Swiss Scientists Discover DNA Remains Active After Space Journey and Re-entry

Zothecula writes: It may sound like the first chapter of a Quatermass thriller, but scientists from the University of Zurich have discovered that DNA can survive not only a flight through space, but also re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and still remain active. The findings are based on suborbital rocket flights and could have considerable impact on questions about the origins of life on Earth and the problems of terrestrial space probes contaminating other planets.

Comments

Rock-a-cock

[Anonymous Coward]

This news story is as boring as the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey..

Re:Rock-a-cock

[ColdWetDog]

This news story is as boring as the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey..

I believe you are on the wrong web site for your personal proclivities. I suggest, perhaps, e! (or maybe Vogue, Elle or just the National Enquirer).

Our astronauts will be relieved!

[Steve1952]

Finally, after 50+ years of sending astronauts into space, proof that when they return, they will still have their DNA. Send the news to John Glen!

Re: Our astronauts will be relieved!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha... It means that neil Armstrong's DNA didn't mutate

Protected by thickness?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not surprising that DNA at the bottom of a dried DNA drop survived. Now if instead they spread a single layer of it on the rocket, then the results would be more interesting.

Contamination?

[ArcadeMan]

[...] the problems of terrestrial space probes contaminating other planets.

It's not contaminating, it's colonizing.

Re:Contamination?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, though, what can DNA all by itself do? Several comments mention panspermia, but DNA doesn't reproduce.
A virus needs a protein coat to get its genetic material to where a cell will reproduce it.

Re:Contamination?

[HiThere]

Your point, while partially valid, is nevertheless misguided. ALL viruses are specialist parasites. What you need to "infect" a planet with life is something like a lichen, bacteria, or plant.

Re:Contamination?

[Anonymous Coward]

And none of those things is DNA. They're all living cells, which this research was not about.

Contamination

[MagickalMyst]

"...problems of terrestrial space probes contaminating other planets"

The billions of dollars spent on the space program should be spent feeding starving people and cleaning up the environment.

If we can achieve that, then perhaps we would be responsible enough as a race to reach out to other planets in our solar system.

As it stands, we have absolutely no business occupying other planets until we learn to take care of our own.

Re:Contamination

[Ignacio]

Okay, but then we'd never get to space at all.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

>The billions of dollars spent on the space program should be spent feeding starving people and cleaning up the environment.

Non-stick pans sure are handy for feeding starving people, aren't they?

Re:Contamination

[Punko]

The billions of dollars spent on the space program should be spent feeding starving people and cleaning up the environment.

Firstly, prove to me that any money diverted from the space program will be 100% spend on your items AND prove that spending this money improves the condition for the entire human race, and we'll consider it.

Historically, we never divert to humanitarian aid at 100%, plus most times when money is earmarked for such programs, the money is siphoned off to feed pork-barrel local constituency programs.

Secondly, why can't the two programs coexist ? The paltry percentages of the US GDP spent on space exploration won't make a difference if the will to do such work isn't already there.

And finally, while I agree entirely that we need to be better stewards of this planet, it does not preclude us for investigation other locations, whether for scientific curiosity or for future human occupation.

Re:Contamination

[Njovich]

So what are you doing on Slashdot then? How can you spend time on this while people are starving?

Shouldn't you be feeding people?

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already enough to feed the starving people you mention. It isn't lack of money keeping that food from them. It is the people doing it. In some places it is strong arm warlords. In others, it is the "1%" you hear about. Either way, there would have to be a collective will to reorganize economies and kill certain individuals. That will currently does not exist so we are left with donations - many of which do not reach the intended targets do to either siphoning or direct theft.

Re:Contamination

[beltsbear]

The war machine actually kills people, destroys food and crops and wrecksthe environment actively. Why not start cutting there before you think about cutting space program money. Oh, and the war machine takes 100 times the funding, so it is much easier to cut there then from the space programs of various nations.

Re:Contamination

[amias]

hey punko,

why don't you prove the money spent on the space program is 100% spent on the space program and prove that spending this money improves the condition for the ENTIRE human race ?

what you don't like facetious questions ?

Re:Contamination

[Punko]

I fully appreciate and expected the argument. I have no doubt in my mind that the human race collectively has been improved by the space program. I have no doubt as well that the money that was spent on humanitarian social programs also improved the human race. What I strongly oppose is the presumption that the elimination of the space program is required to increase funding for social programs. I know that the quest for knowledge has helped mankind (hell, just consider GPS alone). I also know that humanitarian aid has also helped humanity.

the incremental budgetary gain on these humanitarian programs will not benefit the human race more than the loss of the space program. Increase the budget for humanitarian programs by as much as you like, but don't do it at the expense of the space program.

