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NASA Discovers Life's Building Block In Comet
xp65 writes "NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. 'Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet,' said Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.'"
Are we sure it is not an alien spaceship ?
Strange, we think that a comet wiped out the dinosaurs, and yet another comet like this one could sustain the glycine-deficient dinosaurs at Jurassic Park!
Or "space spooge" as the kids call it these days. So where'd that life come from?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'm not going to say that God created the world in 6 days or any crap like that. Anyone who thinks that Creationism has any validity at all is seriously deluded and should probably be kept away from sharp objects and steep dropoffs.
But they do have a point when it comes to abiogenesis. It's fine and dandy to push the building blocks of life off-planet, but how can those blocks then be explained? A large planet with all sorts of chemical and physical processes seems like a much better place for life to arise than on some desolate block of ice flying around the universe. What caused the life to form way out there?
It also supports the theory that some other planet full of life went *KA-BOOOM*
Aliens of said planet are now patrolling the galaxy looking for the next M class planet to colonize.
I can say [REDACTED] anytime I want!
The universe has delivery now? If only it'd get an internet presence I bet it'd really take off.
*DrugCheese rants*
Don't they make a claim like this every other week? It isn't getting any more interesting. Elements of life found in an old pile of pancakes left behind in an abandoned nuclear power plant, now that would be interesting.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
That is the most interesting news I have heard all week, and probably the closest thing to proof that life "could" exist on other planets. Although like sperm making its way to the egg, the chances of success are one in millions and probably more so in our case. As a statistical impossibility, we should consider ourselves lucky to even exist. Its amazing that all that chaos could have so complex of a result.
So now we know
Obviously, the discovery of sentient life "abroad" is going to be anticlimactic now.
Way to ruin it.
Just comets. Now get back to work Mulder.
somebody at NASA had a fatty burger for lunch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine formula is NH2-CH2-CO-OH
It's not that complicated. Shouldn't we be waiting to get excited about something more complex?
Adama: "Life here began out there." These are the first words of the Sacred Scrolls...
but the prime constituent of the soya bean got their 1st. Just one small fart for man one giant harumph for mankind
/. /.?
What's all this I must wait & try again stuff about did someone
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Um... it didn't. "Building blocks for life" does not equal "life". But once the 'building blocks' formed, life could get started... almost certainly on Earth. See, e.g., here.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
It's quite amusing to think of all the games and sci-fi plots that have been based around alien life forms landing on a planet and taking it over in the context of this theory, because, well, if true, then we're those alien life forms, the only thing we're missing from most plots is a hive mind!
Hmm, I'm dubious, how do we know that the evidence is real and wasn't fabricated by clever scientists?!?
Glycine is the only thing they are willing to admit. NASA believes the world is not in a position to digest, (ha, ha) the more significant finding in the comet: High Fructose Corn Syrup.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Glycine is the simplest amino acid, and it the only one that lacks a chiral center on the alpha carbon. Of the four groups attached in a tetrahedral arrangement to the alpha carbon, two are hydrogen atoms. In all other amino acids, one of the two hydrogens of glycines is replaced by a distinct functional group. The really interesting thing about biologically used amino acids is that it is always the same hydrogen of the two that is replaced -- all the 19 non-glycine amino acids are so-called "L-stereoisomers." Discovery of any one of the 19 amino acids other than glycine in a comet would be quite a story, and it would be even more surprising if there were a mixture of "L" and "D" stereoisomers other than 50/50. My bet is that if another amino acid is found in cometary debris, it is asparagine, since it can form by the reaction 2*glycine - water.
Great!
So Spore was actually right.
Now i can let my son play spore and help him learn that life came from comets and that we ought to smash each others heads to become civilized.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Apparently they can't be bothered to pick up a textbook and learn that Redi and Pasteur proved it doesn't work like that a couple hundred years ago.
It's call the law of biogenesis.
Stop spending tax dollars trying to prove your Theory when there is already a scientific law disproving it.
