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NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

space.com

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Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#31

Post by danteembermage »

dragonquest wrote: post #27
danteembermage wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My religion has taught me there was alien life since I was a child. I was also taught that all humans and all animal life will be resurrected. It's not too hard to extrapolate that intelligent alien species, should they exist, would as well. So maybe the answer to your question is "It depends on the religion."

If you don't mind sharing and I mean this respectfully, could you inform us which religion is this?

I'm Mormon (or more pedantically I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) so kbutler caught me.

He's quoting from the Doctrine & Covenants (like the Pauline epistles in that they're letters written by someone claiming to speak messages from God, but not like them in that they were written in the 1830s and 40s in America) and it's this more modern scripture that tends to talk about these kind of things. Basically any decent religion will start out with "Be nice to your neighbors" but when you start asking "Why?" it is inevitable going to end up in a discussion about the nature of the universe and its the modern scripture that tends to crystallize that a bit.

The example I was thinking of: http://lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/29.23-26?lang=eng#...

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#32

Post by [deleted] »

po wrote: post #24

So one thing to keep in mind here is that according to NASA, the meteorite itself is generating these compounds: Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia,…

[deleted]

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#34

Post by abeppu »

I vaguely recall from highschool bio that the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that it's surprisingly easy to produce a lot of organic stuff by abiotic means. Does anyone with some real knowledge about this area care to explain how surprising this actually is?

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#35

Post by axusgrad »

Universe is only 13 billion years old, life on Earth started ~4.5 billion years ago, and the travel times are pretty long. Even if DNA came from outer space, it would have had to start somewhere. At some point it must have developed from inorganic components.

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#36

Post by DonnyV »

haakon wrote: post #22
xerxes2001 wrote: post #12

I should not have watched Falling Skies before reading this...

I should not have watched Falling Skies either, but mostly because it sucks so bad. :-(

WHAT!!! I have to say the show started out slow but it turned out really good.

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#37

Post by scott_s »

aab1d wrote: post #19
baxter wrote: post #5

The original NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorit...

Thanks for the link. Makes me wonder, if life did come from space then we will have to start exploring space more seriously. The possibility of a aliens existing somewhere else cannot be ignored any longer.

This HN thread links to an article that describes the enormous difficulties in interstellar travel: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#38

Post by ams6110 »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #10

My biggest fear is dying before mankind finds the definite scientific answer to death and our origin/s. We seem to be so near (~ one century away).

This is really your biggest fear? Or is that just a figure of speech. I'm genuinely curious, as while I think this "answer" might be intellectually satisfying to some degree, I see it as making little difference in practical matters.

I also think it's an answer that will never come. I don't see any inconsistency between a universe created by God and any scientific observations we make within that creation.

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#39

Post by hugh3 »

abeppu wrote: post #34

I vaguely recall from highschool bio that the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that it's surprisingly easy to produce a lot of organic stuff by abiotic means. Does anyone with some real knowledge about this area care to explain how surprising this actually is?

I would classify it as "not particularly".

Re: NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space

#40

Post by nikhilgk »

abeppu wrote: post #34

I vaguely recall from highschool bio that the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that it's surprisingly easy to produce a lot of organic stuff by abiotic means. Does anyone with some real knowledge about this area care to explain how surprising this actually is?

> lot of organic stuff

The organic compounds produced by the Miller Urey experiments were mostly amino acids and some sugars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment). These are the building blocks for most of the things that constitute a cell. This discovery may better our understanding of the origins of DNA and RNA - which are the blueprints for putting together the building blocks to make a cell.

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