[ back to Breaking News index ]
BREAKING NEWS
Teenager dies after Big Day Out crush
Warnings on links between tobacco and illicit drug use
'Net increasing pressure on disadvantaged - Smith Family
Accused missing on day of killing, says ex-wife
Govt must act as sheriff on trade issues: NSW Farmers
Protesters stop woodchip ship in Bunbury
Scientists identify a new funnel web spider
Bullet-torn flag welcomed back to Darwin tomorrow
Floods close Newell Highway near Moree
Eight schools in western Sydney flooded
Liberal Party not "gutless": Chikarovski
Costa hits out at govt over entitlement safety net scheme
MP complains NT backbenchers kept in dark
Four injured on same corner as fatal school bus crash
Bees claimed second victim in SA, police reveal
Australia still well ahead of world tourism growth
World Vision Australian chief flies to India quake zone
Study to examine genetic links to strokes
Dick Smith accused of defacing Aussie flag
Protesters greet prime minister with woodchips
Broken blade may have sparked engine trouble
Dick Smith accused of defacing Australian flag
Opposition claims not enough classrooms
RSL chief extends friendship to Japan
Air Emirates says its plane did not catch fire
Downer optimistic over Skase chase
Australian yacht freed in Antarctica
Sydney hit by flash flooding
Qantas workers walk off the job over maintenance fears
Committee refuses to investigate Lib rort allegations
Gulf hijacker was aiming for Australia
Alleged killer in Greece
Labor warns aged care report shows system in crisis
Shots fired into house narrowly miss man
800,000 students head to school
Anti-depressant use at all-time high
Key Victorian electorates desert Howard
Police seek female driver after hit-run
Opposition calls for electoral reform after Brough resignation
Plane begins spewing smoke in Melbourne, flight aborted
Senators okay two for Cabinet; Ashcroft next
Oxfam offices attacked before England cricket team arrives
Confident Shipley says she will stay as NZ Nationals' leader
No charges to be laid over Curtin detainees riot
British insect specialist learns crime secrets from maggots
31 held hostage in Colombian plane hijack
Intel unveils low-energy laptop computer chips
Russian diplomat defects to US
Discovery shows universe could be full of life
Lightning kills 14 in South Africa
German govt tries to ban neoNazi political party
Hundreds rally in support of Pinochet
Zimbabwe's ruling power in danger
Killer dogs linked to white supremacist group
No consent given for removed child organs says British report
Yeltsin hospitalized with viral infection
Russia's independent newspaper pleads with Putin
Three plucked from quake rubble
Calls for Middle East peace summit
Sickness-simulating CDRom just what the doctor ordered
TV chiefs order producers to stay away from Bush daughters
Crowe nominated for actor's guild award
Discovery shows universe could be full of life
Source: AFP|Published: Wednesday January 31, 11:23 AM
WASHINGTON - The chemical elements required to develop life on Earth could have originated in space with the formation of the solar system, US scientists said today.
In their research, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, scientists created an environment similar to "empty space," freezing a mixture of ice, carbonated gas, carbon monoxide, ammonia and methanol at temperatures nearing absolute zero.
They then bombarded the mixture with ultraviolet rays to reproduce the conditions in the dense interstellar clouds that birthed the solar system.
The complexity and diversity of cells produced in the experiment astonished researchers, who stated, in effect, that those newly-formed cell membranes were at the origins of life.
When the researchers added water to the mixture, some of the solids spontaneously formed membranous vesicles that converted energy from ultraviolet light into visible light, necessary to create life.
The hypothesis gives renewed credence to the "panspermia" theory; that the process of creating life on Earth was begun millions of years ago when chemical compounds were dropped on the nascent planet by comets, meteorites or space rubble.
Though the scientists remain cautious about their discovery, they nonetheless affirm their conclusions support the possibility of life in other solar systems.
"Very complex organic molecules that might be important for the origin of life could well be falling on the surfaces of newly-formed planets everywhere in the universe," said Louis Allamandola of NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, who led the team.
"This discovery implies that life could be everywhere in the universe."
[ back to Breaking News index ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2000 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.