Cosmic 'Booze' Created In Quantum Brewery 52
astroengine writes "The intense cold of interstellar space shouldn't be conducive to chemical reactions between methanol and hydroxyl radicals — two molecules that are known to exist in stellar nurseries and cold interstellar clouds — and yet the product of this reaction, methoxy radicals, are found in abundance throughout the universe. What is creating them? In a paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry (abstract), Dwayne Heard and colleagues from the University of Leeds think that interstellar alcohol is undergoing a destruction mechanism facilitated by a weird quantum effect known as tunneling. On encountering hydroxyl radicals, methanol molecules should be repelled by the electrostatic force. But at very low temperatures, when both chemicals are mixed in a cold gaseous state, quantum tunneling becomes extremely efficient at allowing chemical reactions to occur. The researchers write: 'at temperatures relevant to the interstellar medium, almost every collision between methanol and OH (hydroxyl) would result in a successful reaction to form CH3O (methoxy).' What's more, they find that the reaction rate is 50 times higher in the cold interstellar environment than it is at room temperature. 'If our results continue to show a similar increase in the reaction rate at very cold temperatures, then scientists have been severely underestimating the rates of formation and destruction of complex molecules, such as alcohols, in space,' said Heard."
Re:Booze? (Score:5, Informative)
./ editors have a special liver that can process it.
If memory serves, the trick to avoiding ill effects with methanol is to not process it. Methanol itself isn't that nasty, with initial effects approximately equivalent to the same amount of ethanol(so you can drink yourself to death; but it takes some work); but you metabolize it into delicious formic acid, which proceeds to do you no good at all. If you can avoid metabolizing it, you'll excrete it reasonably quickly without substantial further harm.
Fomepizole is the fancy, expensive, science-tastic alcohol dehydrogenase competitive inhibitor; Ethanol is the more common and well loved one.
Re:More complex molecules? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.kurzweilai.net/dna-and-amino-acid-precursor-molecules-discovered-in-interstellar-space [kurzweilai.net]
To be exact, 'precusor' molecules were found so far. They have like half of complexity of what we are talking about, which makes it quite probable that amino acids are out there.
But there is a far way from single particle of adenine to DNA chain. (a lot, lot further than from single atoms flying in space to group of 7or so atoms in adenine). And then there is a mystery of DNA/RNA replicating with help of cellular structures which themselves are encoded in DNA...
It is a bit like throwing a CD with cd-ripper program on top of pile of pure silicon wafers, hoping that somehow they will turn into PC with CD drive, read the program and start copying the CD around.