And, of course, there are plenty of non-biological processes that will produce organics, so it wouldn't be an "A equals B" situation even if Curiosity were to make the identification.

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Then non-biological material is filtered out.

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By analysing the isotopic composition of hydrocarbon molecules from plant waxes of the period, he found what looks like a spike in the amount of recently non-biological carbon (which has a distinctive ratio of light isotopes to heavy ones), lasting between 10, 000 and 20, 000 years.

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DC, found that over 80% of past and present senior American officials, congressmen and non-government experts interviewed thought a biological attack in the next five to ten years to be likely, very likely or else a dead cert.

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Although the western world reckons it has some idea of what sort of rocketry other countries possess, it is much less sure whether they can equip those rockets with non-conventional warheads: nuclear, chemical or biological.

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Likewise, the administration's declaration that it would not unleash nukes on non-weapons states that lived by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was criticised either for being unwise (because it curtailed deterrence against biological and chemical weapons), or misleading (because it is so full of loopholes that it does not curtail deterrence much at all).

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