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Science

Amino Acids Created in Deep-Space-Like Environment 224

Posted by michael from the purple-rain dept.
klevin writes "NASA scientists today announced the creation of amino acids, critical for life, in an environment that mimics deep space. The above link is the press release, with additional details here."
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Amino Acids Created in Deep-Space-Like Environment More

Amino Acids Created in Deep-Space-Like Environment

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  • soo... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:23AM (#3238993)
    does his mean my chances for finding an alien hotty, ala kirk, have just gone way up?

  • Haven't I seen this before? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by !ramirez ( 106823 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:25AM (#3239001)
    Isn't this similar to what Stanley Miller and Harold Urey found in the 1960's with their spark-chamber experiment? While this seems to be stellar in nature, how much different is UV photolysis from electrical discharge as far as chemical reactions go?
    • The spark-chamber experiments simulated conditions on earth. Warm, wet with an atmosphere. These show amino acids can be created in space. Cold vacuum filled with nasty radiation.

      Chemically it's the same - you're making the same compounds from the same ingredients. Physically it seems pretty similar too. Put lots of energy in to break everything apart and hope the bits come together in the right way with a means to carry off the excess energy (so the acids stay together)
      • The spark-chamber experiments simulated conditions on earth. Warm, wet with an atmosphere.

        The original Miller-Urey showed that the basic components could be formed in a reducing environment containing some basic gasses/liquids (ammonia, CO2, etc) with repeating spark catalyst. It is the reducing environment that the is key here ...

        =Sean
        • The big difference here is that the conditions were taken to be solid ices (ammonia, etc.), whereas in the Miller-Urey experiment, the conditions were taken to be typical of primordinal planetary atmospheres. Astronomers believe such ices commonly form around dust grains in molecular clouds in interstellar space, which are known to act as catalysts for many other types of molecules. Naturally, the densities of the gases and liquids in the Miller-Urey experiment vastly exceed those in interstellar space by many orders of magnitude.

          Now, even though it is novel to see amino acids under such conditions, we should hasten before we leap to any conclusions related to life on Earth or other planets. Dust grains live a very harsh life, even in relatively cold, dense molecular clouds. And then every so often, a shock passes by and will tend to strip the grains of their mantles. Finally, if they survive all of that, they may eventually make their way into a protoplanetary nebula around a star, get smacked together to form protoplanets, and eventually planets like the Earth. It is most unlikely that volatile organic molecules would survive that process. On the other hand, they could be incorporated into comets in the outer reaches of stellar systems, and survive relatively intact, though again subject to the harsh conditions of space.

          Bob
          • Now, even though it is novel to see amino acids under such conditions, we should hasten before we leap to any conclusions related to life on Earth or other planets. Dust grains live a very harsh life, even in relatively cold, dense molecular clouds. And then every so often, a shock passes by and will tend to strip the grains of their mantles. Finally, if they survive all of that, they may eventually make their way into a protoplanetary nebula around a star, get smacked together to form protoplanets, and eventually planets like the Earth. It is most unlikely that volatile organic molecules would survive that process. On the other hand, they could be incorporated into comets in the outer reaches of stellar systems, and survive relatively intact, though again subject to the harsh conditions of space.

            While the part about their harsh conditions is true, there is still an enormous chance for the survival of these dust grains. This is why meteors that strike the Earth contain a veritable wealth of amino acids. If what you said was correct, we would be hard-pressed to find anything in the chunks of space-rock.

            Not only do the amino acids survive the rough conditions of space, but they also survive the harrowing trip through our atmosphere, which I think says something.

      • Put lots of energy in to break everything apart and hope the bits come together in the right way with a means to carry off the excess energy (so the acids stay together)

        And if they don't come all the way apart, how do you know?

        Every square centimeter of every piece of lab equipment everywhere on the planet is covered in bacteria and virii. Merely killing the little critters is not enough for this type of experiment to be valid. Their bodies must be done away with. All amino acid and amino acid fragments must be removed. Not 99% removed. Not 99.9999% removed. Everything must be gone. Otherwise, all you're showing is that:

        Raw material + energy + amino acids -> amino acids

        instead of

        Raw material + energy -> amino acids

        Until all organic compounds are removed from the system (which we can't do), claims of creating spontaneous amino acids are invalid. In fact, the only thing that these experiments demonstrate is how difficult it is to wipe them out.

        • Every square centimeter of every piece of lab equipment everywhere on the planet is covered in bacteria and virii. Merely killing the little critters is not enough for this type of experiment to be valid. Their bodies must be done away with...Until all organic compounds are removed from the system (which we can't do), claims of creating spontaneous amino acids are invalid.
          Valid results can still be achieved without pristine conditions. This is why running a "control" is essential in experimentation. Take 20 apparatus, and clean them of amino acids as best we can. Take 10, and test them for amino acid levels. This is our control, and establishes a baseline level for amino acids after our cleaning. Run the experiment in the other 10 apparatus, and then test them for amino acid levels. Do your statistical analysis, get your confidence levels, and you've got valid results.

