science
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Signs of ancient life may have been found in Martian rock – new study
Originally posted on The Conversation Just over a year ago, Nasa made a remarkable announcement. The Perseverance rover had found potential signs of ancient life on Mars. Now, the technical details behind that discovery have been published in a Nature paper that, despite its rather modest wording, may ultimately prove to be among the most significant in the history…
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Habitable zones for deep biospheres
For the first time in history, new planets are regularly discovered around other stars. Could they support life? In a new paper in Planetary and Space Science, my colleagues and I show that life may exist far outside the traditional “habitable zone”. Life on Earth requires liquid water, an accessible source of energy and…
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Making fractals in MS Paint
Fractals are a set of complex, self-similar, organically beautiful structures described by certain mathematical functions. Images of fractals are generated by iterative algorithms, many of which are very simple. By starting with a small pattern, applying a simple transformation, applying the same transformation to the result, and repeating, one can quickly construct elaborate fractals with only a…
Sean McMahon 