The gist is that self-organized molecules (ie: life) will build themselves in a single chirality (organic molecules can exist in two mirror images, chirality is the term to distinguish them; think your right and left hands). Light that reflects from organics will contain a tell-tale signature (polarization) depending on the chirality. This could be used to detect evidence of "life" on other planets. Clever.
NASA is paying people to not move (well, as little as possible) for 90 days in a controlled environment so they can study the effect of long-term immobilization on the human body.
Normally, people only catch these things quite a while after the fact but this one happened right in a spot that was under surveillance for another project. With so many eyes on the sky these days, I suppose it was inevitable but it's still great news.