CUP Prof-led team resolves mystery
Bathinda, March 20
A group of scientists from India and Austria have unraveled the mystery behind the ‘Blood Rain’ that occurred sporadically at various locations in South India and Sri Lanka. The team, led by Dr Felix Bast from Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, has discovered that the red rain occurred due to spores of terrestrial microscopic green alga trentepohliaannulata.
Spells of red-coloured rain have been reported since 1896 and the latest incident happened in Kerala in December, 2013. Rain droplets were so red that the sun-dried white laundry turned dark-red after drenching in the rain. Since then a number of purported causes of the mysterious phenomenon have been speculated.
The present study compared microscopic morphology and the DNA sequence data of locally-abundant microalgae of the area where the red rain phenomenon happened and confirmed that it was a European species of green microalgae, T annulata, that was reported previously only in Austria.
The team confirmed that the blood rain is nothing but a mechanism employed by this alga to disperse its spores — TNS
