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Raining Extraterrestrial Microbes in Kerala?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jan 07, 2006 03:10 AM
from the edge-of-science dept.
from the edge-of-science dept.
jdfox writes "World Science is reporting on a controversial paper to be published shortly in the peer-reviewed research journal Astrophysics and Space Science, describing a strange red rain that fell in India in 2001, shortly after a meteor airburst event in the area. The authors posit that the red particles found in the raindrops may be extraterrestrial microbes. The authors' last two papers on the subject were unpublished: this published paper is more cautious. The paper can be viewed online, and should obviously be considered in context. More info on the 'panspermia' hypothesis can be found at Wikipedia."
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Alien Rain Over India 241 comments
tintinaujapon writes "The Observer is reporting that scientists may have found the first evidence of panspermia, the idea promoted by Hoyle (among others) that life on earth was seeded from space, in samples of a strange rain which fell over India for two months in 2001. To quote the article: "There is a small bottle containing a red fluid on a shelf in Sheffield University's microbiology laboratory. The liquid looks cloudy and uninteresting. Yet, if one group of scientists is correct, the phial contains the first samples of extraterrestrial life isolated by researchers."" This is a continuation of a story two months back or so.
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Great. Space herpes. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh That Intelligent Designer... (Score:4, Funny)
Case closed! Who wants lunch?
Pern? (Score:4, Funny)
Venus (Score:5, Funny)
Red particles... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mike.
Re:Red particles... (Score:3, Funny)
Didn't this happen back in the 80's?
Oh wait, that was a flock of seagulls.
(OK, I'm sorry already, jeez)
Re:Red particles... (Score:5, Informative)
They are about the right size though, these particles range in size from 4 to 10 m. And human RBCs [wikipedia.org] are about 6-8 m. It would explain the lack of a nucleus and DNA too.
But the TEM images are all wrong (thick "cell wall"), and the low Iron and high silicon content makes it very suspect too.
Spock's blood?
But seriously I hope they send some of these things over to other labs for investigation (like mine!) I would start with universal primers, PCR can amplify the tiniest amount of DNA, all they did was dunk the `cells' in Edithium bromide.
Parent
Would have to be a bloody big bird (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway you would expect other things, like hail of McNuggets in a meteroid vs bird incident.
It is a weird incident in anycase. If it is a life form then the fact that so much of it fell down could this mean the entire meteroid was made of it?
The previous theories suggested that small microbes might hide among the rocky part of the asteroid. Not the entire as
Contradicts Intelligence (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.
Re:Contradicts Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't interested in understanding nature. They're just trying to redefine science.
There are a thousand ways to collaborate scientifically using the Internet. Intelligent Design propenents need to immediately begin describing their ideas more concisely and subjecting them to peer review and public criticism. Without these, their wild speculation will remain subject to extreme ridicule among the educated and their movement will continue to be shunned and exposed as a political and anti-intellectual project, standing for everything science is not.
The continued silence from ID is not an encouraging sign for their "theory". But there is no shortage of new research that tests, supports, and expands upon the existing evolutionary framework. Evolutionary biology is the only theory which is making real progress with understanding nature.
Parent
You should read this one (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonsense (Score:5, Funny)
The red particles that landed in sector omega-3 were obviously not a virus know as MindGobblers designed to manipulate the portions of your puny brains involved with sensory reception effectivly allow us to transform you into a slave race.
I suggest you fellow humans all make bad jokes about human researcher and realize his findings are not true.
Common occurance (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Common occurance (Score:5, Interesting)
The authors clearly have no understanding of biology beyone "it has DNA in it and is carbon-based". Their methods, in particular their "study" of the DNA content, are laughably off-base and reveal a total lack of understanding of how to handle microorganisms which have a thick cell wall.
Trivial test - stain them for bloody cellulose! This is such an obvious damn thing to do that the only excuse for not doing it is (a) they don't know enough to try, or (b) they did and didn't like the results so they didn't mention them, which is probably more likely.
This is a stupid paper.
Parent
The research and paper seem quite factual (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. Their research examines quite a large range of characteristics of the particles and of the rainfall, and even presents some controls. It's not as tight as some nor, as sloppy as others, but falls well within the mean of the scientific method.
The fact that one particular type of test was not performed by them does not make this a stupid paper --- it just leaves that analysis for some other team to perform. Indeed, they seem to have covered a collosal amount of ground for a single research group already.
Their Discussion section is not part of their scientific findings, but merely provides room for discussion. Non-DNA-based "life" from outer space is a *possible* handwaving interpretation at best, but since no other interpretation matches both the microscopic visual structure and the chemical composition and the rain-distribution pattern simultaneously, it's the best we have at this stage.
>> Trivial test - stain them for bloody cellulose!
Go right ahead and do it yourself, or communicate with them about it. But who said that ET life would employ cellulose anyway? That notwithstanding, it would be a useful test to perform anyway, as it would help discount other possibilities.
Their earlier non-peer-reviewed papers might have been worth your label of "stupid" (meaning non-scientific) in part, but this one is quite factual in all its research sections.
Parent
Quick, geeks (Score:3, Funny)
This could be more serious than we thought... (Score:3, Funny)
I was going to post a longer comment, but two Marine officers have arrived at my house in an unmarked car. All they said was:
"Dr Titzandkunt? There's been a fire."
Gotta go!
T&K.
Elemnetal composition of the particles (Score:4, Insightful)
45.4% quartz (!) 49.5% carbonate calcium
Doesn't look like life or organic at all. Another case of wishful thinking.
My $.02 (Score:3, Insightful)
Intelligent Design (Score:4, Funny)
Meteor theory amusing but not necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that must be it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, Occam turned in his grave.
"peer review" is not always peer review (Score:5, Informative)
To understand how this article could be published, you should be aware that for all scientific journals the editor has the last responsibility for accepting a paper, not the peer reviewers. In the case of Astrophysics and Space Science, the editorial board [springer.com] contains N.C. Wickramasinghe, who is one of the inventors of the panspermia theory. So, even although peer reviews might have been dodgy, it could have been an editorial decision to accept this paper.
I happen to know that Astrophysics and Space Science operates this way, as a manuscript I co-reviewed with a PhD student of mine several years ago appeared in the journal without taking any of our recommendations into account. This has not happened to me with any of the 30odd manuscripts I have refereed since and is even more astonishing since the journal decided to print the original manuscript, without even addressing the large number of grammatical mistakes and spelling errors pointed out by us (which were so bad that we, as referees, could not understand what the authors were trying to say). I have declined to referee for Astrophysics and Space Science since and consider the journal a "scientific tabloid" as opposed to a "scientific broadsheet". And you wouldn't believe the "Sun" and the "News of the World" either, right?
So, to conclude, "peer refereed" does not always mean what you might think it does, and although I am not a microbiology specialist, as long as a report on the "red rain" is not accepted by a mainstream journal, would doubt any claims made in the article.
Re:Iron Oxide Chrondules (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Iron Oxide Chrondules (Score:3, Interesting)