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Space Science

Possible Evidence of Martian Bacteria 190

Posted by michael from the obelisks-still-not-located dept.
half-seas-over writes "NASA issued a very interesting press release today. It highlights a recent study that compared tiny magnetite crystals in the Allan Hill meteorite to similar magnetite crystals that are created here on Earth by bacteria (who use the magnetite as a compass). The study (abstract available here (PDF) from this site) uses fairly strict criteria to determine that 25% of the magnetite content of the meteorite was created by ancient (>3.9Gyr ago) martian bacteria... either that or there is some strange natural process that makes very pure, isolated magnetite crystals that we haven't imagined or seen on Earth which is present on Mars. We'll have to wait and see what happens next, 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' -Carl Sagan."
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Possible Evidence of Martian Bacteria More

Possible Evidence of Martian Bacteria

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  • The NASA has much troubles with funding cuts. But they want take humans to Mars in some years, which is very expensive. So they want to create a decent hype for this project to make acquiring money much easier.
    An important tool is to create intresting but ominous scientific claims which a only be verified by going to Mars.
    There is still to problem with the "robots only" league, but I expect further onimous arguments in this direction.

    But on the other hand, what's useful for science can't be wrong, right ? At least it's not such a brainless waste of money like the dotcom hype.

    • It might be because it's almost 3 in the morning, but I can't decide whether your post would rate an 'insightful' or 'funny'.

      There's also this thing about people wanting to believe that there's life on mars so they'll probably go even though they figure out how the magnetite got formed.

      btw, anyone have any luck with the link to the press release on ftp? It seems to be asking for id/auth once in a while.
    • Well yes ... NASA is a brainfull waste of money on overfitted data, but Nick Hoffman said that 30 years ago. Beats building pyramids or digging trenches .... doesn't it ?

  • zZzZz (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's already lots of possible evindence, wake me up when there's hard evidence.

    • Re:zZzZz (Score:3, Interesting)

      by You're All Wrong ( 573825 )
      How hard do you want?
      They've found a crystal with no known pathway for its creation apart from a directed one.
      The three conclusion options are
      1) On earth it's directed by microbes, on mars it's directed by God.
      2) On earth it's only directed by microbes, on mars the laws of physics permit it to happen without direction
      3) On earth it's directed by microbes, on mars it's directed by microbes.

      Get out your Ockham's razer - which of the two are you more inclined to pare away?

      YAWIAR.
      • I forgot to add that even if you accept the proton/neutron/electron/photon model of earthly matter, then there's no _hard_ evidence for the majority of subatomic particles.
        The experiments that prove the existance of other subatomic particles are simply looking at the fingerprints left on the earthly matter after interactions.

        And how did we prove the existence of the standard nuclear model of the atom in the first place - we (well, Rutherford) looked at the fingerprint caused by particle scattering.

        YAWIAR.
      • 2) On earth it's only directed by microbes, on mars the laws of physics permit it to happen without direction

        This one is more probable because you are more likley to discover a new law of physics than you are to discover life on another planet. Just because you theorise in the possibility of life on another planet, doesn't make the possibility any more probable than it was before people made theories about it.

        In the past 100 years how many times have people discovered new physics laws vs discovered life on other planets?

        • Head Tail Tail Head HTTTTHTHHTHT Edge (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @11:23AM (#4004507) Journal
          "In the past 100 years how many times have people discovered new physics laws vs discovered life on other planets?"

          In the past 100 years how many times have people built houses vs built computers? Obviously there are no computers because so many houses have been built. Slashdot vanishes in a cloud of irrelevant improbabilities...

          The probability of an event happening does not affect whether the event actually happens.

          For that matter, we are here. The obvious choices for the existence of life here are:

          • Life here was created by random chemical/physical processes. Probability unknown.["Here" is this solar system, whether Mars or Earth]
          • Life here is an extension of existing life in this galaxy. Probability unknown, but allows much longer time frame and once it happened once it can spread.
            • Panspermia.
            • Random cause: Bacteria or DNA from other solar systems seeded our biology.
            • Directed cause: Life forms in other solar systems sent primitive life to other solar systems. Does not require intelligence, because a space-seeding plant is an increase in the probability of intersystem seeding.
            • Gardening: Intelligent life seeded our solar system.
          • Miracle: We just appeared here. Probability unknown. Several conflicting events recorded.
          There are several possibilities for our own life forms. The possibilities of our origin give hints as to the chances of life existing elsewhere, but are not proof. We need more data.

