What kind of living

It gets swept westward by the jet stream, where it mixes with other airborne particles, including smoke and spray from the sea. Prather says that each of these types of particles — collectively known as aerosols — has its own, distinctive impact on clouds.

The microbes make proteins, which lace water molecules together. Ice crystals then grow in the normal way, and rain — or snow — falls. This was most publicly used just before the Beijing Olympics in to ensure clear skies for the opening ceremony. But the techniques are not always reliable. Evidence, if any more was needed, of the extraordinary power of natural selection.

All organisms need to be able to disperse and find new areas to live. It seems a range of organisms have found a way to manipulate weather systems to help them do that. There are occasionally reports of masses of frogs raining out of the sky, or of fish falling in the desert.

In Kerala, in southern India, there was an infamous occurrence of red rain, which had some people speculating that alien life forms had rained down from space when a meteor exploded in the atmosphere. It turned out to be red algae that had been swept into the air after a storm, just like when frogs and fish are swept up on freak air currents. But the finding that there are organisms that live for at least part of their life cycle in the atmosphere — that is as wonderful as stories about magical creatures that live in the clouds, and all the more impressive for being true.

Rowan Hooper rowhoop on Twitter is the news editor of New Scientist magazine. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

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