IF YOU’RE reading this article on paper you’re staring at millions of the best markers for life on other planets.
So say Jack Griffiths of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues who found perfectly preserved microfibres of cellulose – from which paper is made – in 250-million-year-old salt deposits in New Mexico (Astrobiology, DOI: 10.1089/ast.2007.0196).
Griffiths suggests that we look for cellulose on planets such as Mars, where huge salt deposits in which it could have been similarly preserved have been found in recent weeks. Half of the natural cellulose on Earth is made by simple life forms,…
