Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Could a physicist in India have discovered microbes from outer space?
TrackBackIn 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 .)
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.
Interesting, but remember the big furor over fossilized microbes in Mars that sort of just petered out?
Physicists and astronomers often think they've discovered extraterrestrial life, but they tend not to talk to cell biologists or other people in life sciences before publishing their findings; I wish Louis would open a collaboration with biologists rather than astronomers.
Posted by: Kat Salerno at June 4, 2006 11:05 AM