4 ms·

The team also found an unusual pattern in the way the cells changed colour under UV light, known as "fluorescence behaviour". They said it was "in remarkable

by vecter 16y ago

The team also found an unusual pattern in the way the cells changed colour under UV light, known as "fluorescence behaviour". They said it was "in remarkable correspondence" with red emissions from the Red Rectangle planetary nebula some 2300 light years away, "suggesting, though not proving, an extraterrestrial origin". You have got to be kidding me.

jacquesm 16y ago
I think you could find a good spectral match for just about anything given the number of stars out there. This whole thing screams pseudo science at me, and I'm still not sure what exactly is the state of arxiv published research. It's a mixed bag.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  I think that currently, to get on arxiv you just need some arxiv-trusted person to vouch for your work. The idea being that if you vouch for too many kooks they stop letting you vouch for anyone.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Any cook is a blemish on arxiv that diminishes both arxiv and all the rest of the publications on there. There is the reason why big name publications are very careful not to be associated with cranks, reputable scientists will start to avoid your publication and that is the start of a downward spiral. Axxiv would do well to increase their barrier to entry to up the quality, the principle is great but the execution so far is less than fantastic. And that's a pity because something like arxiv with a really good reputation is badly needed. So, very good peer-review of all that's input and fewer rather than more 'publications' of excellent quality, with a very good set of verification criteria for extraordinary claims.
marze 16y ago
Unlikely sounding indeed. You look around, you see people, you see bacteria. They came from somewhere. One possibility is single cell organisms evolved from nothing on Earth, the other is their ancestors evolved somewhere else and arrived from space, a theory called panspermia. The panspermia theory was fringy at first, but is now covered in every Astronomy 101 textbook. For those unfamiliar, here is the short version of the theory: You have a star with a planet with microbes living in water. When the star goes through the red giant phase, the oceans are boiled off and blown off into space along with some microbes. The microbes move from star to star through space, and seed new planets around new stars. You'd expect to see them as dust in interstellar space if this was happening. The spectra of a lot of observed dust is indeed unexplained, supporting but obviously not proving the panspermia theory. Researchers at Cardiff, where this current work was done, have done a lot of the fundamental work on panspermia, theoretically checking the mechanisms to verify they are consistant with known laws. Now we have this claim from India that microbe spores that reproduce between 100C and 300C have been recovered from rain water, and the Cardiff guys have a sample to experiment with. It is the nature of science not to accept radical new theories quickly, the joke goes that it takes about 30 years, long enough for the scientists to die and the new generation to arrive. If scientists want to accelerate the rate of progress, unexpected results should be investigated carefully and aggressively.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Also matches spectrum of left lens of 3D glasses from my movie theatre. Life spontaneously created from cinema!

by vecter 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

I think you could find a good spectral match for just about anything given the number of stars out there. This whole thing screams pseudo science at me, and I'm still not sure what exactly is the state of arxiv published research. It's a mixed bag.

jonhendry 16y ago
I think that currently, to get on arxiv you just need some arxiv-trusted person to vouch for your work. The idea being that if you vouch for too many kooks they stop letting you vouch for anyone.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Any cook is a blemish on arxiv that diminishes both arxiv and all the rest of the publications on there. There is the reason why big name publications are very careful not to be associated with cranks, reputable scientists will start to avoid your publication and that is the start of a downward spiral. Axxiv would do well to increase their barrier to entry to up the quality, the principle is great but the execution so far is less than fantastic. And that's a pity because something like arxiv with a really good reputation is badly needed. So, very good peer-review of all that's input and fewer rather than more 'publications' of excellent quality, with a very good set of verification criteria for extraordinary claims.

marze 16y ago

Unlikely sounding indeed. You look around, you see people, you see bacteria. They came from somewhere. One possibility is single cell organisms evolved from nothing on Earth, the other is their ancestors evolved somewhere else and arrived from space, a theory called panspermia. The panspermia theory was fringy at first, but is now covered in every Astronomy 101 textbook. For those unfamiliar, here is the short version of the theory: You have a star with a planet with microbes living in water. When the star goes through the red giant phase, the oceans are boiled off and blown off into space along with some microbes. The microbes move from star to star through space, and seed new planets around new stars. You'd expect to see them as dust in interstellar space if this was happening. The spectra of a lot of observed dust is indeed unexplained, supporting but obviously not proving the panspermia theory. Researchers at Cardiff, where this current work was done, have done a lot of the fundamental work on panspermia, theoretically checking the mechanisms to verify they are consistant with known laws. Now we have this claim from India that microbe spores that reproduce between 100C and 300C have been recovered from rain water, and the Cardiff guys have a sample to experiment with. It is the nature of science not to accept radical new theories quickly, the joke goes that it takes about 30 years, long enough for the scientists to die and the new generation to arrive. If scientists want to accelerate the rate of progress, unexpected results should be investigated carefully and aggressively.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Also matches spectrum of left lens of 3D glasses from my movie theatre. Life spontaneously created from cinema!