Fake News
There are numerous fake news reports that hit the social media airwaves from time to time and an article on cannabis containing Alien DNA was one such report. Or so punters thought.
A website called IFLScience launched a thought experiment with an article titled “Marijuana Contains ‘Alien DNA’ from Outside of Our Solar System, NASA Confirms.”
IFLScience is a “real” website–that is, it publishes items that are truthful and not deliberately misleading. However, this headline is wrong and false–and intentionally so.
IFLScience’s article was intended to illustrate a bit of research from Columbia University that found most people who share items on social media had never bothered to read them before sharing.
Now I probably didn't have my fullest perceptions glasses on at the time and fell for the trap of 'click-baiting' and went full in to find out what the heck this article was on about.
In a way, I have been duped as a victim of marijuana-related fake news and have some excuse because for generations, much of what “the authorities” told us about marijuana was blatantly false. Cannabis would cause insanity or certain death turned out to be certified garbage; if these were lies, what else of what we “knew” about cannabis was untrue. That's probably why I thought there perhaps was some truth to this story!
Anyway, it turned out to be completely fabricated, but at least it was for 'Science'..... at least that's what I am telling myself!