by James S » Mar 6, 2006 @ 2:49am
Well of course they're fat globules, that's what cell walls are made of, phospholipids, fatty carbohydrates.
Personally, I think that if aliens came today and announced themselves to all, gave us nifty technology and asked to be my neighbour I doubt that anything significant would happen. The world wouldn't simultaneously drop their jaws, no one would gasp, people would still practice all religions. Perspectives and paradigms would not change much if at all.
This article is frontpage news on a worldwide publication... I don't see convenience stores being robbed and rioting, or religions collapsing. It isn't firm proof of other life, but it's something that is quite worrisome on an immunological and biological level if nothing else, which is quite earth shattering for our sciences. A complex structured compound that replicates without DNA. A new form of life, extraterrestial or not.