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TortillaFactory |
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Saturday, June 3, 2006 at 9:29 PM Mysterious red cells might be aliens By Jebediah Reed
Popular Science (PopSci.com) -- As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space. Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth. Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year. Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats. Louis and his colleagues dismiss all these theories, pointing to the fact that both algae and fungus possess DNA and that blood cells have thin walls and die quickly when exposed to water and air. More important, they argue, blood cells don't replicate. "We've already got some stunning pictures -- transmission electron micrographs -- of these cells sliced in the middle," Wickramasinghe says. "We see them budding, with little daughter cells inside the big cells." Louis's theory holds special appeal for Wickramasinghe. A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth. "If it's true that life was introduced by comets four billion years ago," the astronomer says, "one would expect that microorganisms are still injected into our environment from time to time. This could be one of those events." The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis's samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive. "Life as we know it must contain DNA, or it's not life," he says. "But even if this organism proves to be an anomaly, the absence of DNA wouldn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial." Louis and Wickramasinghe are planning further experiments to test the cells for specific carbon isotopes. If the results fall outside the norms for life on Earth, it would be powerful new evidence for Louis's idea, of which even Louis himself remains skeptical. —TortillaFactory |
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plurryho |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 3:11 AM ok, i can see this. new earth is mostly water. there is no life to speak of. a huge comet/meteor crashes into the planet that holds frozen primative organisms. they are released into the water and millions of years later, i'm posting on this goofy forum. makes more sense to me than an omnitient, omnipotent being located in some other plane of existance creating animals and man with magic and making woman out of a couple of ribs and some dirt.
ah, but what do i know. supposedly, i'm just rebelling against my family for sending me to christian school for 5 years. —plurryho |
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mikeyfish |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 3:15 AM A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth. So he's saying we're descended from alien splooge? I find that offensive. —mikeyfish |
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plurryho |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 3:37 AM well, we were splooge. but now we're highly evolved splooge.
lol splooge —plurryho |
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anobody |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 11:06 AM
Edited Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 11:06 AM There are some who'd say that you still are. 
—anobody |
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shortwave5205 |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 11:50 AM ok so think through the hypothesis. Life wasn't created by a Creator on Earth. Life came to Earth from another location. My question-- how did life begin there? There have been more than 400 parameters established as necessary for life. Using randon chance and variation over 400 parameters there has not been enough time to elapse since the beginning of the Universe some 14 billion years ago for life to have spontaneously to started-- let alone for it to have started so long ago that we can see it so far back in the astronaomical, geological, and biochemical record. Earth is ideally located so that these 400+ parameters can be met. It seems that it is an easier leap of logic, no leap at all, to think things of design have a Designer than things of design do not have a Designer. For some brain candy try looking at www.reasons.org —shortwave5205 |
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Dark Laith |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:11 PM ok so think through the hypothesis. Life wasn't created by a Creator on Earth. Life came to Earth from another location. My question-- how did life begin there? There have been more than 400 parameters established as necessary for life. Using randon chance and variation over 400 parameters there has not been enough time to elapse since the beginning of the Universe some 14 billion years ago for life to have spontaneously to started-- let alone for it to have started so long ago that we can see it so far back in the astronaomical, geological, and biochemical record. Earth is ideally located so that these 400+ parameters can be met. It seems that it is an easier leap of logic, no leap at all, to think things of design have a Designer than things of design do not have a Designer. For some brain candy try looking at www.reasons.org —shortwave5205 No. The very nature of such a creator is an immense leap of logic. A "designer" is a throwaway explanation that people bring up because we don't actually know the answer yet. learn2science PLZ. —Dark Laith |
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Beat It! |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:17 PM No. The very nature of such a creator is an immense leap of logic. A "designer" is a throwaway explanation that people bring up because we don't actually know the answer yet. learn2science PLZ. Exactamundo. —Beat It! |
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TortillaFactory |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:24 PM Not necessarily. There is no good explanation for the origin of life; neither creationists nor evolutionists nor devotees of the spaghetti monster can explain what caused the chain reaction of life to begin, nor where the matter required for such a reaction came from. We're all just mucking about in the dark when we theorise about it. Besides, Laith is dead to me now. He won't friend me back on Facebook. :( —TortillaFactory |
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anobody |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:26 PM
