One of my colleagues from my first university course back in Portugal is now a Research Associate at Imperial College:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/z.martins
Zita Martins has been studying meteorites for a few years now and seems to have found good evidence that they really contain amino acids and even nucleobases which might have had a major role in the establishment of life on Earth. Her team was able to prove that the samples were created out of the Earth because of enrichment in C13, as she explains in a very recent interview to channel4:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/basis+of+life+comes+from+stars/2286077
Or as published earlier in:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/amino+acids+found+in+meteorites/1780047
In parallel, there have been some recent changes in the believes of what made up the primordial soup. These apparently invalidate the studies which lead to the most common explanation that amino acids were created in the early Earth’s environment.
This allied to the confirmation that meteorites could have brought life’s building to Earth seem to indicate that live here had an alien origin.
For me this continues to bring up the same question, either here or out there, why suddenly some complex molecules formed? These findings might show that life is not an exclusive of Earth, however they don’t prove it. Because it still might be the case that only Earth had the proper environment for the development of life as we know it, though the building blocks might have come from abroad. Without knowing how those building blocks first came to being we have no idea how they got into the asteroids and whether other life forms might exist.
Just to make it very clear, I’m not an apologist of alien life forms, but neither do I deny their existence. Anyway, for me it is quite interesting that this was proven. I’m also very proud that it was done by someone I know and whom is not saying it just for the money or fame, it’s because the research has lead to this conclusion.
I feel the universe is too big for us to be the only life forms in it; however I don’t feel a bit worried if we somehow descend from other life forms. I believe there is a high probability that the differences and the distances are huge.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/z.martins
Zita Martins has been studying meteorites for a few years now and seems to have found good evidence that they really contain amino acids and even nucleobases which might have had a major role in the establishment of life on Earth. Her team was able to prove that the samples were created out of the Earth because of enrichment in C13, as she explains in a very recent interview to channel4:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/basis+of+life+comes+from+stars/2286077
Or as published earlier in:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/amino+acids+found+in+meteorites/1780047
In parallel, there have been some recent changes in the believes of what made up the primordial soup. These apparently invalidate the studies which lead to the most common explanation that amino acids were created in the early Earth’s environment.
This allied to the confirmation that meteorites could have brought life’s building to Earth seem to indicate that live here had an alien origin.
For me this continues to bring up the same question, either here or out there, why suddenly some complex molecules formed? These findings might show that life is not an exclusive of Earth, however they don’t prove it. Because it still might be the case that only Earth had the proper environment for the development of life as we know it, though the building blocks might have come from abroad. Without knowing how those building blocks first came to being we have no idea how they got into the asteroids and whether other life forms might exist.
Just to make it very clear, I’m not an apologist of alien life forms, but neither do I deny their existence. Anyway, for me it is quite interesting that this was proven. I’m also very proud that it was done by someone I know and whom is not saying it just for the money or fame, it’s because the research has lead to this conclusion.
I feel the universe is too big for us to be the only life forms in it; however I don’t feel a bit worried if we somehow descend from other life forms. I believe there is a high probability that the differences and the distances are huge.
2 comments:
eu tb não acredito em bruxas, mas que as há, há!
vou ser sincero, cansa um bocadinho ter de ler tudo em inglês... de certeza q a maioria dos teus leitores nao são tugas?
para já não tenho muitos leitores, mas há aqui colegas da universidade a quem envio os posts também...
de qualquer forma o objectivo é fazer-me escrever, mas é bom que seja em inglês porque preciso de praticar...
se calhar a minha escrita é que é cansativa...
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