Layal Liverpool New Scientist Microbes strapped to the outside of the International Space Station can survive for at least three years, suggesting that life has the potential to survive a journey through space from Earth to Mars. "If bacteria can survive in space, [they] may be transferred from one planet to another," says Akihiko Yamagishi at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences in Japan. "We don't know where life emerged. If life emerged on Earth, it may [have been] transferred to Mars. Alternatively, if life emerged on Mars, it may [have been] transferred to Earth ... meaning that we are the offspring of Martian life," says Yamagishi. If the journey is possible, then the probability of finding life on planets outside our solar system increases, he says. Deinococcus radiodurans bacteria are naturally very resistant to radiation, because of their extraordinary capacity to repair their DNA when it gets damaged, says Yamagishi. He and his colleagues wanted to investigate