Further work addresses some of the legitimate challenges in the Bad Astronomy article. The fragments have since been mass spec'd and are in fact from a fresh meteor fall, and the fossil forms are both embedded and not indigenous to the fall area. Bottom line to this story is that this is probably one of those unusual events/discoveries that will require some "extraordinary evidence" to be widely accepted, something like a comet drill/sample mission, or a fresh meteor fall where provenance of the samples is impeccable, with overwhelming evidence inside the samples.
Some of the complaints in the BA blog were pretty poorly thought out. I thought the worst was when the author explains that he essentially respects panspermia and understands it, then goes on to say that any fallen life forms should be *very different* than the ones already here. Duh, think you missed the point, bud? - R. From: James Bowery [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 6:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:Meteoriods, Life and Death Maybe not? http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/01/15/life_in_a_meteorite_clai ms_by_n_c_wickramasinghe_of_diatoms_in_a_meteorite.html On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Terry Blanton <[email protected]> wrote: Death to the dinosaurs. But bringers of life on earth? Panspermia? http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512381/astrobiologists-find-ancient-fos sils-in-fireball-fragments/
