Eric - You don't sound like someone who knows much about astrobiology or planetary science, but I will address your flame this time:

Eric says: "Di Gregorio brags"

Barry: Brag? Stating what I do isn't bragging. I am a professional science writer and have been since 1988. I have worked for dozens of popular magazines too -- including Air & Space, Final Frontier, Spectroscopy, Invention & Technology to name a few. I even gave a lecture at your Holy Mars Society in 2000. I was invited. What have you done? What do you do? How old are you? My guess is somewhere between 18 and 21. Still live at home with mom and dad? Or on your own?

Eric continues: "...about being a serious author. A quick look at the SPIE paper "Rock Varnish As A Habitat For Extant Life On Mars" on the ICASMR website shows him to be a sloppy writer. No doubt he has made similar errors in his other "publications".

Barry says: No one is perfect. What kind of work do you do? Are you perfect? Tell us all about your perfect work then.

Eric says: The first sentence is missing a word (perhaps 'at') between "Mars" and "roughly." In the second sentence "vise versa" should be spelled "vice versa". No one with any real credentials would submit a sloppy mess like this. Then again SPIE is not exactly picky in what it accepts these days.

Barry: SPIE not picky? Hmmm. Then I guess you can submit all of your research to them, no problem right? Except the SPIE won't care much for theories about men in canvas spacesuits. Try Modern Psycology instead. They deal with canvas suits all the time. Where have you been published Eric? What are your "real" credentials? Got any?

Eric says: Also, I find it odd that Di Gregorio has resisted the notion that life could have travelled from Mars to Earth (as suggested by others in this forum) since he makes a rather specific claim to the contrary in this paper (see above).

Barry says: You are wrong again because I never said that. That is merely your MS buddies feeding you misinformation. That's what you do best isn't it? For the record -- I said there is no proof that living microbes from Mars hvae been found on Earth. This is an absolute truth. If there has been a transfer of Martian life in the past to our planet, perhaps this caused some of the minor mass extinction events. Fact is we don't know for sure. So lets send more life sciences probes to Mars and find out..before we send people.

Of course I would vote to send Eric to Mars so we could observe what any Martian microbes would do to a lifeform from Earth. What do you say Eric? Want to go to Mars for all mankind?

ava gooday