From Cathryn Todd:

Re: Report: cells “from space” have unusual makeup (Sept. 8): The articles concerning the theories and test upon the red rains of Kerala are very interesting.

And from what I understand, the cells from the red rain have a unique molecular composition. And when stimulated with extreme heat, produced daughter cells. I also read the articles concerning the perplexing controversy concerning that the red cells do not contain DNA, and so, many scientist theorize it cannot be of any life form? However, they agree it is of an unknown or unfamiliar type ever known to us. And so, my question is this; could it possibly be related to unknown virus type? Because from what I understand, there are some Viruses that lack DNA, but are of RNA origin. Viruses can spread genes among bacteria and humans and other cells, as they always have. And again, some viruses do not have DNA. Below, is a possible theorized examples that I read about: Conjugation is the bacterial version of sex. In conjugation, bacterial cells actually connect, and the “male” donates a piece of DNA to the “female.” The piece of DNA in this case was excised earlier from the bacterial chromosome. Such excised pieces of DNA are called plasmids. (Plasmids, being able to pass out of one cell and into another, are similar to viruses. But they have no protein coat and no “life cycle” different from that of their host cell; in this respect they resemble small chromosomes. ) If the transferred genetic material is a passenger on a ship, in the transfer of plasmids by conjugation the ships come alongside each other and the passenger walks across a gangplank to the new ship.

Transduction is yet another way for bacteria to exchange genetic material. In transduction, a virus takes up a piece of DNA from its bacterial host and incorporates it into its own viral genome. After the virus has multiplied, many copies of the virus erupt from the infected cell. Depending on the kind of transduction, some or all of the daughter viruses take copies of parts of the bacterial DNA with them. When one of them infects a new cell, it inserts the stolen DNA into the new cell, where the stolen piece becomes integrated into the new cell’s DNA. (The stolen piece may be a whole gene with which the cell acquires a new function, as was reported in June, 1996, by two scientists at Harvard Medical School (5). ) In transduction, the passenger resorts to hiding inside some freight, hoping to get aboard a different ship that way.

Transduction by viruses works in eukaryotic organisms as well. The discovery that large blocks of genetic instructions can be swapped and transferred among creatures is a clue that the insertion of new genes could be the mechanism behind evolutionary advances. If viruses can transfer eukaryotic genes across species boundaries, and can install their own genes into their hosts, the case for the new mechanism is even stronger. As we will see, viruses do just that.

With this expressed, I am thinking maybe it could be a plausible reason for why the red rain cells have not tested to have DNA, due to they are much like a virus of a RNA type. A virus, which has either not been impregnated, or no transduction has taken place. It can multiple, but the daughter cells have not stolen nor fused with a cell that contains DNA, to become intergrated. So instead, it is simply a passenger hiding inside some freight, such as possibly the meteor theory, hoping to get aboard a different ship, per say, one that has DNA. Don’t know, just a thought. But maybe you could do some other test related to this.