[meteorite-list] New evidence for microbial fossils in Martian meteorite

[JoshuaTreeMuseum]

Melanie:

I think they're just recycling their old claims to try and get more taxpayer 
funding for their project.  I'm still waiting to hear their "new" evidence. 
It's the same as their old evidence, which is weak. McKay and his crew 
remind me of Michael Mann and his CRU with their AGW agenda.  (Incidently, 
NASA is involved in Climategate with their questionable Goddard Institute 
for Space Studies data.)

These people are seriously looking for microbial fossils in igneous rock? 
Has a fossil of any kind ever been found in an igneous rock? Are life forms 
ever preserved in magma, granite or obsidian?  This is laughable at the 
least.

So they found some magnetite crystals.  They say 75% were naturally formed 
by a shock mechanism, while 25% were so perfect, they had to be biogenic. 
What are the chances of this actually happening? Wouldn't it all be natural 
or all biogenic?

And get this:  the magnetite is exactly the same as that produced by 
magnetotactic bacteria on Earth! So what are the chances of this happening? 
2 identical life forms on two different planets.  These things live in the 
ocean, could they survive an interplanetary journey? Why are these magnetite 
chain fossils not found in sedimentary Earth rocks, but yet they appear in 
igneous Mars rocks?   Since these are aquatic creatures, it seems highly 
unlikely they would turn up in igneous rock.

Their whole argument rests of the morphology of a few magnetite nano 
crystals, which they claim they can now see better with higher resolution 
microscopes. I think this is very weak evidence, and I remain unconvinced. 
I think desktop cold fusion is more likely.

Phil Whitmer