Posthuman Blues

Life on Mars not possible, Oklahoma professor says





"Scientific research so far suggests that Mars cannot sustain life as known on Earth because Mars lacks characteristics that allow for life on Earth, Dr. Gordon Emslie, associate research vice president and graduate college dean at Oklahoma State University, said in a speech last week."

Maybe it's just bad journalism (which wouldn't surprise me), but it's unclear if Emslie is attacking the possibility of an existing civilization or Martian biology in general. Does he recognize the distinction? I would agree that chances of an extant civilization are nil (although there's evidence of prior occupation), but ridiculing the possibility of "extremophiles" and other tenacious life-forms is nothing less than foolish in light of what we've learned about Mars and life here on Earth. What is this guy, a Biblical Fundamentalist?

And I'm still waiting for NASA/JPL to intelligibly address Arthur C. Clarke's "banyan trees" (instead of repeatedly confusing the features with defrosting sand dunes that happen to look tree-like from above).