Viking Soil Data Points to Life on Mars?

Ross Finlayson writes: "According to this upcoming news release, a University of Southern California has re-analyzed the data from the 1976 Viking Mars lander's soil experiments, and has discovered evidence (including circadian rhythms) that he concludes strengthens the case for life being present on Mars. The scientist also noted the difficulty in gathering the experiment's original data: 'The data were on magnetic tapes, and written in a format so old that the programmers who knew it had died.'"

Comments

Life Expectancy??

[Anonymous Coward]

'All the people that knew the format had died' So what IS the life expectancy of programmers these days?!?

Hmm

[Have Blue]

If no one had figured out their format until now they had some serious job security :P

Re:Open Formats

[mandolin]

Would have it been too hard to actually publish the formatting protocol at the time the data was recorded to tape??

I'm sure they have a copy of those protocol docs right there on the tape. Just in case somebody forgot.

Circadian rhythms?

[BWJones]

Speaking as someone who has done a bit of biological circadian research, I suppose that it could be bacteria or unicellular organisms, but one would have to be convinced that they did not hitch a ride on Viking from Earth to Mars. However, that said, I would be more inclined to believe that the observation of a simple change in levels of radioactivity due to addition of a "nutrient solution" (whatever solution that may be) could not prove the presence of circadian rhythms in a supposed life form. In order to prove that this was indeed a circadian rhythm possibly caused by a life form, one would have to remove the sample from the environment and any external time cues, temperature cues, magnetic cues etc... and demonstrate that whatever phenomenon you were observing persisted in the absence of those cues. This is one of the fundamental requirements for a description of a circadian rhythm. If that were to happen, then I would be VERY interested.

Since, there were still temperature fluctuations in the Viking lander as well as possible influences from the lander itself like the addition of the "nutrient solution" that could have influenced the data, I am not inclined to buy this one. Don't get me wrong here, I am not just naysaying this, as I would love to have definitive proof that alien life exists. I just think that good science will point the way to the truth that is out there and reveal what is also not the truth.

Re:It sounds as if it was really bacteria

[mefus]

For when this gets slashdotted, the gist of the story is that the petri dishes shows signs of activity for nine weeks, far too long to be explained by the chemical story. The bacteria's activity was cycling with the temperature, and we know today but didn't know then that that sort of cycle points to cellular activity (so say the reporters at the EurekaAlert!).

But... remember this thing called the ozone layer, here on earth? Well it's generated in sunlight at high altitudes, and could very well be generated down on the martian surface. This is all that would be required to create the superoxide effect seen in the "circadian rhythms" activity found in those petri dishes. Careful with that axe, Eugene.

I'm not saying the report is wrong, just that it doesn't suggest any alternative, life-negative, scenarios that are also plausible, more probable even. According to this page, oxygen makes up 0.13% of the martian atmosphere, so I think there might be an appreciable level of ozone as well.

Re:Life on Mars...who cares?

[Fixer]

What's the point, you ask? Where do I begin..

First, were life to be found on Mars, it would provide strong evidence for what is currently only a theory: That life is as common as dirt, or more properly, nebulae.

It would lend concrete data to the Drake equation. This is the concept of attempting to guess just how many other intelligent species are in our own galaxy. Unfortunately, because of some rather gaping holes in our knowledge, it could be anywhere from 1 to 1 million. This would lend support to the one million end of the scale.

Now, philosophy and metaphysics: Many people of a religious bent seem to be of the notion that this planet is special and unique, that we are THE (as in, the only) children of God, and that the idea of intelligent life out there is just so much poppycock. Were life to be discovered "out there", it would become rather more difficult to hold that position.

I would like to point out a bad assumption that you've made: Just because there is life on this planet, it does NOT follow that there is life elsewhere, and the reason is that our world is so totally unlike any other in our system.
We have liquid water, we have strong seasonal change, our cloud cover is thick enough to block some of the more destructive radiations yet still allows ample energy to reach the surface, etc, etc.

This would be evidence that life can evolve under radically different conditions from our own, which is another thing which we only suspect but couldn't prove, until now... providing that the data is accurate, that is.

So I would say that this is a very, very important discovery.

Re:u r ignorant

[jonnythan]

As bad as they usually are, that's correct. The noun "data" can be used with a singular or plural verb. The word data is the plural of datum.

data (dt, dt, dät)
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)

Disproving theories of intelligent life

[Ukab the Great]

No one documented the file format of the data? We should send out a probe to determine whether intelligent life forms exist at NASA.

Data From the Horse's Mouth (So To Speak)

[cybrpnk]

Dr. Levin, the guy behind the Viking Labeled Release Experiment, has been a lone voice in the wind the past few years about Viking discovering life, even before this latest interest. Check out his data here.