Oh, and in regards to the where the space program money goes? The vast majority goes to salaries. For NASA, that would mean US based salaries spent in the US, which adds to GDP via the velocity of money. For "starving millions" I presume this would mean off-shore spending, and thus out of US GPD. How much of this money actually gets to food on the ground is a sad proportion, which makes thing even worse.

Re:Contamination

[BarbaraHudson]

Try this one on for size: The money spent on space programs is 100% spent on earth.

People see the headline "$800 million spent on Mars probe" and somehow feel that that's $800 million that was packed in a suitcase and blasted into space. That's $800 million that was spent on jobs, either directly or indirectly. In comparison, keeping the money in a suitcase or a safety deposit box is ineffective.

And some of that $800 million gets returned in taxes on wages, and some of THAT tax money goes to aid programs. Putting the money in a suitcase would generate zero dollars for aid programs.

Re:Contamination

[Jason Levine]

The problem with starving people isn't a problem of needing to throw more money at the situation as much as it is a problem of politics or power (e.g. local warlords preventing food shipments from reaching starving people so that the warlords can show how powerful they are). Even if you diverted 100% of NASA's budget to feeding starving people, you wouldn't solve the problem.

When it comes to the amount of money NASA spends, the 2013 US Budget shows that NASA is only 1.4% of the national budget. The biggest portions of the budget is defense at 52.7%. This blows away the second biggest portion, Department of Health and Human Services, which stands at 6.4%, If we cut defense to 50% of the budget, we would save 34 billion dollars. That money could be split between NASA, feeding the hungry, and improving the environment and everyone would win. (I don't think a 5% cut in the Department of Defense's budget would hurt them much.)

Re:Contamination

[CrimsonAvenger]

Oh, and the war machine takes 100 times the funding,

Hmm, NASA budget is ~$18B. Are you really suggesting the military budget is $1.8T???

If so, you might want to reread the budget sometime. Hint: it's actually about 1/3 that.

If you want to see where the real money is going, try looking to the mandatory outlays (SSA, Welfare, that sort of thing). Hint: Mandatory outlays are about 2/3 of the total budget (130x NASA's budget).

Re:Contamination

[gtall]

Please explain you philosophy to Putin and ISIS. I'm sure they'll listen to you.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

And why should privileged countries like USA, Canada, Russia, UK feed the starving (specifically Africa)? As if the people of Africa can live there for 2.5 million years and still not figure out basics like obtaining water, or that they should stop f@#king to prevent unnecessary population explosion... They brought it on themselves... in the same 2.5 million years, the rest of the world has developed space flight and these useless people are still chucking spears and murdering each other in genocide...

f@ck them... Let God sort them out...

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

That's $800 million that was spent on jobs

Then it would follow that building refrigerators by the millions and dropping them into the sea would increase the economy, too. It will not.

Re:Contamination

[BarbaraHudson]

That's $800 million that was spent on jobs

Then it would follow that building refrigerators by the millions and dropping them into the sea would increase the economy, too. It will not.

1850 called and would like it's broken window fallacy back.

Unlike building and junking fridges, going into space increases both our scientific and our technical abilities. You probably wouldn't have a PC today if the race to the moon hadn't happened.

Re:Contamination

[HiThere]

Another problem is that it's based on the fallacy that economics is a zero-sum game. And that physical money is a good analog of financial money. Both are false.

Another assumption is that feeding the starving is a reasonable approach. But population growth is exponential until a limiting factor is reached, and exponential growth cannot be sustained. Ever. So if you plan to "feed the starving multitude" you'd better have some plan in mind to feed twice that number of people in 20 years.

Personally, I think we are already beyond the sustainable capacity of the planet. We're emptying the seas of fish and the land of anything we can't eat. At some point we're going to crash, and crash badly. It would be highly deisreable if at that point there were some self-sufficient colonies elsewhere. But we are, to be optomistic, decades away from being able to do that.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

"You probably wouldn't have a PC today if the race to the moon hadn't happened."

Citation needed.

It seems to me UNIVAC preceded the U.S. space program. Both Soviet and US military had quite a lot to do with computer development for defense reasons, and IBM had non-military uses mapped out. Yes, that was big iron. But the space probes were in no way of PC form; they were more like thin clients run from Houston.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Your figure leaves out a bug part of the military budget including benefits for veterans, some medical funding and some funding for engagement that is not considered part of the main military budget. Although less than $1.8T it is certainly more than 600 Billion.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until you stop personally killing starving children yourself. Fucking hypocrite.

