Comment by Christopher McGuire on March 5, 2011 at 5:43pm

Lol, ok, gotcha. I'm a little excited and just trying to get the info out there, but thanks for making it look presentable...

Comment by Toby Cooper on March 5, 2011 at 11:07pm

I really hate to act as a party pooper but I really need to inform you that the journal you are referencing is not a legitimate peer reviewed scientific journal in spite of the scientists that may be associated with it and how it may initially appear. I am not here to educate anyone on the peer review process nor am I trying to be rude in any way. I am only suggesting that you spend a little more time researching the legitimacy of your source.  

Comment by Laura Jones on March 6, 2011 at 1:45am

I read a more detailed report on this earlier today and it is possible that Dr. Hoover may have found fossilized bacteria in a meteorite. While I will be thrilled if this discovery is confirmed, his claim is dubious for several reasons. Phil Plait explains it more eloquently that I could here:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/05/has-life-...

Comment by Erich J. Knight on March 6, 2011 at 2:40am

Did Life Fall from the Skies?
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Life_from_the_Skies

This  work expands the trail of carbon before it becomes life & us, and feeds my version, of Carl Sagan's vision; "We are all Stardust"
This version fell into religious analogies & para phrasings for a : Carbon-Based Religion
section as part of  a talk I gave at the 2010 US Biochar conference at ISU
My holy grail is the establishment of soil carbon as the universal measure of sustainability for all biofuel systems.

Congratulations to Dr. Dauna Coulter, unexpected science is often the best, serendipity the sweetest.
 

Erich J. Knight
 Chairman; Markets and Business Committee
2010 US BiocharConference,  at Iowa State University  
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010/conference-agend...

EcoTechnologies Group Technical Adviser
http://www.ecotechnologies.com/index.html
Shenandoah Gardens (Owner)
1047 Dave Barry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
540 289 9750
Co-Administrator, Biochar Data base & Discussion list  TP-REPP



Carbon-Based Religion

Carl Sagan's human connection to stardust leaves out a critical stage. We are stardust, bu only stardust transformed by life. Every time I look at an SEMs of BioChar, it strikes me, the perfect preservation of the base structures of life, a fractal vision, how life creates the greatest surface area with the least amount of material. The preservation of this structure, for return to the lowest orders of life in the soil food web, seems almost a religious act. A perfect cradle to cradle recycling, biotic carbon should never be combusted and destroyed, be revered, as life is revered, be returned to the cradle of terrestrial life the Soil

Reading the Japanese work on  adding char in animal feed, I thought of posting the Vatican, to lobby for a re-formulation of communion wafers. Communion is what I feel when I sequester carbon in soils. This feeling lead me to compose this paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer: [Our Carbon Who Art in Heaven]

In this Carbon based religion Burning is not the consequence OF Sin, Burning is the Sin.

Religious parallels:

1) About a central figure responsible for life, carbon.

2) Stewardship; living today in a way that protects the system for posterity.

3) About something in the heavens that need to manifest on Earth

4) The Golden Rule: Account external costs so they are not done unto others.

The Terra Preta Prayer

Our Carbon who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name
By kingdom come, thy will be done, IN the Earth to make it Heaven.
It will give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our atmospheric trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against the Kyoto protocols
And lead us not into fossil fuel temptation, but deliver us from it's evil
low as we walk through the valley of the shadow of Global Warming,
I will feel no evil, your Bio-fuels and fertile microbes will comfort me,
For thine is the fungal kingdom,
and the microbe power,
and the Sequestration Glory,
For ever and ever (well at least 2000 years)
AMEN


 Soil Carbon Commandments:

1) Thou shalt not have any other Molecule  before Me

2) Thou shall not make wrongful use of the name of Biochar, It will not acquit anyone who mis-charactorizes it's name

3) Observe the Fallow days and keep them, as Sustainability commands thou

4) Honor your Micro Flora & Fauna , as the Soil Carbon commands you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that High Soil Carbon has given you.

5) Thou shall not murder the Soil Food Web

6) Neither shall thou adulterate the Soils with Toxicity

7) Neither shall thou steal Biomass from the Soil Food Web

8) Neither shall thou bear false witness against your neighbors Biochar, or about Thy own

9) Neither shall thou covet your neighbor's Fertility

10) Neither shall thou desire your neighbor's house, or field, or Pyrolysis Reactor, or farm implements, or anything that belongs to your neighbor, as thou may Create thy Own

Soil Carbon Dream

I have a dream that one day we live in a nation where progress will not be judged by the production yields of our fields, but by the color of their soils and by the Carbon content of their character.

 I have a dream today.

 I have a dream that one day, a suite of earth sensing satellites will level the playing field, giving every farmer a full account of carbon he sequesters. That Soil Carbon is given as the final arbiter, the common currency, accountant and Judge of Stuartship on our lands.

 I have a dream today.

 I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made forest, the rough soils will be made fertile, and the crooked Carbon Marketeers will be made straight, and the glory of Soil Sequestration shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see a Mutually assured Sustainability.

 This is our hope.

 

My apologies to Dr. King, but I think he would understand my passion
Erich

 

Comment by Christian McFadden on March 6, 2011 at 10:17am

This is fantastic, exciting news. I say that not as an atheist, but as a citizen of Earth.

Comment by Don on March 6, 2011 at 6:50pm

See PZ Myers's post on this subject today.  In short, he says, "No."  Many times. 

And he concludes with this:  "...this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all."

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_...

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