At a press conference announcing your company’s successful isolation and characterization and cultivation of ETPUM, a reporter raises an important question: “How do you know that this microbe actually came from NPIP (the Nearby Previously Invisible Planet) and not from Earth? Could this microbe really be an Earth microbe that was present in/on ELVIS before it was launched into space?” “ at’s impossible,” your boss answers. “Prior to launch, we wiped down the entire ELV and ELVIS with the disinfectants ethanol and triclosan. In addition we used plastics impregnated with disinfectant chlorhexidine. I had our chemists check! ese chemicals do all kinds of nasty things to cells: coagulate proteins and destroy membranes. No microbes could have survived that.” What do you think? Were these treatments adequate to rule out the possibility raised by the reporter?