DNA-Less 'Red Rain' Cells Reproduce At 121 C 149
eldavojohn writes "A new paper up for prepublication from the controversial solid-state physicist Godfrey Louis claims that the cells Louis collected from a Keralan red rain incident divide and produce daughter cells at 121 degrees Celsius. While unusual, this is not unheard of as the paper recalls cells cultivated from hydrothermal vents are known to reproduce at 121 C as well. Of course, caution is exercised when dealing with the possible explanation surrounding the theory of panspermia but the MIT Technology Review says researchers 'examined the way these fluoresce when bombarded with light and say it is remarkably similar to various unexplained emission spectra seen in various parts of the galaxy. One such place is the Red Rectangle, a cloud of dust and gas around a young star in the Monocerous constellation.'"
Monocerous(sp) (Score:4, Informative)
That's Monoceros - Unicorn. It's not an adjective with the "ous" ending.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe the adjective is appropriate if we have panspermia coming from the horny constellation.
"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does that mean? Has it been peer-reviewed yet? Has it been accepted? Or is it just at the stage where the author's submitted it, and those other steps still need to happen? The linked page only says its "submitted".
If it hasn't been accepted, posting it here is rather silly on a lot of counts. Not to mention that, with some journals, doing something like that can result in the paper being summarily rejected (e.g Nature, Science).
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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None of this guy's (Godfrey Louis) stuff on the subject seems to be peer reviewed.
Incorrect. Quoting from the linked article: "Louis published his results in the peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space in 2006, along with the tentative suggestion that the cells could be extraterrestrial."
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Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Informative)
Astrophysics and Space Science publishes original contributions and invited reviews covering the entire range of astronomy, astrophysics, astrophysical cosmology, planetary and space science and the astrophysical aspects of astrobiology.
Note the last one: astrobiology is within the scope of that journal. Given that, the editors are certainly knowledgeable about who else works in that field, and can find appropriate reviewers for an astrobiology article.
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, seriously. Somebody mod the parent up here. An astrophysicist fails to extract DNA? Well how about letting a Biologist have a go. It's kinda there thing.
Besides (according to Wikipedia), the official report said they cultured them already. They are alga spores belonging to the genus Trentepohlia.
I think Occam's razor applies here.
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Yeah, seriously. Somebody mod the parent up here. An astrophysicist fails to extract DNA?
The didn't fail to extract DNA. They noted that the cells contain no DNA.
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No. They said they contain no DNA because they didn't find any. They didn't find any because they are astrophysicists and not biologists. Not finding something doesn't prove it doesn't exist.
They are alga cell, they have already been identified and cultured as recorded in the official report.
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't really an ad hominem at all. If you say "This guy is a loon, therefore his arguments are crap" then that is an ad hominem, but if you say "This guy's arguments are crap, therefore he's a loon" it isn't. His being a loon doesn't necessarily make his arguments crap, but just saying his arguments are crap or even calling him a loon isn't an ad hominem. An ad hominem is a specific type of logical fallacy, it is not a general insult.
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>implying that arguments made by a loon aren't crap.
Please, learn to think.
Huh? I'm not implying that arguments made by a loon are good or bad. Loons can make any sort of argument, and even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The argument is either logical or it isn't, that holds true for whoever makes the argument. That is why ad hominem is a fallacy.
Now, there are times when calling someone a loon is not an ad hominem. For instance, "Don't listen when George tells you he is king of Siam. George is certifiably insane" is not an ad hominem if George is in fact insane and not the
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What I am saying is that if George were actually certified by a psychologist as being insane, that fact would be a good reason to disbelieve his claim to be the King of Siam, and therefore, it is not a logical fallacy to say "George is certifiably insane, therefore, you shouldn't listen to him."
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Wrong. If George is making claims that he is the King of Siam, he is presenting a statement, not an argument. There is no logic to evaluate. We are not saying that George's logic is invalid because he is insane, that would still be argumentum ad hominem. We are presenting the logical argument that runs as follows. Crazy people can not be trusted to make accurate statements. George is a crazy person. Therefore, we should not trust George. Note, We are not saying "Therefore, George is incorrect," As even craz
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>implying that arguments made by a loon aren't crap.
Please, learn to think.
What? He's implying (correctly) that while the looniness of the arguer does not determine the looniness of the arguments, the inverse is not true.
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Ok, so we have ad hominem straightened out ... now on to irony.
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And ad hominem isn't a noun. So you don't call something an ad hominem; you call it ad hominem.
