Some scientists think humans descended from Martian microbes

Palm Beach Post ^ | Monday, April 03, 2006 | Stacey Singer

[planetesimal]

Astrobiology sounds like the stuff of lava lamps and Jetsons reruns.

Yet seven years after NASA launched a formal astrobiology research program, scientists of every stripe — geologists, biologists, chemists, paleontologists, oceanographers and astronomers — have rallied to the quest.

They've spent as much as $65 million a year trying to solve a mystery that has underpinned religion and inspired thinkers from Seneca to Carl Sagan: How did life on the lonely Earth begin? And is Earth really the only source of life in the universe?

With the help of modern tools such as the genome, high-powered computer modeling and robotics, they're finding some out-of-this-world answers, ones that may lead to Mars and beyond.

[planetesimal]

"We know we have about a ton of Martian rock coming in a year," Kirschvink said. "And it wouldn't take more than a few spores to seed the Earth with life."

Mind yer 'eads.

[doc30]

With the help of modern tools such as the genome, high-powered computer modeling and robotics, they're finding some out-of-this-world answers, ones that may lead to Mars and beyond.

Just read yer Bible and save us some tax dollars.... < /sarc>

[RockinRight]

[gondramB]

So how does the rock leave Mars? Does it leap off the planet?

[tumblindice]

http://www.google.com/mars/

Martian-Americans have rights too.
Give us your women.

[Red Badger]

Sounds like Scientology ............Tom Cruise came from a Martian microbe........

[Doogle]

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Sounds like the premise of that movie with Gary Senise.

[gondramB]

"
Martian-Americans have rights too.
Give us your women."

I remember on Rush Limbaugh's TV show somebody wrote in asking him why was oppressing animal Americans (meaning his bearskin rug.)

Rush replied it was a gift from Ted Nugent who had oppressed the bear on his behalf and he was very grateful for it.

[BallyBill]

"You puny earthlings shall feel my wrath, soon enough" Morbo

[Vaquero]

[GAB-1955]

"So how does the rock leave Mars? Does it leap off the planet?"

Meteors hit Mars. The impact scatters rock from the surface of Mars up and out. Some reach Martian escape velocity and go into solar orbit. Of these, some become meteorites and reach the surface of Earth. The composition of Mars and the Earth are dissimilar enough that we know that this has happened. One meterorite in 1984 reached Antarctica; it had the possibility that microbial life existed on Mars.

Several scientists believe that life in the universe is common -- if it's microbial, similar to domains Archaea and Bacteria here. What is rare would be complex life such as lichen and rotifers, let alone humans.

[SengirV]

[silverleaf]

There's no compelling reason to assume an extraterrestrial origin of life (since it solves no fundamental logical problem

Pan spermia does redirect those pesky troubling scientific dilemmas about irreducible complexity and DNA anomalies that bely an undisputed "thumbs up" to Darwinian evolution.

[gondramB]

Thanks for the info

[ARCADIA]

So how does the rock leave Mars? Does it leap off the planet?

It can be blasted off the planet by a collision. There is even a school of thought which argues that our own moon was made of materials knocked off the earth.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Perhaps I have missed something. I wasn't aware that there was life on Mars. Consequently, how could there be Martian microbes??

[centurion316]

Or, perhaps life began on Earth and microbes from Earth colonized Mars.

Or, microbes from comets colonized both Mars and Earth

Or, Life began on one of Jupiter's moon's and microbes from there came to Earth/Mars

Or, Interplanetary aliens visited...

And now the real reason for the story:

worried that funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is vaporizing

[AxelPaulsenJr]

With the help of modern tools such as the genome, high-powered computer modeling and robotics, they're finding some out-of-this-world answers, ones that may lead to Mars and beyond.

"Computer........."