          This data about life existing on Mars suggests several modifications in theory:

          • Life was able to be created outside the conditions at Earth's orbit. If Mars was very different from old Earth when life formed on Mars, the probability of random life creation is increased due to a widening of the definition of a suitable environment.
          • Life may have been created in two places within this single solar system. This suggests that the probability of random life creation is fairly large. It is possible that life is very unlikely and the coin just happened to land on edge twice here, but the suggestion is still toward a higher probability of life.
          • If life was created on Mars and travelled to Earth, the probability of panspermia tends to be higher. Evidence of life which can survive space increases the probability that life can travel between solar systems (ignoring the possibility of close approaches by another solar system or rogue planets).
          Some of these possibilities are mutually exclusive. If life on Earth was seeded by Mars then although the possibility of Panspermia is increased, an increase in the possibility of random life is then not suggested. We then still have only one example of the creation of life in this solar system, it merely happened on Mars instead of the previously assumed location of Earth.

          A non-Mars item affecting life probabilities: Recent evidence suggests that life existed on Earth only a short time after Earth cooled. Although the probability of life being randomly created on Earth is unknown, a shorter time of appearance is a hint at a larger probability. Only a hint, as with a single event it is possible that a nearly impossible event just randomly happened here. The same situation is present if life appeared on Mars shortly after it cooled. If life appeared independently in both places shortly after it cooled, that is two hints at a larger probability.

          • The probability of an event happening does not affect whether the event actually happens.

            He asked for the occams razor answer. I gave it to him. If you apply occams razor to this situation then you will dismiss the theory about it being formed by martian life.

          • You asserted that the probability of life randomly arising somewhere in the universe is unknown. That's certainly true for our current scientific state, since we can't yet claim to know all the intimate details of every single function of cellular life.

            However we do know enough to make some interesting calculations. For example, all proteins in all living things known today are made up exclusively of 19 chiral and one non-chiral amino acid. On average, roughly 8% of bacterial protein amino acids are glycine (the non-chiral one). So in a smallish protein of only 450 amino acids, there are (0.92)*(450) or 414 chiral amino acids.

            There is no natural process outside living cells that generates amino acids of one chirality; everything generates nicely racemic (equally L and R) mixtures.

            It is fairly simple to calculate just how likely it would be to get just one protein to form randomly (proteins form sequentially, and since they need more than one copy of each amino acid, this must be done by the probstat model of "with replacement") from an unlimited supply of amino acids. To make the case easy, and to heavily tilt the odds towards the formation of proteins, let's ignore the energy gradient in aqueous solutions (which tends towards dissociation of proteins, not their assembly). So to calculate the odds of getting all 414 amino acids that are chiral to all be the correct chirality is one in 2^414 (or one in over 10^124).

            To give some concept of that number, consider the assumptions made by fans of the Drake equation [activemind.com] for example, and be generous. They estimate 200 billion (2*10^11) stars in our galaxy, and 20% of those having planets, with 3 to 5 possibly life-bearing bodies per star that has planets. Let's just say 10^12 possible planets, an order of magnitude higher than the upper limit of those Drake numbers. Also consider that the universe at 20 billion years is less than 10^18 seconds old. Let's say the earth has 10^50 atoms in it (slightly higher than estimates [prodigy.net]). So if you have one protein formed per each atom on every habitable planet in the galaxy (10^50*10^12 == 10^62) every millisecond since the big bang (10^18*10^3 = 10^21) you'd have 10^83 proteins formed. So the odds of getting one properly chiral protein by having 1000 formed per second per atom on all habitable planets and moons in our galaxy since the big bang would be 124-83 = one in 10^41. The universe is 10^28 inches across...

