Some Scientists Think SARS May Have Come from Outer Space

Reuters ^ | Thu May 22, 2003 07:10 PM ET | Patricia Reaney

[anymouse]

Could SARS have come from outer space? Some scientists think so.

Instead of jumping from an unknown animal host in southern China, a few researchers in Britain believe the virus that has baffled medical experts descended from the stratosphere.

"I think it is a possibility that SARS came from space. It is a very strong possibility," Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe told Reuters.

The director of the Cardiff Center for Astrobiology in Wales and a proponent of the theory that life on Earth originated from space, admits the theory defies conventional wisdom.

But in a letter published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday he and his colleagues argue there are too many puzzling aspects about the respiratory illness that has killed nearly 700 people and infected more than 3,800 to dismiss the idea.

Other virologists believe it simply isn't possible because the virus is too fragile to survive in outer space.

"I think it is completely nuts," said Dr Anne Bridgen, a molecular virologist at the University of Ulster.

"It has a lipid (fatty) coat on the outside and it would tend to dry out in an atmosphere such as space," she told Reuters.

Professor Ian Jones, an expert in virology at the University of Reading in southern England, described the idea as bizarre.

"SARS is a new virus but it is only a new relative of a family of viruses that we understand quite well," he said, referring to the coronavirus family which includes a virus linked to the common cold.

"The difference is that it is a causing a severity of disease that we haven't seen before in the human population."

Wickramasinghe stressed that SARS suddenly appeared in China late last year and is a new coronavirus with a different genetic sequence from similar viruses in animals. Its origin has also not been traced. He believes these factors could suggest it evolved differently and may have come from a far-off place.

"There doesn't seem to have been a human origin for this. It seems to have come from somewhere else," said Dr Milton Wainwright, a molecular biologist at the University of Sheffield in England and a co-author of the letter.

"There is a lot of debate about where it could have come from and we are providing an answer," he added.

Wickramasinghe said there is no known virus that has fallen from outer space. "There is no known virus that has been picked up from high in the stratosphere," he said. "Not to date."

Yet Wickramasinghe and Wainwright believe the original outbreak in China is also significant because if the virus did fall to Earth it would most likely land east of the Himalayas, the weakest point in the stratosphere and easiest to break through.

In studies of air samples taken from 25 miles above the Earth, large numbers of micro-organisms were found, Wickramasinghe said, so it is possible SARS came from space.

"The fact that many cases in China cannot be traced to infected people means that something is dreadfully amiss in the idea of conventional wisdom," he said.

[anymouse]

It looks like someone has been watching "the Andromeda Strain" on late night TV. :)

Of course sloppy ChiCom germ warfare research could also explain this instant outbreak.

[anymouse]

space ping

[darkwing104]

Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?

[Prodigal Son]

I'm curious what difference it would make in treating the disease.

[netmilsmom]

>>>Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?

Oh crap, you beat me to it.

I can just hear Scully saying, "Mulder, where are you?" as she answered the cell phone.
"China. I'm looking into a deadly disease that has killed 15% of the people infected with it. I think it's extraterrestrial."
And she would say, "Mulder, what are you talking about?"

Geez, I miss X-Files

[Consort]

Already posted at least once today and a new theory has already replaced it.....civets.

[babaloo999]

civets from outer space?

[John Beresford Tipton]

Civets my ass, It was a purple people eater I tell ya!

"Well I saw the thing comin' out of the sky
It had the one long horn, one big eye.
I commenced to shakin' and I said "ooh-eee"
It looks like a purple people eater to me.

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater.
(one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater)
A one-eyed one-horned,flyin' puple people eater
Sure looks strange to me. (one eye?)

Well he came down to earth and lit in a tree
I said Mr. Purple People Eater don't eat me
I heard him say in a voice so gruff
I wouldn't eat you 'cos you're so tough

It was a one-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater
one-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater
one-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me. (one horn?)

I said Mr. Purple People Eater, what's your line
He said it's eatin' purple people and it sure is fine
But that's not the reason that I came to land
I wanna get a job in a rock and roll band

Well bless my soul, rock and roll, flying purple people eater.
Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin' purple people eater
(we wear short shorts) Flyin' purple people eater
sure looks strange to me.

And then he swung from the tree and lit on the ground.
He started to rock, really rockin' around
It was a crazy little ditty with a swingin' tune
(sing awop bop aloo bop lop bam boom)

Well, bless my soul, rock and roll
flyin' purple people eater
Pigeon-toed, undergrowed, flyin' purple people eater.
Flyin' little people eater
Sure looks strange to me. (purple people?)

And then he went on his way, and then what do you know.
I saw him last night on a TV show.
He was blowing it out, a 'really knockin' em dead
Playin' rock and roll music through the horn in his head

Tequila!"

[Consort]

Probably Outer Mongolia.

[Servant of the Nine]

This has to be from "The Onion"

"SARS is a new virus but it is only a new relative of a family of viruses that we understand quite well," he said, referring to the coronavirus family which includes a virus linked to the common cold.

That pretty much blows away the whole silly idea.

So9

[BlazingArizona]

The Columbia crash lent new credence to Wickramasinghe's "panspermia" hypothesis. Remember those worms, an experiment on Clumbia, that survived and were found, happily reproducing in their sealed container, weeks later? Columbia put an end to the long-held idea that "burning up in the atmosphere" destroys all life in a meteor.

[Scothia]

Aw man, and I'm outta aluminum foil too!

[Servant of the Nine]

Of course sloppy ChiCom germ warfare research could also explain this instant outbreak.

This has been thouroughly debunked.

No scientist would try to base a biowarfare agent on the Rhinoviruses.
They mutate too quickly, meaning you could not vacciniate your own troops or population against it. The poorer your medical facilities, the more vulnerable you are, thus making it a weapon that would hit the Chinese much harder than the West.
Dozens of new mutations of the common cold virus, and that is what SARS is, appear out of China every year. This year the luck of the draw just gave us a particularly nasty one.

So9

[Calpernia]

Could SARS have come from outer space? Some scientists think so.

"I think it is a possibility that SARS came from space. It is a very strong possibility," The Mad Scientist

"There doesn't seem to have been a human origin for this. It seems to have come from somewhere else," said The Mad Scientist

[keithtoo]

I think I know where from.

[Amerigomag]

At first its orgin was believed to be through mutation of a common agent. When furter reasearch flumexed that theory an extraterrestrial orgin was proposed to better fit the anomolies evidenced by the new facts. After everybody laughed at that hypothesis the Chicoms advanced their "wild food source (civit cat)" origin yesterday.

Why is everyone shying away from an obvious possibilty that fits all the facts presented thus far without stretching the imagination. SARS was cultured in a lab.

[Celantro]

Everything but that the Chinese were mixing up a batch of bio-weapons and the animal they produced got loose.

[VadeRetro]

You have the "outer space" hypothesis and you have the "civet cat" hypothesis. Occam's Razor makes a very good tie-breaker here.

[sticker]

"It looks like someone has been watching "the Andromeda Strain" on late night TV. :)"

Or X-Files

[AmericaUnited]

Moral of the story...

Always wear protection when getting those alien "invasive" probes.