This paper has big "they laughed at me at the institute" energy...Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?
In our considered view the totality of the multifactorial data and critical analyses assembled by Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and their many colleagues leads to the bare minimum yet plausible scientific conclusion -- that life was seeded here on Earth by life-bearing comets as soon as conditions on Earth allowed it to flourish (at or just before 4.1 Billion years ago); and living organisms such as space-resistant and space-hardy bacteria, viruses, more complex eukaryotic cells and organisms (e.g. Tardigrades), perhaps even fertilised ova and plant seeds, may have been continuously delivered ever since to Earth helping to drive further the progress of terrestrial biological evolution. [...]
The requirement now, on the basis of orthodox abiogenic thinking, is that an essentially instantaneous transformation of non-living organic matter to bacterial life occurs, an assumption we consider strains credibility of Earth-bound abiogenesis beyond the limit. A far more plausible possibility is that fully-developed microorganisms and maybe other eukaryotic organisms arrived at the Earth via impacting comets, and these later became carbonized and trapped within condensing mineral grain conglomerates. It is now becoming amply clear that Earth-like planets and other life-friendly planetary bodies exist in their hundreds of billions and exchanges of material between them (meteorites, cometary bolides) must routinely occur.. One is thus forced in our view to conclude that the entire galaxy (and perhaps our local group of galaxies) constitutes a single connected biosphere.
Octopuses? Ancient astronauts. Or, uplifted by space viruses.
Cephalopods are also very diverse, with the behaviourally complex coleoids, (Squid, Cuttlefish and Octopus) presumably arising under a pure terrestrial evolutionary model from the more primitive nautiloids. However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great [...] One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth - most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs.
Cholera? Ok that was really from poop. But influenza? AIDS? Death from Above. Sunspots!
In the case of Influenza the sudden appearance of multiple yet patchy location strikes (many, as indicated, before the advent of air travel) cannot be explained by simple infectious person-to-person disease models. However they are more completely understandable by multiple strikes or in-falls from space at widely disparate global locations dependent on vagaries like weather, topography and geography, and in particular the periodicity of the significant correlation with the 11 year Sun Spot flare cycle. With respect to the latter correlation "..the peaks of solar activity will be expected to assist in the descent of charged molecular aggregates (including viruses) from the stratosphere to ground level..along magnetic field lines that connect the Sun and the Earth".
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
