[meteorite-list] Microscopic Fossils Bring A Dead Theory To Life

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:27:50 2004
Message-ID: <200311171641.IAA05137_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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."
Received on Mon 17 Nov 2003 11:41:35 AM PST