Red Rain - Alien Blood Cells ? Alien Blood Cells, or something Earthly?

[Captain Jerry 0]

Is It Raining Aliens?

Nearly 50 tons of mysterious red particles showered India in 2001. Now the race is on to figure out what the heck they are...

 

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.

 

Rest of the Story

 

What do you think? Alien or Earthling?

[yeh 0]

Cool... this is very interesting. Did you guys watch War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg? The first image that came to me is the scene where the aliens are trying to teraform(i think that is how it sounds) earth by spraying human blood all over. Gross....This phenomenon is actually quite a big thing. There is even a wikipedia entry on it. After doing some reading, I think scientists still could not explain with certainty how such a phenomenon could occur. Do I think it is some kind of alien microbes from a meteor? I don't know. I mean we have not exactly catalogue all the microbes on earth, so it is hard to say. But since it is a localized event, guess it is not an alien invasion after all.

[Captain Jerry 0]

Yeah, I saw "War of the Worlds" ~ Awesome movie ~ Even as much as the press hates Tom Cruise, I've always liked his acting, and probably always will...

 

Probably not an alien invasion, like you said, but one of the key points is that these "living" microbes (or whatever they are) have no DNA ~ Now as far as I know, we may not have categorized all life forms on Earth, but, to date, all life forms on Earth have DNA!

 

It will be interesting to follow this story, and see what else they turn up.

 

[yeh 0]

...all life forms on Earth have DNA!

Hehe... not trying to be technical here, so don't go mad at what I'm about to say. If I am not mistaken, virus do not have DNA. Virus have something called RNA.


Yup... it would be interesting on what the red rain is all about. Do keep us posted if you know of any new developments. I am very interested in this phenomenon.

[Captain Jerry 0]

Hehe... not trying to be technical here, so don't go mad at what I'm about to say. If I am not mistaken, virus do not have DNA. Virus have something called RNA.

Yup... it would be interesting on what the red rain is all about. Do keep us posted if you know of any new developments. I am very interested in this phenomenon.

 

I stand corrected! Thank you (I'll never take offense to someone correcting me.)

 

I don't have the slightest idea of what the below paragraph says, but I'm sure it's interesting on some level or another! LOL

 

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a nucleic acid polymer consisting of nucleotide monomers. RNA nucleotides contain ribose rings and uracil unlike deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which contains deoxyribose and thymine. It is transcribed from DNA by enzymes called RNA polymerases and further processed by other enzymes. RNA serves as the template for translation of genes into proteins, transferring amino acids to the ribosome to form proteins, and also translating the transcript into proteins.

 

[t4tav 0]

RNA , is something that you will find in virus and other bugs .Look up the pokemon Deoxys , this is a PKMN made from RNA , and when spacemen went to the moon , they had to stay in quarantine for half a year , becasue they brought DNA/RNA from the moon. No one knows how it got there because Space is a Vacum. This RNA/DNAshould of been frozen. Any way thats a little bit on RNA

[Captain Jerry 0]

RNA , is something that you will find in virus and other bugs .

Look up the pokemon Deoxys , this is a PKMN made from RNA , and when spacemen went to the moon , they had to stay in quarantine for half a year , because they brought DNA/RNA from the moon. No one knows how it got there because Space is a Vacuum. This RNA/DNA should of been frozen. Any way thats a little bit on RNA

 

I didn't hear about the DNA / RNA coming back from the moon (must have been during my drinking years!) So what ever happened to that story? Do you know?

 

[t4tav 0]

I can only rember this from last year at Kenerdy space center , It said Neil Armstrong and the other one ( Cant rember his name ) had to spend over 1/2 a year in Quaratine because they had brought back DNA/RNA from the Moon. The DNA/RNA carried dust particles and other things that should not be out there. The DNA/RNA only survived a year on our planet due to our atmosphere. The people at NASA were dissapointed by this. But just think , if that DNA/RNA stayed around for longer and it was NASTY !!! We could all be dead :(This news wasnt broadcast on tv , and never got to be , before it was released at the space center !

Edited June 4, 2006 by Tavis (see edit history)

[yeh 0]

Another conspiracy!! :(Well, as far as I know, quarantine is instituted as a standard prodecure. You never know what is out there anyway. Plus I think they actually brought some moon rock back. Tried a brief google on this subject and found that Neil was quarantine only for 21 days. Anyway, if you have a link or more info about DNA/RNA from the moon, please post it here. I would love to find out more about it.

[Captain Jerry 0]

Another conspiracy!!

 

Anyway, if you have a link or more info about DNA/RNA from the moon, please post it here. I would love to find out more about it.

 

Me too!

 

[t4tav 0]

Sorry , I didnt take many photos while in america

[CaptainRon 0]

life came on earth from earth itself or some another planet, how the hell does it matter?what does matter is what created life? till now there has not been found any conclusive theory on what lies between a complex protein cell and a living cell that consumes and reproduces... religion calls it soul... let's see what science has got to call it.

[yeh 0]

life came on earth from earth itself or some another planet, how the hell does it matter?

what does matter is what created life?

Ok, so how come the first one doesn't matter and the second one does?

religion calls it soul... let's see what science has got to call it.

Well, you would have to wait for a couple of decades before science can even attempt to answer it. Of course, if you just want a name/description, I am sure scientists can come out with one overnight.

[illini319 0]

To clarify, viruses come in all flavors and sizes. Retroviruses such as HIV are in fact RNA based. Viruses, like herpes virus, are DNA based.

[t4tav 0]

Extract From Wikipedia.com :

RNA is primarily made up of four different bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil. The first three are the same as those found in DNA, but uracil replaces thymine as the base complementary to adenine. This base is also a pyrimidine and is very similar to thymine. Uracil is energetically less expensive to produce than thymine, which may account for its use in RNA. In DNA, however, uracil is readily produced by chemical degradation of cytosine, so having thymine as the normal base makes detection and repair of such incipient mutations more efficient. Thus, uracil is appropriate for RNA, where quantity is important but lifespan is not, whereas thymine is appropriate for DNA where maintaining sequence with high fidelity is more critical.

 

There are also numerous modified bases found in RNA that serve many different roles. Pseudouridine (Ψ) and the DNA base thymidine are found in various places (most notably in the TΨC loop of every tRNA). There are nearly 100 other naturally occurring modified bases, many of which are not fully understood.