The money you are right now wasting on internet access and electricity is evidence enough of that, thats a few hundred children per year you personally have killed by starvation

How can we do anything BUT follow your own example?

You feed the starving kids first, and stop being a hypocrite, and maybe - MAYBE - others will follow.
Until then you are no better than a murderer.

Re:Contamination

[BarbaraHudson]

Personally, I think we are already beyond the sustainable capacity of the planet.

Agreed. I think we passed it a long time ago, just like the point of no return on the federal deficit.

Re: Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Your comment might make sense to you but it is actually really pointless.

Re: Contamination

[Applehu Akbar]

I suppose that communications satellites, GPS and terrestrial mapping don't feed a lot of people either.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternately, the billions could be spend on completely eliminating those who disagree with the notion that man doesn't belong in space. While you was whining about feeding starving people without understanding human culture and geopolitics you forget that authoritarian regimes like China are doing this. Those that dissent are silenced. So no you will never get your wish. You will either get to continue to make uniformed comments or you will be silenced by death or hard labor should we turn into a China. So do yourself a favor and find something more productive to do than worry about the space program. It isn't going away. You will.

Re:Contamination

[thunderclap]

Your ignorance IS astounding. You do understand that darpanet was also involved in the building of computers.
Integrated Circuits (ICs) were made possible by experimental discoveries showing that semiconductor devices could perform the functions of vacuum tubes and by mid-20th-century technology advancements in semiconductor device fabrication. The integration of large numbers of tiny transistors into a small chip was an enormous improvement over the manual assembly of circuits using discrete electronic components. The integrated circuit's mass production capability, reliability and building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized integrated circuits in place of designs using discrete transistors.
A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic squares (wafers), each containing a single miniaturized component. Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which seemed very promising in 1957, was proposed to the US Army by Jack Kilby and led to the short-lived Micromodule Program (similar to 1951's Project Tinkertoy). However, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a new, revolutionary design: the IC.
Newly employed by Texas Instruments, Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working integrated example on 12 September 1958. In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as “a body of semiconductor material wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated.” The first customer for the new invention was the US Air Force. The same US Air force that was involved with NASA in space missions.
When NASA was created in 1958, the Air Force program was transferred to it and renamed Project Mercury. The first seven astronauts were selected among candidates from the Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilot programs. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard Freedom 7, launched by a Redstone booster on a 15-minute ballistic (suborbital) flight. John Glenn became the first American to be launched into orbit by an Atlas launch vehicle on February 20, 1962 aboard Friendship 7. Glenn completed three orbits, after which three more orbital flights were made, culminating in L. Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit flight Faith 7, May 15–16, 1963.
TLDR; the first use of Integrated circuits otherwise known as microchips WAS the space race.

Re:Contamination

[thunderclap]

Also, quit supporting laws that ban Homelessness and ban the feeding of the homeless. Finally, how much are you donating to the local homeless shelter? Not the Salvation army but the other shelter that doesn't have a corporation behind it. And How about that local food bank? Are you donating to that?

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Sesame Street called and wants its extra apostrophe back.

Re:Contamination

[Anonymous Coward]

Please read "Guns, Germs, and Steel." ...Unless you were trying to be funny, in which case, you failed.

Re:Contamination

[amias]

so NASA doesn't buy rockets from russia ? components from the far east ? raw materials from africa ?

and all of them ethically sourced you say and all taxes paid with none of it going into tax havens ?

and some completely unqualified assertions with no working , why you are spoiling us.

When the rocket is standing on the pad

[Progman3K]

It may have been sterilized but a seagull can just fly over and poop on it.

As the rocket speeds out the atmosphere, it must initially flatten lots of bugs against itself.

How did anyone think we could send anything into space that wasn't crawling with earth-bacteria and other stuff, exactly?

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[fullmetal55]

in a word... Fairings - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

The seagull poops on the fairings (if it's even able to get that far, i'm sure they have cannons, falcons, and a lot of other usual bird removal methods at a launchpad, probably more than your average airport), the bugs splatter against the fairings, the actual probe/vessel that was sterilized before putting it into the sealed fairing, will remain sterilized as long as the seals hold. they are removed long before they get to the destination and become space junk...

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[ColdWetDog]

Maybe they can keep birds away, but frogs, not so much.

