by Scientist Richard Hoovers
Did a NASA researcher find signs of alien bacteria in meteorites? Colleagues highly doubt it
The gaps and stringy fibers in these space rocks sure look like bacteria, and a NASA researcher has caused a stir with claims that they're fossils of alien life.
Top scientists in different disciplines immediately found pitfalls in a newly published examination of three meteorites that went viral on the Internet over the weekend.
NASA and its top scientists disavowed the work by noon Monday.
"There's a lot of stuff there, but not a lot of science," said Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, who publicly dissected the paper over the weekend. "I looked at it and shuddered."
The Associated Press talked to a dozen scientists, and none of them agreed with the findings.
There was none of the excitement that surrounded a similar claim that NASA announced with fanfare in 1996 — but was forced to back away from later — that a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica showed evidence of alien life.
"There has been no one in the scientific community, certainly no one in the meteorite analysis community, that has supported these conclusions," NASA Astrobiology Institute Director Carl Pilcher said Monday of the latest work.
Seth Shostak, an astronomer who searches for intelligent alien life, desperately wanted to believe the reports. But when he read the Hoover study, he ended up disappointed.
"It looks very, very doubtful, which is a shame from several points of view," said Shostak, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute in California. "But that's the way science is. People make claims that often don't hold up. That's the nature of science."
Reality Views by sm –
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Keywords - Alien Life, Nasa, Nasa Alien Life, Richard Hoover, Richard Hoover Alien, Richard Hoover Alien Life, Richard Hoover Meteorites,
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By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
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