>> Schulze-Makuch's research coincides with work being completed by a
>> National Research Council panel nicknamed the "weird life" committee.
>> The group worries that scientists may be too Earth-centric when looking
>> for extraterrestrial life. The problem for scientists is that "you only
>> find what you're looking for," said Penn State University geosciences
>> professor Katherine Freeman, a reviewer of the NRC work.
>>

> The Schultze-Makuch team has sadly understated the problem. The
> methods that we have to detect life won't even work on most of the
> microbes on earth, let alone exotic creatures (like the peroxide
> microbes). Detecting small concentrations of microbes is a key part of
> many problems, few of which have been found. The molecules of life are
> too complicated to identify by a simple and reliable test. The
> background environment is too complex, even in the most barren places
> on earth, to allow easy extraction of a biological sample. Biodetection
> is such a complex field, if not a quagmire. False alarms and low
> senstivity plague currently available biodetectors, even in a "known"
> environment. However, false alarms are the worst possibility. This is
> true even if the extraterrestrial life is mundane from an earth
> standpoint. If it is exotic from an earth standpoint, biodetection will
> be a bear.
> Unless the life on the othe planet is the sort that makes itself
> obvious (e.g., posing for the camera), biodetection is going to be a
> big problem in the search for extraterrestrial life.
> Having said all that, I have to say that the idea of peroxide life
> on Mars sounds relatively plausible. Our future Mars probes should be
> built friendly to peroxide microbes.