See also:

Life on Mars

Publications

External Links:

Philippa Uwins home page

Tiny new life forms inflame Mars debate (ABC science)

Nanobes (Micscape magazine)

Small is beautiful as nanobes reveal we are not alone (Paul Davies - Guardian)

Nanobes

The report in 1996 of evidence for past Martian life in the Martian meteorite ALH 84001 aroused much controversy. One aspect of the results was the suggestion that structures found in the meteorites might be microfossils of bacteria-like organisms. An objection to this interpretation is that the proposed 'fossils' are smaller than any known bacteria, and perhaps too small to contain the necessary chemical machinery needed by any living organism.

However, Philippa Uwins and collaborators at the University of Queensland have reported the discovery of nano-metre sized organisms, which they are calling nanobes, found in sandstones from an oil drilling site 3-5km below the Australian seabed.

Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis - University of Queensland

The nanobes are in the same size range (20-150nm) as the structures found in ALH84001, but they are of different shapes having filamentary structures similar to Actinomycetes and fungi (but much smaller). The nanobes were found to grow in the laboratory. A series of tests showed that the nanobes were non-crystalline structures composed of C, O and N, and that they contain DNA.