Past studies have focused on moderate-temperature microbes that pose a more common risk of contaminating spacecraft parts and hitching a ride into space. NASA has long worried that contamination by Earth microbes could upset ongoing efforts to find Martian or other extraterrestrial life. Schuerger and his colleagues chose to test Psychrobacter cryohalolentis, an extremophile that thrives under extremely dry conditions and at temperatures as low as minus 10 degrees C. That choice allowed them to push scientific understanding of what may or may not survive on the Martian surface. "If we can find any of extremophilic terrestrial species that are capable of growth and replication under Martian conditions, it puts the search for life on Mars a bit closer to success," Schuerger explained. Testing under Martian surface conditions meant turning to the Mars Simulation Chamber (MSC) at the Kennedy Space Center, where researchers simulated everything from dust free skies to global dust storm conditions. The study grew out of the undergraduate work of David Smith from Princeton University, who has since gone on to conduct his Ph.D. research at the University of Washington. The team also tested how well a salt mineral matrix similar to parts of the Martian surface could protect against UV, and how well the extremophiles dealt with very dry conditions.
Past studies have focused on moderate-temperature microbes that pose a more common risk of contaminating spacecraft parts and hitching a ride into space. NASA has long worried that contamination by Earth microbes could upset ongoing efforts to find Martian or other extraterrestrial life. Schuerger and his colleagues chose to test Psychrobacter cryohalolentis, an extremophile that thrives under extremely dry conditions and at temperatures as low as minus 10 degrees C. That choice allowed them to push scientific understanding of what may or may not survive on the Martian surface. "If we can find any of extremophilic terrestrial species that are capable of growth and replication under Martian conditions, it puts the search for life on Mars a bit closer to success," Schuerger explained. Testing under Martian surface conditions meant turning to the Mars Simulation Chamber (MSC) at the Kennedy Space Center, where researchers simulated everything from dust free skies to global dust storm conditions. The study grew out of the undergraduate work of David Smith from Princeton University, who has since gone on to conduct his Ph.D. research at the University of Washington. The team also tested how well a salt mineral matrix similar to parts of the Martian surface could protect against UV, and how well the extremophiles dealt with very dry conditions.
Extremophile bacteria can tough it out in the Siberian permafrost, but the environment of Mars may still be too hostile for such hardy life. That's the finding of a recent study conducted by Andrew C. Schuerger, a microbiologist at the University of Florida and the Space Life Sciences Lab at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and colleagues. "Very seldom have microbes that grow well under cold or high salt conditions been subjected to Martian conditions," said Schuerger. Harsh ultraviolet (UV) light proved particularly devastating for the survival of cold-resistant microbes under simulated surface conditions on Mars. Such findings not only hone the search for traces of Martian life, but also could help focus NASA's procedures to prevent contamination of Mars by Earth microbes.
Microbes Would Find Scarce Shelter on Mars
By Jeremy Hsu
Astrobiology Magazine
posted: 04 June 2009
07:31 am ET
The "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) scheme, which has sent over a million US$100 laptops to children in the developing world, has been criticised by researchers who found that, unless they are introduced with care, they become little more than distracting toys in the classroom.
The study, conducted in Ethiopia, revealed that students wanted more content on the laptops and teachers were not adequately trained on how to make use of them.
The OLPC scheme was launched in 2005 to provide each child in the developing world with a low-cost laptop to encourage "self-empowered" learning. More than one million laptops have been distributed.
David Hollow of the UK-based ICT4D Collective at Royal Holloway, University of London, and his team evaluated the OLPC initiative in Ethiopia by observing classroom sessions and interviewing students and teachers.
They told Africa Gathering — an information and communication technology and social networking conference organised by the London International Development Centre in April — that students tended to play with the machines, largely for taking pictures with the built-in digital camera.
Teachers were left frustrated because the students were better at using the laptops and played on them during lessons instead of listening to the teachers, Hollow told the conference.
"If I had the money, I would not spend it on laptops," Hollow told SciDev.Net. "It will cost about US$3 billion dollars to give every [Ethiopian] child a laptop. And as a proportion of the national budget for education, that's just ridiculous."
The approach "doesn't actually empower people in the way that we'd like. It just undermines the teacher … It's impossible to integrate it".
The ICT4D team worked with Swiss educational software provider BlankPage to develop Akili, a textbook reader that was used to download books and increase the educational content on the laptops.
"We felt that Akili was something of a bridge because it enabled the children to explore and engage with their own learning but, at the same time, they were still based within the national curriculum and the teacher's authority was not undermined."