Wrong. [wiktionary.org]
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I think he is more interested in getting publicity than getting his facts checked.
How does "peer review" result in fact checking? Peer reviewers don't have any more information than anybody else. Peer reviewers can check whether there are any obvious errors in the experimental procedures as described, nothing more. Peer reviewers have a tendency to reject papers that have implausible results or conclusions (such as this one), but that's wrong and it's not their job.
The way to "fact check" such a paper is
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually in this case it looks to me more like a summary of a conference paper/ presentation rather than a paper intended for publication as such. So apart from Arxiv and the proceedings of the conference, it's unlikely to ever see the light of thermonuclear radiation again.
But it's terribly written. An absolute mess. I'd have been ashamed to hand it in as an undergraduate ; the additional authors (Wickramasinghe, Wainwright and Gangappa?) really ought to exert more quality control over what goes out under
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Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't vouch for the following, but.... According to critics, the reason that DNA wasn't seen in light microscopy was because a) he used the wrong kind of stain, which doesn't typically work for algae, b) this is an algae spore, c) the walls of the spore are too strong for most stains to absorb into it, and d) the walls also impede light microscopy, making it even more challenging if he did use the right kind of stain. There is a discussion of that in wikipedia under "criticisms" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not peer reviewed. I took a look at it and in its current form it is unlikely to pass muster for peer review (at least in a molecular biology journal). There are a number of clear flaws. Cells of some species will often show a characteristic doubling time. In this case, the "cell" population appears to less than double from 30 to 60 minutes. Then from 60 to 90 more than double before any increase in cell number stops. This odd behavior is consistent with micelles treated at high heat breaking apart into smaller micelles before reaching a stable size (which, assuming these data are not falsified, seems to be what is occurring here).
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Mod parent up. That's the real insight.
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I had noted the same point in my analysis (incomplete at this moment ; maybe I'll get more time this afternoon), but hypothesised that this was a sign of some "limiting nutrient" being enc
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A lot of research results these days are put up on Arxiv and other publication servers prior to publication and without peer review. There is nothing unusual about that, and nothing wrong with that. It's the way many sciences work these days. Some journals may summarily reject such papers, but that's probably not a policy they can stick to in the long run.
As for peer review, it's a convenience for working scientists to weed out obviously bad papers so that they don't have to waste time on it, nothing mor
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The only article on Pubmed (after 2001, which is the time of the event discussed in OP) on "red rain":
http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b309636j&JournalCode=EM [rsc.org]
seems to be referring to a different phenomenon (inorganic particles of red color).
Also, the author does not have any publications that could be found on Pubmed (though he has some physics related work published).
So, the answer is "most likely - no"
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was me, I would make sure that every i was dotted and t was crossed. I would keep it damned quiet, and ask anyone I shared the data with to do the same. I would probably spend six months just running through it all again, and maybe once more after that.
The one thing I wouldn't do is leak it, or fantastically optimistic interpretations of it to the press. When things appear first in the media and then in peer-reviewed journals or at conferences, people begin to think strange thoughts like "Hyperbole" or, sometimes even "Fraud". Researchers who leave the confines of accepted publishing and announcement practices are taking a big chance that they're going to undermine the whole damned thing.
But how many times, folks, have we been bit by incredible announcements in the press "New Discovery Will Rewrite biology/astronomy/physics/neurology/whatever" only to find out that the actual paper is considerably more mundane.
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I suspect we would not be discussing this if a crackpot was not involved.
The wiki article pretty much nails it down to spores of a lichen-forming alga belonging to the genus Trentepohlia, plentiful in the area where the red rain was found, as well as many other places in the world.
Yet, we are now treated to the suggestion that because the same wave lengths of light as are found in some remote part of the galaxy can be induced when samples are bombarded with some (conveniently unspecified) light source..
The clear implication being that we should all believe that some extraterrestrial life has chosen this particular part of India, (and no where else) to fall in rain for a solid month, totally ignoring high winds aloft.
I wager my rear end could be made to fluoresce certain shades of red found in other parts of the galaxy given the right form of bombardment.
Thank you sir, Mr Louis needs another.
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I wager my rear end could be made to fluoresce certain shades of red found in other parts of the galaxy given the right form of bombardment.
Well now at least we have an explanation for Rudolf and his red nose.
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I must admit, I'm developing a healthy skepticism of any such announcement coming out of India.
Three of the five authors of this paper are based at British universities.
Re:"Up for prepublication"? (Score:4, Insightful)
The wiki article pretty much nails it down to spores of a lichen-forming alga belonging to the genus Trentepohlia, plentiful in the area where the red rain was found, as well as many other places in the world.