          Chris Beckenbach

    • Similar, more important (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:53AM (#3239114) Homepage
      There is a great deal of doubt whether the mixture of gases used in this experiment actually existed on earth: it assumes a reducing atmosphere, among other things that geology does not tell us.

      More than one geologist, in fact, has noted that the only reason that they believe that there ever was a reducing atmosphere on Earth is because life is obviously here and the basic building blocks couldn't form in the presence of Oxygen.

      At the same time, however, those amino acids couldn't form without the presence of an ozone layer--which requires free oxygen.

      This is interesting and intriguing because it shows how these blocks could form in deep space and then arrive on Earth--since we already know that they can remain intact in their descent through the atmosphere.

      It still doesn't even come *close* to answer the criticisms levied against abiogenesis (the formation of proteins, functional alleles, &c), but it is interesting and extremely significant over the Urey-Miller experiment.
      • If you had amino acids forming in deep ocean, then the lack of ozone layer wouldn't be a problem, would it? (honest question, sorry it can be read as rhetorical) As for the high oxygen levels in our atmosphere, is it possible that life is necessary to do that? I'm no chemist, but it's my understanding that oxygen is highly reactive, and thus incredibly good at 'oxidizing' (pun intended) things. It strikes me as odd that any planet would have a significant amount of O2 without some process putting it there (just like Cl2 isn't abundant). Thus it would stand to reason that on possible reason life spent so long in the oceans was because that the life in the ocean had to liberate enough O2 to get an ozone layer set up. It's my understanding, also, that the organism's work would simply be undone as the chemicals were released when it died. Thus, the formation of large carbon deposits (read: coal, oil, natural gas, and that methane impregnated ice) may have played a critical role in cooling the planet down; that is, assuming that the sun's temperature hasn't varied a whole lot over the past billion years or so (unlikely).

        Just the musings of a college student who really should be sleeping.

        BlackGriffen
    • For more information on Miller and prebiotic Earth, here is a quotation from an Angew. Chem. review article by Kay Severin called Hot Stones or Cold Soup? New Investigations on the Endogenous Origin of Organic Compounds on Earth (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed 2000, 39, No. 20). It pretty much sums up the Miller reactions, why they're wrong, and what people think now:

      "The most famous experiment ... was carried out almost fifty years ago by Stanley L. Miller, at that time a PhD student in the group of Harold Urey in Chicago. Miller was able to show that electric discharges in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water led to the formation of significant amounts of various amino acids. Experiments of this kind were repeated in numerous variants. If reducing gases were employed mixtures of organic compounds of low molecular weight could be detected in many cases. This has led to the popular idea that the primordial ocean resembled a nutritious soup.

      "But the possibility that earth once had a reducing atmosphere is questioned. A well known argument against it is the high photolability of methane and ammonia. Because a shielding layer of ozone was missing a high concentration of these gases is believed to be unlikely. Furthermore, several other results point to a neutral atmosphere of CO2 and N2. Given the fact that the atmosphere was based on an unproductive mixture of CO2 and N2 the nutritional value of the primordial ocean drops significantly.

      "An alternative scenario has been propagated for several years by [Gunter] Wachterhauser. Instead of a primordial soup he favors hot minerals as the place where organic molecules were initially built as life subsequently emerged. Especially sulfur-containing minerals like pyrite are proposed to have acted as an energy source and catalyst both under the extreme conditions found in hydrothermal or volcanic vents."

      Basically, primordial soup syntheses (like Miller's reactions) are out and hot rock syntheses are in. These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them. For instance, people, headed by Wachterhauser, have figured out how to carbon fixate (condense) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into organic building blocks for amino acids. For instance, in early 2000, Chen and Bahnemann were able to convert CO2 and water to small organics (acetaldehyde, ethanol, acetic acid) at high pressures and temperatures. Similarly, people have figured out how to take amino acids and convert them into peptides under high temperature and pressure situations.

      However, to date no one has been able to actually make an amino acid through these techniques. As a result, the proof that amino acids were delivered by comets or meteorites (true fact, this is not an x-file) and now space dust, becomes much more appealing. Once the building blocks arrived on Earth, these hot rock syntheses could have taken over.

      • These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them.

        Amazingly, the amino acids figured out how to build people several million years ago.
    • Comments like this (and its replies) are why I continue to read Slashdot despite all its warts. I can count on at least one insightful, indepth, cogent question, commentary, or correction on significant science or technology stories.

