Raining Extraterrestrial Microbes in Kerala? 255
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 The authors' last two papers on the subject were unpublished: this published paper is more cautious.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."
Iron Oxide Chrondules (Score:2, Insightful)
These are iron oxide chrondules from the vaporisation of a nickel-iron meteorite. There's no need to invoke aliens or intelligent designers.
Re:Iron Oxide Chrondules (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
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.
Meteor theory amusing but not necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
This illustrates a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently, two years ago a scientist in India wrote a paper about a long series of tests he conducted on a potential non-dna based life form that can reproduce at 300C and may have arrived on a comet.
Of course it sounds unlikely, but if he's right, it is the scientific find of the century.
And, he has samples of the purported organism.
If scientists were really seeking uncover truth, they'd have repeated his work at five different labs and see if it held up.
Instead, they're all to scared of looking silly to their peers, and they barely even let the Indian researcher publish his findings!
Does anyone else see this as a problem?
Sauce (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Contradicts Intelligence (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, that must be it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, Occam turned in his grave.
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.
Re:Red particles... (Score:2, Insightful)
But I don't like the way he (?) leaves other explanations out:
"Above arguments and facts indicate that it is difficult to explain
the red rain phenomenon by using usual arguments like dust storms etc."
A thorough study of other possibilites would have led more credit to his pet theory. I don't think it is a good idea to use "etc." in a scientific paper. I am not saying that the "above arguments" mentioned in the quote are not valid, but he sure does not dwell on them very long.