[meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 6 15:52:17 2006
Message-ID: <003a01c6415f$d6a73a20$7fe08c46_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

    If these were algae or their spores, they would
grow, bloom, or whatever it is algae do. They would
also give you a big positive in the kind of DNA test
that was performed on the funny "cells."
    The fellow at Sheffield interviewed by the BBC
talked about this particular test being done on a jar
of algae and how positive it was. He's going to
duplicate Louis' test, and he said he didn't really
doubt that the outcome would be the same,
because the test was so straightforward.

    As far as Louis' hypothesis about the cells
being delivered by a meteor airburst, I ignore
it completely. Nothing is more fruitless than
endlessly arguing about an unobserved delivery
system hypothesis. One should not waste a second
on how these guys got here until and if we have
determined what these things are.
    The notion that one airburst could rain down
weird particles in the same location for days or
weeks is utterly silly, as if the atmosphere had
no horizontal transport, like, maybe, wind?

    I don't think delivery is a problem. Stuff falls
into the ocean, small particles are transpired
upwards (like algal spores), and rain out over
Kerala for days, weeks, months. No big deal.

    The only question that matters is WHAT,
not how. Naively, since it's neither my job
nor my field of study, I can't imagine that, after
more than a century of microbiology and the
(apparently) incredible sophistication of the
field, somebody can't tell us whether this thing
that looks like a cell IS a cell or not. It would
seem like the most simple and obvious of
questions.

    I hadn't found that bit about how Louis had
tried culturing them in weird substances (mentioned
in your subsequent post). Using Cedarwood
oil may seem a strange choice, but it is used as
a preservative because it kills all microbial life
dead, dead, dead. The fact that it was at 300 C.
suggests that whatever these things are, they
don't contain (much) water, else they'd pop.
Excuse me, lyse.

    Me, I would have tried:
        a) ammonia, water, with methane and a
bit of hydrogen, weak light, and coolish (Titan)
        b) low pressure CO2, argon, a bit of
water vapor, more light, less cool (Mars)
        c) high pressure CO2 and sulfurous stuff,
plenty hot (Venus)
        Well, all the Solar System environments.
You get the idea. Since CO2 seems to be so
ubiquitous, I'd try warm CO2, straight up,
barkeep.

    Then, there's the other possible regimes. Maybe
they have thick walls and are quiescent because of
all this nasty oxygen everywhere. Would they like
a taste of chlorine? A dash of fluorine, perhaps?
A pick-me-up of bromine? Iodine?

    I mean, we swim in this deadly poisonous
oxygen constantly and we actually seem to
enjoy it! That's very strange. But fluorine, a
better and more effective "oxidative" agent
than the weaker oxygen seems to cause us
to fall down and die... Likewise, chlorine
and the rest. Switch'em around. See what
happens...

    Life could just as well use a reduction cycle
to generate chemical energy for themselves,
instead of oxidation. Try them out; see what happens.
If it seems nobody can say what these things are
by looking at them, poking, prodding, like a
three-year-old, let's see if we can get them to DO
something. One thing we CAN say about life, it
ought to DO something.


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "mark ford" <markf_at_ssl.gb.com>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>;
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 7:29 AM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Red Rain From Comets?




HI Stirling and list,

This is indeed an interesting one.

I'm not an expert, but the large algal blooms that periodically appear
in the pacific/atlantic and Indian oceans would be a likely suspect to
me...

It is well known that algae (and other simple life forms) reproduce by
water evaporation (through TINY spores which are carried to high
altitude by the normal terrestrial water cycle, i.e evaporation/rain).
Try putting a bucket outside and within weeks it will have algae growing
in it - from the rain.

Now I am not sure if these 'algal spores' would show up as 'biological'
in the particular DNA test that Louis and Kumar performed but do I know
that alagal spores are very primeval in form, (since they practically
the oldest life form), and they have a vast range of shapes and sizes
some remarkably similar to the one's in Louis and kumar's paper.

Example of spores at
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/ppfspor.html


Now we are talking about serious quantity of material here, but take a
look at some photos of an algal blooms they often cover many hundreds of
miles and appear on satellite photos!

(Also common in India as it happens)

http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/IOC/IOC_1.shtml



Also

One alledged sonic boom is WAY not enough evidence to link the red rain
with a 'comet impact', no physical evidence for a meteor event was put
forward, 'Sonic booms' occur all the time for a variety of reasons,
especially in hot countries, that are at war with their neighbours... (
i.e Thunder & Aircraft patrols)



.... My humble opinion for what it is worth.

Mark Ford














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Received on Mon 06 Mar 2006 03:52:09 PM PST