Spores don't divide at 121C or 300C.
Yet, we are now treated to the suggestion that because the same wave lengths of light as are found in some remote part of the galaxy can be induced when samples are bombarded with some (conveniently unspecified) light source..
Fluorescence doesn't work that way.
Somehow I suspect we would not be discussing this if a crackpot was not involved.
Well, what defines a "crackpot"? The people described their materials, methods, and results. Those are not consistent with spores. There are three possibilities: (1) the experiments were carried out incorrectly, (2) the authors deliberately lied, or (3) the experimental results are as described.
How can one proceed? Peer review may uncover gross errors in their experimental procedures, in which case they would have to go back and redo their experiments.
If there are no gross errors, there's no reason not to publish the results; they are still implausible, but not obviously wrong.
The only way to figure out what's going on is to try and replicate the experiments a few times. Once people do that, we'll know. Until that's done, the issue is simply unresolved. There's no need to call people "crackpot" over it, but there's no reason to believe the results either.
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I wager my rear end could be made to fluoresce certain shades of red found in other parts of the galaxy given the right form of bombardment.
Mod parent up Hot!
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If it was me, I would make sure that every i was dotted and t was crossed. I would keep it damned quiet, and ask anyone I shared the data with to do the same. I would probably spend six months just running through it all again, and maybe once more after that.
I don't think so. If you can find something that big, other people can. Finding something that big and sitting on yer arse while someone else publishes, probably doesn't feel all that good. We all know this... we must have some primitive paranoia instinct that makes us sure that someone else knows. Even while you keep quiet and hide your data, you feel rushed because you don't know how long it will remain a secret. You can't even read slashdot because any headline sounding remotely related to your secret wo
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Firstly, the GP didn't suggest "sitting on yer arse" - he was talking about being very careful about the quality of your prepared publication, while being very careful about the other work that you carry out with other collaborators while you're continuing to prepare your work. That means that
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Damn, I mouse-o-ed and hit the submit instead of the preview. Should have closed the ordered list.
And that bloody stupid "Speed Up, Cowboy!" filter blocks me from making the correction!!
Apologies in advance... (Score:2, Funny)
But I've had a few drinks and I just can't resist...
I'm in ur nightskiez panejaculating on ur planetz!
Soooo worth the karma.
What? (Score:2)
I had to look over that summary a bit to understand what context this information occurred. Does this sound about right?
1) There was some rain in India that was red color for some reason.
2) Various theories were put forth as to why, including some earth-born algae in the rain.
3) The guy from this article claims that there are some space-borne cells (that don't have DNA) that caused the red rain.
4) This guy also claims that these space-borne cells divide at 121 degrees Celcius
5) This is 'possible' because t
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Cthulhu is resting... :P
More recent publications... (Score:5, Informative)
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IANAS but it would seem to me that the presence of enough spores in the water samples to grow a culture from in not truly indicative of the red color being primarily or even partially from the spores. Given the concentration of spores needed to color water red, the probability of rain containing that concentration is very, very low.
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IANAS but it would seem to me that the presence of enough spores in the water samples to grow a culture from in not truly indicative of the red color being primarily or even partially from the spores. Given the concentration of spores needed to color water red, the probability of rain containing that concentration is very, very low.
That isn't necessarily an argument for why the red color couldn't be spores; that's an argument for why red rains are quite rare, and why they require ideal and unusual conditions under which to occur. I would rephrase your statement to, "Given that the rain was red, the probability of the rain containing a sufficient concentration of spores to cause the coloration approaches unity". Given that we get full-scale animals falling from the sky [wikipedia.org] from time to time, it's not that much of a stretch for occasiona
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SPIDERS raining from the sky? .. farewell outside, it was nice knowing you while it lasted but I'm afraid our relationship is at an end.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
The official investigation concluded that they were spores from local algae, and that the initial DNA tests were flawed. Wikipedia has the details, as usual.
To go from "our test found no DNA" to "there is no DNA" to "they must be extraterrestrial" to "they look like the dust clouds in Monocerous" is a series of leaps that go wayyy ahead of the available evidence, in my view.
It would be very interesting to be proven wrong, however.
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Stupid question: why don't they run the DNA test again if they think it was flawed? Surely there is a lab somewhere with the equipment lying around that could answer the question one way or the other what the red rain is caused by. Isn't that the kind of thing that many undergrad applied genetics classes do for lab work? If nothing else, it would sure make the locals happy. I can't imagine the locals are happy about getting rain that looks suspiciously like blood, I would think they'd like an answer.
