We're not alone
 

Thanks to NonCon for alerting me to this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrend...nceofalienlife

Germs prove once again to be the most successful form of life in the known universe, as meteorites have been found containing fossilized bacteria. A thoroughly pre-peer-reviewed report ten years in the making suggests this is no sensationalist claim. I'm holding back tears right now.

Link to the article
Will edit with my thoughts in a bit.
Updating as I read: They haven't done their literature properly- "However, the CI1 meteorites also contain a host of strong biomarkers for which there are no known abiotic production mechanisms. These include magnetites in unusual configurations (framboids and linear chains of magnetosomes), protein amino acids with significant enantiomeric excess, nucleobases (purines and pyrimidines), and diagenetic breakdown products of photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll (pristine, phytane, and porphyrins), complex kerogen-like insoluble organic matter and morphological biomarkers with size, size range and recognizable features diagnostic of known orders of Cyanobacteriaceae and other prokaryotic microfossils."
Is false- there are numerous studies postulated creation of these various structures on the meteorites and showing how they could happen.

Also this paper is annoying as shit to read- they putting like history lessons and things- chemistry in 1867 is not particularly relevant here.

Experimental section is awful- no details of technique, enough to cast doubt right away.
Also they state they prevent contamination by freezing the sampel to -80 degrees but unless you put it in a vacuum that is a pretty excellent way to coat your samples in organics in the air becuase at that temperature they will form multilayers- Icool my samples that low when I want contamination. I'm assuming they are working in av acuum but they don't say.

Also there EDX data is oddly unresolved, analysis of it is still ok but its a bit irksome.

Conclusion: Eh, I'm not buying it. Their entire case is based on pretty mcuh three things:
1) That meteorites can carry amino acids and nucleic bases to earth and these are in the same conditions as the bacteria- it is well accepted that extra-terrestial amino acids and nucleic bases exist on these meteorites- this is shown through isotope studies, particularly C13 and the fact that only certian amino acids or bases are present, not conducive to earth. This is fair enough, the protective aspects of meteorites is well known.
2) That they can't detect Nitrogen by EDX in their sample, similar to ancient earth fossils but not anything that would contaminate their sample. I'm not convinced by that as their EDX spectrum are far too broad and N tends to overlap with C in EDX so this could be easily a rseolution issue. If they had provided some experimental detail about their EDX we could judge this properly. For some reason they didn't measure isotopic ratios of carbon which is the normal way to establish space origin. I'm willing to accept this though.
3) That what they are looking at is cyano-bacteria because it has similar structures to cyanobacteria- I'm calling complete balony. Ther eis simply no way you can claim this with the evidence they have placed. To claim its cyano-bacteria you should get a crystal structure, you should get chromatography data, you should get reaction data, XPS data. really just get Xray crystal data. Why has this not been done? It would establish pretty quickly whether you have dead cyano bacteria. You have a Scanning electron microscope- those can do spectroscopic in situ studies which would allow us to work out the atomic structure of the "bacteria" why has this not been done? Basically the argument is that it looks like cyano-bacteria under a scanning microscope but under a scanning microscope you can make pretty much any picture you want by fiddling around the settings, zooming into the right point. Thiss is not solid evidence. One of the ways we would identify cyanobacteria is by its nitrogen signals so in an old sample with nitrogen signals you need to do better than that.
SMBs conclusion: Probably from space but probably some form of cokin. Needs more evidence.
Also awfully written paper.

Well, I'm sure you're not the only one finding holes in their story. But I'm hopeful. :3

Hasn't this sort of thing happened before? Like, several times? I'd really like it to be true, but I'm not getting my hopes up, and those hopes are getting slimmer with every post I read on this because apparantly there are so many holes and inconsistencies in this paper.

There have been claims before of organisms from space they ahve turned otu to be false. Like I'm saying this might be true- in these meteorites we've already found amino acids and nucleic bases and PAHs and things and it is certainly possible that microorganisms could survive- but there is simply not enough evidence. We'll wait for the detailed back and forth that is sure to come about. If it really is a 10 year sutdy I expect that have lots more evidence they haven't published.

I saw this before and along with a general aura of "This seems like bullshit", I found something else questionable.

A supposedly 'respected' scientist went to Fox first.

Also publishing in a journal I've never heard of. If I found alien life I'm going to be published in Nature or something.

Yeah, I'm checking around several space news sites, and I'm not finding anything, aside from a short story on Yahoo.com, and that one is a different story then the one IQ posted.

Link to the article

I note the 100 experts reviewing it, along with the thousands of scientists to perform their own experaments with it...

I agree we probably aren't, but that doesn't mean the extreme burden of proof isn't on this dude-bro who probably has nothing to show for it.

It's an inevitability of working in the field. I imagine Smarty too will go (more) insane some day and claim to have found alien life on some defunct news site. Fox, maybe.

If we're going with burden of proof arguments, the only way this dude could convict anyone in court is if the journey is made of Smarty's and he's decided to make a point about how stupid our justice system is.
And my announcements will be through Weekly World News thank you very much.