Robot-based system developed at Carnegie Mellon detects life in Chile's Atacama desert

A unique rover-based life detection system developed by Carnegie Mellon University scientists has found signs of life in Chile's Atacama Desert, according to results being presented at the 36th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 14-18 in Houston. This marks the first time a rover-based au...

Earth's highest known microbial systems fueled by volcanic gases

...communities atop Socompa -- which straddles Argentina and Chile high in the atacama Desert -- are in a more extreme environment and not as well understood as m... "These sites are unique little oases in the vast, barren landscape of the atacama Desert and are supported by gases from deep within the Earth," said Schmidt...

January GEOLOGY media highlights

... flows, the controversy over riverbank erosion rates, surface cracks in the atacama Desert, CO 2 sequestration, ultradeep Australian diamonds, Earth's magneti...d patterns of seismicity. Here Loveless et al. demonstrate that in the arid atacama Desert, Chile, meter-scale surface cracks that open in response to large ea...

Research center to free chemistry from Earth's bonds

...stellar molecules in the past three years, a record unmatched by any other telescope. The NRAO also is the North American partner in the international atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) project. ALMA is expected to provide an unprecedented ability to study interstellar chemistry when it goes...

Life detection instrument passes key test on road to Mars

... The dry, dusty, treeless expanse of Chile's atacama Desert is the most lifeless spot on the face of the Earth, and that's why A... life detection instrument flown on the Viking Landers in the 1970s. The atacama Desert was selected by NASA scientists as one of the key spots to test inst...

Scientists collaborate to assess health of global environment

...ding," he said, noting that different ecosystems face different issues--overfishing in the Caribbean, for example, versus groundwater usage in Chile's atacama Desert or wood fuel harvesting in Zambia. Overall, the diminishing capacity of services to meet human demands reflects a global problem, Mooney sai...

Atacama in Biological Technology

Nanotechnology makes supertelescopes much more sensitive

...topic at Delft University of Technology on Monday 2 February. In Chile's atacama desert, technicians and astronomers from around the world are currently working on the atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). This consists of 66 advanced telescopes whic...

Atacama in Biological Dictionary

Supergene

...age analysis identifies a conserved region in distantly related Heliconius butterfly species that ... This ASTER image covers 30 by 37 km in the atacama Desert, Chile and was ... A high grade supergene cap overlies primary sulfide ore. ... conditions, which have favored the formation and preservat...