Building a microscope to search for signs of life on other worlds

In March of this year, a team of bioengineers from Caltech, JPL, and the University of Washington spent a week in Greenland, using snowmobiles to haul their scientific equipment, waiting out windstorms, and spending hours working on the ice. Now the same researchers are planning a trip to California's Mojave Desert, where they will study Searles Lake, a dry, extremely salty basin that is naturally full of harsh chemicals like arsenic and boron. The researchers are testing a holographic microscop