LIFE has been found hiding in one of the most inhospitable lakes on Earth, one which closely resembles what we think Martian lakes looked like. The finding suggests that we need to look for evidence of life on Mars in a new way.
Extreme environments all over our planet have been probed for life. But most are extreme in just one way: temperature or pH, say. "If the water has a really high temperature and that is the only extreme condition, then the life forms only need to cope with temperature extremes," says Kathleen Benison at West Virginia University, who made the find with Amber Conner, now at Central Michigan University.
Examining Lake Magic in Western Australia, Benison and Conner found it to be extreme in almost every way. They measured the pH at 1.7 – about the same as stomach acid. The lake can be 10 times ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
