If this is true, it would have ramifications far beyond exobiology.
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.
If the red cells are alive and hardy, won’t they multiply where they fell in India?
Isn’t this how some B scifi movies started?
omg, Alien Bird Flu!
Maybe an orbiting alien tried to write his name across the subcontinent of India. You supposed aliens pee red? Better have that looked at by a doctor.
Jokes aside, this is heavy stuff! Imagine a totally alien lifeform that doesn’t have DNA. The revelations could be huge.
This should send the televangelists running for the TV news cameras. “It must be a sign from GOD!”
Potentially its one of the biggest discoveries in decades.
Potentially.
We’ll see. I hope the media keeps up with it though.
Considering Earth was made of extra-terrestrial matter, and that we came from Earth, we are effectively extra-terrestrial.
This was reported a couple of weeks ago. There hasn’t been any more news or follow-up, so it is either nothing, a publicity stunt or a huge coverup. Personally I think that there is life out there in a miriad of forms, with DNA based life just one example. Luckily for us, unless this is an incredibly talented life form, the environment and life forms on earth should take care of cleaning up this ‘visitor’, even in the unlikely event that it has any interest in DNA based life.
Let’s just hope they don’t land on the White House … or in the Supreme Court… and take over. (It’s too late for Tom Cruise.)
A quick search of his name brings up his website along with links to the paper he published. I haven’t been able to read it thouroughly yet, but I don’t see any mention of reproduction. He does suggest that they can’t be terrestrial and they appear to be biological cells without dna. He doesn’t, however, seem to make any larger claims than that. Seems like it could be real.
This is definitely real science but whether or not the source is extraterrestrial is not determined although it seems a good possibility. The only alternative that I can think of is that, these cells being thermophiles, perhaps they were ejected from a subterranean environment by a volcanic eruption and then fell as rain. This should be relatively easy to determine.
Will
Dammit, those cells that he descovered are red blood cells. If you look at the photograph they look exactly like red blood cells. “dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully” and guess which cells match that description? RED BLOOD CELLS!
Nah. They have to be weather balloons. You people don’t know what you are looking at, that’s all.
This is real science and I have followed it since first reported in the scientific publications more than two years ago. There is a coincidence between comet debree crossing the Earth path and the event of “Red rain of Kerala” that have deposited this material. For the question why it fell only in India, it is equivalent to asking “why that meteor have fallen only at such-and-such location”… This is not proof-positive of any life from the comet but extremely good proof that comets contain organic molecules and hence could have helped along and seeded these molecules on early Earth, giving the kick-start to the life. Once media “hype” is removed one may notice good and important science behind it. On the negative side, author is a bit too eager to attribute life to these organic chemicals. Fair but not great hypothesis.
Does this means that these “cells” will become a hot n’ horny chick like the one from the first two “species” movies?
Red blood cells don’t replicate. They are produced by bone marrow.
That’s not exactly true. Only fully mature, mammalian red blood cells are absent of DNA. Regardless, lack od DNA has yet to be confirmed in the samples, and in fact a preliminary test has found DNA.
“The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis’s samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive.“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.”
The only alternative that I can think of is that, these cells being thermophiles, perhaps they were ejected from a subterranean environment by a volcanic eruption and then fell as rain
Neal Saferstein
IF, these particles were from outer space, and then had DNA, THAT would be a SCOOP.
The fact that they rained somewhere doesn´t imply they are from outer space, and are they reproducing? This means that india is covered in red stains by now, since they´ve been reproducing since 2001
are aliens real