We may all be space aliens

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday.

European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial.

Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact.

Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead author Zita Martins, a researcher at Imperial College London.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is another key part of the genetic coding that makes up our bodies.

These molecules would also have been essential to the still-mysterious alchemy that somehow gave rise, some four billion years ago, to life itself.

"We know that meteorites very similar to the Murchison meteorite, which is the one we analysed, were delivering the building blocks of life to Earth 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago," Martins told AFP in an interview.

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Well, isn't that special? Assuming it's determined not to be complete horseshit.

 

[Conchaga]

This plot has been used before.

Star Trek, Next Gen used it.

Halo3 used it.

anyone else think they know another time this plot has been used?

 

[Shitty Dual]

"Mission to Mars" (mediocre DePalma flick), to a degree: Said the Cambrian Explosion was a deliberate 'seeding' of Earth by an advanced-but-dying Martian civilization.

I seem to remember an episode of "Space: Above & Beyond" with some revelation where a captured Chig (your average irredeemably loathesome alien race) claimed the whole war was over an asteroid the Chigs revered, claiming it contained DNA common to both themselves and all Earth life --a common ancestry-- that we defiled when we landed on it or mined it or whatever...don't remember exactly.

 

[Conchaga]

That guy's OK in my book.