This 1 inch by 1 inch microfluidic chip is part of the SETG
instrument prototype. Tiny channels feed in the samples to be
analyzed and control the fluidic circuitry on the chip. Blue
light excites fluorescent dyes that help identify DNA within
3072 cubic chambers, each about the width of a human hair, or
one billionth of a liter in size. Life as we know it has a
common ancestor — somewhere. Is it a Martian? A new device under
development to fly on a future mission to Mars to find and
sequence bits of genetic material could provide an answer,
according to MIT and Harvard scientists. "Given what we know
about meteorite impacts and transfer of material between Earth
and Mars, we are hoping that life may in fact exist on Mars and
that it may in fact be related to us," Christopher Carr, a MIT
research scientist who is leading the project, told me today.
The idea that life originated on Mars goes back before the
Viking missions of the 1970s, which looked for signs of life on
the Red Planet. It got a boost in the 19