Link: Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters.

"A colony of bacteria found 2.8 kilometers below the Earth’s surface in a South African gold mine is able to sustain itself without energy from the Sun. While sub-surface colonies of microorganisms utilizing sulfur (mostly near deep sea hydrothermal vents) is not new, this particular colony is unusual. The colony does it by relying on radioactive uranium to split water into hydrogen gas. Thus, instead of solar energy and photosynthesis, this species relies on radioactive materials and sulfur/hydrogen to facilitate its energy needs. There is some speculation about life on other planets in the article as well."

The original post over on Slashdot links directly to the new release on the Indiana University website. This sort of discovery really is important because it shows that life is a great deal more widespread than we have previously suspected, and that it can exist in much more different ways that we would normally think.

Now the question is starting to change from "is there life on Mars?" to "where and what sorts of life are there to be found on Mars?" – to say nothing of what we might find on the Galilean moons of Jupiter. (Europa in particular…)

If you like playing around with moral speculation, what happens to our thinking about teraforming Mars for human habitation should we discover an indigenous life form already existing there?