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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Mushrooms on Mars

    Scientists Believe These Photos Show Mushrooms on Mars—and Proof of Life

    By Caroline Delbert (Prevention)

    Fri, May 7, 2021, 10:55 PM


    Photo credit: NASA/Advances in Microbiology/Screenshot

    • Scientists claim NASA photos show mushrooms growing on Mars.
    • In their paper, the scientists analyze a variety of images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, as well as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera.
    • Mushrooms could be great for multiple purposes for Mars settlers.


    Could there be mushrooms on Mars? In a new paper, an international team of scientists from countries including the U.S., France, and China have gathered and compared photographic evidence they claim shows fungus-like objects growing on the Red Planet.

    In their paper, which appears in Scientific Research Publishing’s Advances in Microbiology, the scientists analyze images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, plus the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. The objects in question show “chalky-white colored spherical shaped specimens,” which the Mars Opportunity team initially said was a mineral called hematite.

    Later studies refuted the hematite claim. Soon, some scientists coined the term “Martian mushrooms” to describe the mysterious objects, because of how they resemble lichens and mushrooms, while in another study, fungi and lichen experts classified the spheres as “puffballs”—a white, spherical fungus belonging to the phylum Basidiomycota found on Earth.

    In the new paper, the scientists point to a set of Opportunity photos that shows nine spheres increasing in size, and an additional 12 spheres emerging from beneath the soil, over a 3-day sequence. The researchers claim Martian wind didn’t uncover the amorphous spheres, and that they “expand in size, or conversely, change shape, move to new locations, and/or wane in size and nearly disappear.”

    Photo credit: NASA/Advances in Microbiology/Screenshot

    The scientists continue:
    “Many of these ground-level spherical specimens also have stalks or have shed portions of their outer membranes—possibly crustose—and are surrounded by white chunks and fluffy spore-like material that may consist of leprose.”
    Crustose and leprose are kinds of fungus surface textures, where crust or scales form and can flake away.


    Photo credit: Advances in Microbiology/Screenshot

    The presence of these peripheral parts is important, the scientists say, because it helps them make the case that what we’re seeing really is fungus instead of simply some spherical rocks. Mushrooms grow and reproduce like gangbusters—it’s one of the defining characteristics of the entire family of fungi. Small mushrooms grow in about a day, while large mushrooms take up to 4 days.
    In their research, the scientists carefully document all the ways their proposed fungi change from one photo to the next. “White amorphous mass alters shape, location, and almost completely disappears from inside the crevice of a rock shelter over a three day (Sol) period,” they explain of one image set, shown below.

    Photo credit: Advances in Microbiology/Screenshot

    Besides something like a gust of wind blowing away loose sand, fungi are one of the only living things that could experience such noticeable growth and change in just a few days.

    The scientists acknowledge the “evidence” they present isn’t ironclad, and seem to predict the scrutiny that will inevitably come with their paper, writing that “similarities in morphology are not proof of life.”

    “It is possible that all the specimens presented here are abiotic. We cannot completely rule out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to Mars and unknown and alien to Earth. However, growth, movement, alterations in location and shape, constitute behavior, and coupled with life-like morphology, strongly support the hypothesis there is life on Mars.”

    But if there really were mushrooms on Mars, what would that mean in a future where humans hope to settle on the Red Planet? Well, the scientists say many fungi on Earth are also extremophiles—meaning organisms that can thrive in conditions considered “extreme” in terms of the usual building blocks of life. So to find mushrooms on Mars is perhaps less surprising than we think.

    In his 2018 novel Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson imagined a moon settlement with fast-growing bamboo as its primary building material. It’s not hard to imagine fungus used as anything from a building material, to an insulator, to even a hypothetical food source for Mars residents or their livestock animals.
    Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd

  2. #2
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    Great, let's bring them back to Earth and see if we can cause another pandemic...

  3. #3
    I Amn't In Jail PlanK's Avatar
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    I guess we all remember the 'face' and 'pyramid' found on Mars in low res photos from years past. This can be the modern day equivalent. Are there 'shrooms on Mars? Is that what David Bowie was tripping on?

    But imagine if it was true. Absolutely mind-blowing that at any given moment there is more intelligent life on Mars than there is on this forum.
    Some people think it don't, but it be.

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    Why no source link?

    A load of nonsense.

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRealKW View Post
    Why no source link?
    ...oops!... Mushrooms on Mars: Do These Images Show Proof of Life on Mars?

