C1ay Posted June 10, 2006 Report Share Posted June 10, 2006 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˚F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250˚F.) 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. More..... Life without DNA? How intriguing.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthepon Posted June 11, 2006 Report Share Posted June 11, 2006 How interesting. Protobionts? Not full fleged life, surely? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFaithfulStone Posted June 11, 2006 Report Share Posted June 11, 2006 Too good to be true, I think. Therefore, most likely false. TFS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HydrogenBond Posted June 11, 2006 Report Share Posted June 11, 2006 The alien seeding hypothesis is an example of what came first the chicken or the egg. If aliens eggs (seed life) made the first earth chickens (terrestrial life), where did the alien chickens come from, other distant alien eggs from a different part of the galaxy, etc., etc., ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrotex Posted June 12, 2006 Report Share Posted June 12, 2006 Life without DNA? What about Life without beer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagaz Posted June 13, 2006 Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 Life without DNA? Say this is true (only one preliminary test conducted so far), would the 'cells' still be subject to natural variability and evolution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C1ay Posted June 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2006 Say this is true (only one preliminary test conducted so far), would the 'cells' still be subject to natural variability and evolution?How would we know? We've never had the chance to study a form of life not blueprinted by DNA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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