Free Republic

Mars rover Perseverance lists, among its mission objectives, a first for red planet exploration. The robotic explorer has been tasked with searching for signs of ancient microbial life on the dusty, dry planet – tiny microfossils that would be evidence that Mars was once habitable. That would indeed be an astounding, incredible discovery – but the new paper urges caution in interpreting what we find, in both this and future sources. According to astrobiologist Sean McMahon of the University of Edinburgh and geobiologist Julie Cosmidis of the University of Oxford in the UK, scientists will have to keep an eye...

Fungi are single or multi-celled organisms that break down organic materials, such as rotting wood, in order to absorb their nutrients. Neither plant nor animal, they range from mushrooms to single-celled yeast. Scientists were investigating organic chemicals trapped in an Italian sedimentary rock formation when they found evidence that an extinct fungus feasted on dead wood during a time when the world’s forests had been catastrophically eradicated.[1] What could have caused such a universal effect on forests, and why does organic material remain in rocks that are supposedly 251.4 million years old?...

EGS-AGU-EUG Joint Assembly, Nice, April 2003 Mass-extinction controversy flares again Core from asteroid crater fuels debate on what wiped out the dinosaurs. 10 April 2003 REX DALTON [photo] The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. © alamy.com A claim that the asteroid that struck Mexico 65 million years ago did not cause the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs triggered heated debate at a meeting this week. The announcement is based on preliminary analysis of the first core drilled into the 185-kilometre Chicxulub asteroid crater near the Yucatan Peninsula. Gerta Keller of Princeton University in New Jersey says...