Boulder-based Tendril, an energy-management company, has the latest inspiration in high-techery: a Web-phone program that allows users in Colorado to control their thermostats while they are, say, vacationing in Paris. That's according to Salon, which writes that the application, Tendril Vantage Mobile, aims to allow homeowners to monitor all sorts of data related to their energy consumption, up to the millisecond. At the moment, the app will appeal to only the most energy-conscious geeks, but the idea represents the possibilities of the technology. Cell phones might not work far beyond the planet Earth, but perhaps there will be some sort of app for another Boulderite, University of Colorado microbiologist Steven Schmidt, who has noted that a desolate part of Earth nonetheless supports ecosystems, giving rise to theories that life could exist on Mars, according to Wired. Schmidt and his team studied soil from the Socompa volcano in the Atacama desert, which straddles the Andes mountains, concluding life is quite resilient.