

Found: first amino acid on a comet - JohnIdol
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17628

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jgrahamc
"The discovery confirms that some of the building blocks of life were
delivered to the early Earth from space."

Surely that should be "could have been delivered". The article says that the
C13 count was different from Earth collected samples. Where's the causality?

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reedlaw
It sounds like they aren't even sure where the amino acid came from. From the
article:

"With only about 100 billionths of a gram of glycine to study, the researchers
were able to measure the relative abundance of its carbon isotopes. It
contained more carbon-13 than that found in glycine that forms on Earth,
proving that Stardust's glycine originated in space."

Does anyone know how they can know that space glycine _should_ have more C13
than earth glycine?

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lacker
It's not that they know space causes more C13. They just know it's not normal
earth glycine because it has the wrong C13 ratio.

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nazgulnarsil
i for one hope that we don't discover nearby life. why? think about what it
implies. if life is so phenomenally common that it pops up twice in the same
solar system then it becomes downright unsettling that there is no sign of
galaxy spanning civilizations out there.

~~~
pg
_it becomes downright unsettling that there is no sign of galaxy spanning
civilizations out there_

Only if Einstein is wrong about the speed of light. Sci fi novels routinely
assume he overlooked something, because they have to as a plot device, but he
might not have.

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nazgulnarsil
even with the speed of light as a constraint it should only take a few million
years for self replicators to spread through significant portions of space.

~~~
pg
Interesting point. Either such replicators are hard to build, or civilizations
capable of building them are rare, or they are already here, but quiet.

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kwamenum86
I wonder what the repercussions are for religion? Does news like this threaten
to derail believers' faith in God (or higher being(s))?

[EDIT] Also what does this say about the possibility of life outside of earth?

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TallGuyShort
>> I wonder what the repercussions are for religion?

Very minimal. Most people who are serious about religion don't base their
faith on science in the first place. So when scientific understanding changes,
it doesn't shake their faith a whole lot. Me for example - I believe in God
for reasons independent of science. Any scientific discovery that seems to
contradict what I believe doesn't make stop believing in him. It just makes me
reevaluate what I believed and why, and if I still have reason to believe
that.

For instance, I've always believed that if God's creations are infinite, and
he put his children here on Earth, I'm sure there're planets elsewhere that
he's created and made as beautiful as this one. And if one day someone found
an asteroid with amino acids on it - that doesn't diminish my belief. It just
makes me think things like, "I wonder if that's how God put life here". Nobody
said God did it all by hand - maybe he just did it through natural laws.

I'm very religious and I follow science, and it's extremely rare that I feel
conflicted.

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kevindication
What have you found that suggests that there is a god in the first place?

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gloob
You are asking for what evidence he has of the existance of a god. That
question, by its nature, is a scientific one. The poster you are responding to
stated that they do not base their belief in God on science. You are asking
the wrong sorts of questions.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Actually, in all fairness to kevin, I think it would be silly to believe in
God for no reason. But on the other hand, it's equally silly to say that he
doesn't exist just because we don't see him everywhere. If there is a God,
he's obviously not going to do all the work for us - he wants to us to learn,
and we do that by learning from experience and from testing for ourselves.

So to answer Kevin's question: prayer. That's what suggests God's existence to
me. Yes, it's very personal and subjective, but it's an 'experiment' of sorts.
If God's there, AND wants us to know about him, AND created us, then surely
he'd provide some way for us to find out about him, and he'd make it possible
to tell him part of some 'trick' or 'coincidence'. I believe one can simply
ask God if he's there, and he'll answer. I also believe you can ask him if the
Bible, or the Koran, or any other thing is true. If you do your part to learn
for yourself and then seek his guidance - he'll answer. How he answers is the
very personal part. The Bible talks about 'fruits of the spirit' - feelings of
love, joy, peace, comfort, etc... I've prayed, and I feel those things.
They're distinct from anything else - they almost have a 'personality' to
them. Maybe another person will get a different answer. I would never claim
that a person who got different results was somehow 'less worthy', because
like I said - it's personal. It's between that person and God, and he judges
our lives. I'm in no position to judge what someone else feels.

Now, I don't expect everyone to believe what I said just because I said it,
but to me what I experienced is evidence. Nothing anyone could say or show me
could convince me that I didn't feel that. And that's why I said that no
science could change my mind about God. It could make me question complex
beliefs and assumptions, but the aforementioned comet doesn't make me question
those feelings by any stretch of the imagination.

edit: I added my email address to my profile - if anyone has further questions
or issues with anything I've said - feel free to email me.

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leecho0
FYI, glycine is the smallest amino acid, its chemical formula is C2H5NO2.
color me surprised when they find tryptophan on a comet

