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Date: 15 Aug 2007 20:50:59
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: From Space Dust to Spacefarers
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From Space Dust to Spacefarers
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/814/2
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
14 August 2007
Dirt that acts like DNA? Using computer simulations, a team of
physicists has shown that it's possible for dustlike particles to
divide, replicate, and even evolve. The findings hint at one way that
life could have gotten started on Earth, and even the incredible
although remote possibility that life--and perhaps
intelligence--could exist among the interstellar clouds of outer
space.
Conventional wisdom says life in the universe requires carbon and
liquid water. With these two simple necessities, life has crept into
just about every nook and cranny on Earth, from the scalding waters
of deep ocean vents to the underside of Antarctica's icy rocks. As a
consequence, scientists looking for extraterrestrial life have based
all of their searches and instruments on the existence of carbon
and--on Mars, for example--on minerals that only could have formed in
the presence of water.
Now comes the prospect that life might be able to evolve in an
astoundingly simple fashion. Reporting online in today's issue of the
New Journal of Physics, a team from Russia, Germany, and Australia
details how computer simulations of molecular dynamics can produce
conditions under which evolution appears to begin spontaneously. In
their simulations, free-floating molecules begin organizing into a
helixlike structure resembling DNA, and as time passes, more stable
molecular arrangements begin replacing less-stable versions. The
process proceeds, the authors say, because an electrical property
called polarization tends to organize the particles and reduce chaos,
much like tuning a radio to the proper frequency can produce clear
audio from the static. The findings are particularly intriguing, they
say, because molecular clouds are common across the universe, such as
in vast zones of dust among the stars of the Milky Way.
The research is sound and it suggests "a mechanism whereby organic
matter could assemble faster than in previous models," says plasma
physicist Mark Koepke of West Virginia University in Morgantown. The
shorter time could mean a greater probability that conventional life
exists elsewhere in the universe, he says.
However, astrobiologist Margaret Turnbull of the Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, cautions against
underestimating the critical role that water plays in life. Water is
"so fabulous for life" because it shields organic molecules "from the
electrical charges that would normally drive them apart." Although
the researchers may indeed have found another medium within which
complex molecules can interact in sophisticated ways, Turnbull says,
it remains to be seen whether the right conditions exist in space for
these structures to become "complex enough to seed life on young
planets."
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Date: 16 Aug 2007 00:38:29
From: Yepper
Subject: Re: From Space Dust to Spacefarers
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Sam Wormley wrote:
> From Space Dust to Spacefarers
> http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/814/2
>
> By Phil Berardelli
> ScienceNOW Daily News
> 14 August 2007
>
> Dirt that acts like DNA? Using computer simulations, a team of
> physicists has shown that it's possible for dustlike particles to
> divide, replicate, and even evolve. The findings hint at one way that
> life could have gotten started on Earth, and even the incredible
> although remote possibility that life--and perhaps
> intelligence--could exist among the interstellar clouds of outer
> space.
>
> Conventional wisdom says life in the universe requires carbon and
> liquid water. With these two simple necessities, life has crept into
> just about every nook and cranny on Earth, from the scalding waters
> of deep ocean vents to the underside of Antarctica's icy rocks. As a
> consequence, scientists looking for extraterrestrial life have based
> all of their searches and instruments on the existence of carbon
> and--on Mars, for example--on minerals that only could have formed in
> the presence of water.
>
> Now comes the prospect that life might be able to evolve in an
> astoundingly simple fashion. Reporting online in today's issue of the
> New Journal of Physics, a team from Russia, Germany, and Australia
> details how computer simulations of molecular dynamics can produce
> conditions under which evolution appears to begin spontaneously. In
> their simulations, free-floating molecules begin organizing into a
> helixlike structure resembling DNA, and as time passes, more stable
> molecular arrangements begin replacing less-stable versions. The
> process proceeds, the authors say, because an electrical property
> called polarization tends to organize the particles and reduce chaos,
> much like tuning a radio to the proper frequency can produce clear
> audio from the static. The findings are particularly intriguing, they
> say, because molecular clouds are common across the universe, such as
> in vast zones of dust among the stars of the Milky Way.
>
> The research is sound and it suggests "a mechanism whereby organic
> matter could assemble faster than in previous models," says plasma
> physicist Mark Koepke of West Virginia University in Morgantown. The
> shorter time could mean a greater probability that conventional life
> exists elsewhere in the universe, he says.
>
> However, astrobiologist Margaret Turnbull of the Space Telescope
> Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, cautions against
> underestimating the critical role that water plays in life. Water is
> "so fabulous for life" because it shields organic molecules "from the
> electrical charges that would normally drive them apart." Although
> the researchers may indeed have found another medium within which
> complex molecules can interact in sophisticated ways, Turnbull says,
> it remains to be seen whether the right conditions exist in space for
> these structures to become "complex enough to seed life on young
> planets."
Must you always post OLD 1940's NEWS
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Date: 15 Aug 2007 20:57:48
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: Re: From Space Dust to Spacefarers
|
Sam Wormley wrote:
> From Space Dust to Spacefarers
> http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/814/2
>
> By Phil Berardelli
> ScienceNOW Daily News
> 14 August 2007
>
> Dirt that acts like DNA? Using computer simulations, a team of
> physicists has shown that it's possible for dustlike particles to
> divide, replicate, and even evolve. The findings hint at one way that
> life could have gotten started on Earth, and even the incredible
> although remote possibility that life--and perhaps
> intelligence--could exist among the interstellar clouds of outer
> space.
>
> Conventional wisdom says life in the universe requires carbon and
> liquid water. With these two simple necessities, life has crept into
> just about every nook and cranny on Earth, from the scalding waters
> of deep ocean vents to the underside of Antarctica's icy rocks. As a
> consequence, scientists looking for extraterrestrial life have based
> all of their searches and instruments on the existence of carbon
> and--on Mars, for example--on minerals that only could have formed in
> the presence of water.
>
> Now comes the prospect that life might be able to evolve in an
> astoundingly simple fashion. Reporting online in today's issue of the
> New Journal of Physics, a team from Russia, Germany, and Australia
> details how computer simulations of molecular dynamics can produce
> conditions under which evolution appears to begin spontaneously. In
> their simulations, free-floating molecules begin organizing into a
> helixlike structure resembling DNA, and as time passes, more stable
> molecular arrangements begin replacing less-stable versions. The
> process proceeds, the authors say, because an electrical property
> called polarization tends to organize the particles and reduce chaos,
> much like tuning a radio to the proper frequency can produce clear
> audio from the static. The findings are particularly intriguing, they
> say, because molecular clouds are common across the universe, such as
> in vast zones of dust among the stars of the Milky Way.
>
> The research is sound and it suggests "a mechanism whereby organic
> matter could assemble faster than in previous models," says plasma
> physicist Mark Koepke of West Virginia University in Morgantown. The
> shorter time could mean a greater probability that conventional life
> exists elsewhere in the universe, he says.
>
> However, astrobiologist Margaret Turnbull of the Space Telescope
> Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, cautions against
> underestimating the critical role that water plays in life. Water is
> "so fabulous for life" because it shields organic molecules "from the
> electrical charges that would normally drive them apart." Although
> the researchers may indeed have found another medium within which
> complex molecules can interact in sophisticated ways, Turnbull says,
> it remains to be seen whether the right conditions exist in space for
> these structures to become "complex enough to seed life on young
> planets."
>
From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/9/8/263
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