Search for life on Mars
There are 2 types of organism for a biologist to study: live ones and extinct ones.
I can't tell you how to search for fossils on Mars, becouse not many people know that at all. As far as I know - you simply must take a grounds sample from a randome site that preferably has mineral that could conserve it (Halit?) and it must be taken from very deep (deeper than normal resources are found). Then you just study them opticaly in a microscope (normal? electron?) and hope for any luck you found anything you can recognize. My paleobioogy profesor also said that it could be better to search for microfossils. In that case you would have to grind the sample first. Desolve it. Wortex it. Preferrably - purify it if possible (many methodes) and then spin so the microfosils sediment and study them.
Anyway. I did my research (combined it with MCO experience) and made this scheme of how could search of present life in MCO run.
As you could see it's very logical, and anyone could understand it, but it's VERY hard to do (many steps). That in fact is desired becouse searching for life is extremely difficult. It would be terrible if a noobie came to a serwer and on his first day of gameplay found life on Mars ;D
If someone found life in MCO he would be a little hero in the community :D
(http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/5948/marslife3.jpg)
All of this is real and exists for today.
LIBS - you know it from MCO.
"UREY" Experiment - (Mars Organics + Oxidant Detector) - "The Mars Organics Detector searches for amino acids, nucleobases, and polyaromatic hydrocarbons in the collected samples with extremely high sensitivity (ppt). Can also function as front-end to the GC-MS. The Mars Oxidant Instrument determines the chemical reactivity of oxidants and free radicals in the soil and atmosphere."
(http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content07/urey-lifedetector.jpg)
More ---> http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=966 (http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=966)
GC-MS - "To conduct a broad-range, very high-sensitivity search for organic molecules in the collected samples; also for atmospheric analyses."
(http://www.se-source.com/images/gcms.JPG)
More ---> http://www.se-source.com/varianGCMS.htm (http://www.se-source.com/varianGCMS.htm)
More ---> http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/VikingGCMS.html (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/VikingGCMS.html)
Life-Marker Chip - (LMC) - "Antibody-based instrument to detect organic molecules with very high specificity".
(http://robots.open.ac.uk/space/LMC_breadboard.jpg)
More ---> http://robots.open.ac.uk/space/LMC.html (http://robots.open.ac.uk/space/LMC.html)