            Now consider the odds of getting just one protein to have a particular sequence, which is immensely harder than the above which just focussed on getting the chirality alone correct. Plain fact is, random chance alone just will never be anywhere near adequate to explain the origin of life.
            • Your making many unjustified assumptions in your
              calcuations:

              1. That life on Earth started out using its
              current molecular basis of amino acids.
              2. That life on Earth started out using the
              full complement of 19 amino acids
              3. That life on Earth has not evolved from a
              much simpler molecular basis.
              4. That the terran molecular basis for life is
              is only possible form.
              • Yes I'm assuming life started based on proteins, and at near its current level of complexity - how else would it have started? The fundamental assumption of "descent with modification" is that there be accurate, reliable enough replication that a beneficial mutation will be carried to descendants. Anything less accurate only produces chaos - absent accurate reproduction, inheritance of advantageous traits is diluted and can no longer be a basis for improvement. Randomness takes over, and reversion to the mean would dictate a downward spiral, not an upward one.

                And I said 19 chiral and one non-chiral, that's a total of 20 amino acids. If some form of life existed (Terran or otherwise) with a different basis, where's the evidence? If you believe in it without evidence, you're in a purely faith-based paradigm, not a scientific one. I for one am comfortable with that if you're willing to agree it's faith based not fact based.

  • An ignorant question... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, lets say we can determine that there were some bacteria on Mars. Aside from exclaiming, "hey that's cool" what would be the big deal? How would this be different from say, discovering bacteria in some otherwise uninhabited place on earth?

    Perhaps this might somehow affect our understanding of life on earth or our origins or something... but like, how?

    I'm not dissing the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, but I guess I'm asking this ignorant question-- are we expecting the discovery of bacterial life on mars to have any repercussions aside from the "hey cool" factor and maybe religious fundimentalists having to rework parts of the bible to jam martian bacteria into Genesis? Are there outstanding scientific theories or questions that this discovery might help answer? How might our world change if this ancient bacteria were confirmed to be really martian?
    • The big deal is that it would be proof of "life" on Mars. For most people it would stop at the "hey that's cool" point, but the microbiologists out there will be stoked. It's different to finding bacteria in an otherwise uninhabited place on earth because we already know there's life on earth. AFAIK we've already found life in the most inhospitable parts of the planet anyway (Antarctic plankton and molds, desert insects etc).

      The effect on understanding life on earth and origins etc depends a lot on your worldview. For people like me, no effect at all. Others might have to totally rethink their views.

      In summary, there's no repercussions whether we do or don't find life on Mars. And as one of those "religious fundamendalists" (read Bible believing Christian in my case), there's absolutely no need at all to rewrite Genesis, whatever happens.
    • To me, it's one of those biggish 'doorway' discoveries. If we find life on mars, and it's a bit different to life on earth, then we have a "whoa... life's a bit more than we thought it was". Right now we have one and only one way of looking at life - how it appears to us terrestrially... Find something that's substantially different (in function, structure, or location) and there's possible proof that things do work a certain way

      Other than that, science/technology/etc is all just "hey, that's cool", until a use is found for it.

      a grrl & her server [danamania.com]

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • One of the biggest questions in my mind is whether life on Mars (assuming its there) was seeded by earth (or vice versa), or if it evolved independently.

        Either way its fascinating. Evolutionary Biology has essentially ignored the possability that there may be interplanetary contributions to the process. Changes the game entirely. Alternatively if we discover that life did evolve independently on Mars, thats huge. Remeber we bascially have an N of 1 in studying evolution.

        Seems to me this may be the biggest "hey that's cool" discovery in our lifetimes.

        • Evolutionary Biology has essentially ignored the possability that there may be interplanetary contributions

          Well, speaking as an evolutionary biologist I don't think that's entirely fair.

          Lots of people in the evolution community have an interest in astronomy and are no strangers to Hoyle's Panspermia notion, the idea of a primary seeding of Earthly life from Martian life, and associated concepts.

          What has been missing, obviously, is any kind of evidence to suggest that there is an interplanetary contribution to Earthly evolution (sans pretty clearly established ones like impact effects). If anyone can provide solid evidence of such a link then evolutionary scientists would be all over it like a dirty shirt, believe you me. :) Any paper solidly demonstrating such a thing would be an instant Nature or Science publication.

    • I think that's a perfectly fair question - you really didn't need to post it as AC :)

      The question (and the possible answer) are fundamental, vis, is life on Earth a great cosmic coincidence, or is it something which can happen anywhere in the universe given the right starting conditions?

