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Re: Fossils in Meteorites?

Hello List,
	There have been some more recent claims (in this century) of finding lifeforms and fossils in meteorites.
	In the 1930s, University of California (Berkeley) bacteriologist Charles Lippman claimed to have cultured living cells from meteorites.  Unfortunately, sterilization did not eliminate all traces of living terrestrial bacteria and Lippman's cultures resulted from contamination.  Lippman partially recanted his findings and suffered much humiliation.
	In 1961, four prominent scientists -- NYU Medical Center's Dr. George Claus, Fordham University chemists Bart Nagy and Doug Hennessy and Esso Research Lab's Warren Meinschein -- claimed to have found microfossils resembling algae in the Orgueil carbonaceous meteorite. This metorite had fell to Earth almost a century earlier in southern France (circa 1864).  Nagy, Hennesy and Meinschein first presented a paper at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences.  
	Claiming to have found tubular and ovoid biogenic structures, including possible "cell division," in the Orgueil meteorite,  Claus and Nagy formally published their findings in the 1961 article in Nature, a British journal similar to Science.  
	Almost immediately as the Claus & Nagy article on the Orgueil meteorite was published, scientists of many disciplines began attending symposia on extraterrestrial life and the biogenic evidence found in carbonaceous chondrites.  
	By 1964, a team of six scientists, led by University of Chicago Enrico Fermi Institute astrochemist Ed Anders, determined that the microfossils were a mix of plant comtamination (fragments of the reed Juncus conglomeratus and ragweed pollen), coal soot and grains of top soil.  The team determined that the contamination occurred when the meteorite was found in 1864.  If the contamination was intentional, it may have been inadvertently inspired by Louis Pasteur who delivered his famous lecture on the spontaneous generation of life before the French Academy only a few weeks before the fall of the Orgueil meteorite.  Anders team published their findings in the journal Science. 
	The saga of the Orgueil meteorite often appears in books about scientific blunders and hoaxes -- with other infamous stories such as those about the discoveries of Piltdown man and cold-fusion.
	Interestingly, Professor Emeritus Ed Anders -- perhaps one of the most experienced meteorite chemists in the world -- challenged the findings of the NASA team's conclusions about nanofossils in ALH84001 in the December 1996 issue of Science.  Anders argued that the PAHs, carbonate globules with magnetite and iron sulfides do not need a biological interpretation.  All of the ALH84001 evidence, claims Anders, has been previously found on carbonaceous chondrites which have been subjected to abiotic aquaeous alteration.  In short, Anders believes water probably is the cause for creating the mineral and organic assemblages found in ALH84001.
	As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."  In 1930 and 1961, two such claims were eventually proved false.  The jury is still out on the claims made by McKay, et al, about fossils in ALH84001.  Stay tuned...

Regards,
Steve

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Steve Excell
Seattle, Washington USA
excell@cris.com
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