Edited Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:33 PM ok so think through the hypothesis. Life wasn't created by a Creator on Earth. Life came to Earth from another location. My question-- how did life begin there? There have been more than 400 parameters established as necessary for life. Using randon chance and variation over 400 parameters there has not been enough time to elapse since the beginning of the Universe some 14 billion years ago for life to have spontaneously to started-- let alone for it to have started so long ago that we can see it so far back in the astronaomical, geological, and biochemical record. Earth is ideally located so that these 400+ parameters can be met. It seems that it is an easier leap of logic, no leap at all, to think things of design have a Designer than things of design do not have a Designer. For some brain candy try looking at www.reasons.org OK - I'm probably a moron for responding to that but I couldn't help it. I'm not sure where this 400 parameters thing comes from but that seems fairly arbitrary to me. I can only guess that this is referring to things like fine-tuning of the gravitational constant, the fine-structure constant, our location in the galaxy and so on. All of that's great but it's circular and just an instance of the anthropic principle - which basically states that conditions are right to support our kind of life because, if they weren't, we wouldn't be here or, if we were, we'd be different and we'd think that conditions were fine-tuned to whatever kind of life we might have become. What we have here is a failure to understand evolution. It's like claiming that there are 20^200 (1606938044258990275541962092341162602522202993782792835301376000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000) different proteins that are 200 residues long and claiming that it's impossible for one of those to arise by chance (and there are many proteins that long or longer). Sure, if you just tried a succession of random sequences, it'd take longer than the lifetime of the universe to find a single sequence even trying them at a rate of trillions per second. That's not how evolution works. All you need is something that can make imperfect copies of itself replicating in abundance. Due to random variations (and luck) some of those copies will be better able to make more copies of themselves and those copies more copies, and so-on. At each stage, there's a small chance that things will get more complicated and there's a small chance that they will get less complicated. In short order (much much shorter than the lifetime of the earth, let alone the universe), something that replicates like that will lead to some things that are very complicated and that couldn't arise by chance without the need for a creator. Getting back to the question of how a self-replicationg system could arise on its own in the first place, it's actually not all that hard. If you take the chemicals present in the early earth's atmosphere or the water in tide pools, add a bit of energy (geothermal, chemical, electricity, UV, whatever) and wait a little while, you'll get the basic building blocks of life (proteins, nucleic acids, etc) in a matter of hours. The earth sat around for about a billion years after being formed before life started taking hold. Granted, some of that time it was too hot for organic chemicals to survive but there were still hundreds of millions of years where it was relatively cool and that's *way* more than enough time for self-replicating systems to arise on their own. Plus, it only had to happen once. No need to push things to another genesis with panspermia or by evoking a higher power. There is no good explanation for the origin of life
Not true. neither creationists nor evolutionists nor devotees of the spaghetti monster can explain what caused the chain reaction of life to begin nor where the matter required for such a reaction came from. If you're talking about the big bang then I'll agree with you there. If not, it's pretty well understood - big bang -> quark-gluon soup
as the universe expands, the soup condenses into elementary particles (neutrons, protons, electrons) which condense into hydrogen and radiation small perturbations cause the hydrogen to begin collecting via gravity into large stars which burn very energetically and burn out quickly, spitting out heaver elements lather, rinse and repeat and you've got all of the heaver elements you need for life star systems condense out of that ash, planets form, comets / asteroids and such impact until the star systems become relatively safe places to hang out then continue from the above (random chance leads to small self replicating molecules similar to RNA, time and evolution happens and you've got DNA, cells, biochemistry and, eventually, us) —anobody |
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Dark Laith |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:40 PM Besides, Laith is dead to me now. He won't friend me back on Facebook. :( —TortillaFactory But... but I just did, like half an hour ago. ??? —Dark Laith |
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TortillaFactory |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 12:46 PM Guess it didn't come through. I take it all back! Laith is a wonderful human being and he is 101% right about the spaghetti monster or whatever the fuck we were discussing. lol aliens —TortillaFactory |
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greymatters |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 9:30 PM TF, don't blow it! Laith has many options, mostly his right hand and his left hand, but they've been good to him. —greymatters |
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Robots Rule |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 9:34 PM Is It Raining Aliens????
when i saw that on the cover of PopSci, i started freaking out and i got really paranoid and thought that it was truly raining aliens. [but it turned out i was just high] —Robots Rule |
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TortillaFactory |
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 at 10:43 PM TF, don't blow it! ...
..... I'd better just let that one speak for itself. Laith has many options, mostly his right hand and his left hand, but they've been good to him. He'd best watch himself. That left hand can be a cruel mistress. —TortillaFactory |
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plurryho |
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Monday, June 5, 2006 at 12:00 AM i started freaking out and i got really paranoid and thought that it was truly raining aliens. [but it turned out i was just high]
-RR i hate it when that happens. —plurryho |
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rAnCIDsICk@!!! |
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Monday, June 5, 2006 at 12:08 AM Merrily Merrily Life is but a dream.
We are all imagining this, we don't truly exist.
Were only sporadic bits of electricty colliding in vast space of nothingness. Aw shit who knows.
I guess we'll all find out when were dead. :)
—rAnCIDsICk@!!! |
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Dark Laith |
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Monday, June 5, 2006 at 9:04 AM ...
..... I'd better just let that one speak for itself. —TortillaFactory LOL —Dark Laith |
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