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Some Scientists Think SARS May Have Come from Outer Space
Reuters ^
| Thu May 22, 2003 07:10 PM ET
| Patricia Reaney
Posted on 05/23/2003 1:13:52 PM PDT by 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.
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: astrobiology; china; goliath; humor; panspermia; sars; space; tinfoil
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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.
1
posted on
05/23/2003 1:13:52 PM PDT
by
anymouse
To: *Space
space ping
2
posted on
05/23/2003 1:14:11 PM PDT
by
anymouse
To: anymouse
Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?
To: anymouse
I'm curious what difference it would make in treating the disease.
To: darkwing104
>>>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
5
posted on
05/23/2003 1:22:53 PM PDT
by
netmilsmom
(God Bless our President, those with him & our troops)
To: anymouse
Already posted at least once today and a new theory has already replaced it.....civets.
6
posted on
05/23/2003 1:23:50 PM PDT
by
Consort
To: Consort
civets from outer space?
To: babaloo999
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!"
To: babaloo999
Probably Outer Mongolia.
9
posted on
05/23/2003 1:26:49 PM PDT
by
Consort
To: anymouse
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
To: anymouse
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.
To: anymouse
Aw man, and I'm outta aluminum foil too!
12
posted on
05/23/2003 1:32:44 PM PDT
by
Scothia
(Wear the old coat and buy the new book.)
To: anymouse
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
To: anymouse
14
posted on
05/23/2003 1:35:40 PM PDT
by
Calpernia
(The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.)
To: anymouse
I think I know where from.
15
posted on
05/23/2003 1:40:09 PM PDT
by
keithtoo
(Luvya Dubya)
To: anymouse
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.
To: anymouse
Everything but that the Chinese were mixing up a batch of bio-weapons and the animal they produced got loose.
17
posted on
05/23/2003 1:46:25 PM PDT
by
Celantro
To: anymouse
To: anymouse
"It looks like someone has been watching "the Andromeda Strain" on late night TV. :)"
Or X-Files
19
posted on
05/23/2003 1:50:10 PM PDT
by
sticker
To: anymouse
Moral of the story...
Always wear protection when getting those alien "invasive" probes.
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