PROFESSOR Chandra Wickramasinghe has maintained for more than 20 years that comets and space dust probably brought the seeds of life to Earth.
With Sir Fred Hoyle he first first put forward the so-called Panspermia Theory suggesting that life, or the building blocks of life, can be carried to planets by comets or drifting interstellar dust particles.
Professor Wickramasinghe also believes that BSE (mad cow dis-ease) could have been caused by organic material falling from comets.
He said recently that farming methods in England and Wales, where cattle are left outdoors in winter, could have resulted in the animals eating more of the space particles which tend to fall more frequently in winter.
Out-wintering, as it is called, is not nearly so common in other parts of Europe where the incidence of BSE is not so prevalent.
He believes, too, that a number of illnesses such as whooping cough, smallpox, measles and meningitis, have been caused by cosmic dust.
There are sceptics but Professor Wickramasinghe says, "I agree with Sherlock Holmes - when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, has to be regarded as the truth."