Sometimes you may read some moonshine in the science news, some bunk article promoting the latest science paper, and then ask yourself: who is to blame for this baloney, this BS? Is it one or more of the paper authors, or is it the author of a university press release, or is it some science journalist working from the press release and the paper? So you have a kind of "figure out the culprit" challenge that is a bit like playing the board game Clue.
Who was the confusion culprit?
Tuesday April 22, 2026 was a banner day for hype and groundless boasts in the science world. There was a press conference announcing some findings regarding Mars. It was announced that some organic molecules had been found in Mars, but only simple molecules that existed in a very low concentration of a few parts per billion. Most of the science news headlines used the phrase "building blocks of life," although such a headline was entirely unjustified, as no such thing had been found. All that was found (in very low amounts) was what are called "organic molecules." That term is used for any molecule containing carbon. Most types of organic molecules found in space have no relevance to life.
The misleading press accounts were heralding the scientific paper here. None of the chemicals reportedly found on Mars (trimethylbenzene, tetramethylbenzene, naphthalene, and benzothiophene) is actually a building block of life in any sense. So our clickbait-hungry science press was deceiving us very badly on this topic.
Using the term "nmole" to mean nanomoles, the paper states, "Molecular abundances in the SAM TMAH experiment range from 0.1 ± 0.0 to 1.7 ± 0.3 nmol, consistent with the range of abundances of individual molecules identified by SAM from other Gale crater outcrops." This means the chemicals were found at a very low level of very roughly 1 part per 100,000,000. This amount is correctly described as a negligible trace amount.
The building components of life are proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are extremely complex molecules -- so complex that it is always misleading to call them "building blocks" (as blocks are things of very low complexity). Given just the right arrangement of a large number of proteins and nucleic acids, you might have a cell capable of self-reproduction. But an organic molecule is simply any molecule containing carbon, one that may either be very simple or one that may be complex. The very term “organic molecule” is a poor one, because many of the so-called organic molecules have nothing to do with life.
It is true that proteins and nucleic acids are organic molecules, but that doesn't mean you have found anything like a building block of life merely because you have found an organic molecule. The building blocks of an opera company are string musicians such as violinists, and singers such as tenors, sopranos and baritones that can sing Italian. All of these are organisms. But it would make no sense to say, “I have some building blocks of an opera company because I have two mice in my cage, and they are organisms.” It makes equally little sense to say that you have some building blocks of life merely because you have simple organic molecules.
But if the organic molecules found on Mars are not the building blocks of life, are they at least the building blocks of the building blocks of life? No, they are no such thing. The building blocks of proteins are amino acids. The building blocks of nucleic acids are chemicals called purines and pyrimidines. None of these has been found on Mars. So not only have we not found the building blocks of life on Mars, we haven't even found on Mars the building blocks of the building blocks of life.
Related to coal tars, the reportedly found chemicals (trimethylbenzene, tetramethylbenzene, naphthalene, and benzothiophene) are neither building blocks of life nor the building blocks of the building blocks of life. So the science news sites were misleading us badly by describing the finding as a finding of "building blocks of life."
The Guardian story here gives us an example of the carnival barker BS and baloney that was occurring. The story has the hogwash headline "‘Is it life? We can’t tell’: Nasa’s Curiosity rover finds organic molecules on Mars." The paper's lead author (Professor Amy Williams) says, " “Is it life? We can’t tell, based on this information.” That statement is baloney. Living things are not made from any of the chemicals found, so you sure can tell that no life is being detected.
Later on Williams gives us this mostly false statement:
" 'There are several steps between what we found and DNA,' Williams said. 'It is definitely a building block to how DNA is made now. But it is truly just the bricks, not the house. You can generate these molecules geologically.' "
The statement is mostly untrue. DNA is not made from any of the chemicals that the scientific paper claimed to find. DNA is made from entirely different chemicals, called nucleobases, phosphate groups and sugars. So there's no truth to William's claim "it is definitely a building block to how DNA is made now." Nowhere in nature is DNA being made from the chemicals the paper reports finding (trimethylbenzene, tetramethylbenzene, naphthalene, and benzothiophene). The paper does not even use the term "DNA," and refers to nucleic acids only in a tentative passing comment about a "possibility" involving nucleic acids.
The Guardian's story is bunk, but here we must absolve the story author, who got a bum steer from a science paper author making misleading claims about her research.
Later in the Guardian article Williams gives us this unbelievable "magic meteorites" tall tale: "The same stuff that rained down on Mars from meteorites is what rained down on Earth, and it probably provided the building blocks for life as we know it on our planet." Why would anyone claim that chemical constituents of the earliest life came from meteorites, when you can more simply imagine them coming from Earth's surface, without evoking falling meteorites? Similarly, it would be pretty silly to claim that your dinner date did not show up because a meteorite ruined his car, when you can just as easily claim that he got a flat tire by driving over something sharp.
One of the news articles tried to make it sound like the discovery of these biologically irrelevant chemicals was a discovery of life on Mars, an inhospitable wasteland where neither life nor its building components have been found. The clickbait-hungry hucksters of the dysfunctional "Science News" infosystem tend to follow a rule of "give us an inch, and we'll take a mile." So when scientists issuing papers misstate and misspeak, they are planting seeds that very quickly grow into the poison fruit that is Fake News.
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