Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Building block of life found on comet(link)

I just hope they don't find something like in The Andromeda Strain...

Interesting as it is.........don't let this become another science vs religion thread.

So I take it I'll be okay if I just talk about science and don't mention reli-...er, that other thing.

This is actually 'old news'...some might say 'billions of years old', but not me, I'm not goin' there. No, I'm referring to, for example, the Murchison meteorite, which was observed 'falling' onto the earth's surface outside Murchison, Australia in 1969, and was later revealed to have been carrying extra-terrestrial amino acids. Likewise, throughout the 1970's, Japanese Antarctic expeditions located numerous carbonaceous meteorites on glaciers in Antarctica, also containing this type of molecule. What does it all mean? Nothing I'm going to put into words here, that's for sure...

However, for those who'd like to know more, I suggest taking a look at my friend Dr. David Grinspoon's website:
http://www.funkyscience.net/

David is a pre-eminent American astrobiologist who works here at the Denver Museum of Science and Technology, specifically at the Planetarium. (He can be seen with me in front of the Planetarium 'screen' in the 'PW3 at the Denver Planetarium' thread I posted last week.) He was the recipient of the 2006 Carl Sagan Medal, and winner of the PEN Center USA's 2004 Literary Award for Research Nonfiction. He's also closely involved with the EU's current mission to Venus. When I want to know more about the subject we're discussing here, David is the guy I talk to.

(Incidentally, David is the son of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard University. I 'highly' recommend his website...which contains a lot of compelling insights and information, including an essay written anonymously in 1969 by a Mr. X, who turned out to be a guy named Carl Sagan.

A lot of the Earth's water is said to have been deposited by comets and ice asteroids as well-extraterrestrial in origin, so it wouldn't surprise me that any of the "building blocks" of life arrived in the same fashion. I've read as much, as well as seen this in the History Channel's The Universe program, which is quite fascinating.

I guess the "news" in this news is that,according to astrobiologist Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the principal author of the latest research:

"We've seen amino acids in meteorites before, but this is the first time it's been detected in a comet,"

Right you are, Mitch...that part certainly is 'new' news...

well.... Ziggy sure came from there.... I always liked that tune.

When I was an undergrad at UCSD, I took a course in prebiotic organic synthesis (it may have been titled, "Chemical Evolution") taught by Dr. Russell Doolittle (yes, I always asked, "When do we talk to the animals ..." ). We had the great fortune of having the late Dr. Leslie Orgel give a guest lecture one day ... great thinker and lecturer. In a bit of synchronicity, he was a friend of my Ph.D. thesis advisor at the U of I and visited the lab at least once when I was in grad school. When he was visiting the lab, I went up to him, introduced myself, and mentioned that I remembered his lecture at UCSD, and he was quite humble in his response ... a really nice person.

In contrast, we also had a guest lecture in that class by the late Dr. Stanley Miller, and he did not come across as a great lecturer. (The UCSD scuttlebutt was that Miller was in Urey's (his thesis advisor) office bugging him about one thing or another all the time, so Urey suggested the now-famous 'prebiotic soup' experiment as busy-work for Miller so he'd stop bugging Urey for a while!)

Theres certainly a few Space Cadets here thats for sure...

There's really no such thing as 'outer' space or 'inner' space...it's all just...like...space, man...
Watch, I'll hold down my 'space' key here for a while:







See what I'm sayin'?

Wow,

The storms knock out my internet, and I miss all the fun!

Just another day in Paradise!

wayang wrote:There's really no such thing as 'outer' space or 'inner' space...it's all just...like...space, man...
Watch, I'll hold down my 'space' key here for a while:







See what I'm sayin'?

I have that going on in my head most of the time.......

ram wrote:

wayang wrote:There's really no such thing as 'outer' space or 'inner' space...it's all just...like...space, man...
Watch, I'll hold down my 'space' key here for a while:







See what I'm sayin'?

I have that going on in my head most of the time.......

What, lots of empty space???


Sorry, I couldn't resist...