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- SAN DIEGO (PRNewswire)
- On the heels of NASA's decision to land new rovers on Mars, the debate
over the existence of life on the red planet is heating up. Dr. Gilbert
V. Levin, a chief proponent, today advanced his claim to finding living
microorganisms on the elusive planet 25 years ago. Dr. Levin, one of a
trio of scientists, including himself and another who participated in
NASA's Viking Mission, was presenting a paper at the Annual Meeting of
the International Society for Optical Engineering refuting the mainstay
arguments against life on Mars. He contends that those arguments -- the
presumed absence of organic matter and of liquid water -- are no longer
tenable.
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- Levin, senior author of the paper and President of Biospherics
Incorporated, Beltsville, Maryland, was Experimenter on the Viking Labeled
Release (LR) life detection instrument that landed on Mars in 1976. His
tests produced evidence for life that sparked a continuing controversy.
The consensus of interested scientists has been that the Viking LR results
on Mars, though positive, were chemical in origin and not biological.
However, in a 1997 publication, following two decades of study, Levin finally
concluded that Viking had, indeed, detected living microorganisms on Mars.
Acknowledging that many scientists may remain unconvinced, he now proposes
a new test to settle the issue once and for all and urges that it be sent
on the next lander mission to Mars.
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- Co-author Dr. Arthur Lafleur, Assistant Director of MIT's
Environmental Health Science Center, provided information that refutes
the most often cited argument against the LR life detection experiment
-- the lack of organic matter, the stuff of life, on Mars, as reported
by the Viking organic analysis gas chromatograph mass-spectrometer (GCMS).
Lafleur, who helped develop the Viking GCMS instrument and a co-author
of the original report of no organic matter on Mars, revealed unpublished
results of pre-mission tests. They showed that the instrument sent to
Mars could easily have missed biologically significant amounts of organic
matter in the soil, as it had in a number of tests on Earth. Thus, the
Mars GCMS results no longer can be considered proof that the LR failed
to detect living microorganisms.
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- Co-author Dr. Lawrence Kuznetz, University of California,
Berkeley, Department of Planetary Sciences, has put to rest the second
prevailing argument against the possibility of life on Mars: that the
atmosphere of the planet is too thin to support the existence of life-essential
liquid water. Results of a laboratory study by a team of researchers led
by Kuznetz showed that liquid water does exist under Martian environmental
conditions. In addition, Kuznetz found results from 1960s tests of cooling
systems of astronaut space suits showed that water exists in liquid form
under atmospheric pressure as low as that on Mars. The findings lend credence
to a model for Martian water published in 1998 by Levin and his son, Ron,
a Ph.D. physicist at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Based on Viking and Pathfinder
data, the model predicted amounts of moisture in the Martian soil equal
to that found to nourish microbial life in the sand dunes of Death Valley,
California. Corroborated by the new NASA announcement of evidence for
recent or current liquid water on Mars, these reports dispel the no-liquid-water
issue against the Viking LR results.
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- The authors support Levin's ``chiral LR'' experiment
and propose that it be sent to Mars at the next opportunity. The experiment
would apply the proven LR technology to test Martian soil for a unique
characteristic found in all known forms of life, but not in chemical reactions.
This characteristic is the biological preference for one of two possible
configurations of certain organic molecules. The scientists state that
the experiment can return an unambiguous answer to the major scientific
question of life on Mars that would be acceptable to virtually all scientists.
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- Dr. Levin was an Experimenter on NASA's Viking Mission
to Mars, a Co- Investigator on NASA's Mariner 9 Mars mission, and was a
Team Member of NASA's MOx instrument placed on the ill-fated Russian 1996
Mars Lander. He received NASA's Public Service Award ``In recognition
of his achievements in designing, perfecting, and conducting the Viking
Labeled Release Experiment.''
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- Since his Viking experience, Levin has led the biotechnology
efforts at Biospherics, the publicly held Maryland company he founded in
1967. His developments include a full-bulk, low-calorie sweetener, tagatose,
soon to come on the market, and the safe-for-humans, environmentally friendly
pesticide, FlyCracker(TM), introduced into the market this year. The Company
also provides information services to government agencies and private
industry.
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- Certain statements contained herein are ``forward-looking''
statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Because such statements include risks and uncertainties, actual
results may differ from those expressed or implied. Factors that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied
include, but are not limited to, those discussed in filings by the Company
with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the filing on Form
8-K made on March 3, 1999.
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- Under its motto, ``Technologies for Information and Health,''
Biospherics' mission is to provide guidance and products to improve the
quality of life. Biospherics offers biotechnology innovations, information
technology solutions, and information center services.
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- See BACKGROUND - SCIENTISTS STRENGTHEN PROSPECTS FOR
LIFE ON MARS, located at Biospherics' Internet site - http://www.biospherics.com.
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- * Media Contact: Mark Hopkinson 561-750-9800 x15 *
Email: mhopkinson@transmediagroup.com * Science Contact: Gilbert V. Levin,
Ph.D.: 619-234-1500 (8/1-8/3), * 301-419-3900 (after 8/4); Email: gillevin@biospherics.com
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