      Mark me offtopic, thanks. I need a reason to earn more karma since I'm stuck at 50.But I just have to express my gratitude to ontopic posters on every story that add more depth and intelligent commentary than I could get from any other media source. It's worth putting up with the trolls and whiners just to read intelligent, cogent discourse about sci/tech news stories. And invariably there'll be a story where I can offer the same, based on my own areas of expertise.

      And finally, to stay on topic, how do these results bear on the theories that DNA first evolved as a result of clay formations that allowed chain-like molecules to aggregate due to the clays' microscopic self-organisation of surface structures? It seemed to me that this was the catalyst for the formation of amino acids and DNA/RNA. Now that's all called into question.

      Great story, great comments. All around thought provoking.

      Also, [how or] can we do spectroscopic analyses to find amino acids in the matter surrounding other star systems? That would be a fascinating next line of inquiry.

      And finally, if I weren't reading /. drunk, I might phrase my questions better... OK, for that reason alone I'm checking off the "No score +1 bonus" here.

  • Why? (Score:5, Funny)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:25AM (#3239007)
    This is mildly cool, but honestly it's done all the time by companies like TwinLab who sell them to body builders in little glass jars.

    Why bother growing them in space when you can bring them with you? Sounds like NASA is taking the long way around.

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Funny)

      by soulsteal ( 104635 )

      It's not about use with space exploration. It's about being prepared for what's to come during said exploration. If amino acids can form in deep space, then the conditions might also be right for things like proteins to assemble. Basic building blocks of life could be right around the celestial corner. They could even be leading to life forms.



      I'm just hoping there's nothing out there that demands that we call it Xenu\Linux.

  • I can create them here (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:26AM (#3239010)
    I can create them there.
    I can create them anywhere!

    I will not evolve them in a house
    I will not evolve them with a mouse
    I do not like space genes of man
    I do not like them Sam I am.
  • Yeah, so does this make more likely that we'll find extraterrestrial intelligences? I mean, we can't restrict out searches to just planets now.
  • I think this is proof against one of the arguments creationist wackos have been making for quite a long time. They always ask how can life be created out of nothing.. I seem to remember reading a while ago that another scientist conducted an experiment in which he applied electricity to a sort of cocktail of chemicals and he also managed to create amino acids- though admitedly this was not in a vacuum. Can't find a link, unfortunately.

    • Re:Another blow against creationists (Score:5, Informative)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:39AM (#3239054) Homepage
      Prefix: I am not a Creationist.

      "I think this is proof against one of the arguments creationist wackos have been making for quite a long time"

      Actually this does nothing of the sort.

      What this shows is that the basic components of life--Amino Acids--/can/ be generated in a deep space environment. Whoop de do. The argument against abiogenisis (chemical evolution) stems from the following:

      1) Probability versus chance of creating functional proteins. We don't know what this is, but we do know that it is incredibly small. The probability is so small, in fact, that no number of trials that could have occurred within the lifespan of the universe would be sufficient.

      2) The number of mutations it takes to create a functional allele (what gives us different characteristics) is a *massive* number. The number of mutations it takes to make a functional allele "nonfunctional" is *one*.

      3) It takes millions of mutations to create a hox gene. The number it takes to take one out is *trivial* by comparison.

      This does not make the creationist argument correct, but it doesn't mean that this evidence of where Amino Acids can or cannot form lends credence to abiogenesis to the degree or diversity of life that we see.
      • It is ridiculous to debate the existence of evolution today. We see it all around us, with bacteria and such becoming resistant to antibiotics. The fossil record supports it, genetics supports it, as does virtually every other realm of science. But as per your #1 comment, particularly the last bit, is bull. In some bacteria, generations can be measured in seconds, or less. Within a few generations - a few seconds - they can evolve to become resistant or immune to antibiotics or certain bacteriophages. Life on Earth is said to have began around 4, to some estimates as far back as 5, billion years ago. I'm not going to calculate how many seconds there are in 4 billion years, but it's quite a lot. Just one bacterium producing just one offspring for that entire timespan would probably be in the hundreds of trillions, perhaps more. But that's not the way it works, is it? Multiply that by a hundred billion for every member of that species. All of them mutating, evolving, etc. I don't even know the name for that number. Then consider how many entities there are on Earth. It multiples, and multiplies, and multiplies, again and again and again. As per 2, couldn't it also be said that it only takes one gene to create a functional allele from a nonfunctional one? But taking away a gene doesn't always destroy a nonfunctional allele. It sometimes makes a variation, a mutation, that works. And that is how evolution works. As per 3, see 1. There are uncountable multiples of a million right there. Also, your whole post can be discredited based upon the fact that you know not what abiogenesis means. Abiogenesis is the spontaneous formation of life from a primordial soup. Not evolution. Abiogenesis is not factual, but it holds a great deal more credence than creationism, or any other theory for that matter. But evolution, sir, is an empirical fact.

