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Article updated: 2/14/2013 10:27 AM

Wisconsin scientists help search for alien life

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Geoscientist Clark Johnson holds what he says is a 3.5 billion year old rock in Madison, Wis. Johnson is leading a team of scientists and others studying Earth rocks that are billions of years old looking for crucial information to understand how life might have arisen elsewhere in the universe and guide the search for life on Mars one day.

Associated Press

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Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are helping search for evidence of alien life not by looking into outer space, but by studying some rocks right here on Earth. The scientists are looking for crucial information to understand how life might have arisen elsewhere in the universe. “There's a story always hidden in rocks,” said geoscientist Clark Johnson, the lead investigator for the Wisconsin Astrobiology Research Consortium