* Astronomy

A controversial theory, that strange red rains in India six years ago might have contained microbes from outer space, hasnt died.
In fact, things might be getting even weirder.
A new study suggests the claimed connection between scarlet rain and tiny celestial visitors may be consistent with historical accounts linking coloured rain to meteor passings. These would seem to echo the India case, in which organisms are proposed to have fallen out of a breaking meteor.
The study, by doctoral student Patrick McCafferty of Queen's University Belfast, is published in the advance online edition of the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Source

Patrick McCafferty is currently pursuing a PhD at Queens and Armagh Observatory, examining Irish myth and astronomy.
Mike Baillie is a world-renowned dendrochronologist, who developed a record of Irish oak trees that stretches seven thousand years into the past, a record that has proved invaluable to archaeologists seeking to date pieces of wood from excavations, or more accurately calibrate the carbon dating method, by comparing carbon years with real, tree years. Recently, Mike has concentrated on catastrophic environmental events in the tree-ring records.
http://www.patrickmccafferty.com/index.htm

Analysis of a meteorite from the planet Mars may have laid to rest the possibility of finding life on the Red Planet. A comprehensive imaging study including confocal micro Raman spectroscopy has helped US researchers uncover the origin of organic molecules found in the meteorite and show that these carbon-containing compounds were produced by non-living processes.
Andrew Steele and colleagues at The Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, used micro Raman together with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and three-dimensional extended focal imaging light microscopy to analyse globules of carbonate salts found throughout the depth of the Martian meteorite known as Allan Hills 84001.

Read more

Messages sent into space directed at extraterrestrials may have been too boring to earn a reply, say two astrophysicists trying to improve on their previous alien chat lines.
Humans have so far sent four messages into space intended for alien listeners. But they have largely been made up of mathematically coded descriptions of some physics and chemistry, with some basic biology and descriptions of humans thrown in.
Those topics will not prove gripping reading to other civilisations, says Canadian astrophysicist Yvan Dutil. If a civilisation is advanced enough to understand the message, they will already know most of its contents, he says: "After reading it, they will be none the wiser about us humans and our achievements. In some ways, we may have been wasting our telescope time."

Read more