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Paper:

Unusual autofluorescence characteristic of cultured red-rain cells

The red cells found in the red rain in Kerala, India are now considered as a possible case of extraterrestrial life form. These cells can undergo rapid replication even at an extreme high temperature of 300 deg C. They can also be cultured in diverse unconventional chemical substrates. The molecular composition of these cells is yet to be identified. This paper reports the unusual autofluorescence characteristic of the cultured red rain cells. A spectrofluorimetric study has been performed to investigate this, which shows a systematic shift of the fluorescence emission peak wavelength as the excitation wavelength is increased. Conventional biomolecules are not known to have this property. Details of this investigation and the results are discussed.

Link: http://spie.org//app/program/index.cfm?fuseaction=conferencedetail&conference=7097
Abstract: http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PSISDG007097000001709712000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes

New ** Preprint download: spiepaper709712.pdf

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Images:



The cultured cells exhibit autofluorescence  under wide range of excitation wavelengths.
Images below show the autofluorescence of the cells cultured at high temperature (300 Deg C).

UV Excitation with Blue Emission



Blue Excitation with Green Emission



Green Excitation with  Red Emission