It's alive!
For a while I woudl have thought that it makes sense, since life processes are, inherently, pattern generators. But of course it is tru as well of inert processes. At any rate, you can compressidetect life by how well the images of a fossil compress under Zip.
Frank Corsetti, who is with the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California (USC), and Michael Storrie-Lombardi of JPL, think they may have found a way. Their approach is simplicity itself: Create a digital image of the rock; then compress the image file. The more the file shrinks, the more likely it is that life was responsible for building the layers.
via Slashdot via Schuyler Erle