Some Scientists Think SARS May Have Come from Outer Space

LONDON (Reuters) ^ | May 22, 2003 | Patricia Reaney

[TaxRelief]

LONDON (Reuters) - 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.

[putupon]

but I just heard on the radio news a few minutes ago that SARS has been traced to an oddball restraunt dish using a cat

and cat fried rice,too. you can order shrimp fried rice instead, but it does no good. those little squares of mystery meat were named Fluffy before they were minced.

[Darksheare]

Seems to me that there was an article about a 'decon' spray that was for weaponized spores. (The article was pre-Sep 11th.)
They were surprised to find that it works on virii as well, if I remember some of it correctly.
Just don't remember the article's publisher.
Tickled my interest, butI don't remember where I saw it.

[js1138]

MSNBC link

WHO lifts SARS travel warnings Virus controlled in Hong Kong, China’s Guangdong province Cleaners wear surgical masks to protect against SARS on Friday as they scrub a sidewalk at Lek Yuen Housing Estate, a suburban Hong Kong apartment complex where 11 people from five families have now been infected with the virus. MSNBC NEWS SERVICES May 23 — The World Health Organization on Friday withdrew its warning against travel to Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, saying the SARS outbreaks there were under control. Meanwhile, Researchers in Hong Kong announced on Friday that the respiratory disease came from civet cats — a delicacy eaten by some Chinese.

[js1138]

I hate cats

I never aquired a taste for them either.

[Darksheare]

Catlike creature?

*Cue Wing Commander game music*
We have the Kilrathi where we want them!

Seriously though, that would truly stink, 'cause I like cats.
And if cats ARE the carriers of SARs over there... how would it jump species, and what would the mechanism be?
(Would it be like toxoplasmosis in it's actions at all?)
Weird, truly, truly weird.

[putupon]

the respiratory disease came from civet cats — a delicacy eaten by some Chinese

Charlie Woo just serves plain old Calicos at the Shanghai Dragon. They may be safe, what with our local ordinances and the FDA and all.

[Spyder]

I'm jumping into this thread without reading everything, but I just heard on the radio news a few minutes ago that SARS has been traced to an oddball restraunt dish using a cat or catlike creature as the meat item.

The ignorant reporter from the Australian paper that published this called the vector "feline," when it's more closely related to the skunk. It's called a "civet cat," which is where he apparently got the idea it's a "cat."

[BlueNgold]

BREAKING ... Some SARS victims believe scientists are from outer space...

[js1138]

Civet cat, not a housecat or even a feline. see post #163.

Civet cats sacrifice their family jewels to make French perfume. Just thinking about that makes me hate the French.

[myprecious]

No, their tech support really stinks. Toll free? Ha! They're only in it for the conquest!

Please clarify. Do you mean the Raelians or Microsoft?

[Darksheare]

Eeeks.. it could fit both!

Hmm.. which one would say, "Resistance is futile, but appreciated."?

The Realians tech support for gene patches would probably be even worse.

[ffusco]

Thanks! Your post put me in a gothic mood, as well as the cautionary tale of unintended consequenses.

[Darksheare]

Ah, gotcha.
Okers.
Yes, makes me despise the French as well.
And the cooks there in China who think it's a delicacy...

But the French eat their own kind anyway.
Chez Froglegs!

[ASA Vet]

then why has china always been a generator of the flu

Because they have the largest concentration of pigs, ducks,
and people living together.
This enhances cross species transmission & mutations of the flu virus.

If we Americans would keep our pigs and ducks
under the house all the time we too could generate these nice viral things.

[Darksheare]

Oh no.
Well, hopefully it has inspired you and others to write, draw, paint, or ponder things and ideas not normally occuring 'in the present tense' under normal conditions.
(Translation: Hopefully someone else will also write something to go with this. Or even paint something. Hopefully. *Fingers crossed*)

[myprecious]

Ha! That's what I thought, too. And who knows what comes in those "bundled" programs? The answers are interchangable.

[liberalnot]

that's right.

i saw a pic the other day in the newspaper of a kitchen in southern china where these diseases originate, and they were slaughtering chickens, pigs, snakes etc in the same proximity.

i can tell you from growing up on a farm that birds are dirty and all kinds of diseases habit them.

[Darksheare]

Unfortunately, they are interchangable.
Internet Exploder has a tracking spyware proggy embedded in it called Alexa.
If you remove it, IE doesn't work, and you experience system crashes.

It's supposedly a 'user friendly interface'.

[meema]

I've mis-placed my tinfoil Hat!!! What can I doooooo?

[Darksheare]

Keep reading.
It gets better. (Read worse.)
Some odd guy pops in about a post or two later with some strange kooky short story, and the thread degenerates from there.