lake), United Kingdom (Boulby Mine) and Germany (Sippenauer Moor, Regensburg) and other one from an Alpin glacier were used to obtain enrichments and isolates as well as to extract and detect biomarkers in them. Some of the enrichments were exposed to mineralization to study, among others, the preservation of biosignatures by the assessment of antigen-antibody binding at different times. Simultaneously, the evolution of ORP through this process was monitored by two modules system (DTIVA: automated tools for microbial life detection) where ORP variations in those communities were followed through continuous measurements of nanosensors in closed chambers. An additional objective for MASE project is to develop a specific microarray with antibodies performanced from natural samples and isolates from MASE sampling sites. 3. Summary and Conclusions The presence of traces from some microbial metabolic groups were detected in the mineralized communities at three different times over the fossilization process. It was undertaken by us- ing a 168 antibody microarray for the immunoassay. There were observed variations in the resulting immunoprofiles. There seems to be a probably correlation between these changes and those in ORP through time. We consider that the simultaneous use of both approaches arises a promising tool to broaden our knowledge and improve the search for traces of life, present or past. Acknowledgements MASE is supported by European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement n° 607297.

Life on Mars

Fossilization

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