      Right now we don't know the answer - volumes of speculation exist to say both "yes" and "no", but in the end we do not know the answer. If we find indisputable evidence that life has evolved elsewhere, this is a big answer - the know that the universe may actually be bursting with life-filled planets (esp. since we'd have two such planets in one solar system, barring the primary transfer hypothesis of course). This isn't somebody's obscure interest in the origins of some spectral line in the atmosphere of a single star somewhere, this is a deeply fundamental question about the universe.

    • The big deal would be that life existed, or perhaps exists beyond the earth. This has very important implications for how common life could be beyond the solar system. It raises the issue of whether life is actually native to the earth or if a massive asteroidal strike blew chunks of Mars into space seeding the earth - we could ALL be Martians. It is also a massive problem for Christian and Muslim religious fundamentalists, since they hold a strongly defended belief in the specialness of life, of intelligence, and of the earth as the center of God's interest. Finding life in some remote spot on earth is not a challenge to convention and established thought, since we already know that it exists here where ever the conditions of chemical and energy availability permit. Then of course there are political and potential health issues if we were to retrieve living material from Mars.

      Would Martian bacteria be dangerous to terrestrial systems? What about carrying earth bacteria in the other direction? Will we breaking the Galactic Federation's laws regarding the transfer of biologically active material? Will Florida, Texas, California and other entities establish agricultural inspection stations at NASA launch and reception facilities? It can be a VERY big deal.

  • It's like War of the Worlds in reverse, or something...

  • Not again. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by palfreman ( 164768 )
    I can't believe the space guys are digging up this corpse again. The fact is, they are talking about dust. Not living examples, not any scientifically meaningful examples , just some extremely small "magnetic crystals" that resemble other tiny magnetic crystals found on earth, and probably everywhere in the universe, living or not.

    This is juts a rehash of that nonsense about them claiming to have found "tiny fossilised bacteria" which also turned out to be dust, non-living, never living.

    • This press release doesn't say anything about finding martian bacteria. What they found is that the crystals showed signs that, on earth, indicate natural bacterial involvement (as opposed to human intervention or a purely chemical/physical process). That doesn't necessarily mean that the crystals were formed by bacteria - Mars isn't earth after all, and it's a little foolish to assume that the same rules apply, particularly in biology. What it shows is that they might have been produced by bacteria, and if so, then there must have been some form of life on Mars.
      I know the press release is very definite that the crystals were produced by bacteria, but I think they're being just a tad overconfident at this stage.
    • Mod this one down. The writer did not read the source material, otherwise he (I use the pronoun in a non-discriminatory manner) would have known that the magnetite form does not occur on earth "living or not" but forms only in living cells. Also, the "tiny fossilized bacteria" issue is still actively being argued over. It has never been settled.

  • And so on (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dexter77 ( 442723 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @05:52AM (#4003957)
    ...
    "Martian bacteria leaks out of NASA lab"
    ...
    "Mutated animals sighted near NASA lab"
    ...
    "Strange disease spreads through continent"
    ...
    "President Bush announces state of emergency"
    ...
    "President Bush renounces state of emergency"
    ...
    "USA replaces national anthem with strange beeps and Coca-Cola switches water to sulphure dioxode in its drinks"
  • to similar magnetite crystals that are created here on Earth by bacteria (who use the magnetite as a compass)
    ... and what does a bacteria need a compass for? Mod me up as funny, because bacteria with compasses are funny.
    • Mass migrations, I guess, like birds. Nothing really exciting.

  • Easy tiger... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MADCOWbeserk ( 515545 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @05:59AM (#4003969)
    Seems like their is a Major life on mars discovery every few months. Most of the time they are disproven within a couple of weeks. Take the wait and see approach and see if this "discovery" holds up to peer review.

    Science press releases are usually half bs.. A good way to get research funding.

