This month’s podcast is all about microbes in remote and hostile environments.

Ben spoke to Dr Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist from the University of Leicester, about NASA’s recent announcement that there is liquid water on Mars. Lewis told us more about the discovery, and how microbes might be able to survive in this extremely salty Martian environment.

We also hear from Dr Kevin Newsham of the British Antarctic Survey. Kevin spoke to us about his expeditions to the maritime Antarctic, and the impact of climate change on soil fungi and the ecosystems found there.

Image credit: Kevin Gill on Flickr under CC BY SA 2.0