[jf-]

The fastest way isn’t to eliminate the other possibilities, it’s to find a unique test for a that can’t be met by any of the others. Bear in mind that your list of alternative causes may be very long and each require large amounts of work to eliminate.

I too find it strange that multiple landers have been sent to mars since Viking, ostensibly looking for evidence of present or past life, and have yet have carried no tests for it. I find the best way to find something is to look for it.

[ianai]

The authors suggest testing for chiraliry in an LR test. Life creates certain “handed” organic molecules while purely chemical reactions do not. They said there’s already designs for flight ready tests. NASA just needs to include it in a mars mission. But they have no plans to do so.

This significantly increased my frustration with NASA.

[drdeca]

I thought life on earth favoring a particular chirality was supposed to be primarily because of like common ancestors and stuff. If you flipped the chiralities of everything, would stuff no longer work? Or, I guess really my question is, would it be nearly impossible for life on another planet to use the opposite chirality instead?

[CydeWeys]

The test is not for right chirality, it's for any preferred chirality. Non-life is half and half at random.

[drdeca]

Ah, cool, thanks

[bufferoverflow]

Life on our planet does. Doesn't mean that's the case everywhere else. Or even anywhere else, for that matter.