Alien Bacteria May Have Landed in India 116
coastal984 writes "CNN & Popular Science are reporting that a scientist in India believes he may have discovered alien life in water collected from a unusually colored rainstorm. From the article: '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.'"
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
But certainly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But certainly (Score:2)
Re:But certainly (Score:2)
It's actually amazing. I post something insightful, it's modded funny. I post something funny, it's modded flamebait. I get pissed and post a flame, it gets modded insightful...
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Um (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Um (Score:2)
Er, that was quite the malformed sentence. Yee-haw!
Sorry, this is not news (Score:5, Insightful)
"blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001"
but it never seems to reach a conclusion. Precisely why the sample has not been distributed to a variety of scientists continues to amaze me. I would think it would not take too long for a group of scientists to qualify or reject his hypothesis.
Panspermia is not a bad hypothesis but lack of rigor in evaluating it does little for its credibility.
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2, Informative)
If you bothered to RTFA, you'd notice that it has infact been "been distributed to a variety of scientists" for evaluation. Excerpts for your kind perusal:
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 s
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
Grab.
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
This letter (22 April 2006)? [newscientist.com]
You need to be a New Scientist subscriber to read the full text, but it begins:
and goes on to say
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
Exactly what I was thinking as I RTFA.
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:5, Interesting)
Preliminary tests don't seem to indicate the presence of DNA. This shouldn't be the end of the inquiry. Furthermore, repeated testing for the presence of DNA is only so useful; yes, it's good to independently verify results, but after you're satisfied that something isn't there, it's time to find out what is there.
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:3, Funny)
Absolutely. But this is work for an open-minded biologist, not an agenda-driven astronomer.
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:3, Insightful)
We have yet to determine how he came to the conclusion there is not DNA (he's a solid state physicist). Its really hard to go to any "puddle" of water and not find DNA, even if there aren't any living organisms (just ask anyone who does DNA work how careful they have to be to avoid contaminating samples).
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:3, Insightful)
Chemist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
Especially if they are truly multiplying, as hinted in the article.
OTOH, a meteor (possibly containing much Fe) soars across the sky, burning up as it goes (burning another term for a fast oxydation reaction), and suddenly the rain has a red tinge to it.
Obviously, there must be some form of life involved, it couldn't be just chemistry.
And they always told me the reddish water pumped from farm wells was just du
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:1)
Man... They should send some scientists over to my place... I think I have a whole colony of aliens!
it is called iron bacteria (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/wells/ironba cteria.html [state.mn.us]
Re:it is called iron bacteria (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:it is called iron bacteria (Score:1)
That it fell off and on for a couple of months I *think* would eliminate a rogue meteor and transpermia action*, which would leave wind patterns normal for that time of year picking up dust upwind someplace with a tint to it and/or something like red tide algae from over water, or, less likely but still possible, some sort of extensive black ops missions with
Re:Sorry, this is not news (Score:2)
Note the word "sporadically".
It seems just a tad peculiar that something extraterrestrial hit Kerala several times, but not anywhere else. Comet fragments were arriving exactly at 24 hour intervals, so as to hit the same spot as the Earth rotated?
scientists have already investigated (Score:1)
Life (Score:2)
Rainbows... (Score:3, Funny)
Last time I checked it was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, not alien bacteria.
Re:Rainbows... (Score:1)
Last time I checked I took the pot of gold. The leprechauns must have replaced it with the aliens.
Rainbow Cheese? (Score:2)
Last time I checked it was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, not alien bacteria.
Are you sure? Could be a pretty good yoghurt or chese. I'm not willing to allow a cheese gap.
red rain in russia (Score:3, Funny)
Re:red rain in russia (Score:3, Funny)
Hm, was Peter Gabriel anywhere near the area?
In Soviet Russia (Score:1, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:1)
Congrat's!
Yes, Please Mod this one DAMN FUNNY! as suggested.
Re:red rain in russia (Score:1)
Re:red rain in russia (Score:2)
Popular Science article is rather sparse... (Score:4, Informative)
Much more detail about this phenomenon can be found here [world-science.net] and here [guardian.co.uk].
Re:Popular Science article is rather sparse... (Score:2)
The End (Score:1)
Or perhaps not.
Re:The End (Score:2)
However, history indicates that the time required will be somewhere around 500 million to two billion years, depending on where you draw the line.
This is not something that keeps me up at night.
Re:The End (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe Indians who drank the water were taken over by the alien parasites and are now infiltrating the U.S. on H1-B Visas. So when Chandresh, the new employee, brings in food for everyone in your department, whatever you do, don't eat the red chutney.
