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Did We Find Mushrooms on Mars?
Or so claim some scientists!
While browsing my usual what’s next in space feed recently, I came across an article which said some scientist are claiming there are mushrooms on Mars based on the pictures taken by the NASA rover. One may be inclined to disregard the whole thing as loony wishful thinking. After all haven't be heard of claims that Mars has pyramids, animals, and even humanoids roaming around based on pictures people scoured on the internet. Yet, this one seems a bit different — the claimants tried a veneer of legitimacy by publishing their claim in an actual peer-reviewed scientific journal (Advances in Microbiology). So then is it true this time? not really, turns out the journal and the article is kinda sorta questionable!
What does the research paper say?
Funny enough the journal Advances in Microbiology doesn't seem to have much of a web presence. The links to the paper usually take us to Research Gate, a social network of sorts for scientists. There one can download the paper. The research uses various pictures taken by…