        • Re:Another blow against creationists (Score:4, Insightful)

          by On Lawn ( 1073 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @03:56AM (#3239462) Journal
          It is ridiculous to debate the existence of evolution today.

          Somehow I doubt that will stop you from doing it anyway.

          We see it all around us, with bacteria and such becoming resistant to antibiotics. The fossil record supports it, genetics supports it, as does virtually every other realm of science.

          Congradulations. You slayed a strawman by lumping several different empirical datasets that record several different kinds of changes in several different kinds of organisms into one very vague term, "evolution". Empiricaly all one can probably grasp from that is that things change, but I suppose that doesn't stop you from reaching for so much more.

          In some bacteria, generations can be measured in seconds, or less. Within a few generations - a few seconds - they can evolve to become resistant or immune to antibiotics or certain bacteriophages.

          Bacteria have many mechanisms to support change, mostly from incorprating or jumping genes more than random "mutation", but that isn't important now. The poster is pointing out the statistical probability of the random production of the building blocks of life. Since it is not alive, it does not take advantage of the intelligent (although not entirely controlled) gene splicing that Bacteria and viruses use to propegate changes.

          Life on Earth is said to have began around 4, to some estimates as far back as 5, billion years ago.

          Again, I think you jumped off the mark early and throught your post. He's talking about the mechanisms that existed to create life, not change it.

          As per 2, couldn't it also be said that it only takes one gene to create a functional allele from a nonfunctional one?

          Here is another example of over-reaching pseudo-science. This is not a symetrical relation between a one-away allele and a functional allele. Assuming that a non-functioning allele is one gene away from functioning, the probability of out of all the random gene changes that it occurs is astronomicaly low. However, the likely hood out of all the possible changes of making a change in a functioning alelle to render it non-functioning actually pretty high.

          But taking away a gene doesn't always destroy a nonfunctional allele. It sometimes makes a variation, a mutation, that works. And that is how evolution works.

          I've not seen any flying pigs over Chernobyl, super-humans, or new species for that matter. As was brought to my attention long ago on Slashdot, there have never been any observed beneficial random mutations. Subjecting thousands on thousands of grasshoppers to radiation never once produced a beneficial mutation. Changes occur, and mutations occur, but only when they occur along certain natural laws do they produce a limited beneficial result. Check out the "Observed Speciation" page and with some luck you'll find out what the common thread is.

          Now, lets end this with my favorite non-sequiter...

          Also, your whole post can be discredited based upon the fact that you know not what abiogenesis means. Abiogenesis is the spontaneous formation of life from a primordial soup. Not evolution. Abiogenesis is not factual, but it holds a great deal more credence than creationism, or any other theory for that matter. But evolution, sir, is an empirical fact.

          Yet the person you are disagreeing with (as far as I can tell) was talking about the [p]robability versus chance of creating functional proteins. . Sounds like he understood quite well.
          • As was brought to my attention long ago on Slashdot, there have never been any observed beneficial random mutations.


            And whoever said that then is as wrong as you repeating it now. Plenty of beneficial mutations have been observed. Simple example: a bacteria evolving resistance to a drug is certainly beneficial to the bacteria.

            More complex example: there's a cluster of people in rural Italy that have developed a gene that gives them dramatically lower cholesterol levels, thus improving their health. Analysis of genological records show that this cluster are all descended from one person, born about 150 years ago. That person evidently got what can only be considered a beneficial mutation from one of this parents.

            • Correction: it wasn't 150 years ago, it was 220 years ago. His name was Giovanni Pomaroli. A popularized account of the research may be found here [usatoday.com].
            • Plenty of beneficial mutations have been observed.

              Peace my paranoid friend, no one is arguing that there have been no beneficial changes to genetic code. You can save your energy on that strawman.

              However, evidence shows that there are rules guiding those changes as brought about by jumping gene, gene survival and other theories, and by every-day live occurances like the existance of heterogeneous-sexes and their reproduction. Changes happen becuase it is built into the genetic code for them to happen. Rarely if at all (and never observed) have random mutations produced outside of these procedures been beneficial.
        • Another poster has done a fabulous job of critiquing your post, so I'll leave the vast majority of it alone--partly because it is too much of a pain to break down without carriage returns.

          Anyways, just one question for you.

          Where in this universe did you get the idea that I was critiquing micro or macro evolution?

          I was discussing abiogenesis, also known as Chemical Evolution.

          The proper order is read /then/ write.

      • Prefix: I am not a Creationist.

        "I think this is proof against one of the arguments creationist wackos have been making for quite a long time"

        Actually this does nothing of the sort.

