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Microbes from space

RandFan

Mormon Atheist
RandFan
Joined
Dec 18, 2001
Messages
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This is potentially cool

Physicist: Cell-like structures could be microbes from space.

Scientist speculates replicating particles without DNA
hitched ride on comet or meteor, mixed with rain clouds

They're red, cell-like, replicate easily in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit and, according to the physicist who isolated them from mysterious blood-colored rains that fell on India in 2001, they have no DNA – which is why the scientist believes he may have the first confirmed evidence of alien life.
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Damn, I really thought this would elicit a response. I should have made the title ET discovered! :)
 
(The trouble is, there are already several other topics on the subject.)
 
It's been proven to be algea. It does have DNA.
 
kellyb said:
It's been proven to be algea. It does have DNA.
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Cool, could you provide a link?

Skepticism greets claim of possible alien microbes
Jan. 5, 2006

A paper to appear in a scientific journal claims a strange red rain might have dumped microbes from space onto Earth four years ago.

But the report is meeting with a shower of skepticism from scientists who say extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof—and this one hasn’t got it.

The scientists agree on two points, though. The things look like cells, at least superficially. And no one is sure what they are.

“These particles have much similarity with biological cells though they are devoid of DNA,” wrote Godfrey Louis and A. Santhosh Kumar of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, India, in the controversial paper.
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(emphasis mine) I should also note that the wikipedia article has not been updated to agree with your claim.

I thank you in advance.
 
RandFan said:
Cool, could you provide a link?

(emphasis mine) I should also note that the wikipedia article has not been updated to agree with your claim.

I thank you in advance.
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No problem. :)


http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg19025453.100.html
Both teams say microscopy confirms that the particles are biological cells. They are not red blood cells because they do not contain haemoglobin. It's unlikely that they are fungal spores or red algae. They don't contain chitin, a key component of fungal cell walls. Nor do they contain the chloroplasts, the organelles in which photosynthesis takes place, that are typical of red algae.

But they do, after all, contain DNA. A simple DNA stain test in Sheffield came back positive. However, more rigorous tests in Cardiff that try to amplify specific DNA sequences have so far failed. "That doesn't mean there's no DNA, it means that the DNA is probably unusual," Wickramasinghe suggests.
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“The particles could be the best evidence yet that primitive life forms fly around interplanetary space on chunks of rock and ice”Something like the Trentepohlia alga, perhaps? That's the conclusion of microbiologists at the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Kerala, who say they have cultured the cells and grown Trentepohlia, an alga common in Kottayam, where the first report of the red rain originated. Formal DNA identification awaits.
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Originally quoted by kellyb
“The particles could be the best evidence yet that primitive life forms fly around interplanetary space on chunks of rock and ice”Something like the Trentepohlia alga, perhaps? That's the conclusion of microbiologists at the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Kerala, who say they have cultured the cells and grown Trentepohlia, an alga common in Kottayam, where the first report of the red rain originated.
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How does growing trentopohlia from the cultured cells support the conclusion "The particles could be the best evidence yet that primitive life forms fly around interplanetary space on chunks of rock and ice"

I can't open kellyb's link, but this has the Kerala institute quoted in a different place:

The red cells have unusually thick, sturdy walls, and some contain daughter cells that Wainwright says are puzzling. He stresses, though, that the cells could be ordinary, terrestrial organisms he is not familiar with.

Something like the Trentepohlia alga, perhaps? That's the conclusion of microbiologists at the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Kerala, who say they have cultured the cells and grown Trentepohlia, an alga common in Kottayam, where the first report of the red rain originated. Formal DNA identification awaits.
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Still this part is intriguing...

It's unlikely that they are fungal spores or red algae. They don't contain chitin, a key component of fungal cell walls. Nor do they contain the chloroplasts, the organelles in which photosynthesis takes place, that are typical of red algae
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Can you have algae cells without chloroplasts? Or have they made another error?
 
How does growing trentopohlia from the cultured cells support the conclusion "The particles could be the best evidence yet that primitive life forms fly around interplanetary space on chunks of rock and ice"

I can't open kellyb's link, but this has the Kerala institute quoted in a different place:
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I was quoting a quote, as well, but it looks like the quoting in your link is probably correct and my source messed up the C&P.
It's the same Newscientist article being quoted, but your source makes more sense. (I don't have access to the original article, either.)

Can you have algae cells without chloroplasts? Or have they made another error?
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That's a really good question. I'd guess it's an error?
 
searching for "cells without chloroplasts" in google you find that there are some instances, but I´ve not searched further to see if these match the case.

I think that if these exist, they´re probably some specialized cells of a dead-ended somatic lineage, I mean, I doubt that there would be entire plants without it, unless it´s something that Lynn Margulis would really be happy about, a host organism absorbing totally the chloroplast genome and its functions and fused completely into one.

But I do not understand anything about botany
 
Just from first post here, there was a tiny problem - person who said cellular and no DNA was a physicist - I would have been a little more likely to believe if it had been a microbiologist or biochemist making that pronunciation.

Edit ther to there
 
What I think is a good point made on the baut forums was that the events happened in the same place over too long a period to have anything other a local cause.

Red rain in Kerala was a phenomenon observed sporadically from 25 July to 23 September 2001 in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
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Unless the "meteor" was in geo-stationary orbit!!
 
On algae without chlorophyll...
Protothecosis is a disease found in dogs, cats, and humans caused by a type of mutant green algae that lacks chlorophyll.
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I'm actually surprised by that too!

Shame the ET story is dead, though.
Killjoys! :D
 
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