For the first time, scientists have found soil that doesn’t seem to support any microbial life. (From 2021)
There was no reason for microbial ecologist Noah Fierer to expect that the 204 soil samples he and colleagues had collected near Antarctica’s Shackleton Glacier would be any different. A spoonful of typical soil could easily contain billions of microbes, and Antarctic soils from other regions host at least a few thousand per gram.
The findings suggest that exceedingly cold and arid conditions might place a hard limit on microbial habitability. The results also raise questions about how negative scientific results should be interpreted, especially in the search for life on other planets. “The challenge comes back to this sort of philosophical [question], how do you prove a negative?” Fierer says.
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