Thursday, December 12, 2013

Life on Mars




The other day, a discovery on Mars made a great media splash.  Somehow it was determined by robotic digging and analysis, that 4 billion years ago there may have been some water somewhere on that planet; -- "salty water" it said in another report.

We all know that water is necessary for life, as is oxygen and carbon.  Maybe salt, too, whatever salt they are talking about.  

With this report in hand, it only took the interviewer a second to make the leap from the possible presence of water 4 billion years ago, to having found "evidence" of life on Mars.   The researcher had to caution the interviewer:  no, we have not found evidence of life, not even a little microbe.  We would love to find evidence of a microbe.

Ya.

It's a little jump from possible water to a microbe.
Every Canadian housewife knows it.




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