        I think it does. He's not saying it will prove or disprove creationism, but merely shatter a crutch that they rely on. I can't tell you how many countless arguments I've gotten into with creationists where they fall back on, "Well, we haven't figured out how to make amino acids. So nyeh."
      • I don't have the references handy, but IIRC, recently a whole class of organic, self-replicating molecules has been found, and they aren't that hard to make under the conditions most scientists believe the primordial earth had. The argument posited is that these simple molecules could easily have been the chemical starting point, eg. there was enough raw material for these molecules to form, and to reproduce themselves. They also have a relatively high probability of mutation and some of those mutations are non-destructive...

        Now, they may not be functional proteins, nor DNA, or even genes, but it sounds like these molecules just might be the chemical starting point.

    • creationist wackos ... always ask how can life be created out of nothing.

      Not really. Creationists invented the idea -- creatio ex nihilo, it's called, the belief that God created everything from nothing. It's the evolutionary theories that require prior material to work with.

      In any case, scientists have been creating amino acids in laboratory settings for decades. Amino acids are not life; merely a requisit building block for it. Scientists still have not managed to create life in a test tube. When they do, then you can wave it in the creationists' faces.


    • I already replied to one of these 'out of the blue' jabs, but it was lost - so here it is again for this other jab.

      So we create a certain environment that allows for certain amino acids to be detected, nevermind that you fail to mention WHICH amino acids. They reported that they were only able to detect glycine, alanine, and serine. Wow! Shebang! Huzzah! We have these three amino acids, this MUST mean that humans have evolved from some frozen water containing some basic molecules that was hit with some radiation into the extremely advanced and complex organisms that we are today; and that someway, somehow this little bit of water, radiation, and other basic molecules have given us emotions, cognitive proactive and reactive thoughts and actions, and intelligent analysis and thinking processes. The answer is most definitely here! Let us all succumb to these amazing amino acids and praise them for our existance (not to mention the at least 17 other amino acids that are critical for human existance).

  • Come on (Score:1, Insightful)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 )
    Do we really need to waste time "competing" with religion to "prove" evolution?

    Why can't we concentrate on science that matters. If they want to believe some fairy tale about a magical man with a long white beard that had a busy week, let them!
  • Until they under the same conditions:
    1) create a protein
    2) create a cell
    3) make it a living cell.

    Also notice that the headline used the word created?
    • created?

      Nothing is created or destroyed, at least I don't think we have found anything basic that is yet (matter, energy, etc). So far the universe has been pretty zero sum.

      Of course, if I bake a cake, I created the cake. If simulate a natural environment, and a cake forms, I have a pretty good arugment that cakes can form spontaneously in nature.
    • There are numerous groups working toward the synthesis of de novo single-celled organisms. I can't wait to hear the creationist-back-pedalling when they meet your three above-stated criteria. What will you resort to then?
    • My god, what is it with you people? Every time science makes a step, you say you won't be impressed until we create our own little terrarium of Bernie Goetz's out of moldy potato chips.

      What you neglect to realize is that we keep coming closer to discovering the beginnings of life every day.

      First we think evolution may explain our development. Understandably, many people were questionable. Then we start figuring out how these leaps could have been made. Not good enough yet, so we explain, and demonstrate, how the leaps can be made on a macroscopic level (please refer to previous /. story). Still not good enough? Now we've managed to create amino acids from the same conditions the Earth was in while it was forming.

      Can't you see that you're clinging to a defense that's being, not whittled away, but lopped off in huge blocks almost every month? Save yourself some goddamned face, already.

    • Who says life started out as protiens and cells? Most biologists these days think it started out as something far simpler, perhaps just a few molecules capable of replicating themselves.

      Also notice that the headline used the word created?

      The right conditions (which happen to be quite common in deep space) were created (simulated?), and the amino acids formed.

      I'm fairly impressed by this, it seems like quite a blow to all of the creationist's arguments against a natural origin for life.

    • There's no pleasing some people. Let's examine your three criteria for impressiveness...

      Protein. Yeah, that'd be cool. But a protein is a string of amino acids. Chances are if you've got zillions of the buggers zipping around inside a gas cloud billions of kilometres across, then proteins are probably above our heads as we speak. Sadly, I don't think the Ames research facility has that much space, nor the millions of years needed to simulate how it'd actually happen.

      Cell . They've made buckyballs, which are cells for helium atoms. That do?

      Living cell. Just be clear: you won't be impressed by any intermediate steps; you'll just sit up and take notice when they've created life? What then? You won't be amazed until they teach it to play the piano?

      WRT 'create': I noticed. I didn't care. I never assumed that it meant that they'd made their acids from zero-point energy; I doubt anyone else did either.

    • >Until they under the same conditions:
      >1) create a protein
      >2) create a cell
      >3) make it a living cell.

