WE ARE A LONG WAY from having a Star Trek tricorder to scan for "life signs." On several occasions, the peerreviewed literature has reported indications of past and present life beyond Earth that further study found to be unsubstantiated. The scientific enterprise has survived these false starts; our error-correction processes have worked well. But in the time between an initial report of a possible biosignature and a later nonbiological explanation, the mass media and the public often let their imaginations run wild.
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