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[AikonMGB]

Addendum: I don't know if this was mentioned in the article (yay laziness!), but most spacecraft are merely cleaned, not sterilized. Avoiding contamination is important for interplanetary missions, but not so much for something that's going to stay in Earth orbit or burn up in its atmosphere.

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[DerekLyons]

It may have been sterilized but a seagull can just fly over and poop on it. As the rocket speeds out the atmosphere, it must initially flatten lots of bugs against itself.

If you actually read the links, you'll find they applied DNA samples with specific and known markers to the exterior of the vehicle and then tested for DNA with those specific and known markers after it was recovered. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, once again actual scientists actually do know what they're doing, unlike random Slashdot commenters and mods.

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[Anonymous Coward]

How did anyone think we could send anything into space that wasn't crawling with earth-bacteria and other stuff, exactly?

I don't think anyone was under the impression that rockets wouldn't take material up with them, it was more the assumption that the 1000-degree C re-entry fireball would do a decent job of scrubbing the material on the way down. You don't really need to worry so much about what contaminants depart with your rocket if that material doesn't make it to the destination.

This is apparently not the case, and that is why people are raising eyebrows.

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[DNS-and-BIND]

Because it goes into a hard vaccum, and is fully exposed to the solar wind, ionizing radiation, and all sorts of other radical environmental effects that do a great job at denaturing life?

Re:When the rocket is standing on the pad

[Progman3K]

Thank you for that, fullmetal! I always appreciate it when someone lights the way in front of me!

In restrospect, I didn't really think about my question because of course, engineers and scientists take multiple precautions. Those precautions may not always be 100% effective but they ARE there.

Thanks again!

Quick

[korbulon]

Somebody make a shitty about it that's like a prequel to Aliens but most certainly is not a prequel to Aliens! [a-WINK!]

Also: mother-fucking space cobras [80s metal guitar riff]!!!

Re:Quick

[Anonymous Coward]

There already is a prequel to Aliens, it's called Alien... and it was good, Ian Holm was in it, Sigourney Weaver, and like all good prequels, it came before the sequel!

Junk science/reporting

[phayes]

So they use a sounding rocket and paint it with a substance including DNA.

Launch the sounding rocket into a brief experience of no atmosphere & where some parts (but not all) of the rocket are heated to 1000 degrees.

Then, after recovery, they scrape the paint out of recesses like the screw heads.

Oh, gee so a brief exposure to no atmosphere, Zero G & no extreme temperatures doesn't destroy DNA? Who'd a thunk it?

Re:Junk science/reporting

[ColdWetDog]

Well, lots of people since DNA is pretty easy to destroy using a bunsen burner. That said, this isn't all that impressive. Lots of handwaving and little actual instrumentation (did the temperature actually get to 1000 degrees near that screw head or was it protected). It does point out that even naked DNA on something like a meteorite could well survive the entire trip down in a viable conformation.

That opens lots of possibilities such as panspermia.

Re:Junk science/reporting

[phayes]

Precisely. Nothing in their test is new or surprising. We've known for decades that DNA can survive the environment in space and sheltered nooks on a sounding rocket gives no info on how meteorites moving much faster prove anything about panspermia.

Junk science/reporting...

Very limited test

[retroworks]

Surviving the estimated 1000 degree centigrade reentry temperature is impressive. The rest of the test - a suborbital flight of 780 seconds - is less so. But I would have expected the seconds of heat to be more deadly to the DNA than light years of cold, so it's still interesting.

Re:Very limited test

[Anonymous Coward]

But I would have expected the seconds of heat to be more deadly to the DNA than light years of cold, so it's still interesting.

A light year is a measurement of distance, not time.

Chatter

[Anonymous Coward]

All this chatter about how life here originated in space, and how all the water came her from comets, etc. But the elephant in the room is, if it can start out there, then why couldn't have just as easily started here?

Hydrogen and Oxygen pulled by Earths gravity to form the oceans, and the elements and soup mixture to create life here.

Radiation?

[fullmetal55]

since it's a suborbital flight, that doesn't say much about deep space. sending it on a trip around the moon would be a better test. at least get out of the Van Allen belts and get into the cosmic radiation, before you can see if it actually does survive a trip through space.

Re:Radiation?

[Striktarn]

Exactly. This rocket was protected by earths magnetosphere which shields against charged particles and cosmic rays (known to damage DNA).

Hominid Aliens?

[canadiannomad]

One day we'll find the answer...

Old news

[wonkey_monkey]

DNA can survive not only a flight through space, but also re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and still remain active.

We've known this since 1961! Okay, it was well wrapped in meat and metal, but still.

