{"id":173587,"date":"2023-10-06T01:22:42","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T06:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/machine-learning-in-the-search-for-agnostic-biosignatures"},"modified":"2023-10-06T01:22:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T06:22:42","slug":"machine-learning-in-the-search-for-agnostic-biosignatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/machine-learning-in-the-search-for-agnostic-biosignatures","title":{"rendered":"Machine Learning in the Search for Agnostic Biosignatures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/machine-learning-in-the-search-for-agnostic-biosignatures2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That looks promising. 90% accuracy isn\u2019t bad. Now the trick is getting there though we have options on our own solar system possibly. You never know until you try. I doubt we\u2019ll find high level life remnants but perhaps something much less like at most insect level but more likely microbial. I\u2019m just guessing of course.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>A team of scientists supported in part by NASA have outlined a simple and reliable method to search for signs of past or present life on other worlds that employs machine learning techniques. The results show that the method can distinguish both modern and ancient biosignatures with an accuracy of 90 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The method is able to detect whether or not a sample contains materials that were tied to biological activity. What the research team refers to as a \u201croutine analytical method\u201d could be performed with instruments on missions including spacecraft, landers, and rovers, even before samples are returned to Earth. In addition, the method could be used to shed light on the history of ancient rocks on our own planet.<\/p>\n<p>The team used molecular analyses of 134 samples containing carbon from abiotic and biotic sources to train their software to predict a new sample\u2019s origin. Using pyrolysis gas chromatography, the method can detect subtle differences in a sample\u2019s molecular patterns and determine whether or not a sample is biotic in origin. When testing the method, samples originating from a wide variety of biotic sources were identified, including things like shells, human hair, and cells preserved in fine-grained rock. The method was even able to identify remnants of life that have been altered by geological processes, such as coal and amber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That looks promising. 90% accuracy isn\u2019t bad. Now the trick is getting there though we have options on our own solar system possibly. You never know until you try. I doubt we\u2019ll find high level life remnants but perhaps something much less like at most insect level but more likely microbial. I\u2019m just guessing of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":528,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-robotics-ai","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/528"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}