Report: cells "from space" have unusual makeup

Sept. 8, 2008
Special to World Science

A lineage of odd microbes that may have crashed into Earth aboard a meteor
in 2001 seem to contain molecules not found in Earthly cells, two scientists
are reporting.

Although many remain skeptical over the remarkable claim of minuscule
extraterrestrial visitors, Godfrey Louis, head of the physics department at
Cochin University of Science and Technology in India, presented the findings
at a scientific conference in San Diego on Aug. 12.

The meeting was organized by SPIE, the International Society for Optical
Engineering. The acronym reflects its former name as Society of
Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

The microbes give off unsual sorts of fluorescence under specific lighting
conditions, which follow patterns never seen in normal cells, according to
Louis and Santhosh Kumar of Mahatma Gandhi University in India, co-authors
of the report. The likely explanation, they added, is that the particles
contain molecules not found in Earthly organisms.

Louis and Kumar previously reported that the odd particles contain no DNA,
although they replicate abundantly in ferocious heat by spawning new "cells"
from within themselves. It was these offspring whose fluorescence properties
the pair tested.

Mysterious, tiny red globules fell to Earth in a red rain that pelted parts
of southern India sporadically for about two months in 2001, causing
widespread puzzlement. The event, however, was the latest in a series of
reports of colored rains from various places stretching back centuries, some
better documented than others.

Louis and Kumar say the orbs could be cells from space because they have
biological characteristics but match no known life form. A space rock could
have broken up in the atmosphere and seeded clouds with these organisms, the
pair argues, citing witness reports of an airburst just before the showers.
Other scientists have conceded the particles are mystifying, but the claim
of live cells from space is so bizarre that many are holding back any
assent.

Some note that the hazards of journey through space, including intense
radiation and extraordinary travel times, make the possibility of bacterial
transfer among different solar systems unlikely.

"Exchanges of bacteria between planets in different solar systems are only
possible during the birth cluster stage of the systems," when they're
situated close together in a star cluster, wrote scientists with NASA and
other institutions in a report this month. Our own solar system is far from
being in such a stage. That paper has been accepted for publication in the
research journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

On the other hand, researchers with Kristianstad University in Sweden and
other institutions reported on Sept. 8 that some tiny Earth animals called
tardigrades proved surprisingly resilient in outer space. Dried-out
tardigrades lived for 10 days unprotected in that environment, and went on
to reproduce, these scientists wrote in the Sept. 9 issue of the research
journal Current Biology.

Louis and Kumar are persisting in their studies; their ideas have gained
support from figures such as Chandra Wickramasinghe, director of the Cardiff
Centre for Astrobiology at Cardiff University, U.K.

In his presentation, Louis said that "red cell" spawns under various
lighting conditions exhbited properties violating a scientific principle
known as Kasha's Rule, found to have few exceptions elsewhere. The rule has
to do with fluorescence, the phenomenon in which a substance emits light of
one color upon stimulation by light from another color. Kasha's rule holds
that in general, the color of the arriving light and the emitted light are
unrelated.

To the contrary, Louis found that in the red globules' "offspring," alone
among cells on Earth, these colors are related by a distinct pattern.

"Hence the presence of new kind of bio-molecules can be inferred," Louis
wrote in the presented paper. "Organisms replicating at 300 degrees
[Celsius] and showing this kind of autofluorescence are currently unknown to
exist on earth yet several thousand kilograms of these cells came down
through the red rain." The original parent cells are also under fluorescence
testing and results will be reported later, Louis said.

Source: World Science
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/080908_redrain

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek