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Brain_Hawk t1_jd51bl9 wrote

Uracil is a part of RNA but that far from evidence of life. I feel like the headline is a bit click baity that it's implying more than was found. It's not really evidence of any life related processes, simply a component that is probably necessary for early life as we know it.

Still interesting in that these molecules can develop into more, and it speaks to the probability of simple life forming. A whole back was in a discussion about the probability of intelligent life anywhere in the universe, and an argument we should be totally agnostic because we can't know the probability. Evidence like this suggests to me some of the basic chemical processes necessary for life are probably.common, and other evidence, to the best of my awareness, is suggestive that we can recreate the conditions for form amino acids in a lab.

So it looks like the building blocks of life form readily, which is an argument in favor of life forming fairly often. Of course advanced or complex life will be rarer, but also available evidence (ok mostly out N=1 planet, but many environments) supports the idea that organism are very adaptive which further supports the tendency to develop into more advanced organisms. So complex life may be fairly common.

Anyways neat. But can't help but be a bit miffed at how headlines are always written to implictly exaggerate the findings a bit.

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CardiOMG t1_jd5a7ky wrote

It literally says “a crucial BUILDING BLOCK of life” was found. Not that life was found.

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Brain_Hawk t1_jd5alcv wrote

Yes like all good science clickbait, it didn't lie. It merely insinuated

It's a crucial building block of life, but it doesn't carry through this is anything to do with the actual existence of life. It's just a chemical, that's found that a lot of places.

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tricksterloki t1_jd5ci0j wrote

I'm going to need your source for uracil is found through natural, nonbiological, synthesis in lots of places.

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Brain_Hawk t1_jd5cn4t wrote

I'm no chemist. But it is a precursor to life, not a consequence to life. So it must by definition be formed through non-biological process.

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tricksterloki t1_jd5cvqb wrote

You claimed it can naturally be found lots of places. Tell me of these lots of places.

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Brain_Hawk t1_jd5d3ca wrote

I think you're just here to argue. I'm not saying it's ubiquitous. You want to evaluate the issue more thoroughly you're welcome too look it up on your own.

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Bobthehobnob t1_jd5rlyn wrote

There's the Urey-Miller experiment which tried to recreate early earth atmospheric conditions, and they succeeded in making DNA and RNA (and also proteins and polysaccharides iirc) from methane, water, hydrogen and ammonia, but I think people later remarked how the early earth atmosphere probably didn't have the conditions required by the Urey-Miller experiment to actually be able to make these molecules.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1161527?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed

I'm not an expert on early life origin work, but as a biologist it definitely drew my attention to see uracil being discovered on an asteroid, as AFAIK it's pretty much only formed in nature through biological methods (at least with the current earth conditions it is, as the earth has changed quite a lot over the past 4.5 billion years, so it is possible at one stage that it was formed non-biogically).

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Brain_Hawk t1_jd5xtiu wrote

That's really interesting. The article and.somethibg else (I forget now) made me presume it was naturally occurring. If it's largely biological how did it get to be part of RNA? Maybe a different molecule started it off?

Interesting those experiments on early dNA did not replicate. Undergrade was a long time ago so last I had heard it was probably all the rage. Of course, ever will we debate what conditions are the right conditions, etc.

Thanks for the informative post.

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browncoat_girl t1_jd5c9if wrote

That's a pretty big leap. Water is a "crucial building block of life", but nobody acts amazed that water exists in space.

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Brain_Hawk t1_jd5ciwo wrote

I agree that uracil is certainly more interesting didn't finding water, and is much more a building block of life. I think a lot of these headlines are written quite cleverly so that if you read it fast you misreaded, which is what I did, and I thought for a second it was saying RNA was found in an asteroid. Now that would be a groundbreaking discovery

Was still a good read. But so much of science news now is attempts to sensationalize things.

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