3 ms·
I may have been a little over excited on this one, but its still very significant. This is complex organic molecules, direct precursors of DNA components, found
by FiReaNG3L 18y ago
I may have been a little over excited on this one, but its still very significant. This is complex organic molecules, direct precursors of DNA components, found in a meteorite. You can downplay this all you want but this is no clay pit vs house :) Sorry again for the sensationalized title; I think I've been exposed too much to Digg, will do better next time.
- Retric 18y agoOne of the hardest things to understand about evolution is how quickly organisms change their environment. Before self replicating life forms showed up on earth there was probably a thick soup of complex organic molecules in the land, sea, and air. However, once the most basic of life forms showed up they would quickly consume the abundant resources out there. So while a tiny fraction of early DNA might use components from meteorites there is little reason to think they played a significant role in the evolution of life on earth.
- ajross 18y agoTruthfully, no, it's not all that significant. Here are the relevant wikipedia entries on those molecules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uracil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uracil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthine These are simple molecules. Many organic molecules (including some more complicated than this) have been found in space, either in meteorites or spectrally. This are significant only because they're chemically related to what life ultimately ended up using here on earth (or at least Uracil is, being an RNA pair base -- I have no idea what the Xanthine connection is, honestly). Really, this isn't all that surprising.