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Meteorites May Have Delivered Seeds of Life On Earth

Posted by Zonk on from the thanks-for-the-lift dept.

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."

15 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Discussed Organic Material in Meteor by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    We discussed something similar to this here where they found organic molecules in a Canadian meteor.

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    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Discussed Organic Material in Meteor by MrNaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The idea that nucleic acids and other organic building blocks were delivered to Earth from a meteor is not new. In fact, I remember reading about that in a space book when I was 5.

      Personally, I think that whether or not the "seeds of life" originated here or came here on a meteor is a stupid idea, as it's not where they came from that is even remotely interesting, but how they came to be in the first place. If they originated here, then an asteroid impact may have scattered them elsewhere, and there may be other bewildered life forms on other planets wondering where they came from, or vice versa. What difference does it make?

      What I want to know is how complex organic molecules were formed into self-organising, self-replicating structures. Bigfoot is not the missing link. How we got to elemental material spewed out from a supernova to DNA, *that's* the missing link.

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      I hate printers.
  2. God vs. ...that. by 75th+Trombone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a feeling a creation vs. evolution flamewar is about to start. Creationists will be creationists, but everyone else just think for a second:

    If you were an average joe, not even a stupid joe but an average joe, which honestly sounds more convincing: 1) A supreme being did it, or 2) blah blah amino acids blah blah meteorites blah blah neutron star light rays blah blah?

    So y'know, take it easy on the creationists. They may not understand how science works, but when faced with an article like this, can you really blame them?

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    The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
    1. Re:God vs. ...that. by Dada+Vinci · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, you've actually hit on one of the main creationist talking points -- "what are the odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids, instead of a random mix that wouldn't work?" I'd be intersted to hear how they respond. I'd imagine with the same response as always (God put it here), but who knows. A good theory of why left-handeness is preferred (at least among amino acids) is a pretty big deal.

    2. Re:God vs. ...that. by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They may not understand how science works, but when faced with an article like this, can you really blame them? Poorly written news articles don't excuse flawed thinking. One shouldn't depend on shallow news stories or vague religious texts for explanations of the physical world.
    3. Re:God vs. ...that. by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Funny

      "A cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."

      vs.

      "A rock from space covered in particular chemicals crashed into the earth three billion years ago, and through a process of self-replication and environmental pressure, these chemicals produced more complex molecular structures, leading to life as we know it."

      Yeah, Christianity is so much more plausible.

    4. Re:God vs. ...that. by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Funny

      For not being plausible, there sure are a lot of people calling on God to save them during moments of suffering and death.

      Of course they do, God made them to suffer, so only God can make it stop. We're all victims, pleading with a serial killer before He finishes His grisly work.

    5. Re:God vs. ...that. by TheNarrator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seems there's a lot of people out there who think that this or that scientific discovery will make all the creationists wake up and finally abandon creationism. Not going to happen. You just can't reason somebody out of something they weren't reasoned into in the first place.

    6. Re:God vs. ...that. by dibblda · · Score: 5, Funny

      WEll..... try here: http://objectiveministries.org/creation/sciencefair.html 1st Place: "Life Doesn't Come From Non-Life" Patricia Lewis (grade 8) did an experiment to see if life can evolve from non-life. Patricia placed all the non-living ingredients of life - carbon (a charcoal briquet), purified water, and assorted minerals (a multi-vitamin) - into a sealed glass jar. The jar was left undisturbed, being exposed only to sunlight, for three weeks. (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.) No life evolved. This shows that life cannot come from non-life through natural processes. 2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking" Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

    7. Re:God vs. ...that. by Alsee · · Score: 4, Funny

      (Patricia also prayed to God not to do anything miraculous during the course of the experiment, so as not to disqualify the findings.

      Oh man... I *so* want to be the one grading the projects and to sit down and talk with sweet little Patricia about her science experiment. I would be abundantly enthusiastic and impressed with all of her scientific work as I went over the various aspects of her project. I would be particularly impressed and particularly commend her on her thoroughness in considering that God could potentially interfere with the experiment and specifically praying to God not to do so...

      then I would get a thoughtful look on my face, and say "hmmmmmmm......"

      Hmmmmm, Patricia, your excellent work just made me think of something. I'm impressed by how you scientifically accounted for possible supernatural influence in the experiment, but are you certain you accounted for all such possible effects? You accounted for God, but is God the only potential influence? What about Satan? Did you scientifically account for Satan? What if a charcoal briquet, purified water, and a multi-vitamin *do* spontaneously create life when left in the sun, but what if Satan interfered and kept killing any such new life just because he wanted to invalidate your findings?

      You've done some excellent science work so far Patricia, and I don't want to score you badly for the oversight and inconsistent treatment of supernatural influences, so I'm going to let you take your project back so you can fix it. Do a new write up addressing the problem, and possibly re-do the experiment if necessary, and then bring it back to me when the problem is solved.

      Okay, I'm a cruel bastard with a twisted sense of humor. Chuckle.

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  3. Space sperm by Nimey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Makes sense in a way: the meteors are sperm, the Earth the egg, the orbital bombardment the BDSM.

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    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
  4. So this is news? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny

    The fact that meterorite showers brought life to our planet is no mystery to me. See, I lived in Smallville for a while and I've seen things you wouldn't believe.

    - Chloe Sullivan

  5. Thought it had already been explained by MrKevvy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the left-handed chirality bias had already been explained by the non-conservation of parity in the electroweak force. The L enantiomers have a slightly lower binding energy, so in any mole of racemic amino acids you'll have about a million excess on the L side, which is enough to tip the balance.

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    1. Re:Thought it had already been explained by MrKevvy · · Score: 4, Informative

      re: "Citation?"

      TY - JOUR
      JO - Molecular Physics
      PB - Taylor & Francis
      AU - Tranter, G. E.
      TI - The parity violating energy differences between the enantiomers of -amino acids
      SN - 0026-8976
      PY - 1985
      VL - 56
      IS - 4
      SP - 825
      EP - 838
      UR - http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/00268978500102741

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      -- Insert witty one-liner here. --
  6. And still doesn't answer anything.... by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Where did those amino acids come from?

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    Engineering is the art of compromise.