March 28, 2024

Invaders from Mars

Jan. 10, 2007
Back in the 1960s, Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer whose lucidly written popular books brought an understanding of the universe to the general public, teamed up with an Indian doctor, N. C. Wickramsinghe, with a controversial book, “Diseases from Space.” In their book the two scientists postulated that certain viruses from space had infected the human population. Their theory was called “Panspermia,” the idea that life on earth is a transplant from outer space.
As examples they pointed out how totally isolated arctic communities not visited by humans or even by birds had been mysteriously infected with a virus that could have come from nowhere else but outer space. The claim was that viruses of a certain size could survive entry through the protective shields afforded by the upper atmosphere. Certain respiratory diseases, they claimed, were a form of space invader.
Other scientists debunked “Diseases from Space,” and Hoyle’s reputation as a serious scientist was tarnished.
The idea was not dead, however. The concept was supported in 2001 by Dr Godfrey Louis who analyzed a cloud of red dust that fell over India and revealed life forms without DNA, the essential ingredient for terrestrial life. The assumption, echoing the science fiction story, is “It came from Outer Space.”
Now the idea of life entering our atmosphere from space has resurfaced, this time as a tough bacteria hitchhiking on meteorites from Mars. About 34 of some 24,000 meteorites found
on Earth have been determined to have originated on Mars.
In order to survive the trip from Mars, a bacteria would have to withstand extremely high radiation and live in spite of dehydration. Such a bacteria is Deinococcus radiodurans, which some scientists have nicknamed Conan the Bacteria.
Alexander Pavlov at the University of Arizona leads the team of microbiologists who have studied this super bacterium. The claim is that since the radiation level on earth hasn’t changed over billions of years, the bacterium they have found could only have evolved in an environment as severe as Mars, where the radiation is thousands of times greater than what would kill a human.
The resistance to radiation, Pavlov asserts, is because the bacterium has to survive in spite of desiccation in the water-poor Martian environment. It’s now believed that there is water on Mars, but that it is in the form of subsurface permafrost. The assumption is that the Martian water suffices for life to exist, and since the Deinococcus radiodurans has evolved for those conditions, it has to be of extra-terrestrial origin.
That Martian bacteria has the unusual ability to repair its DNA when damaged by radiation. This feature could make it possible for D. radiodurans to survive the trip from Mars to Earth.
The idea that life forms could survive in space on the backs of meteorites seems absurd to most. If scientists all agreed, how could they apply for grant money for more studies?
Another theory is that life was seeded on earth from a comet. My waggish brother has suggested that Earth is really a penal colony where those nasty humans were put because they are so destructive and warlike.
As for space invaders, we’ve just heard the latest UFO story of a saucer-shaped object observed by many people as it emerged from cloud cover over O’Hare airport in Chicago. The UFO hovered over the airport around 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 and was observed by up to a dozen United Airlines employees, including pilots.
Are aliens really among us? I mean, besides illegal immigrants slipping over the border from Mexico? How will Homeland Security deal with Conan, the Martian bacterium?
So far, the serious investigations of the space invaders seem to be confined to bacteriological laboratories such as Dr. Pavlov’s in Arizona. Certainly, the presence of water on Mars makes the theory possible. Perhaps, though a bacterium is not a virus, Drs. Hoyle and Wickramsinghe will be vindicated, after all, for their book “Diseases from Space.”

Visit the web site, www.hu.mti.edu/~hlsachs where you can listen to two stories, read a third, read reviews, and find links to the publishers of my books.

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