"alien" Cells Discovered

[HoboFactory]

I just thought it was slightly interesting and I've not much of anything better to do.

 

 

 

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 .)

 

Full Story

[Prometheon]

Wow, very very cool, although I always thought that panspermia as an explanation for the origin of life was a copout that just pushed the ultimate question back one more step.

[Guest apsham]

Now we can begin cloning us some Alien slaves.

[ecnarf]

Wow, very very cool, although I always thought that panspermia as an explanation for the origin of life was a copout that just pushed the ultimate question back one more step.

Although it is entirely plausible that life on earth began from life on Mars. Or at least, so I've been told - bacteria and the like can survive the vacuum and extremely cold temperatures that is the trip on asteroid dust between the two planets.

[supercanuk]

yay for exogenesis!

Edited June 4, 2006 by supercanuk

[Prometheon]

Wow, very very cool, although I always thought that panspermia as an explanation for the origin of life was a copout that just pushed the ultimate question back one more step.

Although it is entirely plausible that life on earth began from life on Mars. Or at least, so I've been told - bacteria and the like can survive the vacuum and extremely cold temperatures that is the trip on asteroid dust between the two planets.

Yeah, for sure. What I was trying to say was that people often ask the question 'how did life begin?' Answers include 'god made us', 'a lightning bolt hit a mound of amino acids and simple proteins creating a spark that made the first cell' and panspermia, which is fertilization from an asteroid or something.

 

The problem is that all panspermia does is make us ask 'ok, so how did life begin on wherever the asteroid was from?' It doesn't actually explain anything.

[ecnarf]

Yes it does. It answers the origin of life on earth.

[dancing_invisible]

From article:

"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."

 

Though really interesting, I wouldn't jump to causing it ET yet. We still don't even understand this planet fully, this could just be something weird we just haven't seen yet. I'm kinda weirded out with the whole reproducing without DNA thing.

 

 

EDIT: stupid spelling mistake

Edited June 4, 2006 by dancing_invisible

[ecnarf]

Well, viruses reproduce but aren't technically alive.

[Ruettiger]

Well, viruses reproduce but aren't technically alive.

Viruses also have DNA or RNA.

[ToadMan]

Viruses are incapable of reproducing on their own... hence why they are not classified as alive. The require a host cell to reprogram.