The low organic matter content in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, together with abrupt temperature shifts and high ultraviolet radiation at its surface, makes this region one of […]
Biocoatings are a type of water-based paint that encase live bacteria within layers. Besides capturing carbon, they can also serve as bioreactors or as biosensors.
For the past few decades, scientists have been observing natural ocean fertilization events — episodes when plumes of volcanic ash, glacial flour, wildfire soot, and desert dust blow out onto […]
Editor’s note: this presentation at NASA was assembled in 2023 prior to the cancellation of the Mars Sample Return Mission. While the notion of returning samples from Mars by NASA […]
The grit crust is a recently discovered, novel type of biocrust made of prokaryotic cyanobacteria, eukaryotic green algae, fungi, lichens and other microbes that grow around and within granitoid stone […]
The adaptation mechanisms of microbial communities to natural perturbations remain relatively unexplored, particularly in extreme environments. The extremophilic communities of halite (NaCl) nodules from the hyper-arid core of the Atacama […]
ExoFit trials are field campaigns financed by ESA to test the Rosalind Franklin rover and to enhance collaboration practices between ExoMars working groups. During the first trial, a replicate of […]
The Atacama Desert has long been established as an excellent site for submillimeter observations. Yet identifying potentially optimal locations for a new facility within this region can require long field […]
Living under a translucent rock can be quite comfortable — if you’re a moss in the Mojave Desert. A graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, found that some […]
We have performed a stratigraphic and mineralogical analysis of a vertical transect across a ridge located at the distal end of a system of eroded alluvial deposits in the northern […]
