You know what a good reporter would have done, BoingBoing? They’d have looked up the ‘Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology’ on google.
That would lead them to see that it’s a single suite on the second floor of a building in Gainsville FL that also is home to doctors offices and pharmacies. There is only a single ‘professor’ at the Institute, Steven Benner, who just happens to be pushing a new book.
Major segments of online media really are turning into clueless repeaters, CUT and PASTE journalism.
I admit my expectations for scientific journalism from BoingBoing are pretty high.
So the argument appears to be that more boron and molybdenum was transferred from Mars than existed on proto-Earth.
While it was explained that the concentrations of boron and molybdenum were and are low on Earth, can we really believe that this transport mechanism was that prevalent? Seems to me like it would be a lot of trips.
In this case, if true, that wasn’t possible - the conditions required for each stage were global conditions. So that’s the question, whether it’s possible a single planet could fulfill the conditions needed; it doesn’t sound like it.
If there was life on Mars it should be obvious to us. If life existed there before the climate cooled down and the atmosphere was lost, then it should have adapted to the changed conditions. This doesn’t seem to be the case. Mars seems to be dead now, but life could certainly have come to Earth from space.
