Astrobiologists discover fossils in meteorite fragments, confirming extraterrestrial life

[Coyotl]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150417-astrobiologists-discover-fossils-in-meteorite-fragments-confirming-extraterrestrial-life

Astrobiologists discover fossils in meteorite fragments, confirming extraterrestrial life
By Sebastian Anthony on March 11, 2013

Researchers in the United Kingdom have found algae-like fossils in meteorite fragments that landed in Sri Lanka last year. This is the strongest evidence yet of cometary panspermia — that life on Earth began when a meteorite containing simple organisms landed here, billions of years ago — and, perhaps more importantly, that there’s life elsewhere in the universe.

In December 2012, a fireball was seen over the skies of Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka. Over the following few days, fragments of the fireball were collected and sent to Sri Lanka’s Medical Research Institute, where initial microscopic analysis revealed siliceous microalgae known as diatoms. As you can imagine, with this being the first ever evidence that life might’ve arrived on Earth via a meteorite, the scientific community was skeptical of the results — and so some fragments were sent to Cardiff University in Wales for further analysis. The researchers at Cardiff are now reporting that they’re sure that these fragments come from an extraterrestrial meteorite — and that there are definitely “fossilized biological structures” within them. Panspermia, it seems, is a go.

There are a few competing theories for how life began on Earth. Panspermia, where life arrived on the back of a comet or asteroid, is one ....

[Warren DeMontague]

1. the word "confirming" in the headline is a massive hyperbolic exaggeration.

Witness the last paragraph:

For this to actually become science — for Chandra Wickramasinghe’s dream of panspermia to become a reality — this work will need to be replicated by many other groups around the world. It would be very, very exciting indeed if biological fossils have been found on an extraterrestrial meteorite. It would be proof that there’s life on other planets — and essentially a guarantee that the universe is full of life. But, as always, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Exactly. Interesting? Yes. Is it possible they're right? Yes.

Is it "confirmed"? No.

[DRoseDARs]

2. This shit has been slapped down hard by astronomer Phil Plait BOTH times it came up this year.

UPDATE: No, Life Has Still Not Been Found in a Meteorite

Oh boy. Here we go again, again.

In January, I wrote about Chandra Wickramasinghe, who claimed he had found fossilized diatoms (microscopic plant life) in a meteorite. I showed pretty carefully why this claim is very wrong, but apparently it wasn’t enough: A new paper from Wickramasinghe’s team has been published furthering the claims, and it’s getting picked up by mainstream media.

I read the paper, and really it’s more of the same as from the first paper. In some ways, it’s even shakier; they provide lots of technical data that gives their work a veneer of credibility, but when you look a bit deeper you find they didn’t do a lot of critically necessary tests to establish the veracity of their claims. All the technical stuff obfuscates the fact that they missed the boat in some very basic ways.

In a nutshell, they don’t establish the samples they examined were actually meteorites. They don’t establish they were from the claimed meteor event over Sri Lanka in December 2012. And perhaps most telling, they don’t eliminate the possibility of contamination; that is, diatoms got into the samples because those rocks were sitting on the Earth where diatoms are everywhere.

-snip-

[UnrepentantLiberal]

3. Hammered big time in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122816478

[Posteritatis]

4. No, no they did not. The study in question is written by known frauds. (nt)

[exboyfil]

5. These kind of threads demonstrate

the vast difference between this board and Free Republic. I suspect most people on this board would love for us to find evidence of extraterrestrial life, but we call out this not peer reviewed article as being speculation at best. Over at Free Republic if someone claimed to find human footprints along with dinosaur prints, most would run with it.

[clydefrand]

6. Has anyone read Dan Brown's book

DECEPTION POINT?
These things can be rigged to 'prove' the meterite came from outter space.

[Progressive dog]

7. Nah, more junk science nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. We'll see.

These findings aren’t a slam dunk, though. According to our in-house biologist John Hewitt, there’s a strong possibility that the fossils aren’t actually biological in nature — they simply look biological. “This is kind of like finding a Q from Scrabble floating in space; it may be worth 10 points, but finding a few Es first would be a bit more convincing,” Hewitt says. There’s also the fact that the research was published in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed journal that has come under critical scrutiny numerous times since it was established in 2009. The journal faced a lot of controversy when it published a paper by NASA engineer Richard Hoover claiming to have found fossils “similar to cyanobacteria” in meteorites.

We've been here before. So far those who have bet against the various meteorites being proof of extraterrestrial life have a 100% win rate.

[Posteritatis]

9. The journal in question is a complete farce anyway

It just so happens that one of the authors of the study in the article has published a bunch of other everything-comes-from-space articles there. Did I mention he also runs said journal?

It's not peer review if he's screening his own work.

[Warpy]

10. While a lot of us wish this were true

I'm afraid you really do need to consider the original source and the original source was bunk.

While I'm sure the discovery of bacterial life will be made off planet eventually, this wasn't it.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. 2nd post on this "announcement" -- not the most credible researchers in the world.

They have a hypothesis and interpret the evidence as needed to fit the hypothesis.

Wickramasinghe and his mentor Fred Hoyle have also used their data to argue in favor of cosmic ancestry, [20][21][22][23][24][25] and against evolution.[26]

“ Once again the Universe gives the appearance of being biologically constructed, and on this occasion on a truly vast scale. Once again those who consider such thoughts to be too outlandish to be taken seriously will continue to do so. While we ourselves shall continue to take the view that those who believe they can match the complexities of the Universe by simple experiments in their laboratories will continue to be disappointed. ”

Wickramasinghe attempts to present scientific evidence to support the notion of cosmic ancestry and "the possibility of high intelligence in the Universe and of many increasing levels of intelligence converging toward a God as an ideal limit." [27]

During the 1981 scientific creationist trial in Arkansas, Wickramasinghe was the only scientist testifying for the defense of creationism and against evolution.[26][28] In addition, he wrote that the Archaeopteryx fossil finding is a forgery, a charge that the expert scientific community considers an "absurd" and "ignorant" statement.[29][30]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Wickramasinghe