    • Re:Easy tiger... (Score:5, Informative)

      by corleth ( 118672 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @06:58AM (#4004047)
      Not true: very little (if any) of the life on Mars findings have been proven or disproven. All that is happening is that some scientists are presenting their evidence that supports the hypothesis that life has existed or even does exist on Mars. Other scientists are scrutinising this evidence and poking holes in their analyses. This is part of the scientific process and only to be expected. What is needed is a new form of data. We can argue about magnetite in Mars meteorites for years but it probably won't solve anything. What we need is a fresh sample, that hasn't been superheated on impact and re-entry.

      How all this is portrayed in the media is often misleading and, yes, that is sometimes the fault of the scientists as much as the science journalists. The truth is that the media tends to dumb down science for the general public in the belief that real science is too boring for them. Whether this is justified or not is a matter of opinion.

      Scientific press releases can be a good way to get research funding. It is also a very dangerous game to play, as scientists are often misquoted to their expense.

      -Karl

      Dr Karl Mitchell
      Planetary Science Research Group
      Environmental Science Dept.
      Lancaster University
      UK
      • very little (if any) of the life on Mars findings have been proven or disproven. Very true, although I seem to remember the first major martian bacteria in a meteorite annnouncement a few years has widely been panned as "sloppy science." I was just making the point that these announcements aren't really that important, and are generally just a media field day.

        Well, maybe if the general public keeps eating these Mars stories up, they will demand greater funding for NASA and more Mars missions.
        • We can hope. It seems to be working in the UK. Funding for "astrobiology" has increased incredibly. I admit to using the bandwagon ("... and implications for the evolution of life on Mars") myself. We also have the ESA Mars Express mission and the UK Beagle 2 lander (the only robotic mission with a chance, however small, of detecting life on Mars). ;)
          -k
          • Late reply here, sorry about that, had to catch some shuteye. I wish you and the rest of your team luck with all your endeavors. And I also hope that we send more probes to Europa, which is the most interesting body in the solar system IMO.
    • Is it science or just PR doubletalk? Assume that NASA finds some martin rat. What would happen when they anounce that to the world? The 1st thing that would happen is a large number of people inolved with the polically active religous right would be screaming because that didn't fit in with accepted values. Now what happens if you make a few bad science anouncements and have some one else counter them? Over time the religous nuts starts ignoring the blasphemy while others can get on with real science. The real world of science funing in the US demands appeasing many groups that don't want their tax money disproving their beliefs.
    • They have been going back and forth on this for a while now. It goes something like:

      1996: Maybe
      1997: Not
      1998: Maybe
      1999: Not
      2000: Maybe
      2001: Not
      2002: Maybe

      Grown men fighting over tiny bug poop.
    • This is just one of several ways they've decided there was probably life in the ALH80001 meteorite. From the press release:

      The researchers used six physical properties they refer to as the Magnetite Assay for Biogenicity (MAB) to compare all the magnetic material found in the ancient meteorite -- using the MAB as a biosignature.

      Earlier, a number of other scientists observed chemical and visible (through an electron microscope) formations indicitive of biology. NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover explains in an interview from December '96 [spie.org]:

      Carbonate is a mineral that on earth is commonly produced by the action of microorganisms. Limestone is an example. Furthermore, the carbonate globules in ALH84001 are similar in size and texture to carbonate precipitates that are often formed by terrestrial bacteria. [David S. McKay et al. of JSC] demonstrated that these carbonate globules contained fine-grained secondary phases of single domain magnetites and iron sulfides. These minerals probably formed in water solutions at temperatures amenable to microbial life. This result is extremely significant.

      Furthermore, on the skepticism, Dr. Hoover points out:

      The biggest controversy is over whether or not the rock contains evidence of microorganisms, and therein lies the most fundamental question. There's the frequently quoted saying, "Extraordinary results require extraordinary proof." It's true that scientists must always exercise careful skepticism. However, skepticism can reach a point where valid evidence can be rejected simply because it does not fit into the conventional view of the world at that time. Sometimes scientists also oppose new ideas because they may contradict ideas that one has published in a paper years earlier.

      See my other comment on this story [slashdot.org] with links to pictures and more supporting background information.

    • By my reading, the press release provides one more way you could conclude there was once life on Mars. There were four others well documented as of mid 1999:

      The following excerpt is from Gibson, E.K. Jr., McKay, D.S., et al. Life on Mars: evaluation of the evidence within Martian meteorites ALH84001, Nakhla, and Shergotty [nasa.gov]", Precambrian Research 106:15-34.

