The current episode of the Gravity Assist podcast, hosted by NASA’s Chief Scientist Jim Green, features LPI Staff Scientist Kennda Lynch. Dr. Lynch is an astrobiologist and a geomicrobiologist who studies life in extreme conditions. She has been doing fieldwork in an ancient lake location in Utah called the Pilot Valley Playa, and in this episode, she describes her recent discoveries and why she’s excited about the Perseverance mission. She also explains how all life forms create waste products, even bacteria, that could leave tracers or “biosignatures” for scientists to detect.