'Alien Life' Story of Dubious Provenance Goes Viral 62
Sockatume writes "By now you have likely read about the 'alien life forms' discovered in the upper atmosphere over Yorkshire, via the mass media reprinting a press release from the University of Sheffield. Unfortunately, the paper comes from researchers with an infamous tendency to identify inanimate objects as aliens, and is published in a journal that seems to principally exist to print unlikely astrobiological claims. Phil Plait points out flaws in a number of their claims. Quoting: 'They found what appears to be a fragment of a frustrule, the hard outer casing around a diatom. It certainly does look like one. But is it? Weirdly, they apparently didn’t even check. Seriously, in the paper they describe the photo of the object and say [emphasis mine], "On one stub was discovered part of a diatom which, we assume, is clear enough for experts on diatom taxonomy to precisely identify." That implies very strongly they didn’t ask an expert in diatoms to look at their sample. That’s bizarre. If I were claiming this were an ET plant, that’s the very first thing I’d do!'"
Too Legit to ctrl-alt-delete (Score:5, Funny)
Ee, by gum... aliens above Yorkshire.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Funny)
You got me, I am actually on the Phil Plait payroll. All that sweet, sweet science blogger money.
Re:Who? What? Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
I guess I badly overestimated how much newsreading Slashdot does but it's currently the top Science story on Google News (tragically) and is getting reprinted all over the fuck.
As of 1 or 2 hours ago. I haven't even had my morning fix of $FavStimulent. let alone done the rounds of any news websites other than here.
Where's they cray haired guy when you need him? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who? What? Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
If it's any consolation that's only about 20 miles from where I reside and I still have no idea what the fuck it is on about.
Re:Who? What? Huh? (Score:2, Funny)
The what from the who now? Shitty writing. "Oh, by now I'm sure you've heard about the $TRIVIAL_EVENT that occurred 4,000 miles from where I reside 99.999% of my life.
That's what we aliens said to news of you... However, instead of just using the nuclear material to power bastions of life off-world, you created weapons.... and used them... against your own species. Ugh.
So, here we are. And now I'm required to do P.R. to repair the damage my love for botany has done. Hint: I'm as bad as PR as Overseeing... not that there weren't other candidates, just that I drew the short lot; Probably didn't help that it was my mass miscalculation which prevented the first asteroid from extinguishing the upstarts here millions of years ago...
Now you qualify for the Endangerd Sentience list! Damn it all. I suppose I deserve it. 4.5 billion years is a long sentence. It'll be a piece of cake if you just keep your life on that wretched little rock, and only explore beyond with cold calculating machines. Now there's a race with potential!
Re:Too Legit to ctrl-alt-delete (Score:4, Funny)
But they're acting like diatomaceous earth doesn't exist.
Of course it exists. What they've found is diatomaceous SPACE!