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Awww, but Panspermia is so cute...
I don't know why people go through all this effort to defend a theory that creates another level of complexity. It looks like an inverted Occam's Razor. If life is too complex to have appeared on earth, then why would it have appeared somewhere else and then
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I'm of the opinion that panspermia has so far no confirmed evidence behind it (including this incident), but the argument from first principles is that the universe is larger and older than the earth with a larger variety of conditions, and therefore is more likely to have generated the chemical reactions we might classify as "life". It's not an absurd hypothesis, but I entirely agree that it lacks evidence.
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Panspermia is a theoretical solution in search of a problem it actually applies to.
It's been invoked to explain the origin of life, or deal with some step in the origin of life problem that seems to have ultra low probabilities or otherwise be a real sticking point.
The whole universe is now believed to be a little over 12 billion years old, whereas Earth is about 4.5 Billion years old. If there is actually something that seems very improbable with just 4.5 Billion years, then it is still a pretty long shot
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Even ignoring items 1, 2, 5, and 6, just parts of points 3 and 4 would be an incredible scientific find. Life as we know it is practically by definition powered by DNA, finding anything that reproduced similar to the way living cells do but lacked DNA would be amazing. If even that much is true, the guy is going to get a Nobel prize in 30 years (I am in no way saying that it is true or that he will get a prize). It would literally open up whole new areas of science that are currently little more than sci
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Not [wikipedia.org] really. [wikipedia.org]
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Not [wikipedia.org] really. [wikipedia.org]
Yes, really. You can't make more retroviruses without going through reverse transcription and a DNA intermediate. Similarly, you can't propagate a prion without a supply of protein -- protein which was translated from RNA, which in turn was transcribed from DNA. Both retroviruses and prions ultimately depend on DNA to make more of themselves; they've just managed to convey information about their replication process without using their own DNA as the medium.
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Here, lemme quote that Wikipedia page to you:
Indeed, that every web page lists several alternative definitions, all but one of which would apply to viruses and prions.
Btw, that definition that Wikipedia claims is 'accepted' is far from accepted. The actual situation is far closer to the page's "Proposed" definitions, with different people believing different ones. (Btw, their 'accepted' definition is a restatement of #3 in the 'proposed' section).
Most biolog
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Temporary definitions are often made to limit the range of discussion. Saying "when we talk about X in the course of our discussions, we're limiting ourselves to definition Y" is common even in non-scientific magazine articles.
You don't think that when CNN reports an unemployment rate without qualifiers that they're talking about global unemployment, right? Yet such a concept exists, and would still be called an unemployment rate. It's just outside the contextual definition that a US national news network w
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
An obvious question is that if these cells divide at 121 degrees Celcius, what do they do in the extreme cold of space, just hibernate?
Yes. That's how they get from planet to planet. Then, when some of them reach a planet and it gets hot enough, they divide and reproduce, and start growing other, more complex types of cells, and then quickly form intelligent beings who reproduce quickly into an army and take over the planet.
Now that these researchers have figured out how to activate the seed cells, I expect the red-cell alien overlord army to rise up in a few weeks.
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Yes. That's how they get from planet to planet. Then, when some of them reach a planet and it gets hot enough, they divide and reproduce, and start growing other, more complex types of cells, and then quickly form intelligent beings who reproduce quickly into an army and take over the planet.
You forgot the "???" and "profit!" steps.
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These beings aren't Ferengi (or their close relatives humans); their motivation is not profit, but to eliminate the native intelligent species (that's us) and set up their own world. They're sort of like biological terraforming probes (although "terraforming" isn't exactly the right world since that's a human-centric word based on our own planet's name; the right word would include the name for their home planet).
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Perhaps your definition of "profit" is too narrow.
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I guess you could consider taking over and terraforming the earth as "profit". But then in that case, the "???" is simple: wipe out all the existing intelligent species (just humans).
It's life, Jim. (Score:2)
But not as we know it.
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Delivered by meteor? Check.
Reproduce rapidly when heat is applied? Check.
Start stockpiling Head & Shoulders!
Young stars experiment with asexual reproduction. (Score:2)
One such place is the Red Rectangle, a cloud of dust and gas around a young star in the Monocerous constellation.
Seriously, how could they miss such a great headline opportunity?
