Aliens and weird red cells

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/0...rain/index.html (http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html)

Well i dont really know much about biology and stuff.

But this seemed like a really amazing find, because it might be the case that these red cells are alien life forms.

Also, i thought everything had DNA?

These things replicate without DNA, thats odd yeah?

[BobKKKindle$]

Wow, this is some interesting stuff, good find! I dont actualy do Biology as a subject at school...but I gather that Viruses dont have DNA, but still manage to replicate. Dont quote me on that though.

[RebelOutcast]

Virii have DNA, but they need a host cell to replicate.

[Jadan ja]

Virii (is that really plural of virus in english?), I think, often have RNA instead DNA (it is like DNA, but it contains uracil instead thimine).

[Dyst]

Only organisms (which have got cells) have got DNA (or RNA). Including bacteria and viruses, I think.

Nothing else have got DNA.

[FriedFrog]

Viruses and bacteria are prokaryotic. This means that have DNA (every living thing needs DNA to code its proteins) but they lack a nucleus (control centre) where DNA is stored, like you would see in a stomach cell for example.

The virus must place its DNA inside a host cell in order to replicate.

As far as I know, anyway.

[LSD]

Virii (is that really plural of virus in english?)

No.

Virus is actually a plural fourth declension latin noun and so there is no natural language pluralization.

For english usage, "viruses" is the most acceptable form.

[Jadan ja]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2006, 06:05 PM
Only organisms (which have got cells) have got DNA (or RNA). Including bacteria and viruses, I think.

Nothing else have got DNA.
No, mitochondria and chloroplast also have DNA (it is inside a cell, so I am not sure wether your "nothing else" group includes them).

[encephalon]

A Virus has RNA, not DNA. To reproduce, a virus enters its host and injects its RNA into the host's DNA as the RNA strands of the host's DNA unfold.

That's not a technical description, btw, and it is much more complex than that.. but essentially, that's how it works. The main point is that viruses do not have DNA, and there are some proto-bacteria that have no DNA as well, from what I remember. Which means that, while an interesting find, these cells aren't necessarily terribly unique in the sense that they might not have DNA.

It would be unique, however, to discover that they self-replicate without DNA--as far as we've seen, only parasitic life can exist with only RNA. Of course, this doesn't make much sense, since RNA-based life-forms had to come before DNA-based life-forms.. meaning they had to reproduce in some fashion without leeching off of a DNA host. So there's definitely a hole in the story, there.

[Janus]

CNN? Come on, what were you thinking? :lol:

It's kind of funny how red rain fell in Kerala, where communism is quite popular. :lol:

But yeah, I remember hearing of the red rain before though I never heard of this supposed alien macrobe before.

I guess that the scientist's hypothesis seems ok and perhaps may be valid. It's definitely something that isn't totally out of the question.

[MysticArcher]

A Virus has RNA, not DNA. To reproduce, a virus enters its host and injects its RNA into the host's DNA as the RNA strands of the host's DNA unfold.

Viruses have DNA or RNA depending on their type.

I'm having trouble though figuring out how an organism with no nucleotides would function, but I did note the article only said "no DNA" not "not nucleotides"

So it could just be RNA based, which would be strange but plausible.

In thoery though, if it was done right you could simply have a very long amino acid sequence that had various parts in a 1 to 1 correspondence with each amino acid sequence of all the proteins the cell uses

You'd have to have a very complex ribosome type protein though, since there are many amino acids and they all have different conformations (as opposed to nucleotides which are relatively similar). You'd also need proteins to keep your one long chain from twisting aroun and biniding to itself.