There’s an article in the online Journal of Cosmology, titled “Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites” claiming that fossils of bacteria which didn’t develop on earth were found on a meteorite. I’m not enough of an expert to judge the content, but it remains doubtful for now if the claim will stand.

A first look at the homepage of the Journal of Cosmology and their pay-per-published-article-after-paying-an-entrance-fee keeps me hesitating.

So far only sources like Fox News have run the story. There’s a discussion on Slashdot with some critical remarks. So far no mentions of it on websites from reputable scientific news sources.

What troubles me is an unrelated remark from a February 16 article on the Journal website about the possible discovery of the “9th planet Tyche”, which ends with the phrase:

“The torches and pitchforks crowd, led by astronomer-wannabe Phil Plait claims its not so. But then, Plait’s most famous discovery was finding one of his old socks when it went missing after a spin in his dryer.”

Frankly, that doesn’t sound convincing, reading the actual article from Phil Plait’s blog, stating

“I read their papers, and thought the data were interesting but unconvincing. The sample size was too small. A bigger study was done, but again the effects weren’t quite enough to rise to the level of breakthrough. I’m not saying the astronomers are wrong — the data were certainly provocative, and potentially correct! Just not firm enough. “

That doesn’t sound like a torches and pitchfork crowd to me. And it makes me wonder what the criteria are for the Journal to publish stories if they seem to be full of bile. Did they check sources? Didn’t that pop up with peer review?

It also seriously affects the credibility of the claims in the aforementioned article about fossilized life forms on a meteorite. So far it remains to be seen what the validity of the claim is. Let’s follow the developments and keep an open mind.