War Of The Worlds in reverse? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:War Of The Worlds in reverse? (Score:1, Offtopic)
So it can't be all bad.
Re:War Of The Worlds in reverse? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:War Of The Worlds in reverse? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:War Of The Worlds in reverse? (Score:3, Funny)
Continuation of earlier /. stories... (Score:4, Informative)
It would also be fruitful to mention that that Google turns up these stories with the most obvious of keywords: alien rain India site:slashdot.org [google.com].
Oh, Zonk. No. (Score:2)
Ahh yes, "popular" science.... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you consider that JUST in ONE LAKE (Yellowstone Lake) in a heavily-studied US national park: "...One park biodiversity expert believes that 99% of the park's microbes and 75% of its invertebrates remain undiscovered.", I guess I'd assume that these strange little structures are Earth-generated, before I'd start reaching to outer space for explanations of their origin.
You forgot "Military Recruiting Tool" Science (Score:2)
This time last year... (Score:2)
99% of the microbes in Yellowstone Park being undiscovered (or, at least, unidentified) sounds a whole lot more reasonable to me today, and I am co
Re:Ahh yes, "popular" science.... (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Ahh yes, "popular" science.... (Score:2)
Incorrect. Single celled organisms began with RNA, as far as we know, and there are still some surviving lines with this simple architecture. DNA was a major upgrade to RNA. There could be other, pre-RNA versions of information storage that we have yet to find evidence of.
Re:Ahh yes, "popular" science.... (Score:2)
Anyway, one form of life that lacks DNA, and is red, is of course just that - mammalian red blood cells. No nucleus and no mitochondria. And they make a pretty red. I guess an Indian Dracula was hit by a lightning strike (or a flying alien garlic) in mid-air.
Re:Ahh yes, "popular" science.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Five times bigger, folks. That's a lot of space!
It HAS to be said... (Score:2, Funny)
Chubby Rain! (Score:1)
-S
Re:Chubby Rain! (Score:2)
So let me get this straight (Score:2)
OMG! Red goo!!
Seriously, this could be like the (theoretical) self-replicating clays that supposedly were the precursers to DNA.
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:2)
Stupid Pet Tricks (Score:1)
More analysis showing possible signs of DNA (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/redrain.html [cf.ac.uk]
From The Guardian's article: (Score:1)
Ouch.
From: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,172
Re:From The Guardian's article: (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:2)
Isn't water basically clear? So aren't rainstorms basically clear as well?
This sounds more like an article referring to a show on SciFi Channel, than something I should be tuning into National Geographic to watch.
The amount deposited in the rain was 50 tons (Score:2)
Activate... (Score:3, Funny)
In the wild? (Score:2)
-matthew
ALIENS ARE ALREADY HERE (Score:1)
Believe it.
Re:ALIENS ARE ALREADY HERE (Score:2)
"Some have suggested that all these recent stories about alien microbes/bacteria are in fact being deliberately leaked in order to mentally prepare the public for forthcoming REAL announcements concerning extraterrestrials".
There are also leaks from the sources, that the announcement is scheduled for 2006.6.6
They were algae spores (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_of_Kerala [wikipedia.org]
Presigious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'm going to be a bit junior-high here and point out that "Astrophysics and Space Science" has a very unfortunate acronym and must be difficult to cite with its abbreviation.
LINK TO JOURNAL (Score:2)
The online journal appears to be here [springerlink.com].
Whether it is pretigious or not, I leave to people who know more than I.
Re:LINK TO JOURNAL (Score:2)
Wrong link (Score:2)
Re:Presigious? (Score:2)
Re:Presigious? (Score:2)
Re:Presigious? (Score:2)
Summon the Mythbusters! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats."
Now wait just a goddamn minute.
A flock of bats!? I think it's time to have F5 Industries figure out exactly how many bats, of what type, struck by a meteor of what size and velocity, are needed to create a fine red mist across a chunk of land that size.
What... is your quest? (Score:2)
Huh? I.. I don't know that. AAAAAaaaahh!!! [thrown off bridge]
Repost (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Repost (Score:3, Funny)
Good PDF of the subject (Score:3, Informative)
He goes into quite a bit of detail about the test they ran on these bugs. Pretty interesting stuff.
Cryptologists (Score:2)
Hmm ... (Score:2)
Alien bacteria in India? Maybe that's why I get the chronic shits everytime I go there.
Re:WTH Is Going On Here? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WTH Is Going On Here? (Score:2, Interesting)