Origin of life might be alien, research suggests

[dArKeR]

By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Aug 27, 2004,Page 2

The delivery of organic compounds from stars to the solar system might have played an important role in the origin of life on Earth, an Academia Sinica researcher said yesterday.

In a review article published in British science journal Nature yesterday, author Kwok Sun (??), the director and distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, summarized the evidence collected from recent infrared astronomy satellites showing that old stars can form complex organic compounds.

"No one had expected that complex organic compounds could be created in stars. In fact, theoretically, we still do not understand how it is possible," Kwok told the Taipei Times.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/08/27/2003200402

[Pallas180]

1. essentially it means, while we are looking for the Martians,

WE are the martians.

[Paul Hood]

2. We are such stuff as stars are made of, literally. n/t

[TransitJohn]

3. What is this might bullshit?

Isn't it obvious? I mean, the size of the universe being what it is, colonizing a planet with your "spoor" is the only way to travel the distances involved, because of that relativity thing. :crazy:

[soothsayer]

4. That's only based on what we understand....which ain't much!

Scientific theories get revised all the time as we learn more about how the universe really works (and it is one weird place!).

[Journeyman]

5. "We are all stardust. . ."

. . .and once again, art is ahead of science by decades.


We are stardust, we are golden,
and we've got to get ourselves
back to the Garden"

CSNY, Woodstock

[GAspnes]

18. Joni Mitchell, I think

but you're right about the artists preceding the rest of us in asking questions that need to be asked.

[NNadir]

19. Actually, Joni Mitchell was demonstrating she was scientifically literate

in writing "Woodstock."

The stellar origins of the elements had been known at least since the 1940's long before Ms. Mitchell wrote her song in 1970. The synthesis of heavy elements in high neutron fluxes (the R process) such as are found in collapsing stellar cores had been experimentally demonstrated in the thermonuclear explosions of the 1950's. The elements Einsteinium and, I believe, Californium were first identified by analyzing the debris of the first of these explosions, and the appearance of the spectra of these elements in supernovae and of the element Technetium in the spectra of stars also confirmed the theoretical underpinings of this understanding.

I do credit Ms. Mitchell, possibly my favorite Rock Poet, with a beautiful evocation of the phenomena. Dennis Kucinich's silly plaguerizing of Ms. Mitchell's famous verse has done nothing to diminish the song's fabulous paen to the almost sacred nature of earthly life.

[GAspnes]

20. Was it Sagin who said,

"The gold in our teeth was created in stars"?

Anyway, yes, I knew what Joni Mitchell meant when she wrote that line, and no one has said it more beautifully.

[Massacure]

6. Hmm, but our evolution is still influenced by Earth, right?

It isn't like Aliens dropped humans off, 10,000 years ago. It would be more along the lines of Amino Acids were carried to Earth via a meteor, and we evolution just did it's little thing?

[dArKeR]

7. Swift Space Boat Veterans Support Kerry!

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Use Google before "skepping"

This is NOT a new theory. It's called Panspermia, and is a hot area of research right now.

Search on this string:

Hoyle Wickramasinghe panspermia

Or save yourself a click and surf direct:
http://www.panspermia.org/

--bkl

[armenian_democrat]

9. Comet

I believe a while ago a meteor (or comet... Never understood the difference) was found on earth containing traces of some primordial proteins. I didn't follow up, becasue frankly, I could care less where life came from. But I think sceintists have been debating this possibility for a long time.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. It's the same one

It's the Orgeuil meteorite. It's been the Most Likely To Show Signs Of Life since it was found some years ago.

--bkl

[NNadir]

11. One explanation that I've heard for the origins of chemical asymmetry on

Earth involves the fact that beta radiation is asymmetric. I believe that it's been shown that irradiating racemates in a high intensity beta flux can result in small amounts of chiral induction.

If this is true, that the asymmetry arises from intense radiation fluxes, it may mean that the chemistry of life, in which the (S) configuration predominates among amino acids - excepting cysteine for reasons of nomenclature - and D isomers dominate sugars (and nucleic acids), can only have originated in areas near the high radiation fluxes associated with stars. This would further a panspermic hypothesis.

I am hardly an expert in this area though. I have heard that many extraterrestrial amino acids from meteors have proved to be racemates.

I think that the origin of asymmetry is one of the great mysteries yet remaining to science.

[LastDemocratInSC]

12. I will agree that many of my racemates seem to be extraterrestrials

I am a NASCAR fan and am absolutely certain that many of my bubba neighbor racemates are of extraterrestrial origin I am sure of that because they chew there cigars instead of smoking them. That is too weird for me.

Given that beta radiation is nothing more than an electron I would like to understand why you bring symmetry into this high-minded discussion. Those little battery bullets are more interested in spin than chirality and besides they have no bang for the buck you can even block them with a thin sheet of aluminum which I do all the time because of my job is to stick my head into TV picture tubes that have gotten broken.

I can also say with complete certainty that most of my racemates that I spent Saturday nights whooping and hollering with at the track have no idea if they are left-handed or right-handed because I have asked them so maybe that adds to your claim of assymetry because they can't answer and besides their general assymetry is pretty high on my meter. They are all asses so far I can see. Maybe that is why I like to come here to DU for the un-assymetry of it all.

News at eleven or something like that.

[NNadir]

16. Well there's a difference between the origin and purpose of life.

Your racemates as we say here up east, "Ain't gotta do nuttin'" bout asymmetry. At least they know the purpose of life: To see the races.

:-)

[DrWeird]

14. That's interesting.

I'd sure like to see a reference for beta radiation inducing symmetry in organic molecules if you've got one. I've never heard such a thing.

[NNadir]

15. Here's a couple I found poking around on google.

Bonner apparently doesn't buy any of this.

15. Bonner, W.A., 1991. Origins of Life, 21:59–111, 1991. Cited in: Chyba, C.F. 1997. A Left-handed solar system. Nature, 389:234–235. 16. The first appears to be Ulbricht, T.L.V., 1957, Quart. Rev., 13:48–6. Cited in: Garay, A.S. and Ahlgren-Beckendorf, J.A., 1990. Differential interaction of chiral â-particles with enantiomers. Nature, 346(6283):451–453 17. As stated by Cohen, Ref. 4.. 18. Meiring, W.J., 1987. Nuclear â-decay and the origin of biomolecular chirality. Nature, 329(6141):712–714 19. Bada, J.L., 1995. Origins of homochirality. Nature, 374(6523):594–595.

There are other explanations for chirality. It is worth noting that the weak force, which is responsible for beta decay, is the only fundemental force in the universe thus far discovered with chiral properties.

[Codeblue]

13. Personally

I think E.T.s actually did drop us off here many many years ago. The earliest evolution of man is what the aliens looked like. We evolved to fit in on Earth better.

Something like that. Perhaps...Mars once was a great Earthlike planet. A huge catastrophe occurred and the Martians scattered to the stars.

[Bill McBlueState]

17. just to clarify

I dunno; it seems like the idea's getting muddled a bit in the thread, but...

There's a big difference between "the organic molecules responsible for life formed in distant stars" and "intelligent aliens intentionally 'seeded' Earth with life."

The first seems highly plausible; astronomers are constantly finding more and more complex molecules in interstellar space. The second was the basis for the plot of a pretty good Star Trek: TNG episode.