Exobiology: Germs from Outer Space

[SteveGrenard]

During the course of discussing some new and emerging diseases on the face of the planet earth, including unexplainable disorders, somebody furnished me with the links to two papers proposing that some emergent diseases at least may be extraterrestrial. I checked "exobiology" in the forums search engine and found but a single reference to it where the poster said Sagan dabbled in this field.

I am wondering what some people here think of the possibiity of extraterrestrial microbial diseases penetrating the earth's atmosphere. Here are those two papers:

http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/vel/iamds.htm

http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/vel/usf0203b.htm

 

[arcticpenguin]

I think it's a wacky idea, and not well-supported by the evidence.

If influenza (mentioned in both your links) is from outer space, how is it so perfectly adapted as a parasite of larger life forms which are known to have evolved right here on planet Earth over the last billion years or so?

If influenza outbreaks among the human population originate from outer space, why are they genetically so similar to influenza strains found in birds and pigs?

If SARS is from outer space, why is it genetically so similar to other coronaviruses which have been right here on planet Earth for quite a while?

I see no need for such an exoticc explanation.

Here are some related thread:
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=23989&highlight=panspermia
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=20171&highlight=panspermia

 

[hopbalt]

penguin is right..

influenza is dormant in pigs and birds in Asia. Since people in Asia have very close contact with animals, sometimes the virus jumps from animal to human host and then starts spreading human to human.

If people in Asia would stop rolling in the mud with their pigs, then influenza outbreaks would come to a near standstill..

 

[Michael Redman]

I wouldn't discount the possibility, but I'm not aware that any microbes have ever been found that do not use the same DNA as the rest of the life on earth. Maybe DNA evolved separately elsewhere, but it seems likely that all life on earth uses similar DNA because it shares a common origin. The discovery of life that did not use DNA to store genetic information, or that used a different set of chemicals to do the same thing, might be evidence of exobiology.

Of course, it could be evidence of another independent line of terrestrial evolution which we haven't discovered. Short of watching it land, or finding it far from earth, it's going to be hard to prove that any microbe is not of earth origin.

It would be cool, though.

 

[DanishDynamite]

SteveGrenard

I am wondering what some people here think of the possibiity of extraterrestrial microbial diseases penetrating the earth's atmosphere.

Complete crap. Although all life on Earth is related, most microbes only target one (or a few related) species. And these "desease" lifeforms have been competeing with each other and themselves for billions of years. The chance that an extraterretrial form of life would not only have the capacity to cross interstellar space but be compatible - nay, superior - in its ability to affect life on this planet, is infinitisimal.