      One thing to keep in mind about that argument is that the earth's surface is around 509,600,000,000,000 square meters. Some significant fraction of these square meters would contain pools or patches of primordial soup, mud, or a nice combination of these, and from time to time some of them would exchange fluids. If you think of the emergence of life-supporting materials, leading to membranes, then a kind of, shall we say, embellished membranes, then to cells, then to life, as a brute force search, this many pools gives you a lot of processing power. Then you let the process run for a billion years or so; that is a lot of processing time.

      Granted, you're not going to have Cleopatra springing perfectly formed out of one of these pools just as you reach the one billion year mark, but it's highly likely that something interesting will happen given all that time with all that parallel processing.

      I think some people underestimate the significance of a billion years.
  • Amino acids are very simple molecules. They can be as simple as 9 total atoms, composed only of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon. It's not very difficult to create a random number generator which can make all 9 character long sequences of 4 symbols. It doesn't make it alive.

    Show me self-replicating cells synthesized in deep space and then I'll be impressed.

    • Re:It don't mean much (Score:5, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @02:15AM (#3239180)
      Show me self-replicating cells synthesized in deep space and then I'll be impressed.

      Scotty:Cap'n... there's a mighty strange cloud in our path, dead ahead.
      Kirk:Put it on the viewport... Give me maximum magnification.
      Scotty:Aye.... what the?
      Kirk:Spock?
      Spock:Sensors indicate that it is a mass of self-replicating cells synthesized in deep space.
      Bones:Impressive.
      Kirk:Scotty, set a course for that cloud. Have two redshirts meet us at the transporter room. I - want - to - find - out - what - that thing is made of.
      Scotty:Aye aye, cap'n.

    • Show me self-replicating cells synthesized in deep space and then I'll be impressed.


      Or more likely, you'll just raise the bar.

  • If you follow the second link [nasa.gov], there's another link to a page of quotes [nasa.gov] from the team that wrote the paper.

    Scroll to the bottom of the page for a very memorable quote from Dr Max Bernstein [astrochem.org], a chemist at NASA & the SETI Institute:
    I am the lizard queen!
    • Oooo, computers can do that?

      Ever notice how much the Simpsons wind up tripping? This season they are going to have a whole episode on legalizing pot too. Glad to see at least some of the mainstream media isn't sold out to the government FUD machine.

  • It's just the next few steps... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bioart ( 256479 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:55AM (#3239122)
    This isn't that much different from the original experiments... The interesting part is what comes next (or before)

    There is a huge difference between individual amino acids and polymers, and it's a whole new ballpark when we start talking about self-replicating systems. It does no good to have proteins that cannot replicate (and thus, they cannot reproduce what just happened randomly).

    I personally like the idea of the RNA world first. Basically, we had nucleotides (building blocks of RNA (or DNA)) and they coded for themselves and also catalyzed their replication. RNA has been shown to be catalytic and it can probably do it a lot easier than amino acids can. In fact the replication machinery has a lot of RNA in it, besides the proteins that drive it. The thought is that the proteins are relatively new and somehow replaced older RNAs that used to do the work.

    It kinda makes sense since the RNA (or DNA) code for the kinds of proteins (or RNA/DNAs) that will be built. How could you code for proteins if the RNA machinery wasn't already there?

    I would like to see nucleotides been created randomly (I believe it has been done at least with primitive sugars, but don't remember where I read it) (and created is a misnomer, I prefer "assembled") and then take it from there.

    We may be missing the boats by concentrating on the proteins...

    DrArt

  • NASA shows (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by dfenstrate ( 202098 )
    That God is dead.
    And No one cares.

    Well, maybe not. What follows is my own ideas. But is it possible, you think, that there were just enough chances among all the similar (to earth) worlds orbiting the billions of stars out there, that life would have spontaneously formed, and gotten to the point where we are, out of pure luck? NASA seems to suggest it's possible.

    Can you live with the notion that our world- and you- exist without any divine reason- and that our time here is ours to do with as we please? That you need to find your own reason to go from day to day, if you feel you need a reason? That there is no plan God has laid out for you to follow, no mission here for you to complete, other than what you assign yourself?

    Personally, I'm fine with that. Lately I've been fairly aethestic- of course, I could be wrong- any thoughts?
    • I guess most people think that if intelligent alien life is ever discovered, that creationists will collectively throw up their hands and say, "welp I don't believe in God any more!"

      Creationists will tell you that God chose not to reveal many things. God didn't tell us we were composed of atoms, yet we when the discovery was made did people stop believing?

      If intelligent aliens are discovered, then believers will simply add that to the list of things that were never explicitly revealed.

      Personally, I think it would be rather narrow minded to think that the earth was the only host of created life in the universe.

      I guess it is pretty much axiomatic that upon each new scientific discovery, some people will say it disproves creationism, and others will say it supports it.

    • This is what agnosticism's all about.

      In the end, we really won't ever know if some deity exists. It's just not possible. We could create life ourselves, prove evolution, have infinite longevity, etc., but we won't ever *truly* know. So why spend your life following something devoutly, or why pick a side when it's all conjecture?