If you want to spend your own money on it fine, just stop spending mine on your junk 'science.'
Anyone familiar with The Big Bang Theory will not be surprised by this finding. I bet they did not find any traces of peanuts, though.
In the end they will find out it is due to some sort of contamination from earth.
They can't do anything right these days.
"Mommy, where do babies come from?" "Well, dear, the comets bring them." "Really?" "Yes, like when you were born. A naturally-occurring cataclysmic engine of destruction descended from the sky and destroyed our house and ruined our lives forever." "Really?" "Yes, dear. It's time for you to run along to school. NOW."
No no no....we are stardust
Alternatively, as (IIRC) Bill Bryson says in "A short history of everything", we could just consider ourselves to be nuclear waste.
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1531
Mabye scientists fabricated the evidence. FYI, one of today's headlines is that Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence (Just Like the Comet)
Link:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/18/0043212/Scientists-Learn-To-Fabricate-DNA-Evidence
Apparently they can't be bothered to pick up a textbook and learn that Redi and Pasteur proved it doesn't work like that a couple hundred years ago.
It's call the law of biogenesis.
Stop spending tax dollars trying to prove your Theory when there is already a scientific law disproving it.
Because, you know, a scientific "law" is the absolute truth........
Wikipedia happens to say that the law of biogenesis is "that modern organisms do not spontaneously arise in nature from non-life." Really, what makes you think that we are talking about modern organisms? This "law" is just meant to codify that the common wisdom of the day, that flies will comes from rotten meat, was incorrect.
Aside from a creationist perspective, you need some kind of abiogenic beginning, and this research helps us understand how this might take place.
"Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."
Instead it only supports what Dr. Pilcher says in the article:
"The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare."
In other words, it's just saying that amino acids are not that rare. If they're not that rare, why can't Earth have made them on it's own?
After all the Miller/Urey experiment in 1953 showed that amino acids can be produced fairly easily if a few simple conditions are met.
Miller took molecules which were believed to represent the major components of the early Earth's atmosphere and put them into a closed system
The gases they used were methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins.
Maybe comets and meteors with amino acids were hitting earth as well. But finding them all over space also strengthens the idea that they're not uncommon to produce, and therefore also strengthens the theory that Earth could have produced them by itself. Either way seems like a guess to me.
Fun fact for the day: The Murchison meteorite which fell in Australia in 1969 also contained common amino acids such as glycine, alanine and glutamic acid as well as unusual ones like isovaline and pseudoleucine.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
Seriously...
Apparently they can't be bothered to pick up a textbook and learn that Redi and Pasteur proved it doesn't work like that a couple hundred years ago. It's call the law of biogenesis. Stop spending tax dollars trying to prove your Theory when there is already a scientific law disproving it. If you want to spend your own money on it fine, just stop spending mine on your junk 'science.'
Would you mind stating what "it" you're referring to? Are you trying to say that it's physically impossible for glycine to form outside of a living organism?
I would first suspect contamination of test equipment before announcing a "discovery" of protein building blocks on a comet. Think about it. The gas collection equipment was built on earth, taken to space, used to collect some gas from comet's tail and brought back to earth and inspected by scientists in a lab.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
1) it was scooped from earth or another planet with life by the comet: dubious
2) a planet with life somewhere got crushed and the ejected material that formed the comet got some amino acids in it. weakly possible.
3) Given it's been shown that freezing primordial materials found in space actually promotes the formation of nucleic acids, it might not be much of a reach to suppose that there are natural processes in cold space that will form amino acids.
4) there are life forms that live on comets. presumably then panspermia is ubiquitous.
5) the gel got contaminated on earth. or the mass spec is not definitive about the molecule in question.
I lean towards 5, and then 3 as a close second. Of course 4 would be interesting, as it's direct panspermia. But if indeed the building blocks of life as we know it pervade the universe and occur naturally it also suggests there probably are a lot of similar nucloetide/peptide base life forms out there.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In this case WE are the AI. In fact, this would explain a lot of things.
