New technology to look for life on Mars

[ToSeek]

Experiment Harnesses State-of-the-art Sequencing Technology To Detect Life On Mars (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040412235439.htm) - a million times better than Viking at detecting amino acids, plus the experiment can detect chirality ("handedness"), a key sign of life.

[Unbunker]

...a million times better than Viking.... their sensitivity was so low that they would have failed to detect life even if there were a million bacteria per gram of soil...

Sounds very promising!

[JonClarke]

A million bacteria per gram translates into less than 1 ppb complex organic matter, the detection limit of the Viking GC-MS. So saying that Viking had a low sensitivity is a matter of interpretation

Jon