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Phoenix666 writes:

Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients of life on Earth, with some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species can use.

Nitrogen fixation, as the process is called, involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create molecules such as ammonia, which is a building block of many complex organic molecules, such as proteins, DNA and RNA.

With organisms playing such a crucial role in the chemistry of nitrogen on Earth, scientists are examining nitrogen in billion-year-old rocks to decipher its potential as a bio-signature of life on other planets. New findings in this area of research appeared recently in the paper, "Nitrogen in Ancient Mud: A Biosignature?" in the journal Astrobiology.

"This study identifies nitrogen abundances as a potential tool to detect remnants of life on Mars," said one of the study's authors, Eva Stüeken, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington at Seattle and the University of California at Riverside.

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