http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/17/1069027047410.html
Microscopic fossils bring a dead theory to life By Garry Barker The Age (Australia) November 18, 2003 Life on earth may have developed not from a microscopic bacterium but from an inert rock. Australian National University scientists in Canberra have grown complex "dead" matter that contains some essential elements of life, challenging the popular scientific theory that everything living on the planet, from humans to hydras, began as bacteria carried to Earth on a meteorite, possibly from Mars. The new theory that life developed over 3 billion to 4 billion years from lifeless rock forms has been advanced by the ANU researchers and a Spanish scientist from the University of Granada. They studied microscopic fossils in specimens of the world's oldest rocks, found at Warrawoona, near Marble Bar in Western Australia. Initially, the fossils were thought to be of bacteria. Now they are believed to be rock forms - inorganic structures from which life may have evolved. "The scientific evidence for the origins of life are fairly slim," ANU researcher Stephen Hyde said. "We are just adding another piece to that debate. It may be that these microscopic fossils in Western Australia are bacterial remains, but there is a strong case now to say they are just standard inorganic chemistry." The finding, published in the American journal Science, is an important step towards understanding the origins of life, although that was not the intention of the research. Professor Hyde said his team was looking for new and stronger materials by studying nature. The team had access to samples of the Warrawoona fossils and discovered that crystals - grown by a relatively simple laboratory process - resembled the Warrawoona fossils in many respects. "It's not life, but they do grow into forms that are very similar to simpler life forms," Professor Hyde said. The specimens, grown in the laboratory, were tubular carbonate structures coated in an organic silicate skin. The structures were not angular, like crystals, but "very complex, curvy, wormlike forms". They were inorganic but similar in shape to simple biological systems. Science was not making life in the laboratory, he said, "but people are producing more complex biological-like molecules in structures from non-living systems. We are creeping towards increasing complexity and there is a blurry zone between very primitive early life and more complicated 'dead' stuff." ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