Why wouldn't there be lifes building blocks found on comets, should be the question. If what scientist say is true that there was a comet or asteroid that ended the dinosaurs,why wouldn't there be particles in space?? The comet would have hit so hard many of our life forms would have been ejected into space.Wouldnt it makes since for some of this matter to be found on comets and other planets and moons?
Jack of all trades,master of none
Well, if it can form on that small comet, then it can also form on that much much bigger "comet" circling the sun, called "Earth".
I wonder if it hurts to make up such a dumb argument as the original one.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
When I first read the headline, I saw "NASA Discovers Life's Building Blocks in Cement". I figured they had found Jimmy Hoffa.
First: Scientific Law vs. Theory. Perhaps you should learn the difference.
Second: Are you seriously trying to make an argument based off of what wikipedia says? Let's try to deal with the facts, okay?
Third, I'm open to all possibilities (can you say the same?) and science has proven abiogenic beginnings do not occur. As I stated before if you want to spend YOUR money try to prove otherwise, please feel free to do so. Just stop spending MY money on a flawed theory that has already been proven impossible both scientifically and mathematically.
Are you trying to say that it's physically impossible for glycine to form outside of a living organism?
No. I'm saying Redi and Pasteur have already proven that life does not spontaneously generate.
Pasteur disproved that bacteria do not magically appear in a vat of broth. He did not disprove abiogenesis. He knew nothing about amino acids, RNA, or DNA. Self-replicating RNA has already been produced in a lab. It's only a matter of time until we discover the full process.
Space sperm.
So, we are all composed of materials that come from our universe and we have now found materials in the universe that show we could be formed.
No. I'm saying Redi and Pasteur have already proven that life does not spontaneously generate.
Then where did the first living organism come from? They only demonstrated (remember that scientists don't prove anything, only mathematicians do that) that insects, specifically flies in the case of Pasteur, if I remember correctly, don't spontaneously grow from dead meat. Before Pasteur, bacteria and viruses were practically unknown, never mind the biochemistry behind them.
Then where did the first living organism come from?
There are only two options, and based on science and math we can eliminate one.
You have the law of biogenesis showing that life does not come from non-life, and math showing us that abiogenesis is statistically impossible.
The question for most is how much evidence do you need to give up the dogma of darwinistic evolution?
If you start out by saying there is no four. You will never be able to determine what 2+2 equals.
You won't find any life there (certainly not intelligent, and probably nothing that qualifies at all)
"Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.'"
Your discovery also supports the theory that outer space is actually composed of cheeseburgers. Supporting a theory means nothing. Proving a theory is everything.
I dreamt last night that I was a butterfly, and I had no idea that I was me. Then, my world shifted, and I thought I woke up, finding me to be myself and not a butterfly. But perhaps I am a butterfly, and I'm just dreaming...
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
So your answer is "God did it." Thanks for the clarification.
Hmm, we sent a satellite to gather stuff from a comet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_strain
Its a pretty meaningless report if one believes in the Big Bang Theory... Earth itself is created from debries of the universe, therefore EVERYTHING on Earth is found elsewhere in the universe.
And the crazy thing is that the Big Bang Theory doesn't even conflict with the Christian bible because the Bible doesn't say *how* everything was created. If God is the god described in the Bible - all knowing - then he would certainly know of a means to get the ball rolling with chain reaction, cycles, evolution, and mutation all from a single event. In fact, scientists claim the universe was created in less than a second - in an instant.
My answer is the evidence shows God did it.
You have the law of biogenesis showing that life does not come from non-life
Before that statement makes any sense you have to define exactly what 'life' is, and how it differs from non-life. Given a definition, there must be a point where the difference between life and non-life is just a microscopic change. Microscopic changes can certainly occur randomly, so there's a chance life can arise from non-life.
My answer is the evidence shows God did it.
Wow. Just wow.
"First: Scientific Law vs. Theory. Perhaps you should learn the difference."
