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Alien life found on meteorite
    #14082954 - 03/07/11 06:47 PM (12 years, 11 months ago)

Alien Life in Meteorites: 'Remarkable Achievement' or 'Garbage'?



Riccardo Guerrero / Richard B. Hoover / Journal of Cosmology

A photograph taken through a scanning electron microscope of a CI1 meteorite (right) is similar in size and overall structure to the giant bacterium Titanospirillum velox (left), an organism found here on planet Earth, a NASA scientist said.


A NASA scientist announced a shocking find Friday, claiming a rare meteorite holds the fossilized evidence of alien life.

But is the work a "remarkable achievement," as one scientist put it? Or in the words of another, simply "garbage"?

Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is convinced that he has found fossils within an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. He published his latest findings in the March edition of the online Journal of Cosmology -- research that suggests we are not alone in the universe, he told FoxNews.com.

“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet Earth,” Hoover said. “This field of study has just barely been touched -- because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.”

Expecting controversy, the journal issued personal invitations to 100 scientists asking them to weigh in on the finding.

Now the journal itself has become the source of controversy.

On Monday, a NASA statement by Paul Hertz, chief scientist in the science division, said Hoover failed to advise the agency he had submitted the paper to the Journal of Cosmology -- and that the article failed to get published in a more established peer-reviewed journal.

Others point to a history of "out there" science stories, and note that the Journal's website is amateurish. Blogger and University of Minnesota-Morris biologist P.Z. Myers called it "the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics."

"This work is garbage," he said. "I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all."

Editor Lana Tao recently fought back, calling such comments "tantamount to school-yard taunts by jealous children."

"The ad hominem attacks and complaints by those [that] say Dr. Hoover's article should have been published in these other periodicals, and not JOC, are just sour grapes and should not be taken seriously," she Tao said.

The Journal published early Monday morning 12 responses, said Dr. Rudy Schild, a scientist with the Harvard-Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology's editor-in-chief.

He claimed that "no commentary has pointed out any major flaws in the data." Many scientists have indeed voiced concerns, however, just not to the Journal itself -- despite the open call for discussion.

David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, told MSNBC he felt the choice of scientific journal was enough to call the report into question.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. At a bare minimum this would require publication in a prestigious peer-refereed scientific journal -- which this is not."

"Perhaps the publication came out too soon; more appropriate would have been on April 1," Morrison added.

The commentary posted to the Journal of Cosmology's site is more measured. It tends to be enthusiastic and open-minded, often suggesting other interpretations and calling for additional work to verify Hoover's findings:

    "The variety and complexity of chemical interactions over the unknown, potentially 4 billion year history of these meteorites leaves room for an as-yet-unidentified inorganic process which could have created them." -- Cody Youngbull, Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute

    "Dr. Hoover's work is a remarkable achievement. However, I think his findings of what may be fossil Cyanobacteria and other bacteria in meteorites cannot give a definitive answer to the origin of the life in our planet." -- Paolo Pasquinelli, Ph.D., Laboratorio di ricerca sociale, Università di Pisa, Italy

    "In my opinion, Dr. Hoover was overly cautious in referring to the observed subjects as 'complex filaments.' Any experienced microbiologist can see these are fragments of cyanobacterial mats. In nature cyanobacterial mat represents a complex system, where symbiotic relations between algae (usually dominated by Cyanobacteria) and bacteria create tissue-like formations." -- Elena Pikuta, University of Alabama

    "I am not convinced that the bacteriomorphic structures identified by Dr. Hoover are fossilized bacteria. Instead, I propose as provocative speculation that a variety of alien life different from modern earthly microrganisms are inside meteorites as well as inside rocks of our planet (Geraci et al. 2001) and other moons of our solar system. These 'seeds of life,' that is, actual living organisms are dormant and waiting, across time and space, for the right conditions to emerge, after which, they may begin to evolve." -- Rosanna del Gaudio, Dept of Biological Sciences, University Federico II, Italy

    "Hoover's result suggests that indeed there are ecologies outside of this fragile Earth." -- Frank J. Tipler, with the Dept. of Mathematics and Physics, Tulane University

Many scientists and writers have referenced the earlier work in this field, and similar claims of life in meteorites -- both the 1960s claims by Fordham University chemist Bartholomew Nagy as well as earlier claims by Dr. Hoover made in 2004 and 2007.

