soil
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Earth’s Most Barren Spot Found Bursting With Microbial Activity, Boosting Search for Life on Mars
The Atacama Desert—an arid, unpopulated swath of northern Chile that is home to some of the most perceptive ground telescopes on Earth—is actually teeming with life beneath the ground, according to a team of researchers that recently scrutinized its soils. As LiveScience reminds us, scientists have already found microbial life under the desert’s surface. What…
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NASA Scientists Extract Oxygen From Simulated Moon Dirt
In a groundbreaking step towards establishing a human presence on the Moon, NASA extracted oxygen from simulated lunar soil in a “dirty” chamber with similar conditions to the Moon’s environment.
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Experiments With Barbie Dolls Reveal a Surprising Way to Keep Spacesuits Clean on the Moon
Pesky lunar dust is an annoying obstacle for astronauts landing on the Moon — it sticks to pretty much everything. New research from Washington State University may have cracked the code for keeping space suits dust-free, in which pressurised liquid nitrogen was used to literally blow the dust from surfaces.
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You Can Now Compost Dead People in New York
There’s a new option for people in New York trying to figure out what to do with their bodies after they die. Over the weekend, Governor Kathy Hochul signed Assembly Bill A382 into law, which legalizes the process of natural organic reduction — more popularly known as human composting — in New York State.