Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 16671

Blob from space may hold secret of life

SCIENTISTS believe that they have found evidence of bacteria from outer space on the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.
If confirmed, the discovery will be the strongest evidence yet for a controversial theory called panspermia, which holds that life evolved in space and reached the Earth from comets.

The evidence, presented at a meeting in San Diego, California, by one of the theory’s originators, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, came from experiments in which samples of material were collected by balloons 41 kilometres above the Earth’s surface, on the very edge of space. He said yesterday that he was convinced the bacteria were extraterrestrial.

“The chances of getting anything terrestrial at a height of 41 kilometres is remote. It could possibly happen as a result of violent eruptions, or debris from space missions, but we have detected between one and ten clumps of these bacteria per litre ambient air. That’s a huge amount.”

High altitude balloons launched from India were used to collect the air samples. Sophisticated sampling devices were employed which kept the air in sterile conditions to avoid any contamination.

The scientists are now trying to grow the bugs at Cardiff University’s Centre for Astrobiology and examine their DNA.

Professor David Lloyd, who led the analysis of the samples, said: “It may be they are just terrestrial bacteria, but we don’t know how they could have got up to these heights.”



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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10153

science thread!

p433r these women!!!! http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991081

but it would help some, if i am around these women i'll just carry large amounts of chocolate

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10153

sorry i meant to say in my above post; i'm glad it is going farther then speculation these days

we are related to the greys!

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-Ernest Hemingway

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 16671

Tampax will send out it's tampon Ninjas to put an end to that nonsense...just like legs stopped the runnless pantyhose from becoming too popular...those shady fuckers!

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: anywhere but here
Posts: 4420

i saw this on TV the other day, it was a programme hosted by Sam Neil of Jurassic Park fame.

we all originate from a sun, and the bacteria needed to crate us may have come from millions and millionms of light years away.

we are all aliens, so when someone asks you have you ever seen an alien you can honestly say yes!

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....i've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing.....

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