"NASA found life on Mars -- and killed it!"

"NASA found life on Mars -- and killed it!", From CNN.com

Decepticon View Member Profile	Jan 8 2007, 08:12 PM Post #1
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1279 Joined: 25-November 04 Member No.: 114	I'm surprised no one posted this yet. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/01/07/mar...e.ap/index.html

Replies

dvandorn View Member Profile	Jan 10 2007, 08:09 PM Post #2
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15	What strikes me as funny in this particular article is that the Viking life-detection experiments were always designed to sterilize their samples at some point during the process. In other words, the experiments were designed to kill Martian life, if it existed. It would have been difficult to determine if there was life or not had they not run the same tests on sterilized vs. non-sterilized samples, and IIRC at least one of the experiments ran its gas-release tests and then heat-sterilized its samples before running further tests on them. At least the astronomer who talked with Keith Olbermann got all of that straightened out, so anyone who watched Countdown that night got the story straight... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain

Posts in this topic

Decepticon "NASA found life on Mars -- and killed it!" Jan 8 2007, 08:12 PM

um3k I was about to...but you beat me to it by about tw... Jan 8 2007, 08:16 PM

AlexBlackwell See also this story and this arXiv preprint. Jan 8 2007, 08:24 PM

AlexBlackwell This is the abstract from the ongoing AAS/AAPT Joi... Jan 8 2007, 08:40 PM

tedstryk I tend to ignore abstracts with regard to life-det... Jan 8 2007, 09:52 PM

tuvas I think that title is a bit overdramatic, but, wel... Jan 8 2007, 10:25 PM

edstrick given the reactivity of hydrogen peroxide, I'm... Jan 9 2007, 08:16 AM

Stephen QUOTE (edstrick @ Jan 9 2007, 07:16 PM) g... Jan 9 2007, 09:56 AM

TheChemist Schulze-Makuch I can understand, it is his field. ... Jan 9 2007, 10:59 AM

marsbug Hello everybody, I've been a long time lurker ... Jan 9 2007, 02:06 PM

MarkL Its a fanciful grab for attention, and at bottom i... Jan 9 2007, 02:43 PM

AlexBlackwell Here's a paper in press with Earth and Planeta... Jan 10 2007, 06:56 PM

dvandorn What strikes me as funny in this particular articl... Jan 10 2007, 08:09 PM

Alex Chapman I am another long term lurker and I just thought I... Jan 11 2007, 09:15 AM

Bob Shaw Early designs for experimental devices to investig... Jan 11 2007, 12:56 PM

dvandorn QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Jan 11 2007, 06:56 AM) ... Jan 11 2007, 07:53 PM

Bob Shaw QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jan 11 2007, 07:53 PM) ... Jan 11 2007, 09:18 PM

edstrick "... the Viking experiments were fundamentall... Jan 11 2007, 12:53 PM

Display Mode: Switch to: Standard · Switch to: Linear+ · Outline

Time is now: 17th December 2024 - 05:04 AM