A Glasgow-based science sleuth may have helped solve a century-old mystery surrounding the discovery of a Martian meteorite thanks to a toxin that makes pigs vomit.
The Lafayette meteorite was found in the drawer of an American university’s biology department in 1929, but no one at Purdue University in Indiana could remember where it came from.
One theory suggested it was given to them by a “black student” who saw it land in a pond while fishing.
Dr Aine O’Brien, an environmental and planetary organic geochemist at the University of Glasgow, began his detective work two years ago and he has now shed light on who the black student might have been and when he was been handed over.
His work began when his team received a small fraction of the meteorite from the Natural History Museum in London.
“It’s a meteorite from Mars and those are really rare,” said Dr O’Brien.
“That alone makes it really valuable and all those meteorites from Mars are not in as perfect a state as Lafayette.
“It must have been picked up soon after it fell, otherwise the outer edge would have disappeared.”
Its immaculate condition makes it perfect for research.
Dr. O’Brien crushed the tiny piece of Mars and used sophisticated mass spectrometry to find out what it was made of.
The purpose of the experiment was to search for preserved organic molecules – evidence that could help him learn more about the possibility of life on Mars.
“We ended up with a long list of hundreds of different chemical compounds,” Dr. O’Brien said.
“It was late March 2020, so I had nothing better to do than scroll through the list.
“Most of them had very long and boring chemical data type names, but one of them was called a vomitoxin, which sounded cool to me, so I started looking into it. “
She discovered that the vomitoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON), was found in a fungus that contaminates grain crops like corn, wheat and oats.
It causes disease in humans and animals when ingested, with pigs being particularly affected.
Dr. O’Brien mentioned vomitoxin to his supervisor, who told him the origins of Lafayette’s discovery were unknown and suggested the fungus could affect crops in Indiana.
“It started this huge kind of rabbit hole, because it turns out it’s a huge thing down there,” she said.
“There was this assistant professor at Purdue University, Dr Marissa Tremblay who I knew because she was in Glasgow.
“I messaged him on Twitter and we, along with the college librarian, started doing some detective work.”
They turned to researchers from the university’s departments of Agronomy and Botany and Plant Pathology to learn more about the fungus’ historical prevalence in Indiana’s Tippecanoe County, where Purdue is located.
Their records showed it caused a marked drop in crop yield in 1919, and another less pronounced drop in 1927 – the highest prevalence of the fungus in the 20 years prior to 1931, when Lafayette was identified as a meteorite.
His team suggested that dust from the affected crops may have carried the DON into surrounding waterways and that Lafayette may have been contaminated with it, if, as the story suggests, he fell into a pond. .
Analysis of fireball sightings was also used to determine the Lafayette landing. Meteorites heat up as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere, causing a glowing fiery trail across the sky.
Sightings of fireballs were reported in southern Michigan and northern Indiana in 1919, and one in 1927.
Purdue University archivists then scoured yearbooks to find black students enrolled at the time.
Three students – Julius Lee Morgan, Clinton Edward Shaw, and Hermanze Edwin Fauntleroy – were enrolled at Purdue in 1919. A fourth – Clyde Silance – was studying there in 1927.
Researchers believe that one of these students may have found Lafayette, as the previous origin story suggested.
“Lafayette is a very nice meteorite sample that has taught us a lot about Mars through previous research,” Dr O’Brien said.
“So for that alone they deserve the credit, right? Then you add the fact that they were an African American student at a university that had so few. We all know the stories of racism in 1920s America.
Dr O’Brien admits we may never know exactly which student discovered the meteorite, but she’s glad she was able to shed some light on the story.
“The only reason we were able to reduce it was because the university had so few black students and it’s Black History Month,” she said.
“And it’s kind of black history, I didn’t want to be afraid of the fact that it’s a big part of history.”
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