To search for life on Mars, future astronauts would naturally want to step outside their living habitat for a walk. But the spacesuits keeping them alive might also carry Earth microbes or ingredients of life that could contaminate ...
Space Exploration
Jun 16, 2011
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The gaps and stringy fibers in these space rocks sure look like bacteria, and a NASA researcher has caused a stir with claims that they're fossils of alien life. But as NASA found 15 years ago, looks can be deceiving.
Space Exploration
Mar 7, 2011
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Life on Earth is composed of a handful of essential elements from the periodic table. Recently, one group of researchers claimed that this ingredient list should be expanded, having found a bacteria that presumably switches ...
Space Exploration
Feb 17, 2011
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Scientists have sought to learn more about how the Earth's oceans absorb carbon dioxide and generally exchange gases with the atmosphere so they can better understand the corresponding effects on climate. To that end, many ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 2, 2010
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Stromatolites are the most ancient fossils on Earth, and these structures built by microbes can still be found forming today in various places around the globe. Although they provide a straight line of life’s history ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 5, 2010
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Before they can be sent out to explore planets or moons, rovers first need to be tested in the field. While there is no perfect analog for Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, there are various spots on Earth and elsewhere that are ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 19, 2010
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Research by a small group of microbiologists is revealing how marine microbes live in a mysterious area of the Earth: the realm just beneath the deep ocean floor. The ocean crust may be the largest biological reservoir on ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 14, 2010
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A new study finds that microbes on spacecraft might be able to survive on Mars longer than previously thought. The key to their survival? Dust.
Space Exploration
May 19, 2010
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Questions such as "How to search for weird alien life?" and "Would Earth microbes survive if delivered to the surface of Mars?" are addressed in articles that are part of the collection of reports presented in the current ...
Space Exploration
Apr 21, 2009
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