A NASA astrobiologist claims that he has found fossilized evidence of alien life on a microbe.

So why hasn’t the press been busting into your regularly scheduled viewing?

Perhaps it is because the scientist, Richard Hoover, has done this before, only to be proven wrong.

Perhaps it is because the journal he published this story in—a bankrupt online journal—is not reknowned for doing adequate peer review. Or basic fact-checking.

Perhaps it is because no other scientists have reviewed his data to confirm or deny his conclusion.

Perhaps it is because a scientist intent on proving something to be true tends to suffer from terrible confirmation bias, and that his claims are immediately suspected as incorrect…as opposed to a scientist who intended to disprove such a claim and failed.

Perhaps it is all of these things.

Or perhaps it is the detailed microscopy that makes you wonder.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.