Mars Viking Robots 'Found Life'

reply to post by ArMaP


Looking a little deeper here I realized that it's an international team of scientists that published the findings and not Joe Miller alone. I suppose you missed that as well.

With regards to "life as we know it"; It's probably safe to assume that all life utilizes some form of respiration. The Labeled Release experiment tested for evidence of respiration and returned positive results twice. While the other experiements did not find evidence of organic molecules.

I don't understand why Illustronic is going on about organic molecules and perchlorate because they were never put forth as being evidence of life on Mars. Perchlorate was found by the Phoenix but that's not what we're talking about here.

What we ARE talking about is evidence of metabolism. The published work seems to show that the off gassing detected by Viking is associated with bilogical respiration and not the result of geologic activity.

NASA/Scientists themselves say that we should look at life in a different way. GFAJ-1 is in my opinion the reason for this new way of thinking.

... "The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it." ...

Source

So let's look at all our data again with a new, fresh concept. And this is what they are doing since GFAJ-1's discovery.

StringTh

Originally posted by Blarneystoner
Looking a little deeper here I realized that it's an international team of scientists that published the findings and not Joe Miller alone. I suppose you missed that as well.

I knew that this wasn't the work of just one scientist, but I did miss that it was an international team. (see PS at the end of this post)

With regards to "life as we know it"; It's probably safe to assume that all life utilizes some form of respiration. The Labeled Release experiment tested for evidence of respiration and returned positive results twice. While the other experiements did not find evidence of organic molecules.

But was it real respiration? They didn't get enough data to get a clear conclusion, even after 36 years.

I don't understand why Illustronic is going on about organic molecules and perchlorate because they were never put forth as being evidence of life on Mars. Perchlorate was found by the Phoenix but that's not what we're talking about here.

I think that perchlorate may be related to a chemical (instead of biological) reaction. Only with Phoenix did we get the information that perclhlorates exist on Mars' surface, and I'm sure that if they had that information when they designed the Viking tests they would have made them different.

What we ARE talking about is evidence of metabolism. The published work seems to show that the off gassing detected by Viking is associated with bilogical respiration and not the result of geologic activity.

Unfortunately (or not), "seems to show" is not enough, we need more data.

PS: that international team is composed by Giorgio Bianciardi, from the Department of Human Pathology and Oncology in Siena, Italy, Joseph D. Miller, from the Department of Cell and Neurobiology, Keck School of Medicine at USC, and by Patricia Ann Straat and Gilbert V. Levin. Gilbert Levin was the scientist responsible for the Viking Labeled Release experiment, and I think that Patricia Ann Straat was also part of the original team.

PPS: during my searches I found this page, from what looks like the official Gilbert V. Levin site. That page has dozens of links to documents about life on Mars. I hope you find those interesting.