  6. #6
    I am not a cat
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    This is publushed by a well known predatory publisher. Value : nil.

  7. #7
    I am not a cat
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRealKW View Post
    Why no source link?

    A load of nonsense.
    There are links in OP. You can follow through to the original article. As noted, it is junk.

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nidhogg View Post
    There are links in OP. You can follow through to the original article. As noted, it is junk.
    Like most predatory publications or hoax sites it links to legitimate sources in an attempt to deceitfully gain credibility. eg: the first link I clicked on was NASA, and they are not publishing that shite.

  9. #9
    I am not a cat
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    This link:

    from the OP takes you to research gate, with a copy of the paper available for download.

    However the paper is published in Advances in Microbiology 11(5), and that is published by Srirp ( Scientific research), and that is a predatory publisher (pay for publication).

    But we all agree, the article is junk.

  10. #10
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nidhogg View Post
    But we all agree, the article is junk
    ...totally fraudulent then...unsupported speculation by such spurious sources as NASA (which faked the moon landing) and Advances in Microbiology, a secret tRump fundraiser...sharp eyes, keen intellects at work here on TD...

  11. #11
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    This may be the end of any prospect of manned exploration of Mars though. Many people are concerned that humans could bring bacteria or fungi with them that could accidentally be released into the Martian environment and lead to the extinction of life on Mars. OR, on the other hand, Martian life could easily come back to Earth with returning human explorers and lead to an Earthly pandemic!

  12. #12
    In Uranus
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    Quote Originally Posted by nidhogg View Post
    This is publushed by a well known predatory publisher.
    Popular Mechanics is hardly "predatory".

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Popular Mechanics is hardly "predatory".
    ......you're throwing shade on Nidnog's sleuthing skills and summary judgement!...

  14. #14
    I am not a cat
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Popular Mechanics is hardly "predatory".
    The popular mechanics article is based on a paper published in a predatory publisher.

    It is not *that* difficult to follow!

  15. #15
    I am not a cat
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    Jesus - it is in the original post!!!!

    In their paper, which appears in Scientific Research Publishing’s Advances in Microbiology,

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plan B View Post
    I guess we all remember the 'face' and 'pyramid' found on Mars in low res photos from years past. This can be the modern day equivalent
    Yep. Apparently the mushrooms grew from the remains of a toasted mushroom ciabatta sandwich that Elvis didn't finish. I think the Sunday Sport alluded to it in an article in the 1980s.



  17. #17
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neverna View Post
    Apparently the mushrooms grew from the remains of a toasted mushroom ciabatta sandwich that Elvis didn't finish
    ......

  18. #18
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    If it were true that life was found on Mars, it would be the biggest news of our lifetime. The news would be splashed on the front page of every newspaper in the world if it were legit.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    If it were true that life was found on Mars, it would be the biggest news of our lifetime. The news would be splashed on the front page of every newspaper in the world if it were legit.
    And start a stampede of messroom picking Thais trampling all over the place? news such as this have to be managed until sufficient immigration mechanisms are in place.

  20. #20
    I am not a cat
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomcat View Post
    ......you're throwing shade on Nidnog's sleuthing skills and summary judgement!...
    My sleuthing skills like actually reading the post and checking the links?

    Yah. Ok dude. Weird flex but ok.....

  21. #21
    A Cockless Wonder
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    The fossil record shows that multicellular life evolved here on Earth.

    Very unlikely that multicellular life would have evolved independently twice in the same solar system in only a few billion years or could have travelled between planets.

    If we find extra-terrestrial life in this solar system it will be simple unicellular similar to terrestrial prokaryotes.

    Finding something as complex as even a unicellular eukaryote would be a miracle, never mind a multicellular shroom

    There is a crackling good 36 lecture course called 'A New History of Life' with the charming Mancunian professor Stuart Sutherland of UBC which I completed about a month ago.

    All the best merkin TTC professors are expat mancs.

    My very first TTC course was the 36 lecture 'Cosmology: The History and Nature of Our Universe' with manc Professor Mark Whittle which I have watched twice.

  22. #22
    Thailand Expat tomcat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Looper View Post
    Very unlikely that multicellular life would have evolved independently twice in the same solar system in only a few billion years or could have travelled between planets.
    ..."we" have only the faintest notions of what is likely or unlikely in the solar system let alone what lies beyond...

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