NASA Finds 'Potential Biosignature' on Mars - The Friday AM Quickie 7/26/24

By Corey Pein — Jul 26, 2024

The Associated Press quietly removed the article I linked to yesterday purporting to fact-check "baseless rumors" online that Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance had sex with a couch. Which, indeed, only raises more questions. Have a nice weekend! Jacob's back Monday. - Corey

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THE BIG NEWS

NASA Rover Recovers Physical Evidence of Possible Ancient Life on Mars

For the past three years, NASA's Perseverance rover has been rolling over the Martian landscape, scanning the surface with an X-ray spectrometer and other instruments, conducting experiments in producing oxygen from the atmosphere, and collecting interesting rocks for eventual return to Earth. One of those rocks, which NASA scientists are calling "Cheyava Falls," has proven very interesting indeed. The rusty red lump features tiny off-white splotches with black rings around them that the scientists call "leopard spots." When this pattern appears on rocks found on Earth, for instance at Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas, Nevada, it is a mark of past life: fossilized microbes.

"We cannot say right now that we have discovered life on Mars," deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan told reporters yesterday. "But what we are saying is that we have a potential biosignature, which is a set of features that could have a biological origin but do need further study and more data."

Perseverance's instruments detected organic compounds inside the rock. It also found veins of calcium sulfate, suggesting water flowed through the rock at some time in the past. Together with the leopard spots, these features have NASA scientists "ecstatic." "We've never seen these three things together on Mars before," Perseverance scientist Morgan Cable says in a short video NASA shared yesterday. "We have lots of questions about how this rock formed and whether it hosted microbial life billions of years ago." But scientists have exhausted what they can learn using the limited sensors on the rover. They need to send another spacecraft to Mars to return the rock, along with other samples Perseverance has collected, to Earth for futher study. And that's where this story turns political.

In April, agency administrator Bill Nelson, a former Democratic member of Congress described the $10.9 billion Mars sample return mission – representing less than 0.17 percent of this year's federal budget – as "too expensive." Yesterday, that mission announced what could prove to be one of the most important scientific discoveries in human history. I think we can afford to take a closer look at this rock.

MORE STORIES TO WATCH

'He Is Uncaring and Narcissistic': Elon Musk's Trans Daughter Defends Herself from His Public Attacks

In an interview with the crackpot Jordan Peterson earlier this week, white supremacist billionaire Elon Musk described one of his children from his first marriage as "dead, killed by the woke mind virus," and claimed he was "tricked" into supporting her gender transition. Musk's 20-year-old trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has until now maintained a strict public silence about her estranged father, but felt compelled to respond. "If you're going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I'm not just gonna let that slide," she tells NBC News. Wilson describes Musk as "cold," "very quick to anger," "uncaring and narcissistic"; she says he was absent during 90 percent of her childhood but "relentlessly" berated her about exhibiting feminine traits when he was present. She says the Covid pandemic came with a silver lining in that it gave her an excuse not to see her father. And of the documents Musk signed approving treatment for her severe gender dysphoria, required by California law, she says: "He was not by any means tricked." She calls the puberty blockers and hormone-replacement therapy she received lifesaving, and says the treatments "definitely allowed me to thrive." Indeed, she decries the onerous legal requirement that forced her to obtain consent from an abusive parent in the first place.

Future of Democracy Watch: Trump Chickens Out of September Debate

Harris Promises Sympathy for Palestinians But Slanders DC Ceasefire Protesters After shaking hands with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee yesterday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit his preferred candidate today at Mar-a-Lago. via the Guardian, Politico, and the Associated Press.
Teachers' Union Rallies for Harris as Obama Prepares Endorsement and Poll Shows Trump Losing Ground "In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead," Harris told American Federation of Teachers members at their convention in Houston yesterday. "A future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity and where every worker has the freedom to join a union." via the Guardian, Politico, and the New York Times.
Trump and GOP Leaders Attack FBI After Officials Say They Aren't Sure Whether a Bullet or Shrapnel Hit Candidate's Ear "No wonder the once storied F.B.I. has lost the confidence of America!" the deranged felon said on Truth Social last night; "bureau analysts appear to be focused on metal fragments, as opposed to glass from the teleprompters onstage." via the New York Times and NBC News.
Jennifer Anniston, Tim Walz, Second Gentleman's Ex-Wife Shred JD Vance Over Weird 'Childless Cat Ladies' Comments "Go ahead and continue to denigrate people. My God, they went after cat people. Good luck with that," progressive Minnesota Gov. Walz, a potential Harris pick for VP, said. "Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after them." via HuffPost, the Guardian, and ABC News.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

Arrest of 2 Sinaloa Cartel Leaders Not Expected to Make a Dent in US Fent Consumption "If anything," one expert says, the arrest of Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López "could spark more violence as factions vie for control amid a vacuum of power at the very top." via the New York Times and Reuters.
'Monster' Wildfire Leaves Half of Beautiful Jasper, Alberta, 'in Ashes'; New Fires Spread in Western US Video from the Canadian national park town shows "blocks of buildings and houses turned to charred rubble and foundations. Cars blackened by fire line the streets. Scorched trees stand like matchsticks." via CBC News and the Associated Press.
'Horrible' and 'Morally Wrong': Citing Supreme Court Ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom Orders California Agencies to Tear Down Homeless People's Tents "Despite its tone of urgency, the order sets no specific timeline for agencies to remove encampments. Nor does it lay out a program for providing the tens of thousands of new shelter beds and permanent housing that would be needed to accommodate the state's estimated 181,000 homeless people, 70% of whom are unsheltered." via the Los Angeles Times and NBC News.
Actors Go on Strike Again Today, This Time Over AI Voices in Video Games "We're not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher says. via the LA Times and the NY Times.

SOME NUMBER

60 percent

That's the share of low-income countries currently under some form of US economic sanctions, according to a Washington Post analysis. In recent decades, sanctions have "become the most important foreign policy tool in the US arsenal," one former Commerce Department official says, "and yet, nobody in government is sure this whole strategy is even working."

ON THE SHOW TODAY

7/26: It's Casual Friday!

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Protester Sends Vance's Daddy Peter Thiel Into a Rage

Release the hounds!

Palestinian Journalist Sends a Message to Kamala Harris

Also featuring Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez.

PARTING WORDS

"Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this set of rules does not. ... I feel as though we, however hard it is, that we could and should try to figure out some mechanism for doing [enforcement]."

-- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal appointed by President Barack Obama, calling for a new system to sanction herself and her colleagues for ethical violations at a meeting of federal justices and lawyers yesterday. Kagan suggested that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts could appoint a panel of judges to review alleged Supreme Court ethical violations, but conceded the proposal was merely "one person's view."

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