      I mean, religion has its benefits, but I really wish some people would seriously lighten up about the whole religion thing. You can claim to "know" the answer all you want, but it doesn't make it true.
    • atheism: if you are wrong that is your right. if you are right that is your wrong.

      count me in.

      thi

    • I just watched a movie where I guy kept saying "God is in the details". And that could be true.

      Some on this site seem to ignore the fact that amino and other such acids would have to of likely came from space in order to support the theory of evolution.

      As far as the notion that we only exist in all reality has no basis in religion. Many primative religions believed that people [not gods!] DID in fact come from the sky.

      This is true. We are aliens - the building blocks that make up the very cells in our body came from space. Early in the history of the solar system, when things were a little more chaotic, molecules and other refuse was planted on Earth. As the planets took order the showers of space garbage has slowed.

      For a nice narrative read "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan. The first six or seven chapters tell the story of early Earth. From this point of view it is completely possible for other 'earths' out there.

      But as far as religion, my strong scientific beliefs in evolution and the like don't mean that God doesn't exist. I won't fully justify my belief because it will be attacked from every angle. But those little amino and nucleic acids seem to incredible to understand. There is a complete mystery out there and we may never know everything or even 1% of what there is to know. To confirm or deny god is silly.

      God may have created others, but who is to say that he doesn't spend his time with us to? Who is to say he can't spend his time everywhere in the universe at once? Who is to say that he doesn't do anything unless he wants to, everything is set into motion and remains 'natural'? Who actually believes that scientology crap? [throwing that one out there]

      Philosophy can't say.

      Yes Virginia; there is a god!
    • That God is dead.

      Some could take it as evidence that a god was never involved in abiogeneis, but Nietzsche's silly quote about God being dead has nothing to do with this.

      And No one cares.

      Well, maybe not. What follows is my own ideas. But is it possible, you think, that there were just enough chances among all the similar (to earth) worlds orbiting the billions of stars out there, that life would have spontaneously formed, and gotten to the point where we are, out of pure luck?

      Think about this:

      Fill a box with a mix of 10,000 marbles of many colors, only add 100 of them that are red. Now close your eyes start taking them out five at a time. Only put back any red marbles that you find. Keep drawing from the box over and over.

      Here's where the connection comes in. That life would have developed to the stage we are at now on at least one planet in the universe is only "pure luck" in the sense that if you keep drawing from that box of marbles, you will eventually find yourself holding more than one red marble after a single draw.

      Does that still seem so "lucky" to you?
  • While it's simply amazing that they did this here on earth (sarcasm inserted here), anyone that's been paying attention to any of the major magazines should remember the big news about the "dirty ice" out in the Oort (sp) cloud and the "spectra indicating simple organic compounds" It doesn't take a whole heck of a lot to make a simple amino and there is a whole heck of a lot of energy and simple compounds being flung around out there.

  • Right and Left Handed Amino Acids (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dattaway ( 3088 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @02:08AM (#3239157) Homepage Journal
    It stated only left-handed amino acids are used on Earth. Know where I am going with this? So what happens when we meet people on another planet who use right-handed amino acids? Does this make 50% of extraterristrial life incompatible with us? What does this mean?

  • Interesting experiment, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cDarwin ( 161053 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @02:13AM (#3239177) Homepage
    Amino acids have already been detected [uc.edu] in a variety of space environments in our own solar system such as GMCs, meteorites and the oort cloud.


    It turns out that the basic building blocks of life are quite common.

  • Limitations (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Grummet ( 161532 )
    Most humans tend to have problems with perception (me included) that lead them to think that things are "impossible" because of their previous personal experience.
    This is particularly damaging when it happens with science because scientists make foregone conclusions about what is and is not possible and effectively limit the path toward a greater knowledge of the universe.

    Silly, really for any of us to be surprised by announcements like this.

    For me, anyway, the whole notion of life originating off this planet as being a preoccupation of many, and proclaimed impossibility as such, seems ridiculous.

    Why do things that are considered to be "alive" always have to follow earth-centric guidelines?

    I suspect that most of the life in the universe does not fall into the narrow spectrum we see here on this planet.

    Imagine believing a race horse with blinders on about his description of what is around him. His peripheral vision is shot so ...
    Anyway, I'd say most scientists are still refusing to take their blinders off.

    Maybe the amino acids in deep space experiments will bring this to the attention of some of them?

    i guess its not likely.
    oh well. back to my day job.

  • questioning extraterrestrial water (Score:3, Informative)

    by slinted ( 374 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @02:49AM (#3239280)
    Scientists seem to be working very hard to overturn the work done in the 50's and 60's that created the "primordial soup" picture of earth creating and sustaining life's building blocks until they started to self-assemble. Recent works have said that Earth received its water from comets, and now using this work we could hypothesize that these comets contained amino-acids which seeded Earth. The "lifes-source" pendulum is swinging towards the stars....but not all the way.

