The fungus on Mars and the man who thinks he found life on other planets
CNET
5/6/2021
Perseverance prior to launch at NASA's JPL
Jerry van Andel sat alone on the bow of the RV Lulu, a floating junkyard of a ship, as it bobbed against the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Across deck, a team of scientists bustled around a basket full of strange life forms, wrenched from a mighty crack in the Earth, 10,000 feet below the ocean's surface.
It was a momentous haul, but van Andel, an energetic Dutch oceanographer from Stanford University, wasn't dancing around the find with the rest of the team. He was deep in thought, propped up on the anchor windlass. A shipmate, John Porteus, noticed and shuffled over.