Clues to our birth may be written in space

[Orstio]

http://www.everything-science.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=2&mosmsg=Item+succesfully+saved.

Extraterrestrial molecules found in meteorites may hold the key to the origin of life on Earth, according to chemistry research at the University.

Dr Terence Kee and a team from Leeds and Bradford universities are examining a particular source of phosphorus found naturally only in space to discover whether it could have helped form the building blocks of life.

Phosphorus is found in all living cells, but some scientists doubt that the most common form of phosphorus – phosphate – helped form life on earth due to its insolubility in water. Dr Kee believes the earliest forms of DNA/RNA could have been built from other phosphorus-containing molecules called phosphonates, because they are water-soluble and more reactive.


However, these phosphonates are only found on Earth as biological products – for example, in the metabolism of certain marine creatures.

The project was inspired by a 1992 account identifying phosphonates in a meteorite which crashe. . .