

Researchers: We can detect life on other worlds through its vibrations - whyenot
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/12/researchers-we-can-detect-life-on-other-worlds-through-its-vibrations

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Houshalter
This sort of reminds me of the voyager experiment that some people believe
confirmed the existence of life on Mars
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120413-nasa-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120413-nasa-
viking-program-mars-life-space-science/)

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marcosdumay
Well, how would an equipment collect single cells to place them on the
instrument? Is there any procedure that could end with single cells correctly
placed, but does not depend on detecting those cells beforehand?

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XorNot
AFM tips can be scaned at fairly high speeds over fairly large radius's. More
importantly, they can operate easily in aqueous or otherwise life-favoring
conditions.

The fact that you could use an AFM tip to both image a target sample _and_
determine if something which looks like bacteria is actually alive, is pretty
significant since you can also use an AFM for lots of other things (i.e. rock
morphology, hardness testing etc.) Its a way of making one instrument on a
spacecraft much more useful.

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marcosdumay
Didn't think about scanning the sample :)

This thing must be way slower than a conventional AFM, but wes, it's cheap,
light, and reliable to several factors that other instruments aren't. Should
be a great add-on.