      The lines of evidence which indicate possible biogenic activity in the martian meteorite ALH84001 (McKay et al., 1996) are: (1) the presence of carbonate globules which had been formed at temperatures favorable for life, (2) the presence of biomenerals (magnetites and sulfides) with characteristics nearly identical to those formed by certain bacteria, (3) the presence of indigenous reduced carbon within Martian materials, and (4) the presence in the carbonate globules of features similar in morphography to biological structures. Each of these phenomena could be interpreted as having biogenic origins but the unique spatial relationships indicated that, collectively, they recorded evidence of past biogenic activity within the meteorite.

      See also NASA's astrobiology news page [nasa.gov] and my earlier comment [slashdot.org].

  • If the movies are correct, the martian bacteria will take over human subjects and create monsters out of them!
  • First, the martian origin of those SNC meteorites is not yet fully demonstrated. Yet, there are detritic layers on Mars that suggest there once were bodies of water. Provided the sulfide concentration was high enough, such bacteriae may have lived in those. If so, where would they have come from in the first place? Earth as a wild guess sounds likely, as many meteorites coming from our planet have spread in the solar system in those early ages. An isolated lifeform doesn't prove anything concening the martian origin of said lifeform.
    • Not necessarily true. What if the life form was based upon DNA that had clearly not evolved on Earth. Okay, proof is a strong word in science - you could argue that nothing is proven. However, it would be quite convincing.

      Also, Earth has a much larger gravitational pull (and hence escape velocity) than Mars, and is closer to the sun. Therefore transport from Mars to Earth is much more likely than Earth to Mars. It is far from satisfactorily demonstrated that meteorites could be transported from Earth to Mars, though I have to say that it seems probably, in small numbers. It has also not been demonstrated that life could withstand the energy of impact and re-entry.

      -Karl

      Dr Karl Mitchell
      Planetary Science Research Group
      Environmental Science Dept
      Lancaster University
      UK
      • If so, that would be an interesting case of convergent evolution, spectacular if the information carrier was not DNA. Though I'm not expecting any surprise on that last point.
        • Then there is also the possibility of different DNA handedness, although there is some debate as to whether or not this is plausible. The truth is that it's difficult to prove anything. We don't fully understand how life on Earth arose. However, if we can find life that started on other planets it should help answer some of the unknowns - one good reason to look for it.
          -k
    • Who cares where they evolved? Even if they were originally from Mars, or Earth, and spread to the another by getting a lift on a meteor, it's HUGE find to know that they can survive the voyage trought vacuum and cold, and the atmospheric re-entry. And to adapt totally different environment, and continue to evolve and reproduce there.

      Besides, if it were so, it proves theories of panspermia, and several billion years is more than enough time for those bacteria to drift to nearby planets and moons (Titan, Europa?) and even into dozens of nearest solar systems and who knows what kind of lifeforms may have evolved from those same ancestors in different places at same time.

  • Crystals (Score:4, Funny)

    by Subcarrier ( 262294 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @06:06AM (#4003987)
    Sprinkle some salt on your dinner and, no matter how careful you are, a little will always wound up on the table. -- JHVH, Day 7

  • "extraordinary claims..." (Score:4, Funny)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @06:38AM (#4004028)
    "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever you have left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." -- Sherlock Holmes ("The Beryl Coronet", Arthur Conan Doyle).

    Dueling quotes on deductive reasoning at dawn! I shall see you on the morrow, sir!

    -- Terry
    • "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever you have left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." -- Sherlock Holmes ("The Beryl Coronet", Arthur Conan Doyle).

      This works fine if you never make mistakes, you can be sure you've really examined every possibility, and you always wind up with exactly one remaining explanation. However, the only place that ever occurs is in fiction.

      In reality, there's always a strong chance that you've failed to consider some possibilities, or you've declared impossible something that actually is possible, or that after eliminating the impossible you're left with either zero or multiple possibilities.

  • Alein Bacteria? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @07:00AM (#4004050) Homepage
    How utterly boring. What happened to the 'superior intelligences' theory?

    NASA, we demand smart aliens, with tentacles and bug eyes and all. Don't you scientists read comic books?

