14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists recently published the results of a new analysis, showing that the appearance life has here on Earth may be inscribed in the very laws of nature and reality. This, the team says, happens because of the way life is coded to emerge and develop, and also due to its basic components.
A mathematical analysis of the ingredients needed to obtain precursor chemicals for basic lifeforms has demonstrated that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a compound that is destined to occur any place it can occur.
There are serious reasons to support such a claim, the group reveals. First of all, it's very important to know what DNA is made of. Its basic constituents are 2 amino-acids, the basic building blocks of life, combinations of which also produce proteins and enzymes.
Of these 20 amino-acids, 10 can form in a variety of combinations to produce prebiotic lifeforms, that are not very complex, but which can be defined as living, to some extent. The fate of the other ten is even more rigorously planned.
It would appear that these molecules can appear anywhere the thermodynamical balance of the environment is suitable. Therefore, it makes no difference if the conditions are met here, on Venus, or on the recently-discovered, Earth-analog planet Gliese 581g.
This was proven in the new mathematical model, which was developed as an energy analysis by the director of the McMaster University Origins Institute, theoretical astrophysicist Ralph Pudritz.
He shows in the new work that 10 of the amino-acids can effortlessly form at low temperatures and pressures. In other words, it looks that the laws of physics can put life together easily.
This discovery is nothing but bad news for religions that try to pin the origin of life on a Creator. The study shows that this is not needed in order for life to appear, here or elsewhere in the Universe, Daily Galaxy reports.
The implications that this work has for the way we look at the Cosmos are also mind-boggling. If the equations check out, then we could find ourselves living in a galaxy where life abounds.
Naturally, that is no guarantee that advanced, intelligent lifeforms exist nearby, or even at all, but the work does solve some long-standing, mostly-philosophical debates about the origin and spread of life.