{"id":4241,"date":"2011-03-06T21:29:17","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T02:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=4241"},"modified":"2019-12-15T20:35:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T01:35:50","slug":"alien-life-in-chondritic-meteorites-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=4241","title":{"rendered":"Alien Life in Chondritic Meteorites (Not)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Alien-tile.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4245\" title=\"Alien tile\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Alien-tile.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"165\" \/><\/a>I received word of yet another NASA-funded claim of \u201calien lifeforms\u201d: one more case of shadowy squiggles in a meteorite, it appeared in the Journal of Cosmology (JoC). <a href=\"http:\/\/rrresearch.blogspot.com\/2011\/03\/is-this-claim-of-bacteria-in-meteorite.html\">Rosie Redfield<\/a> dissecta this in detail, but essentially we have a recap of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=3668\">\u201carsenic bacterium\u201d debacle<\/a> minus (thankfully) the NASA-directed media blitz. Briefly:<\/p>\n<p>1. The author, Richard B. Hoover, has been presenting the same evidence without change since 1997.<br \/>\n2. The <a href=\"http:\/\/spie.org\/x17397.xml\">only CV I can find<\/a> for Richard Hoover does not list a PhD in anything (it does say \u201che authored four species of bacteria\u201d which gives new meaning to the term \u201cconjuring\u201d). [<strong>Update: <\/strong>NASA confirms that Hoover has a BSc, not in biology.]<br \/>\n3. The evidence itself is so weak, stale, shoehorned and artifact-prone as to be non-existent. The presentation is also misleading: it juxtaposes suggestive pictures at different scales. It doesn&#8217;t meet the criteria for publication in a reputable journal, let alone the justifiably high bar for such claims &#8212; which may explain why the author approached Fox News instead.<br \/>\n4. The editors of JoC say that the paper will be peer-reviewed post-publication (file this under \u201cunclear on the concept\u201d).<br \/>\n5. The executive editor of JoC for Astrobiology is Chandra Wickramasinghe of the Hoyle and Wickramasinghe \u201cviruses from space\u201d panspermia theories \u2013 enough said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Memo to NASA:<\/strong> hire bona-fide biologists who can conduct solid research or shut down the Astrobiology division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update: <\/strong>NASA has stated that the Hoover paper was published without the required internal NASA critique and approval; it also failed external peer review three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I received word of yet another NASA-funded claim of \u201calien lifeforms\u201d: one more case of shadowy squiggles in a meteorite, it appeared in the Journal of Cosmology (JoC). Rosie Redfield dissecta this in detail, but essentially we have a recap of the \u201carsenic bacterium\u201d debacle minus (thankfully) the NASA-directed media blitz. Briefly: 1. The author, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}