Curiosity might prove we've already found life on Mars (Gil Levin at SPIE next week)

[bananas]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528773.600-curiosity-might-prove-weve-already-found-life-on-mars.html

Curiosity might prove we've already found life on Mars

08 August 2012 by Michael Brooks

GILBERT LEVIN aims to appropriate the Mars Science Laboratory for his own ends. "Since NASA has disdained any interest in MSL looking for life, I'm taking over," he says. "I claim it."

He is only half joking. If MSL's rover Curiosity finds carbon-based molecules in the Martian soil, Levin - who led the "labelled release" experiment on NASA's 1976 Viking mission - will demand that his refuted discovery of life on Mars is reinstated.

Levin, a former sanitary engineer, will make this call next week at the annual SPIE convention on scientific applications of light sources in San Diego, California. He wants an independent reanalysis of the data.

The experiment mixed Martian soil with a nutrient containing radioactive carbon. The idea was simple: if bacteria were present in the soil, and metabolised the nutrient, they would emit some of the digested molecules as carbon dioxide. The experiment did indeed find that carbon dioxide was released from the soil, and that it contained radioactive carbon atoms.

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[sofa king]

1. My old man is right with this guy.

He was one of the many subordinate engineers who designed and built the LR experiment. "I didn't build that damned thing to fail," he has often said.

It would be awesome to see all the LR people finally vindicated. My father has always maintained that Viking sent back a positive signal for life, and that needs to be further investigated.

He has also occasionally wondered out loud why subsequent missions did not attempt to repeat and refine the experiment. But I think we can all guess why.

[LongTomH]

2. Levin has some support for his conclusions.

Since then, some of the GCMS team have admitted that their experiment was not sensitive enough to detect organic molecules even in terrestrial soils known to contain microbes.

I've seen interviews with Levin for decades, where he claimed that Viking actually found life. In the next few months, he may be vindicated.