This is a bunch of well-known suspects and their escapades have been the topic of previous threads (perhaps I'll search for them later). The Journal of Cosmology is a sham (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Cosmology) and at least some of the authors have published other widely-discredited claims of extra-terrestial life.
Looking at the present pail of fertilzer we see the whole silk purse revolves around one diatom fragment that is 'certainly' not contamination. That is because the 'control flight' found zero but the real flight found .... (drum roll) ... one fragment. Is that proof that their protocol is effective and the fragment is not contamination or did they just get lucky the first time (or unlucky the second)? I mean if they found 50-100 fragments the argument would be clear but to say the difference between 0 and 1 is significant is drawing a pretty long bow. I also notice that the protocol for examining the stubs was not detailed. A SEM can't see a whole stub at once and so it must be scanned. AFAIK it is unusual to scan the whole stub.
They claim that the diatom could be identified by an expert but failed to get an expert to look at it! Unforgivable. Of all the thousands of experts around the world none would offer even an opinion? Did they ask or are they such untouchables in the scientific community that no experts would go near them? FWIW I don't think it's a
Nitzschia. Perhaps it was on the grass that the balloon was lying on as it was inflated. Perhaps it was in settled out of the air as the equipment was readied. (BTW you have inhaled many many diatoms while reading this.) Perhaps it really is possible for a fragment as small as this (I'm guessing about a nanongram) to be lofted to that altitude.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish stargazer
The isotope ratios from the mass spectrometer analysis should shed light on whether it is alien or terrestrial. I'm betting it is Earthly in nature but lets see the data.
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John, I'm afraid I can't find the reference to isotope ratios but I am intensely interested. Can you point it out to me?
My day job is running an IRMS so this is an area I could really get my teeth into. I commonly analyse carbonates, which are much easier to work with than the silica of a diatom, and I can do samples probably as small as anyone in Australia can do. On a good day with a tail wind I can get good results on 15 micrograms of material. Their fragment is about 10,000x smaller than this and it is presently covered in gold. I hope the technician enjoys a challenge.
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