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We All May Have a Little Martian In Us

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-in-the-day dept.

coondoggie writes "Men are supposed to be from Mars as John Gray's iconic relationship book would have you think, but new research presented this week suggests that in reality; we all may hail from the Red Planet. 'The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock. It's lucky that we ended up here nevertheless, as certainly Earth has been the better of the two planets for sustaining life. If our hypothetical Martian ancestors had remained on Mars, there might not have been a story to tell,' Professor Steven Benner of The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology said."

4 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Re:slow news day by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, let us never speak of this again, regardless of whatever new evidence is found! Evar!

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. Re:slow news day by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um, it does say "new research" in the first sentence of both TFS and TFA. True, we have not yet set foot on Mars. But are suggesting this means there is NO EVIDENCE from Mars? Besides which, if a rock matches the chemical composition from our nearest neighbor, it kind of narrows things down. Maybe these scientists know a thing or two about what they're doing.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  3. Dubious Evidence by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As far as I can tell the article mentions that research has found one thing that might help in the formation of early life. They combine this with what evidence there is of the conditions on both Earth and Mars 3.5 billion years ago (and for Mars I imagine that is highly sketchy) and leap to the conclusion that life may have originated on Mars.

    If you find this even vaguely scientifically credible here are some questions to think about:
    • Is highly oxidised molybdenum the only possibility that could assist in the formation of early life or the only one they have found so far?
    • How certain are we of the conditions on Earth 3.5 billion years ago everywhere on the planet? What about deep ocean trenches - even if the surface lacked oxygen did these areas?
    • How certain are we that the conditions required existed on Mars 3.5 billion years ago?
    • How likely is it that an organism which evolved under the conditions required would survive a journey from Mars to Earth on a blasted out chunk of rock? We can find organisms now on Earth that might make the journey but out planet is teeming with a vast array of life - if a similar diverse array of life was present on Mars why hasn't some of it survived? It seems strange that none of these organism could survive on the surface of Mars now and yet survive a meteor impact followed by years in the cold vacuum of space ending with a fiery entry through Earth;s atmosphere.

    It's certainly possible but conjecture this wild without the evidence to back it up is just hard science fiction not science.

  4. Re: slow news day by barlevg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, how science usually works is that someone uses those results in their own research. And if the new results don't jive, one of the first steps is to verify the old research. If the old research can't be verified, they can publish and make a name for themselves out of refuting the previous work.