Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Wow! Two science threads started in one night. First the link:
Identifying the wide diversity of extraterrestrial purine and pyrimidine nucleobases in carbonaceous meteorites | Nature Communications
Okay (hopefully the bold goes away) on another site I was debating once and talked about nucleotides forming naturally when I meant amino acids. A creationist ripped into me for that mistake. Now it turns out that it was not a mistake after all. All five DNA/RNA nucleotides have been found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Even if they were not the source of our initial DNA/RNA it does show that these chemical form naturally too.
Identifying the wide diversity of extraterrestrial purine and pyrimidine nucleobases in carbonaceous meteorites | Nature Communications
Identifying the wide diversity of extraterrestrial purine and pyrimidine nucleobases in carbonaceous meteorites
Abstract
The lack of pyrimidine diversity in meteorites remains a mystery since prebiotic chemical models and laboratory experiments have predicted that these compounds can also be produced from chemical precursors found in meteorites. Here we report the detection of nucleobases in three carbonaceous meteorites using state-of-the-art analytical techniques optimized for small-scale quantification of nucleobases down to the range of parts per trillion (ppt). In addition to previously detected purine nucleobases in meteorites such as guanine and adenine, we identify various pyrimidine nucleobases such as cytosine, uracil, and thymine, and their structural isomers such as isocytosine, imidazole-4-carboxylic acid, and 6-methyluracil, respectively. Given the similarity in the molecular distribution of pyrimidines in meteorites and those in photon-processed interstellar ice analogues, some of these derivatives could have been generated by photochemical reactions prevailing in the interstellar medium and later incorporated into asteroids during solar system formation. This study demonstrates that a diversity of meteoritic nucleobases could serve as building blocks of DNA and RNA on the early Earth.
Okay (hopefully the bold goes away) on another site I was debating once and talked about nucleotides forming naturally when I meant amino acids. A creationist ripped into me for that mistake. Now it turns out that it was not a mistake after all. All five DNA/RNA nucleotides have been found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Even if they were not the source of our initial DNA/RNA it does show that these chemical form naturally too.
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