Terminology needs to be less hyperbolic (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is not to say they are wrong. There is a lot of speculation that neither DNA nor RNA were the actual encoding means of early life, but some other double helix that was more stable in the radiation and temperature extremes of early Earth. If this research justifies an in-depth study of what is in those hypothetical "nuclei" and what comprises that "cell membrane", that should tell us whether this is for real or whether it's some kind of nonliving artefact.
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...but some other double helix that was more stable...
Why does the molecule of life need be a double helix? Because it was the precursor to D/RNA? Because it folds up and compresses? Because that shape has some stability or protection from radiation?
Luckily... (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, even the Aliens were averse to a bit of flamethrower no matter how huge / soggy / armour-plated they were.
Hollywood tells us that there's not much that survives a double-barrelled shotgun, either. You just have to remember to shoot them AGAIN when they look dead because it's almost certain that you missed or hit only a minor organ and they'll get back up and attack you again if you don't.
Silence of the Lambs: "Shoot him in the leg".
If everyone done this, Hollywood movies would be MUCH shorter. That
I for one... (Score:2, Funny)
Activate Wildfire (Score:3, Interesting)
Red Rain (Score:2)
Doubtful claims (Score:5, Informative)
I am a microbiologist and this claim in my opinion is very weak. Remember, extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof to be accepted. This guy is a physicist, not a biologist, so that already raises many red flags.
In the arXiv blog linked, it says that Godfrey collected numerous samples of the "red rain". Since he is not a microbiologist, I doubt he took the necessary precautions to prevent contamination with terrestrial microbes, though it is debatable whether this is even possible. This alone is the biggest stumbling block to his claims. The blog also says that the cell "reproduce" at 121C yet also states that it has no DNA (all form of nucleic acids?). This flies in the face of all known life on earth. Even red blood cells initially have a nuclei before losing them as they mature. The point of reproduction is to pass on your genetic code to your offspring. This suggests to me that we might be looking at a abiological/chemical process. Did Godfrey try to detect the production of metabolite byproducts from his sample? Reproduction is a very energy intensive biochemical operation and should produce detectable metabolites. My research field is hyperthermophilic Archaea that grows at 90C or more and I know the existence of microbes that can grow at even higher temperatures, so this part of the claim is feasible. Overall, I caution extreme scepticism until Godfrey can provide extraordinary proof of his claims.
Re:Doubtful claims (Score:4, Interesting)
1. If he's just an attention whore, he could have found some weird bacterium that uses RNA and claim -- and be technically correct -- that there is no DNA. That'd be surprising, but not anywhere nearly as surprising as finding something that appears to be reproducing without nucleic acids.
2. From other reading about red rain, it appears that his attempts to find DNA were restricted to malachite green and ethidium bromide, and the current theory by people who aren't him is that he's got a bunch of yeast spores, which are going to have cell walls impermeable to both so he's not going to detect DNA even if it's there, or at least not by such relatively crude techniques.
3. I wonder about metabolites. If the stuff *is* from outer space, it might not have the typical ultra-fast metabolism we see in common Earth bacteria, where energy is plentiful and the only real competitive tool available to prokaryotes is rapid reproduction. Something from outer space might act more like some of the archaea or mycobacteria that take days to reproduce -- or years -- rather than the half-hour cycles we're used to seeing in many bacteria. If this thing has a reproductive cycle measured in days or months, it's going to take a lot of time and quantitative analysis to actually see it metabolising.
4. While I agree with your statement that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, I do have to wonder: what explanation of the origin of life *isn't* extraordinary? Every theory of earth-bound biogenesis I've read is pretty difficult reading. This one does have the advantage of offloading the origin-of-life-on-earth, in which case you can at least claim that maybe biogenesis only happened once somewhere else and is being blown all over the Universe, rather than having only one planet and only a billion years in which to fit your explanation.
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. This one does have the advantage of offloading the origin-of-life-on-earth, in which case you can at least claim that maybe biogenesis only happened once somewhere else and is being blown all over the Universe, rather than having only one planet and only a billion years in which to fit your explanation.
How does that help, exactly? You still have the problem of abiogenesis somewhere. At least here on Earth you know you have the right ingredients in abundance and you don't need to invoke a low-probability transfer mechanism to explain how it got here.
I'm not saying that this rules out panspermia, but it does make it seem like rather the more complicated option, all else being equal.
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. This one does have the advantage of offloading the origin-of-life-on-earth, in which case you can at least claim that maybe biogenesis only happened once somewhere else and is being blown all over the Universe, rather than having only one planet and only a billion years in which to fit your explanation.