We Don't Take Kindly To Martians Around Here

[bonoboy]

I could mod this up, but I'd prefer to add my agreement to it. Sorry, karma whores:)

One of the things people have done a little too often in the past is assume that an exported species will be similar in activity in its new environment. Not true. Look at the opossum prolem in New Zealand: they've devastated native forests and contributed to the death of many indigenous species of flaura and fauna. Here in Australia, they're protected, I believe. Over there, they've reproduced like there's no tomorrow. They were introduced for an early fur trade which never really made it.

Now, on Mars, if there's something alive (I doubt it) then we have a specialised organism used to living in low atmospheric density and cold. The possibilities are that it's either going to thrive in a warmer, more rewarding and oxygenated environment or it will die out. Of course, anyone that's tested for antibiotic resistance on a plate knows how fast mutations occur and how easily bacteria can evolve to suit their environs. So which is more likely? Given a large enough sample, I'm pretty sure there would be enough mutants that a population would make it through the bottleneck. And there's no telling what they might do. Remember, small organisms are not just the bottom of the food chain, they're also the base upon which everything else is founded. They also draw from the top of the chain for food.

Re:It sounds as if it was really bacteria

[nels_tomlinson]

Should be plenty of UV to generate ozone, right down to the surface, I guess. And low partial pressure might mean that tri-atomic oxygen is less likely to form? Anyway, this was apparently inside the lander, so who knows what it was exposed to. If you're right, it's another good story down the tubes. Darn.

It sounds as if it was really bacteria

[nels_tomlinson]

But who knows where they came from?

For when this gets slashdotted, the gist of the story is that the petri dishes shows signs of activity for nine weeks, far too long to be explained by the chemical story. The bacteria's activity was cycling with the temperature, and we know today but didn't know then that that sort of cycle points to cellular activity (so say the reporters at the EurekaAlert!).

I guess the only quibble left to be hashed out is: "Could this be earth bacteria which hitched a ride and survived the trip?" I seem to recall that NASA tried to prevent that from happening, but I was only 15 that year, and easily distracted.

One other thing springs to mind after reading this: DOCUMENT YOUR CODE! The article says:

It took a number of calls?and a good four months?to uncover what Miller was looking for. And when NASA found it, there was a problem. "The data were on magnetic tapes, and written in a format so old that the programmers who knew it had died," Miller said.

If they had documented their work properly, someone could have figured out how to read that tape, even after they kicked the bucket.

Re:It sounds as if it was really bacteria

[IronChef]

Though curiously the natural human circadian rhythm is 24'42". People gravitate to that when removed from external stimuli. Do a search for "circadian cave natural."

Re:Ppl will say same of zip disks 30 years from no

[green pizza]

Ppl will say same of zip disks 30 years from now.
Proprietary disk formats are bad, mkay?

Which "open" disk format do you prefer? MSDOS floppy?

Open Formats

[green pizza]

*Sigh*

Would have it been too hard to actually publish the formatting protocol at the time the data was recorded to tape?? My goodness, Viking wasn't even that long ago. I would like to see NASA somehow extract the data from the tape (in any form) and post a huge tarball on their website. Let the community try to make heads or tails of it.

Life on Mars, that's nothing!

[jpm242]

I have a little society that grew in a glass of milk that I left on my desk for too long. They built a little city and they almost succeeded in space travel, that is getting out of the glass. If I let them evolve, they just might reach Mars before Nasa does.

They didn't die.

[smnolde]

They didn't die. They violated some obscure NDA and a large media company *cough* RIAA *cough* had them terminated.

Hardly Down the Tubes...

[uptownguy]

If you're right, it's another good story down the tubes. Darn.

Hardly down the tubes. Good science is as much (more?) about disproving "neat" theories than about proving them...

MORE TO THE POINT I know I'll get flamed for saying it, but I'll be glad if we find there is no other life on Mars ... cuz if there is life, what do you think we are going to do?

We'll do what we always do:

We'll investigate.
We'll take "precautions"
We'll be "careful"
We'll bring BACK sample to analyze
We'll see how the stuff interacts with OUR stuff

And all this being done by an agency that can't even read its own data 25 years later? Nope, sorry folk, but if there is any sort of life that is hardy enough to survive the Martian elements, we'd be better off leaving it ON Mars... buried.

Before it gets the chance to "interact with our stuff"

(Ever seen a lake/river infested by an exotic species? If so, then you know what I'm talking about...)

physical evidence?

[hyrdra]

Maybe we should end the debate forever and have a mission to collect soil and bring it back to Earth for actual analysis. It would be hard to dispute physical evidence.

Nevermind the difficulties, but in order to proove it to some people I assume we would need actual evidence, especially to those who think life is unique to Earth (e.g. religious sector).

Otherwise, it's just going to be another debate.