NASA Discovers Life's Building Block In Comet

xp65 writes "NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. 'Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet,' said Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.'"

How sure?

[Hammer]

Are we sure it is not an alien spaceship ?

Glycine Deficiency

[Falstaft]

Strange, we think that a comet wiped out the dinosaurs, and yet another comet like this one could sustain the glycine-deficient dinosaurs at Jurassic Park!

Again?

[SnarfQuest]

Don't they make a claim like this every other week? It isn't getting any more interesting. Elements of life found in an old pile of pancakes left behind in an abandoned nuclear power plant, now that would be interesting.

Anticlimactic

[ayahner]

So now we know

• the building blocks of life can come in from external sources
• Earth/Sun relationship isn't likely the "perfect" ecosystem for sustainence of carbon based organic life forms

Obviously, the discovery of sentient life "abroad" is going to be anticlimactic now.

Way to ruin it.

Re:Where did that stuff come from?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That only works on intelligent falling [theonion.com] theorists.

We may have sent men into space

[Big Hairy Ian]

but the prime constituent of the soya bean got their 1st. Just one small fart for man one giant harumph for mankind

What's all this I must wait & try again stuff about did someone /. /.?

Re:Tin Foil Hat

[Miros]

Quick! We've got to try to render this planet as depleted and undesirable as possible as swiftly as we can...

Re:Again?

[ionix5891]

Ha!

q: Whats the difference between average slashdotter and average comet?

a: one gets to spread its "life's building blocks" around

Re:Glycine isn't that complex

[ae1294]

It's not that complicated. Shouldn't we be waiting to get excited about something more complex?

Yeah, I'm waiting for: 'Scientist find building blocks for taco's in comet, decide to build lunch.'

What they did not tell you.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Glycine is the only thing they are willing to admit. NASA believes the world is not in a position to digest, (ha, ha) the more significant finding in the comet: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Re:Sci-fi

[jeffshoaf]

only thing we're missing from most plots is a hive mind!

Don't Rush Limbaugh fans qualify?

Aren't these people supposed to be scientists???

[ewenix]

Seriously...

Apparently they can't be bothered to pick up a textbook and learn that Redi and Pasteur proved it doesn't work like that a couple hundred years ago.
It's call the law of biogenesis.
Stop spending tax dollars trying to prove your Theory when there is already a scientific law disproving it.
If you want to spend your own money on it fine, just stop spending mine on your junk 'science.'

Re:Again?

[Comatose51]

We spread "life's building blocks" around too. It's just that there's no fertile "tracts of land" to receive them.

Re:Sci-fi

[geekoid]

he said "Hive Mind".

Re:Again?

[BradleyAndersen]

Clearly I am getting them all :(. I am now on my 5th batch of mod points in 2 weeks. grrr ...

Hoffa?

[crrkrieger]

When I first read the headline, I saw "NASA Discovers Life's Building Blocks in Cement". I figured they had found Jimmy Hoffa.

Re:Tin Foil Hat

[tool462]

So what you're saying is that we only have a 25% chance of being able to digest the alien species, but a 75% chance of being able to use them as a calorie-free artificial sweetener?

Queue the countdown to NutraSweet funding the SETI program in 3...2...1..