Mario Crocco is an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

neurobiologist, since 1982 director of the Neurobiological Investigations Center of the Argentine health ministry and since 1988 director of the Electroneurobiological Investigations Laboratory at Hospital Borda in Buenos Aires. Crocco is internationally known for having proposed in March 2007, a new

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

system that would include the hypothetical microorganism thought to have been detected on Mars by the

Viking lander biological experiments In 1976 two identical Viking program landers each carried four types of biological experiments to the surface of Mars. The first successful Mars landers, ''Viking 1'' and ''Viking 2'', then carried out experiments to look for biosignatures of micro ...

in 1976. Though these findings were later deemed inconclusive, some scientists interpret the results as evidence of metabolism, and therefore of life; the major proponents of this position are

Gilbert Levin Gilbert Victor Levin (April 23, 1924 – July 26, 2021) was an American engineer, the founder of Biospherics and the principal investigator of the ''Viking'' mission Labeled Release experiment. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1997, Levin ...

,Conference presented in 2007 by Gilbert Levin and published by ''Electroneurobiología'' vol. 15 (2), pp. 39-47, 2007
Rafael Navarro-González,Navarro-González, R; Navarro, K. F.; de la Rosa, J., Iñiguez, E.; Molina, P.; Miranda, L. D.; Morales, P; Cienfuegos, E.; Coll, P.; Raulin, F., Amils, R. and McKay, C. P. (2006), "The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromato-graphy-MS and their implications for the Viking results", Proc. Natl. Academy of Sciences 103 (44), 16089-16094. and Ronald Paepe.

''Gillevinia straata''

Crocco proposed the creation of new Linnaean categories in order to incorporate hypothetical Martian microorganisms: * Carbon-based life: Solaria * Biosphere: Marciana - All living or extinct organisms whose lineages developed on Mars. A parallel taxon, including all earth-based lineages, is Terrestria. * Kingdom: Jakobia - All members of Marciana whose anatomy and physiology are adapted to the ultraviolet radiation and other conditions characteristic of the Martian topsoil and other Martian biomes. (The name of the kingdom is an homage to the Bavarian-Argentine neurobiologist

Christfried Jakob Christfried Burmeister (later Christfried Puurmeister, 26 May 1898 in Reval, Estonia – 12 July 1965 in Bradford, England) was an Estonian speed skater who competed in the 1928 Winter Olympics. In 1928 he finished 15th in the 500 metres even ...

.) * Genus and species: ''Gillevinia straata'' (in honor of Gilbert Levin and Patricia Straat, who conducted the original Viking experiments) The intended effect was to reverse the burden of proof concerning the life issue, but biologists stated that naming a 'species' at this point is inappropriate, as it may lend credibility to the possibility that life has been detected.Science works through Mars lander life controversy
David Link, ''Contact In Context''. The proposed rationale was rejected by the scientific community and it remains a

Nomen nudum In taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate descr ...

as there is no evidence of organic biomolecules.

Neurobiology and psychophysics

Contributions to those fields are summarized in a ''Festschrift'' from 2008 (2nd ed., 2014), available from Internet:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crocco, Mario Argentine biologists Argentine people of Italian descent Argentine neuroscientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)

''Gillevinia straata''

Neurobiology and psychophysics

See also

References