Life Can Grow Just About Anywhere
	Finding inhospitable places for life on Earth is extremely difficult; just about any location you can lay your eyes on is most likely populated to some extent with microbial life, if not with other living specimens. Researchers from the Mars Astrobiology Research and Technology Experiment, MARTE for short, have recently found such an inhospitable place in the ground beneath Rion Tito in Spain. The area was colonized nearly 2 million years ... [read more >>]
	22 May 2008, 10:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Real Tricorders Come to Life
	If you once were or still are a Star Trek fan, then you probably already know what a tricorder is or what it should be; it’s a handheld device that practically acts as a biological laboratory. And, as usual, Sci-Fi once again becomes reality. A device similar to the tricorder, called LOCAD-PTS, standing for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System, is now being developed by NASA to make quick evaluations of life forms on ... [read more >>]
	12 May 2008, 04:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Tiny Machines Made of Microbes
	Biomimetics employs organisms as models for building new machines. But now new machines could be made of organisms. In fact, tiny machines from microorganisms. The single-celled Spirostomum, a Paramecium-related protozoan, resembling a tiny brown worm, can contract its 0.5 mm-long body to 25% of its length in a millisecond: this is the fastest known movement in a microorganism. Many microorganisms are integrated in MEMS (Microe ... [read more >>]
	27 April 2007, 06:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia