The new issue of Wired — on the newsstand but not yet online — features a story about research from MIT’s Christopher Carr on loping. describe in the story as a “simplified skip.” His research found that loping -described in Wired as a “simplified skip” – is “the most efficient way to locomote.”

Why should we care? The finding came out of research into space suit mobility.

Carr works with both the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the Mass General Department of Molecular Biology. So, more recently, his research has taken him out of the spacesuit and into the Martian genome. The SETG project —Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes – “will test the hypothesis that life on Mars, if it exists, shares a common ancestor with life on Earth.”

More here:

There is increasing evidence that viable microbes could have been transferred between the two planets, based in part on calculations of meteorite trajectories and magnetization studies supporting only mild heating of meteorite cores. Based on the shared-ancestry hypothesis, this instrument will look for DNA and RNA through in-situ analysis of Martian soil, ice, or brine samples.

By applying recent advances in microfluidics, embedded systems, and biological automation, our team is developing an instrument that can isolate, amplify, detect, and classify any extant DNA or RNA-based organism.