For arid, Mars-like Peruvian desert, rain brings death

When rains fell on the arid Atacama Desert, it was reasonable to expect floral blooms to follow. Instead, the water brought death.An international team of planetary astrobiologists has found that after encountering never-before-seen rainfall three years ago at the arid core of Peru’s Atacama Desert, the heavy precipitation wiped out most of the microbes that had lived there.