Meteorites May Have Delivered Seeds of Life On Earth

esocid writes "At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, scientists presented evidence today that desert heat, a little water, and meteorite impacts may have been enough to cook up one of the first prerequisites for life. The result of that brew could be the dominance of "left-handed" amino acids, the building blocks of life on this planet. Chains of amino acids make up the protein found in people, plants, and all other forms of life on Earth. There are two orientations of amino acids, left and right, which mirror each other in the same way your hands do. These amino acids "seeds" formed in interstellar space, possibly on asteroids as they careened through space. At the outset, they have equal amounts of left and right-handed amino acids. But as these rocks soar past neutron stars, their light rays trigger the selective destruction of one form of amino acid."

Comments

Just any meteorite

[iamhigh]

Mother Earth, you ignorant slut, you obviously picked some bad seeds.

Re:God vs. ...that.

[pkphilip]

Ok, going by that argument - can we create a unicellular organism using one of the *existing* self-replicating modules?

The difference between the scientists trying to explain this and religous people doing the same, is the scientists openly admit they don't know, where the religous factions can't stand the idea they don't. A pretty broad and unsubstantiated claim coming from someone who claims to espouse a scientific temper.

Re:God vs. ...that.

[pkphilip]

Why don't you think outside the box and answer my questions? You might say that my belief in religion is just blind faith in something that is not proven. by that same definition, your faith in evolution is blind too - because that isn't proven yet.

Re:God vs. ...that.

[jdagius]

>> ... The seed is the word of God. Wow, very insightful, why only +1 score? Mod parent up to at least +4. (Must overcome inertia of low score mass). -Johanus