How does that help, exactly? You still have the problem of abiogenesis somewhere. At least here on Earth you know you have the right ingredients in abundance and you don't need to invoke a low-probability transfer mechanism to explain how it got here.
I'm not saying that this rules out panspermia, but it does make it seem like rather the more complicated option, all else being equal.
I'm not making an argument *for* panspermia, especially not after reading Nick Lake's brilliant book Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life [goodreads.com], in which he has a lot to say about biogenesis as an iterative chemical process in deep-sea thermal vents.
But with that said, panspermia is almost as simple as creationism: "oh it happened somehow somewhere and we just got the results." We've demonstrated several times that bacteria -- and I believe lichens -- can at least survive extended exposure
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We've demonstrated several times that bacteria -- and I believe lichens -- can at least survive extended exposure in low earth orbit, so at that point it's not difficult to believe they could get here from somewhere else.
Yes and no. It's possible, provided they can survive for longer periods of time, to get living creatures from, say, Mars to Earth. The dynamics are tricky (it tends to take quite a while to get from one to the other, particularly if you don't want a high relative velocity when yous smack into the Earth) and lofting the material (and then landing it) in such a way as to not sterilize the rock is tricky. Couple that with the lack of conclusive evidence that life has existed on Mars in the past and I lean t
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The just chemistry [youtube.com] explaination seems pretty straightfoward to me, it also comes with a great soundtrack.
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actually, the "red rain" has been cultured and found to be spores of Trentepohlia algae.....why this loon gets press is beyond me.
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Perhaps, like AGW, it just needs the consensus of more physicists.
Andromeda strain... (Score:3, Funny)
Has anybody checked what pH they can reproduce at?
After reading that book, I ingested copious amounts of acid to ensure I would be one of the survivors.
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Well too bad, they like acid places, it's basic environments that's bad for them :P
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always go for the double barrel. Makes everything look orange.
Bring it on, we'll make Dragons. (Score:2)
Utter lunacy. (Score:2)
From the wikipedia article "From July 25 to September 23, 2001, red rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala."
So, tell me this. How can ANY phenomena based on material being delivered from space hit the SAME small area of the earth multiple times on different days over a period of two months, and not hit other parts of the world? Is there a comet with a particular grudge against this part of india?
You would think a physicist, of all people, would have figured there was a problem with t
No less interesting (Score:2)
"Controversial solid-state physicist"? (Score:2)
Okay, stop. Right there.
Slashdot submitters, if your summary includes the phrase "controversial solid-state physicist", then your article is bunk. Click the cancel button and go back to whatever you were doing.
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Well, for me a solid-state physicist is a computer that thinks about physics.
So yeah, you're probably right. Next on /. it will be "brain in a jar makes new discovery about cold-fusion"
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The brain was quoted as saying "Is there a draft in here?"
Re:Red blood cells also do not have DNA (Score:4, Funny)
That's what you thin-
**NO CARRIER**
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And the material [wikipedia.org] found in the rain bears a striking, if superficial, resemblance to red blood cells [wikipedia.org].
Re: Old info (Score:3, Interesting)
A cell wall was always a hard one to explain since we seem to jump from viruses to one cells organisms.
Actually, the cell wall is just about the easiest thing to explain. Just take a bunch of short-chain molecules that are hydrophobic on one end and hydrophilic on the other and throw them in water, and the self-organize into pockets very like the cell wall.
Re: Old info (Score:4, Informative)
What you're referring to is called a cell membrane which is formed by lipid bilayers. Cell walls are usually more rigid and are located outside of the cell membrane.
However, the parent is still confusing because algae, plants, protozoa, etc. all have different structures of cell walls. He doesn't really specify which specific one(s) are hard for us to explain.
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I personally do not believe anything I read on a non-peer reviewed paper,
A peer reviewer is just someone working in a field. If you need to rely on peer reviewers to determine whether a paper in your field is credible, you're simply not competent and should find a different job. For people working in a field, peer review is useful for cutting down the crap, not for establishing credibility.
What you're suggesting is a negative results, caused from "not seeing what we wanted to see", which can be rebutted i
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What people don't understand is that very few experiments actually produce negative results. What they do is fail to produce positive results.
If your paper is based on statistics, which it should usually be, failing to find a significant positive result is not the same thing as showing that the null hypothesis is significantly likely. Few experiments are actually powered to produce actual negative results, and even fewer are ever properly analyzed for that purpose.
Negative results are very useful, yes. I
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They are merely trying to fill the craphole void left by the premature demise of Roland Piquepaille...