NASA science chief Hertz seconded those statements.

"While we value the free exchange of ideas, data, and information as part of scientific and technical inquiry, NASA cannot stand behind or support a scientific claim unless it has been peer-reviewed or thoroughly examined by other qualified experts," Mr Hertz said.

Riccardo Guerrero / Richard B. Hoover / Journal of Cosmology
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/07/alien-life-meteorites-skeptics-believers-weigh/

-------------------------

Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence of Alien Life on Meteorite

We are not alone in the universe -- and alien life forms may have a lot more in common with life on Earth than we had previously thought.

That's the stunning conclusion one NASA scientist has come to, releasing his groundbreaking revelations in a new study in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology.

Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has traveled to remote areas in Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska, amongst others, for over ten years now, collecting and studying meteorites. He gave FoxNews.com early access to the out-of-this-world research, published late Friday evening in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology. In it, Hoover describes the latest findings in his study of an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites -- only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth.

Though it may be hard to swallow, Hoover is convinced that his findings reveal fossil evidence of bacterial life within such meteorites, the remains of living organisms from their parent bodies -- comets, moons and other astral bodies. By extension, the findings suggest we are not alone in the universe, he said.

“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,” Hoover told FoxNews.com. “This field of study has just barely been touched -- because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.”

In what he calls “a very simple process,” Dr. Hoover fractured the meteorite stones under a sterile environment before examining the freshly broken surface with the standard tools of the scientist: a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to search the stone’s surface for evidence of fossilized remains.

He found the fossilized remains of micro-organisms not so different from ordinary ones found underfoot -- here on earth, that is.

“The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth,” Hoover told FoxNews.com. But not all of them. “There are some that are just very strange and don’t look like anything that I’ve been able to identify, and I’ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stumped.”

Other scientists tell FoxNews.com the implications of this research are shocking, describing the findings variously as profound, very important and extraordinary. But Dr. David Marais, an astrobiologist with NASA’s AMES Research Center, says he’s very cautious about jumping onto the bandwagon.

These kinds of claims have been made before, he noted -- and found to be false.

“It’s an extraordinary claim, and thus I’ll need extraordinary evidence,” Marais said.

Knowing that the study will be controversial, the journal invited members of the scientific community to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries ahead of time. Though none are online yet, those comments will be posted alongside the article, said Dr. Rudy Schild, a scientist with the Harvard-Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cosmology.

"Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5,000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis," Schild wrote in an editor's note along with the article. "No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough vetting, and never before in the history of science has the scientific community been given the opportunity to critically analyze an important research paper before it is published, he wrote."

Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, said there is a lot of hesitancy to believe such proclamations. If true, the implications would be far-reaching throughout the fields of science and astronomy, the suggestions and possibilities stunning.

“Maybe life was seeded on earth -- it developed on comets for example, and just landed here when these things were hitting the very early Earth,” Shostak speculated. “It would suggest, well, life didn’t really begin on the Earth, it began as the solar system was forming.”

Hesitancy to believe new claims is something common and necessary to the field of science, Hoover said.

“A lot of times it takes a long time before scientists start changing their mind as to what is valid and what is not. I’m sure there will be many many scientists that will be very skeptical and that’s OK.”

Until Hoover’s research can be independently verified, Marais said, the findings should be considered “a potential signature of life.” Scientists, he said, will now take the research to the next level of scrutiny, which includes an independent confirmation of the results by another lab, before the findings can be classified “a confirmed signature of life.”

Hoover says he isn’t worried about the process and is open to any other explanations.

“If someone can explain how it is possible to have a biological remain that has no nitrogen, or nitrogen below the detect ability limits that I have, in a time period as short as 150 years, then I would be very interested in hearing that."

"I’ve talked with many scientists about this and no one has been able to explain,” he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/05/exclusive-nasa-scientists-claims-evidence-alien-life-meteorite/


--------------------



I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
- Simone de Beauvoir -

Edited by snoot (03/07/11 06:51 PM)

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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Re: Alien life found on meteorite [Re: snoot]
    #14083080 - 03/07/11 06:47 PM (12 years, 11 months ago)

This thread has been closed.

Reason:
Fascinating story, but not SNS material as it is not mushroom/drug/drug war related. I'd move this, but it has been posted already in the Science and The Pub forums.

Repost when they find extraterrestrial viable active mushroom spores.

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