WARC DISCOVERIES

The basis for our genetic code was already in existence 4.5 billion years ago in the solar system

One of the most fundamental puzzles in astrobiology is the origin of the genetic code of life. In a landmark paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, WARC researcher Pascale Ehrenfreund, along with researchers at Leiden University and NAI's teams at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Carnegie Institution of Washington, shows that nucleic acids of extraterrestrial origin are present in the Murchison meteorite. Carbon-rich meteorites such as the Murchison are thought to be responsible for delivering biologically-relevant organic material to the young Earth. These results demonstrate that the nucleic acids discovered in the meteorite, which are components of the genetic code in modern biochemistry, were already present in the early solar system and may have played a key role in life's origin.

Citation:
Martins, Z, Botta, O, Fogel, ML, Sephton, MA, Glavin, DP, Watson, JS, Dworkin, JP, Schwartz, AW, and Ehrenfreund, P (2008) Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 270:130-136.  A PDF copy of the paper can be found here.

Posted October 21, 2008