    You're not doing your job. Bacteria? If these are the only aliens you can come up with then LOOK HARDER.

    Harumph.

    mutter mutter misappropriated tax dollars mutter

    • Ain't Michael Jackson enough? Oh, I guess he doesn't qualify for superior intelligence any more than the bacteriae...
    • NASA, we demand....tentacles and bug eyes and all. Don't you scientists read comic books?

      Well, some of this is a matter of perspective. If you (or viewer) were *tiny* enough, then these giant iron-farting wormy blobs would seem pretty ugly and menacing.
    • Bacteria? If these are the only aliens you can come up with then LOOK HARDER.

      Clearly you don't understand the true ramifications of this work. If there are alien bacteria, then not only is there intelligent life, but we also know that they're germy, and they sneeze all over the place. These are truly historic findings.

  • 4.5 Billion Years old (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gouva111 ( 517326 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @07:46AM (#4004111)
    According to the press release, this rock is 4.5B years old. Since that is the approximate age of Mars itself, how could it possibly be life? Does this predate any signs of life found on earth so far?
    • The oldest traces of life on Earth are around 3.8B years old, which is close enough to the age of our planet. Bear in mind archaeabacteria are extremophiles.
    • Life may appear very quickly (in geological terms) on new planets, either de novo or seeded from space. So, that part is pretty plausible.

      Earth's surface was probably destroyed one or more times after its formation, so it is also quite plausible that the oldest life on Mars is older than anything we find on earth.

  • Don't all these repeated claims of life on Mars say more about us and our obsessions than they do about Mars itself?
  • or there is some strange natural process

    It's merely a pedantic quibble, but life is a
    strange natural process.

    Unless, of course, you're a creationist (or, same thing, a proponent of "Intelligent Design" theories).
  • Why are they always looking for life on Mars? Quite simple. They're all self-centered chauvinists. Men are from Mars...
  • I went to a talk some time ago, about 6 months after the "discovery of life in a martian rock" found in Antarctica. It was a half hour talk, at the AIAA confernce in Reno in mid-January 2000.

    To summarise his arguments: They found some interesting crystals in a rock. They'd never seen anything like it. They looked for other places these crystals occurred. They looked and looked (He was quite adamant on this point), and couldn't find them anywhere except in some bacteria. Therefore these crystals can only be made by bacteria. Therefore these crystals are evidence of life.

    You'll have to excuse my scepticism that this in any way constitutes proof. I'm quite willing to believe that there is bacteria on mars, just not that this is proof of it.
    • Hey, the same sketchy evidenciary rules keep these loonies [enterprisemission.com] going. Check out the 'conference center [enterprisemission.com]', its particularly entertaining...
  • Last night, a bright light came through my window and woke me up. I was levitated out into a strange craft, where spindly bipeds with almond-shaped eyes probed my body cavities. But get this: they were all sniffling and coughing!

  • (press release) = (science * 100) (Score:4, Informative)

    by dankelley ( 573611 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @10:18AM (#4004365)
    This Nasa press release is closer to tabloid reporting than it should be, and it does a disservice to the scientists.

    In the press release [nasa.gov] we read " new evidence confirming that 25 percent of the magnetic material in the meteorite was produced by ancient bacteria on Mars. ... This means that one-quarter of the magnetite crystals ... in Martian meteorite ALH84001 require the intervention of biology to explain their presence. "

    The words "confirm" and "require" are very strong, indeed.

    However, in the abstract of the scientific report [nasa.gov] we read something quite different: " On Earth such ... magnetites are known to be produced by magnetotactic bacteria. We suggest that the observation ... are [sic] both consistent with, and in the absence of terrestrial inorganic analogs, likely formed by biogenic processes."

    So, the scientists suggest that something is consistent with a proposition, and the press-releasers convert that into confirmation of the proposition.

    Sure, scientists' language often needs to be modified for public consumption, but here we have a case of changing the entire thrust of the story.

    This sort of mistake would be unacceptable from a high-school science student, and that makes me wonder whether this exaggerating rewriting might have been deliberate. I remember a story of crying "wolf" ...

