Clouds May Harbor Nanobacteria??? What is happening to us

[greatbubba]

Clouds May Harbor Nanobacteria By Amit Asaravala

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,67176,00.html

02:00 AM Apr. 11, 2005 PT

Tiny particles linked to a number of painful and sometimes deadly diseases may spread across the globe by hitching a ride in clouds, claim researchers in a recent issue of the Journal of Proteome Research. The particles, known as nanobacteria, are 100 times smaller than typical bacteria and have been found in kidney stones, arterial plaques and ovarian cancers. But scientists have yet to agree whether the particles actually cause the diseases or how they infect humans. Also unknown is whether the particles are life forms or an unknown type of crystal -- a rift that has sparked one of the biggest controversies in modern microbiology. Now, a new theory by Andrei Sommer, of the University of Ulm, Germany, and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, attempts to show how nanobacteria moves from humans to the environment and back. In a letter in the February issue of the Journal of Proteome Research, the pair describe studies suggesting that nanobacteria exist in the atmosphere -- at least above Hyderabad, India, where the researchers captured samples of the air with a specially designed balloon. The nanobacteria particles closely resembled those found in humans when compared on seven key criteria, including size and shape -- a finding that suggests humans can be infected through the atmosphere. In the journal's introduction to the paper, Sommer theorizes that the particles may be introduced to the atmosphere through human urine, which enters waste-water streams and becomes aerosolized. Once in the atmosphere, the nanobacteria can fall back to Earth in dry or wet form. The researchers think dry forms are relatively harmless, but wet forms, in raindrops, would be more likely to be infectious because the nanobacteria would still be "active." "Inactive, transiently desiccated microorganisms, transported back from the dry atmosphere to the Earth by gravity, are likely to cause little harm, compared to those returning in rain drops, after having been incorporated for some time in long-lived clouds, where they would encounter better conditions for revitalization," wrote the researchers. The researchers also suggested that nanobacteria could help clouds develop by clumping together at the perfect size to promote the collection of airborne water droplets. Attempts to contact Sommer and Wickramasinghe after business hours Friday were unsuccessful.

[Ian David]

1. Far-Fetched Hypothesis of The Day posted below: Panspermia

An idea, with ancient roots, according to which life arrives, ready-made, on the surface of planets from space.1 Anaxagoras is said to have spoken of the "seeds of life" from which all organisms derive. Panspermia began to assume a more scientific form through the proposals of Berzelius (1834), Richter (1865), Kelvin (1871), and Helmholtz (1871), finally reaching the level of a detailed, widely-discussed hypothesis through the efforts of the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius. Originally in 1903,2 but then to a wider audience through a popular book in 1908,3 Arrhenius urged that life in the form of spores could survive in space and be spread from one planetary system to another by means of radiation pressure. He generally avoided the problem of how life came about in the first place by suggesting that it might be eternal, though he did not exclude the possibility of living things generating from simpler substances somewhere in the universe. In Arrhenius's view, spores escape by random movement from the atmosphere of a planet that has already been colonized and are then launched into interstellar space by the pressure of starlight ("radiopanspermia"). Eventually, some of the spores fall upon another planet, such as the Earth, where they inoculate the virgin world with new life or, perhaps, compete with any life-forms that are already present.

Arrhenius's ideas prompted a variety of experimental work, such as that of Paul Becquerel, to test whether spores and bacteria could survive in conditions approximating those in space. A majority of scientists reached the conclusion that stellar ultraviolet would probably prove deadly to any organisms in the inner reaches of a planetary system and, principally for this reason, panspermia quietly faded from view-only to be revived some four decades later. In the early 1960s, Carl Sagan analyzed in detail both the physical and biological aspects of the Arrhenius scenario. The dynamics of a microorganism in space depend on the ratio p/g, where p is the repulsive force due to the radiation pressure of a star and g is the attractive force due to the star's gravitation. If p > g, a microbe that has drifted into space will move away from the star; if p < g, the microbe will fall toward the star. For a microbe to escape into interstellar space from the vicinity of a star like the Sun, the organism would have to be between 0.2 and 0.6 microns across. Though small, this is within the range of some terrestrial bacterial spores and viruses. The ratio p/g increases for more luminous stars, enabling the ejection of larger microbes. However, main sequence stars brighter than the Sun are also hotter, so that they emit more ultraviolet radiation which would pose an increased threat to space-borne organisms. Additionally, such stars have a shorter main sequence lifespan, so that they provide less opportunity for life to take hold on any worlds that might orbit around them. These considerations, argued Sagan, constrain "donor" stars for Arrhenius-style panspermia to spectral types G5 (Sun-like) to A0. Stars less luminous than the Sun would be unable to eject even the smallest of known living particles. "Acceptor" stars, on the other hand, must have lower p/g ratios in order to allow microbes, approaching from interstellar space, to enter their planetary systems. The most likely acceptor worlds, Sagan concluded, are those circling around red dwarfs (dwarf M stars), or in more distant orbits around G stars and K stars. In the case of the solar system, he surmised, the best place to look for life of extrasolar origin would be the moons of the outer planets, in particular Triton.

