Meanwhile, a more reputable report against life on Mars:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/science/space/mars-rover-c...
British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
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Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#12Paper: http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/milton_diatom.pdf The journal of Cosmology is regarded as a low-quality publication by many scientists. I can't judge the assertions in the paper but the methodology seems good.
That is a well known crackpot article, already debunked by biologists and astronomers alike: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/16/diatomsiiiiin-...
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#13If they have protein in their samples and find amino acids of both chirality, then get exited. If they only find the chirality naturally occurring in earth based life: forgetaboutit
My bet is on the latter.
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#14One possible mechanism would be a weather balloon.
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#15Paper: http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/milton_diatom.pdf The journal of Cosmology is regarded as a low-quality publication by many scientists. I can't judge the assertions in the paper but the methodology seems good.
For reference, here is the front page of the Journal of Cosmology: http://journalofcosmology.com The paper contains almost no detail about the methods used, and lacks involvement of a diverse group of authors. This indicates that the authors are not thinking hard enough about alternative theories to explain what they have found. For instance, the paper contains this sentence: "It is also unlikely that the fragment co…
Unless they have a completely sterile, sealed container that is open only at certain altitudes to collect material in a filter, they will have nothing to stand on.
NASA had a satellite that was sent up to collect samples of debris along a particular orbital belt and worked like this. They were doing tests to see how much space junk had accumulated and would open one of the compartments for a fixed period of time, then re-seal it before switching to another.
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#16I wonder what it smells like. Does it get happy or sad?
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#17It's life, but it doesn't have DNA to test?
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#18Paper: http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/milton_diatom.pdf The journal of Cosmology is regarded as a low-quality publication by many scientists. I can't judge the assertions in the paper but the methodology seems good.
That is a well known crackpot article, already debunked by biologists and astronomers alike: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/16/diatomsiiiiin-...
I think it's a different crackpot article, by the same authors.
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#19"In the absence of a mechanism by which large particles like these can be transported to the stratosphere, we can only conclude that the biological entities originated from space" so, just because we don't KNOW of any mechanism by which large particles could be transported to the stratosphere, we conclude that the particles originated from space - even if we obviously don't KNOW of any mechanism by which life could o…
The mechanism to get these particles there would both have to be very powerful and very not obvious.
The scientists don't say that these particles must be from space, it's just possible, or even very likely.
Re: British scientists claimed to have found first evidence of alien life
#20If they have protein in their samples and find amino acids of both chirality, then get exited. If they only find the chirality naturally occurring in earth based life: forgetaboutit My bet is on the latter.
If our aminoacids came from space, you would sort of expect them to be in "incoming" organisms also.
Bioinformatics might be able to bring further light into this problem. If they do find DNA/RNA then they can tell when terrestrial life and whatever this is parted ways. If this root can be pinpointed after known mutations from fossil records, then this must be terrestrial life.