exploration of life on earth

[B. J. Tindall]

Just a quick reply to Richard Jensen,
Sorry you missed the "band wagon". 20 years ago I started work on the
microbiology of alkaline, saline lakes because a geologist colleague had a
theory that Mars might be alkaline (as far as I know no-one sent a pH meter
to Mars, and they are not that expensive!!). It was good fun, I learnt some
geology and got a trip to Kenya out if it. The topic has returned again in
the advertisement of the next "Extremophiles" meeting; and the exploration
of Lake Vostoc in the Antarctic is taken as a model for investigating life
under the ice sheets on the moon Europa. So there are already moves in that
direction "to go where no man has gone before".
However, I would agree that there is so much we do not know about life on
this "little" planet. The problem is that you can't win elections
supporting work on finding a new species in the pond at the back of your
garden, but you can make a lot of political capital if your government
supports work which discovers life on Mars.
Brian Tindall


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