The article offers information on a conference on life detection in extraterrestrial samples, held at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California in February 2012. Topics of the conference include planning for life-detection tests on Earth, meteorite studies, and studies of traces of life on Earth. It mentions that the work of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/European Space Agency (ESA) Joint Science Working Group was also summarized.