[meteorite-list] SARS From Space? Not Likely, Scientist Says

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:44 2004
Message-ID: <200305250459.VAA20832_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/052403_news_sars.shtml

SARS from space? Not likely, scientist says

"I think I can say with a reasonable level of medical certainty that
no, SARS is not an invader from Mars."

Al Zelicoff, Sandia Labs scientist

By Sue Vorenberg
Alguquerque Tribune
May 24, 2003

Invaders from outer space might be responsible for the SARS outbreak
plaguing several countries, if the authors of a letter in the prestigious
English medical journal The Lancet are to be believed.

The letter says Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - which has
infected more than 8,000 people and killed 682 since it was discovered
earlier this year - could have traveled to Earth from another planet or
solar system by hitching a ride on space dust.

Scientists at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National
Laboratories think maybe that theory should hitch a ride back out to
space, where they say it undoubtedly came from.

"The annals of medical history detail many examples of plagues and
pestilences that can be attributed to space ... microbes," Cardiff
University Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe said in the letter.
"New epidemic diseases have a record of abrupt entrances from time to
time, and equally abrupt retreats. The patterns of spread of these
diseases, as charted by historians, are often difficult to explain (and
show signs that they came from space)."

When asked if civilians should worry about Martian diseases invading
their homes, Al Zelicoff, a senior scientist at Sandia National
Laboratories and an expert in infectious disease, had this reply:

"I think I can say with a reasonable level of medical certainty that no,
SARS is not an invader from Mars."

Wickramasinghe argues that viruses could be carried by space dust
fields - which the Earth regularly travels through - and dropped on
places throughout the globe, which could explain why disease
outbreaks sometimes occur abruptly and in different parts of the Earth
at the same time.

"With respect to the SARS outbreak, a prima facie (sic) case for a
possible space incidence can already be made," the letter said. "First the
virus is unexpectedly novel and appeared without warning on mainland
China. A small amount of the culprit virus introduced into the
stratosphere could make a first tentative fall out East of the great
mountain range of the Himalayas, where the stratosphere is thinnest,
followed by sporadic deposits in neighboring areas."

Wickramasinghe's theory may sound bizarre, but it's no joke; the
English professor has been pushing the idea for years, said Frans
Rietmeijer, a research professor and cosmic dust expert at the
University of New Mexico.

"Fred Hoyle, a very famous scientist, came up with this theory about
50 years ago, and Wickramasinghe was a student of his," Rietmeijer
said. "The theory is basically that life evolved somewhere in the
cosmos as a bacteria, and that's been stored and travels around in dust
and comets."

"The problem with the theory is there's no way to prove it, but there's
also no way to disprove it," Rietmeijer continued. "Even though the
theory is not well accepted by experts, there's nothing to say it's not
true."

So far, no evidence to prove the theory has been found in space. But
space missions haven't sampled dust and comet trails for living viruses
or bacteria yet, either, Rietmeijer said.

In the letter, Wickramasinghe says he and other scientists took air
samples from about 30 miles above Earth's surface and found "large
quantities of viable microorganisms" that could have come from space.

Zelicoff says he takes issue with that sampling method.

"It is true that bacteria fall to Earth all the time, but that doesn't mean
they come from space," he said. "Bacteria get taken up in wind storms
and literally travel across continents and oceans. They go all over the
place, even that high up in the air. Basically, I think that theory is just
nutty."

Even if a bacteria or virus were to travel to Earth from another planet,
it is unlikely a living version of it would survive the trip, Zelicoff
added.

"The ultraviolet radiation and the X-ray flux in the atmosphere
would sterilize any biological material that we've seen," he said. "We
know on a surface in a room where it's not exposed to sunlight, that
SARS has a survival time of a day or two. Now fungi, that's another
story. That's very hardy, which you would see if you opened my
refrigerator. But viruses, even the most hardy can't survive in open air
for very long."

Horton Newsom, a scientist at UNM's Institute of Meteoritics, says
it's possible a bacteria could travel to Earth inside of a meteorite, but
laughed at the idea that something that evolved in space would be able
to attack anything that evolved on Earth.

"That something would have evolved in space and it would just happen
to be able to infect people as a disease is very odd," Newsom said. "The
environment in which a bacteria would grow in space would not be the
same as one that grew in an animal host. A space bacteria or virus
would be in a situation where it would use chemical energy from
minerals, not a biological organism. That's the strongest argument
against that theory in my mind."

Even though many scientists disagree with Wickramasinghe's ideas,
they aren't likely to go away anytime soon, Newsom said.

"These are actually prestigious guys with a history of wild ideas,"
Newsom said. "That just goes to show you what some people can get
away with when they have tenure."
Received on Sun 25 May 2003 12:59:15 AM PDT