Some Scientific Laws are theories devised by egotistical scientists in the 18th Century. Otherwise, sometimes "Law" is also used to describe consistent observations with no explanatory backing; (e.g. the Law of Conservation of Energy: Energy never seems to be created or destroyed, we've no idea why it couldn't be, but it always works out that way, so we call it a Law and move on) Because most of the 18th Century guys were big on consistent observations, and didn't care much about explanatory theory (or were even philosophically opposed to it), many Laws fulfil both criteria. For example, Newtons Law of Gravity.
"Second: Are you seriously trying to make an argument based off of what wikipedia says? Let's try to deal with the facts, okay?"
No, he was quoting Wikipedia's definition of the scientific theory under discussion. If you prefer a different definition, please provide one.
Given a definition, there must be a point where the difference between life and non-life is just a microscopic change.
That is quite an assumption. Do you have some scientific or mathematical evidence that this is only a microscopic change?
You disagree, but fail to provide any objective proof to my argument. That speaks volumes.
I guess if wikipedia is acceptable then I'll quote from crazy Larry down the street. He's just as reliable.
That is why I asked that person to deal with facts, instead some website that anybody can edit.
'Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.'"
Again guys, you are filling in gaps with information that fits your ideal world and to support other theories but there is no direct evidence that events happened this way. There is no direct evidence that glycine can survive the impact or that it actually was transferred from space-borne objects. Example: A 30 year old brown-haired person lives in San Francisco and another one who is 50 years old lives in New York. Does that mean the one in San Francisco is the offspring (and therefore related) of the one in New York either because the person in New York traveled to San Francisco then had a child or had a child then the child moved to and grew up in San Francisco? Yeah it can mean that but without asking the people involved or seeing it happen first-hand you can't just fill in the blanks and assume you are correct. We obviously can't ask glycine where it came from so we have to see it first-hand be transferred from a comet/meteorite to Earth and remain intact and viable before we can really say for sure that supports the theory that life's ingredients came from out of this world. Something generic like 2 samples of glycine or 2 brown-haired people are too generic to conclude they are related, but feel free to make that gross assumption anyway to fit theories of evolution.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Aside from a creationist perspective, you need some kind of abiogenic beginning, and this research helps us understand how this might take place.
In case you missed the posts farther down, I did finally get him to acknowledge that his "theory" is that God did it. The most amusing part is that he goes on to complain that there's no objective proof against his claim.
FAIL.
The Law of Biogenesis states that modern life does not arise from non-life. Prior to this, people believed that living maggots would spontaneously arise from non-living rotten meat, or that living mold would spontaneously form on non-living bread. This explanation does not apply to the pre-biotic conditions of the earth where non-living matter first began to self-replicate.
Please, for everyone's sake, go back to your Bible and leave the real scientists alone. They have productive work to do.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
My answer is the evidence shows the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it.
FIFY
/begin language police/ Glycemic = glyc = glucose + heme (blood), i.e. the amount of glucose in the blood. Glycine = an amino acid that is not glucose. You were thinking of the, uh, glycinic index?
/end language police/
The Law of Biogenesis states that modern life does not arise from non-life
LOL! You have a very strange definition of modern.
Redi published the results of his experiments in 1668.
Probably a better description of your argument is that fully formed life does not spontaneously generate.
It's still rather funny that you cannot cite any evidence to prove that life comes from non-life. You can at best try to insert a word into a description of a scientific law to try and alter the meaning.
i'm surrounded by alien lifeforms ... GET OFF MY LAWN !
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
If crazy Larry has a definition of the law of abiogenesis you would like to use, that will be fine. The reliability of source that defines the terms we use for our discussion is irrelevant. As long as we are using the same definition, we can have a meaningful discussion.
The fact that you attack the source of seemingly reasonable definitions without providing any of your own doesn't say much for you. If that definition doesn't describe what you're talking about, provide your own. Assuming, of course, you know what you are talking about, which frankly, is not apparent.