    Just this week Science News had a cover story [sciencenews.org] shining a wary eye on the theories [sigmaxi.org]concerning earth's water coming from comets instead of being here at the time of the planets formation. The gist lies in the isotope ratio of comets water being much to deut-heavy (evidenced by nasa's study of Halley, Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp [nasa.gov]) to have majorly contributed to earth's oceans, which are relatively deuterium free.

    Obivously, saying that earth's oceans aren't from comets doesn't mean that no space bourne amino acids contributed to life forming here, but the less we look to the heavens for water, the less we have to worry about what else they brought. With all the amazing diversity that scientists wholy agree evolved here on earth, why is it hard to accept that a similar process of ...chemical/biochemical selection created the building blocks of such life right here on earth.

  • I am not a creationist.

    Several posters have said this.

    I'll be charitable and guess that they are "Intelligent Design" advocates.

    How can we know that the odds against life occurring "are too great"? We are talking about a process we don't understand. Any guess regarding odds can only be a guess. And the fact of the matter is that we are all here... Ergo, life was created somehow or other. See TalkOrigins [talkorigins.org] for more on the odds of life et al).

    Conclusion 1: All the evidence is that life was created by natural processes. We don't know exactly how.

    Nothing in that precludes the existence of "god". If a natural process created life, then surely it would be "his" natural process...

    What IDer's attempt to argue is that the creation of life "requires" or "proves" not only (a) that god exists; but also (b) that he is a "conservative" christian god. It does nothing of the sort.

    If there was any scientific evidence whatsoever of "design" in the building blocks of life - as the IDer's favorite Michael Behe suggests - it would be like finding a black monolith on the moon (as in "2001"). Behe has found nothing of the sort.

    Conclusion 2: "Intelligent Design" theory goes nowhere (a) to proving the existence of god(s); or (b) to proving anything about his/her/its/their nature.

    PTET

  • Re:Big deal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by searleb ( 168974 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @03:37AM (#3239433) Homepage
    Nope. The point is gone. Proteins are just lots of amino acids, connected by single bonds. The hard part is getting all those constituent atoms to form into the relatively complex amino acids.

    As a protein/organic chemist, I say to you: why don't you try making that single bond? It's quite hard when you don't have a ribosome to do all the work for you.

    Stanley Miller has been making amino acids (granted, the wrong way) since 1955. And he didn't even have his doctorate yet. Raw amino acids are easy- what's difficult is selecting the proper stereochemistry (amino acids have mirror images which are chemically identical but structurally different- life only uses one of the two mirror images (enantiomers)). If you condense the wrong enantiomer, or both enantiomers simultaneously, you get garbage out. Same problem with nucleic acids to DNA. In the end, this report is plagued with the same problems that Stanley Miller faced in 1955, sorry kids, deep space (or almost every other non-biological natural chemical synthesis) doesn't care about symmetry.

    If you're interested in a brief history of Miller, why he's wrong, and what we think now, see my other post [slashdot.org].

    • Re:Big deal (Score:3, Informative)

      by searleb ( 168974 )
      However, recent research [cam.ac.uk]suggests that there is an excess of L-amino acids (the specific enantiomer used in life-proteins) in amino acids found in space, which further suggests that the shuttling of amino acids from space via meteorites and comets could have led to pre-biotic proteins on planet Earth.

      From the article:
      Recently it has been discovered that an excess of L-amino acids is present in the Murchison and Murray meteorites indicating that a preference for L-amino acids existed in solar system material before there was life on Earth. This supports an idea, first proposed by Rubenstein et al. (1983, Nature 306, 118), for an extraterrestrial origin for homochirality.

      In this model the action of circular polarized light on interstellar chiral molecules introduced a left handed excess into molecules in the material from which the solar system formed. ...

      If our own solar system formed in such a region of high circular polarization, it could have led to the excess of L-amino acids which we see in meteorites and to the homochirality of biological molecules. It is possible that without such a process operating it would not be possible for life to start. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence of life in the universe.
    • In the end, this report is plagued with the same problems that Stanley Miller faced in 1955, sorry kids, deep space (or almost every other non-biological natural chemical synthesis) doesn't care about symmetry.


      Did you read the link about chirality? They address this very issue off the "more questions" page. Here is the link. [nasa.gov]

  • ..that glycine, alanine and serine, the amino acids formed, are three of the smallest [fu-berlin.de] and structurally less energy-consuming amino acids?
  • Is the set of 17 amino acids in use on Earth-based life a privledged set? As in, are there any possible substitutes? Or could the set reasonably be expanded or contracted? I'm presuming size, composition, polarity and electronegativity are all limitations.

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