Re:Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, making the same joke an hour and a half later. You are on the ball today.

Duh

[ISoldat53]

How do you think it got here?

No Microscopes on Mars!

[Anonymous Coward]

We have PROVEN time and time again that a massive number of different life forms from Earth can survive the vacuum of space in our solar system. We have PROVEN time and time again that the major bodies in our solar system frequently transmit surface material from one to another via the consequences of high energy impacts or volcanism.

The probes that landed on Mars many decades ago now proved, statistically, beyond all reasonable doubt, that there is life on Mars. But Earth is ruled by its ORGANISED RELIGIONS, and the leaders of these depraved sheeple control systems are still undecided as to the potential impact of widespread sheeple awareness of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System.

Betas- as in the classic visitor here- think there is still a debate about these issues. Betas here NEVER question why the latest probes to be sent to the surface of Mars LACK microscopes, and standard 'culture' 'amplification' methods. The masters of the sheeple have long discovered that the average beta believes any 'plausible' excuse represents a 'logical' explanation. When betas ask why NASA is so adverse to the use of microscopes, first NASA states that their macro-lenses used to study geological specimens ARE 'microscopes' (a total lie)- and then if that excuse fails, they get shills like Phil Plait to 'explain' why microscopes are obviously the worst way to look for life on Mars. Yes- you betas are THAT thick.

Alphas KNOW there is life on Mars (and on many other bodies in our solar system) but are highly curious as to how close this life will be to current life on Earth. Divergent evolution? Parallel evolution? Completely new basis for life (highly unlikely given the 'exchange' mechanism mentioned at the top).

Meanwhile, you betas will get the same 'discoveries' presented as new over and over and over again- delaying progress for as long as possible while your MASTERS decide how best to handle the societal consequences. And here's a little fact for you Yank betas. During the recent Israeli Holocaust in Gaza, every single member of BOTH houses of Congress voted to give absolute support to the sickening zionist Crimes against Humanity. This is the power the demonic depravity known as the Judaic TRILOGY (Judaism, Modern Christianity and Islam) has over the lives of ordinary sheeple.

Scientific and engineering betas are told that their 'TECHNOCRAT' class is influential by higher elites that roll around on the floor in hysterics at the thought that such simple-minded nerds believe they have any real power or influence. NASA is proof of the very opposite.

Panspermia

[realilskater]

Yet another fact to support panspermia.

Re:Panspermia

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, because rogue DNA magically reproduces by itself.

so to colonize other planets

[Anonymous Coward]

All we need to do is shoot our semen at all the planets.

Now I want to be an astronaut.

Not really relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing the efforts some scientists will make to bring early life to earth from space. Mere suborbital flights proved nothing. That's the equivalent of "proving" humans can live underwater by showing they can survive a couple of minutes submerged and holding their breaths.

Surviving long enough to make it between planets in our solar system is another story, particularly when you must consider how fast they enter our atmosphere. There's also the solar flares during their long wandering. A sub-orbital flight is not only brief, it's heavily protected from those flares by the earth's magnetic field.

And as for life arriving from another star system, there's the near impossibility of a life-laden body escaping one, the enormous time spent in route, and a catch-22. Move the object fast enough to get between stars in anything like a reasonable time, and it'll arrive, accelerated by the sun's gravity, so fast that not a fragment of it will reach the surface.

There's actual a message in this madness. Science has never found conditions on the current surface of the earth that are friendly to the highly improbable creation of the first living creatures. Early on, scientists like Thomas Huxley, Darwin's bulldog, attempted to solve that problem by pushing the event into the ocean depths, conveniently removed from scientific scrutiny. More recently, they've attempt to project that first life upward into space, an equally untestable hypothesis.

Perhaps they should just give up and concede that there's at least some validity to the Intelligent Design hypothesis. If they don't want to let God into the picture, they could pretend some really smart space aliens did it.

http://www.intelligentdesign.org

But then how do you explain the origins of those really smart space aliens?

fact

[Anonymous Coward]

life had to start somewhere
we got actual evidence all way back to 1st 100 million years after earth crust cooled

why are these nut jobs doing anything they can to say otherwise....

ask your self that

fact is so what , it may have mingled a tiny bit here but so ....it prolly has other places too...like space seeds...fact is it had to evolve somewhere
and so far all we can say is at some point billions of years ago it did just that

Less Atmosphere on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Reentry into Earth's atmosphere produces high temperature.
I don't think that entry into Mars' meager atmosphere would make so much heat.
Ditto for the Moon.