Talk:Red rain in Kerala/Archive 3

"Louis and Kumar" v. "Louis &amp; Kumar"
References to the paper as "Louis &amp; Kumar" are fine, but a paper is a singular noun and takes a singular verb. The team should be called "Louis and Kumar" and take a plural verb. 12.72.69.203 05:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

“Extraterrestrial explanation”
“Unconventional” wasn't less accurate, but it was less precise. The article is definitely easier to process with “Extraterrestrial explanation” for the heading. Gamahucheur 23:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Subterranean bacteria?
High temperature resistibility and precense of metals...Possibly ejected to atmosphere by volcanic activity? - G3, 11:53, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Conventional theories
I question the factual accuracy of the conventional theories section based on the fact it does not address the known analysis report on the red matter inserted into the rain. No dust particles were found. No bat parts (big bloody flock of bats, HUGE, keep dreaming whoever put that one forward) nor animal cells were found. What was found were odd living cells that are still undergoing analysis. Perhaps someone would be willing to ammend the conventional theories to prevent them being outlandish suppositions and urban myth based on information that is contrary to the facts that have thusfar been proven? Jachin 20:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The primary case put forwards in the 'conventional theories' section really irritates me with it's lack of scientific reasoning. Red rain falls, they identify the cells as alleged 'spores' from an algal genus, then support this algal deduction based on the fact similar cells were found in algal cultures of local lichen.  Anyone who has read the Sampath report has probably had the same thought I did when finishing it: of course you'll find the cells on local lichen, it rained the cells for 20 bloody days!  :P Jachin 06:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice article and everything, but...
...we don't have any info on how this red things behave. Do they eat other particles? Do they reproduce? Apparently they still reproduce at high temperatures but it's not explained how they reproduce. So any info added would make me happy :D Vitriol 00:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I don't think that's known yet. Louis and Santosh Kumar made claims that I think have not yet been verified.  I'm sure that as soon as anything's known it will be added here!  Worldtraveller 00:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


 * They're cells, so mitosis would be the presumption. Jachin 07:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It's very speculative and quite astonishing, that's why there's caution in the wording and a "current event" tag. Procrastinating@ talk2me


 * From the literature it appears that only a minority claim to have seen them reproduce, so it may be an illusion. Since the tests required take a matter of days, I've taken out the current events tag as there has been no more news on this. If it can be verified as still being an a current event, then put the tag back. Jefffire 12:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Louis has a paper on extremophilic behavior and reproductive cycle here: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312639

Go bloody rain, come fishy rain!
Perhaps the article should also mentioned that it rained fish in different parts of Kerala this year. Sadly this phenomenon can be explained by the scientific explanations, I guess. No extra-terrestrial theories till now. ;-) -- thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph10:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Peer review
I have requested a peer review. This is a very good article for something that I know little about, and neither do very many people in the project. This is a step towards this becoming an FA. CrazyC83 19:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Other Possibilities
I am not a scientist, But I feel these points have not been considered as possibilities

1. An activity by some government or organisation? : Biliogical warfare? Secret experiment?

2. In the article it says "rust fungus" and somewehre else it says "aluminium content". Planes are made of Aluminium material. Can we connect the dots?


 * We're not here to speculate. There's enough misleading stuff in the article as it stands without adding conspiracy theories. Jefffire 12:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Glaring problems with the comet theory
Please correct me if I am wrong, as I understand it, it has been suggested that the red rain consisted of some sort of biological material from a comet. Mainly or wholely biological material, not a mix of inorganic comet fragments and biological material. However, the obvious problem with this theory would seem to be how exactly biological material, which one would expect to make up a small part of the mass of the comet if it existed, became seperated from the inorganic comet debris before falling in the rain. Surely this is as implausible as the theory that the red blood cells of bat blood were somehow seperated from all the other components of the bats. What happened to all the inorganic component of the comet debris? If there was an estimated 50 000 kg of biological material that fell there must surely have been a far larger mass of inorganic debris. Booshank 18:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There is another critical problem with the idea that a comet comprised mainly of 'spores' could have broken up allowing them to arrive on earth without being toasted. Although, had there been such a thing, particles could have taken several weeks to fall to earth they simply would not have fallen over the same area. There are strong currents in the upper atmosphere. Godfrey Louis appears to have tried to counter this problem by suggesting that there were even more 'spores' in the comet which went undetected: they either fell where there wasn't much rain or fell out to sea. (This, of course, would imply that the comet was rather larger than the 50 tons worth that came down in Kerala, and thus even less likely to be un-noticed.) Davy p 21:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)