When we search for signs of life beyond Earth, what are we looking for? Do we look for footsteps left by humanoid aliens? Doubtful. Scientists think that if we find life on the icecaps of Mars, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, or even exoplanets beyond our solar system, it’s most likely that the first signs of life we find are going to be of the microbial variety. But what might that microbial life look like? Should scientists be searching for familiar bacteria? Or maybe life on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, Trappist-1 b, and LHS 1140 b will look totally unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
This is the question Claire Mammoser and her colleagues are exploring as they probe the building blocks of life under extreme conditions. In research presented at the 2017 Experimental Biology Conference in Chicago on Sunday, Mammoser explains how unnatural amino acids may form the basis of yet-to-be-discovered forms of life.
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