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In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life

296 points · 107 comments · danso

  1. alexpotato · · focus · HN ↗
    > Dr. Van Etten didn’t expect much from the water she had scooped from a random dock next to the highway

    There are stories of companies asking their employees to bring back soil and water samples from wherever the employees go on vacation.

    The idea is that this is a somewhat random sampling of locations that the company wouldn't have thought of on their own. Plus, it's possible that one of the samples has some novel chemical or biological compound that could lead to a breakthrough discovery.

    1. kevmo · · focus · HN ↗
      Reminds me of penicillin research, where random cantaloupe from Peoria yielded the best penicillin mold.
    2. MisterMunchkin · · focus · HN ↗
      If labs want samples like that they should start a scheme, I’d be happy to mail in random stuff.
      1. bromuk · · focus · HN ↗
        Same! Ready to send random samples from Sheffield
        1. echelon · · focus · HN ↗
          We'll likely have robots sampling all over the world's diverse biomes in some short years.
          1. daveguy · · focus · HN ↗
            I guess that depends on how many robots a company is willing to have stuck in random places.
            1. gregoryl · · focus · HN ↗
              and/or how many robots they are willing to loose in my shed.
              1. LoganDark · · focus · HN ↗
                Hey, hey, hey... what'd I tell y'all about coming in my shed?!
              2. mcswell · · focus · HN ↗
                Are you saying they're going to shed some robots? I hope they have enough left after that.
    3. ErigmolCt · · focus · HN ↗

      [dead]

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