    • In Scientist-speak, the word 'suggest' is synonymous with "is" or "state". But you don't publish like that. Publishing is done so that you do not appear 'too wrong' in the future.... go back and read some journal articles from the 50s :) Very important but very lax in thrust.
      Problem is, you've been diluted by too much modern media where they state with '100% certainty' and when wrong say simply 'oops'.
    • The words "confirm" and "require" are very strong, indeed.

      Require is strong, yes, but perhaps you should consult the definition of confirm [dictionary.com]. It is an acceptable word to use, since it can also mean the same as to reinforce or support, which is basically what evidence does. Because of confirm's other meanings however, a word such as reinforce or support may have been clearer to those who don't understand how evidence works, and thus wouldn't think to use the other meaning of confirm.

  • it was hume who said (Score:2, Informative)

    by oogoody ( 302342 )
    'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' not carl.

  • There is a perfectly natural answer (Score:3, Informative)

    by young-earth ( 560521 ) <slash-young-earthNO@SPAMbjmoose.com> on Saturday August 03, 2002 @11:44AM (#4004549)
    Two researchers (at Univ Hawaii and Univ Greenwich) showed on May 13, 2002 [hawaii.edu] in an article (subscription to Proc NAS required to view this link) [pnas.org] titled "Resolution of a Big Argument About Tiny Magnetic Minerals in Martian Meteorite" that
    the planes of atoms in the Martian magnetites are aligned with atomic planes in the carbonate in which the magnetites are embedded. This shows that the magnetites formed in the rock and not inside microorganisms
    This is old news, it's been resolved already.
  • How is it determined that one of these rocks is from Mars and not from somewhere else? If it is from Mars, how did it get here? It would seem to me that hard evidence of this would be required BEFORE coming to any conclusions as to whether this proves that there is life on mars or not.
    • How is it determined that one of these rocks is from Mars and not from somewhere else?

      The planetary scientists develop these models based on emmitted gases etc (a bit more PhD-ish than just saying "Red rocks come from Mars").

      Having made the model, we go out and find a rock on earth that, according to our model, belongs on Mars. WTF? We have two options: (a)Recall all our research papers and say our model is broken -or- (b) Say awmigosh a Martian Rock. Fund me!

  • .. uh is dead I thought.. I'd imagine it would be hard for him to say anything today ...

    On another note there has been a discussion on space.com about life on other planets and the scientists think that we are likely to find bacterial life on mars or on one of Jupiters moons. So this is just the theory that life in some form may exist on another planet.

    The real question is not if life exists, but has life evolved elsewhere?

    • .. uh is dead I thought.. I'd imagine it would be hard for him to say anything today ...

      Yes, but fortunately he was able to speak while alive and left us with some insightful quotes.

      The one quoted in this Slashdot article, unfortunately, is often only half quoted. The full version is:

      "I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
      -- Carl Sagan

      Rather than a criticism of scientists who make extraordinary claims, this sounds to me more like a call to action to seek out the extraordinary evidence required for us to know the truth.
  • Yet another Goddammed source of H1B's discovered.
  • Some years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Dr. Richard Hoover [nasa.gov], leader of the Astrobiology Group at NASA [nasa.gov]'s Marshall Space Flight Center [nasa.gov], on the prospect of life on Mars, particularly based on things he had found in the ALH80001 meteorite.

    SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering [spie.org] captured the bulk of Dr. Hoover's presentation in an interview published in their December '96 magazine [spie.org]. This September 1998 article [panspermia.org] offers pictures of the fossils found, as does a July 1997 article [panspermia.org]. Another story announces a fossil find in another meteorite [cosmiverse.com] that fell on Murchison, Victoria, Australia.

    Many people question the science, but it would seem people should question the scientific community which has held its hands over its eyes when faced with the prospect of life on other planets. The community is just now peeking between its fingers and beginning to accept that there might be life elsewhere. In the presentation I attended, Dr. Hoover noted that NASA set up rules in advance of the Viking missions - that any one of the several (4?) tests coming back positive would be indicative of life on the red planet, but once some of the tests came back positive, they decided that all of the tests had to be positive to confirm the existence of life on Mars. Such has been the distinctly non-scientific approach of the community when confronted with the distinct possibility of life on other planets.

    More links:

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