Slashdot Mirror
Meteorite Contains Complex Organic Molecules
An anonymous reader writes "Previously unknown organic molecules have been discovered in a 100 kg meteorite that hit Australia in 1969, suggesting that our early Solar System contained a soup of highly complex organic chemistry long before life appeared. Quoting: 'According to [the study's lead author], the newly discovered compounds in the Murchison meteorite "may have contributed to the organic complexity of the early 'soup' that led to the development of life on Earth." The findings also suggest that extraterrestrial chemical diversity surpasses that found on Earth. The meteor probably passed through primordial clouds in the early solar system, accumulating organic molecules in a snowball effect along the way. By tracing the sequence of organic molecules in the meteorite, researchers believe they may also be able to create a timeline for their formation and alteration since the early days of our solar system.'"
welcome our new meteor-dwelling overlords.
Le français vous intéresse?
Before we get all excited about finding "organic" material in space rocks, it's important to remember that organic doesn't really mean anything unless it is certified by the government. There is a battery of tests and criteria that must be passed before anything can truly be referred to as organic.
I doubt anyone has certified a ROCK from OUTER SPACE as anything but a space rock. You can't eat it anyway, so there really isn't any reason to get it certified organic.
A passing space cruise liner flushing passenger waste as it passed our primordial solar system injected the base complex organic molecules needed to form life on our planet.
A giant rock has been on Earth for forty years, and just now they're discovering that it's contains organic compounds? Um...did it fall directly into a controlled vacuum?
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
The Murchison meteorite contains complex organic molecules – including carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur.
Molecules do not work that way!
TFA is short on details.
Again, TFA: Now, for the first time, scientists have used advanced analytical methods to conduct a non-targeted experiment....wtf?
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Looking at better news sources, one finds the scientists found over 14,000 organic compounds which contained (besides carbon), the hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, etc. None of those things by themselves constitutes an organic substance. Do kids even study chemistry in high school anymore?
Well the thought of the building blocks for life to have just "formed" on earth is too far fetched. This just helps solidify that earth was somehow seeded by meteorites long before life started and that is where life started up from i believe. It just makes more sense. Also once you do the math as to how many galaxies there are just in the visible portion of the sky, it just becomes even more realistic that we are not alone, but space is just so big that we pretty much are alone in our tiny sector of the Galaxy perhaps. Its like living out in the boonies where everyone house would be separated by 5 miles with trees in the way, just because you can't see their house, doesn't mean its not there, but just out of sight.
I tried to explain on another website how this means life may have come to earth from space, and the only response I got was someone pointing out how I'm an idiot because this meteor is only from 40 years ago. He must be right, given no one would call someone an idiot when he himself is the idiot, so I must inform all of you panspermia is wrong and you should be ashamed of yourselves for believing it.
My webcomic
We already had soup yesterday http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/15/1729253/
"The Murchison meteorite landed near a town of the same name... "
What are the odds for THAT happening?!
if, as we sample more planetary, asteroid, and interstellar matter, that we simply find RNA everywhere?
that RNA simply permeates the entire universe: in the oort cloud, on europa, on ceres, in interstellar dust, in the data sent back to from probes to other stars/ exoplanets, etc
that life is not unique to earth, and that life is pretty much inevitable wherever the conditions are right. we got used to the fact that earth is not the center of the universe, and then that our star isn't even that notable. as we discover more exoplanets, we'e beginning to come to grips with the ho hum mundane facts of the existence of millions of planets. yet right now we operate on the assumption life on earth is this rare unique thing native to here. really?
and then the question would be: why RNA everywhere? how long has this been going on? where did it start? or for all practical purposes has it always been so and the ubiquity of panspermic RNA makes it pretty much a pat cosmological fact without discoverable cause or reason?
it would be a pretty awesome intersection of; astronomy, cosmology, theology, biology, and even mathematics/ physics/ information technologythat complexity is simply inevitable, and that information storage and retrieval is an emergent phenomenon intrinsic to the way physical laws inexorably play out... and that this is "God". deus ex machina
and it's entirely possible, as we keep looking
ok, sorry, i'll put down the marijuana. dude: have you ever looked at your hand? l mean REALLY look at your HAND
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From TFA: ...according to the study published in the U.S. Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I'm going on the assumption that "published" implies past tense. As in, done. Yet, a search of PNAS finds no connection between the quoted author Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin and the word "Murchison" appearing ANYWHERE in the text of an article. And since no title is mentioned and no other authors are mentioned, I'm not really sure what to say.
I mean, I suppose it's possible PNAS completely screwed up somehow. I tried matching just the guy's first name, just his last name. He has written for PNAS in the past. He's written three articles on wine. That's quite a jump, from wine to meteorites.
I'm not saying it's not there. I just can't find it among the 81 PNAS articles on the Murchison meteorite.
Article in February Scientific American says latest astronomical research shows that Titan has sand deserts where the grains are complex organic molecules. (a great place for a vacation - deserts of bituminous sand, littered with rocks made of water ice, and with occasional heavy methane showers. )
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Welcome our dark, smudgy, foul smelling organic overlords.
Oh wait, that's who's been here for millennia already. Damn. Damn. Damn!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Boy, if the creationists were upset at the idea of being related to Chimps, imagine how they'll go ape over being the spawn of alien space dung!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064393/
Hallowed are the Ori!
Call in Dr Jeremy Stone and his team
or it whacked a dinosaur.
Squirrel!
There is life on Mars!!! Run, run to the hills!!!
Oh and welcome alien invaders!
And I, for one, welcome... and so forth Did anzbody mention it by now ?
You mean they'll go ape-shit?
Hahahahaha!
I was outsourced to Bangladesh, you insensitive clod!
The author of the original article clearly doesn't understand what a molecule is, and the article is not very informative.
Does anyone have an actual link to a scientific article about this ? ArXiv would do just fine.
life can of course evolve in a myriad ways, and rna might very well be unique to earth alone
however, what if the rna template for retrieval/ storage is actually just floating out there, everywhere, ubiquitously? the earth, and all celestial bodies, are constantly seeded from/ seeding everything else
you say "It's unlikely that RNA is the universal carrier for genetic information". how can you be certain? you'd have to tell me for certain there is no rna floating out there, and that rna can only possibly have been created right here on earth. currently you have no cause for saying that your speculation: rna is unique to earth, is any less or more speculative than my speculation: rna is everywhere
i am openly admitting that my words are conjecture, speculation. but you need to admit to yourself that saying rna is unique to earth is also equally speculative an assumption
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It didn't contain as many as that!
...organic does not equal building block of life. Because it’s <John Cleese>just one way... just one way... </John Cleese> life can evolve.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
By "go ape", do you mean "devolve"?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"