Many variations on the panspermia theme have been put forward. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) proposed that spores might travel aboard meteorites ("lithopanspermia"), thus affording them better protection from high-energy radiation in space. Whether events violent enough to hurl rocks from the surface of a biologically active planet into interstellar space ever occur is not clear. But there is now overwhelming evidence that ballistic panspermia occasionally operates between worlds of the same planetary system. This follows the discovery of meteorites on Earth that have almost certainly come from the surface of Mars (see SNC meteorites) and the Moon. There is also controversial evidence for fossil remains aboard some carbonaceous chondrites, including the Orgueil meteorite.

<snip>

Today, the panspermia hypothesis has finally achieved some measure of scientific respectability. Although it remains the orthodox view that life evolved in situ on this world and, possibly, many others, there is mounting evidence of at least some extraterrestrial input to the formative stages of planet-based biology. Prebiotic chemicals have been detected in interstellar clouds (similar to that from which the Solar System formed), comets, and meteorites. At the very least, it seems that some of the raw ingredients for life, such as amino acids, may have fallen from the sky in addition to being manufactured here on Earth. But some researchers have gone much further in their speculations. Most notably, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have argued persistently since the 1970s that complex organic substances, and perhaps even primitive organisms, might have evolved on the surface of cosmic dust grains in space and then been transported to the Earth's surface by comets and meteorites (see life, in space). The extraordinary durability of some extremophiles, bacterial spores, and even exposed DNA, lends credence to the view that simple life-forms may have originated between the stars or been capable of surviving long interstellar journeys.

More:
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/panspermia.html

[Trajan]

2. Panspermia isnt really far-fetched ...

It simply isnt supported by evidence, because no such evidence exists at this point .... It is a peripheral hypothesis, and has not been ruled out .... It may be fetched: but I wouldnt call it 'far' fetched ....

[Ian David]

3. I meant it's not the simplest or most likely explanation for nanobacteria

IMHO, it doesn't pass the Occam's Razor test.

But that doesn't mean it can't be true.

Just that I don't think it's the most likely answer.

But I would love it if we could prove the nanobacteria came from space!

[Trajan]

7. I believe it easily passes the occam razor test ...

The terrestrial environment is rich, indeed ...

The solar, galactic, supergalactic and universal environments are rich, and much more prodigious than earth ....

Perhaps you dont realize when you say 'But I would love it if we could prove the nanobacteria came from space!' ...

Everything DOES come from space ...

Earth comes from space .... and everything on earth comes from space ...

In fact: there is NOTHING on this earth that did NOT come from space .... The only question would be: did such bacteria 'develop' in an extraterrestrial or terrestrial environment ... the actual components of bacteria, like everything else, exists in near equal distribution in the universe, in clumps here and there ....

To say that life 'must' have absolutely developed on earth seems, to me, naive and 'regionalistic' ... It is more likely that life began in some other region is space than here on earth ...

[Ian David]

9. We are all made of star-stuff

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can’t, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re "made" of star stuff.
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos

1) Earth is tiny.

2) "Space," says Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you might think it's a long walk down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

3) There is more stuff in space which is very big than on Earth which is very small.

4) Therfore, it is more likely that something comes from the vastness of space than from the tininess of Earth.

[Ian David]

6. Could nanobacteria come from airplane toilets?

Or is this something that had to be happening since the dawn of time?

And does this mean we should have been looking for nanobacteria in the atmosphere of Titan, Jupiter and Venus?

Can you detect the spectral signature of nanobacteria in planetary atmospheres and in nebula using spectroscopy?

I know we've detected Buckminsterfullerines in nebula. Wouldn't it be fascinating if nanobacteria were using-- or even creating "Buckyballs" to reproduce inside of them or to preserve themselves for long-distance sporing?

Is the space inside a "Buckyball" large enough to contain nanobacteria? Or perhaps the insides of carbon nanotubes?

I'm going to cross-post my nanobacteria / Buckyball speculation in another thread.

[dbt]

4. .

[lonestarnot]

5. LOL this so comforting to know.

[uhhuh]

8. And The Announcer says:

This has been your daily booga-booga.

Thank You. Add this, and resume living in fear. That is all.

[dbt]

10. Or not.