celamity: (river)
Celamity ([personal profile] celamity) wrote2011-08-23 07:52 am

Ah, scientific sensationalist journalism

So, structures have been found in some 4,3 billion year old rocks in Australia which may or may not have been sulphur-eating microbes. This would make them the earliest known cellular lifeforms, and their metabolism is of a kind that could arise independently of oxygen, such as in a Mars-like environment.

How this is reported in a Norwegian newspaper? With a headline saying the world's oldest fossil shows there might have been life on Mars after all, and the claim that this sulphur-eating microbe is proof that life could arise without the oxygen that is supplied by plants, which apparently isn't something that has been a well established fact for years. (Oh, and just having a sulphur-eating microbe at all is also new and astounding knowledge, it seems.)

As far as I am concerned, this is further proof that you could send certain 'science' journalists to Mars and still not find intelligent life there.
tamf: jade dragon belt clasp. (Default)

[personal profile] tamf 2011-08-24 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
hmm... i'm surprised they didn't manage to work in boobs anywhere in the story.