Beware the red rain!

[okiscopey (Mike)]

In July 2001, a mysterious red rain started falling over a large area of southern India.

Locals believed that it foretold the end of the world, though the official explanation was that it was desert dust that had blown over from Arabia.

But one scientist in the area, Dr Godfrey Louis, was convinced there was something much more unusual going on.

Not only did Dr Louis discover that there were tiny biological cells present, but because they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth, he reasoned they must be alien lifeforms.

"This staggering claim is that this is possibly extraterrestrial. That is a big claim I know, but all the experiments are supporting this claim," said Dr Louis.

The rest of the story is at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6146292.stm

[Doug]

Thanks for the article and link. Taking the article at face value, I can't see that this is in anyway a serious scientific study. There are other possibilities for the origin of these 'living cells', such as experimental germ warfare; anonymous of course.
Another part of the article, quoted below has a considerable amount to say of the whole article and the apparent agenda of those pushing the research.

It also raises the intriguing possibility that if life first originated on another planet then it must mean all Earth organisms, including humans, evolved from alien life.

(emphasis added)

The logic of this demonstrated line of thought absolutely eludes me. Why on Earth is life not allowed to have originated here? Why must it have originated elsewhere? What is wrong with our planet, that disqualifies it from being the cradle of life, or even at least Earthly life?(3 rhetorical questions)
Look at the abundant variety of life here, that should be a good indicator of the Earth's suitability to nurture life. And this said, it does not exclude other places beyond also having indigenous life.

It is a pity that the article does not clarify the DNA issue. It says initially that "they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth", then later, "He was able to see the recent work of Dr Louis which shows that the red rain can replicate at 300C"; can life exist without DNA? If it turns out that this red rain producing stuff does in fact have DNA, why was it not detected when an obvious search for it was carried out in the first place?

cheers,
Doug

[okiscopey (Mike)]

"It also raises the intriguing possibility that if life first originated on another planet then it must mean all Earth organisms, including humans, evolved from alien life." (BBC report.)

Originally Posted by Doug

The logic of this demonstrated line of thought absolutely eludes me. Why on Earth is life not allowed to have originated here? Why must it have originated elsewhere? What is wrong with our planet, that disqualifies it from being the cradle of life, or even at least Earthly life?
Doug

It does seem illogical. This is a great place to start life off ... I certainly like it here!

These 'panspermia' ideas seem to be a continuation of the trend over the centuries to demote us more and more from the centre of the universe. They've all been 'true' up till now, who knows about this one?

[ving (David)]

and dont eat the yellow snow.... whatever that means..

i recon it is just dust and they are pulling our collective legs. if it was from outerspace wouldnt it have burned up coming into the atmosphere regardless of its makeup?

[Ric]

I agree Ving and there are also a lot of weird earth bound weather events like raining fish and frogs which have rational explanations without going down the ET path.

cheers

[ving (David)]

i thought yuo were going to agree to not eating the yellow snow for a moment!

[Ric]

I agree with that as well Ving

That was a line from a Frank Zappa song "Watch out where the Huskies go, Dont you eat that yellow snow"

Cheers

[xelasnave]

mmmm its one of those "I want to believe it therefore I shall" trip in my view.
Ok no dna so what? can cosmic rays destroy it, or something else I start there in an effort to start a list for enquirey. When that list is exhausted and reviewed by those who know more than me I recon anything then placed before one for assessment could be more credible if it was presented as a string of facts not speculations,
alex

[5ash (Philip)]

i suspect its all another hoax. however to answer a question that ving brought up:

"i recon it is just dust and they are pulling our collective legs. if it was from outerspace wouldnt it have burned up coming into the atmosphere regardless of its makeup?
If you check out Fred Hoyle & N.C. Wickramasinghe"s Book' Diseases from outer space' some answers will be provided on this matter that will suprise you. These are two notable cosmologists as youll know. Fred hoyle was the opponent of an expanding universe who jokingly coined the name big bang theory.
regards philip

[Doug]

Ving,
I think the burn up question could be answered by considering the mass/inertia of the system. Dust sized particles entering the extremities of our atmosphere would loose velocity in short order. Without inertia to mess around with acceleration (negative in this case), and without a large thermal mass to retain heat energy, it could well be that there would be minimal heating up of the dust particles.

Ric,
I've been waiting years for few 20kg Snapper to drop out of the sky next to my BBQ, but nothing yet, not even a mud gudgeon

Cheers,
Doug

[acropolite (Phil)]

A red algal bloomin nearby ocean waters sucked up in a waterspout would give red rain, complete with genuine biological content.

[tbentley]

I think that the answer is in the article:

...because they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth...

It's simply a case of logic. If the dust is a life form and is on earth, it must contain DNA. If it does not contain DNA and is on earth it cannot be a life form. Otherwise their statement is untrue and cannot be relied upon as a judgement of whether this is alien or not.

IMHO....makes sense to me anyway.

Travis

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

They mention the word "cells" a lot, I'd would have liked to have read or seen more about the cell structure, like a diagram for instance - on what grounds do they call it a "cell", is it really a biological cell or an unusually structured cluster of molecules? Do they think it is "life" simply perhaps due to the fact that it contains similar proportions of the typical elements foud in other organic tissues? How do you have "cell structure" without DNA in the nucleus, does it even have a nucleus? Does it contain any RNA?

They mention that the red rain can "replicate" but they did not say reproduce, that's an interesting distinction. Replication does not prove life - is this simple molecular "copying" analagous to what happens when you use a seed crystal in a solution to grow bigger / more crystals?

Lots of questions - way too few answers so far to make any judgement.