J. CRAIG VENTER
Genomics Researcher; Founder
& President, J. Craig Venter
Science Foundation
Life
is ubiquitous throughout the
universe. Life on our planet
earth most likely is the
result of a
panspermic event (a
notion popularized by the
late Francis Crick).
DNA, RNA and carbon based
life will be found wherever
we find water and look with
the right tools. Whether we
can prove
life
happens, depends
on our ability to improve
remote sensing and to visit
faraway systems. This will
also depend on whether we
survive as a species for a
sufficient period of time.
As we have seen recently in
the shotgun sequencing of
the Sargasso Sea, when we
look for life here on Earth
with new tools of DNA
sequencing we find life in
abundance in the microbial
world. In sequencing the
genetic code of organisms
that survive in the extremes
of zero degrees C to well
over boiling water
temperatures we begin to
understand the breadth of
life, including life that
can thrive in extremes of
caustic conditions of strong
acids to basic pH's that
would rapidly dissolve human
skin. Possible indicators of
panspermia are the organisms
such as Deinococcus
radiodurans, which can
survive millions of RADs of
ionizing radiation and
complete desiccation for
years or perhaps millennia.
These microbes can repair
any DNA damage within hours
of being reintroduced into
an aqueous environment.
Our human centric view of
life is clearly unwarranted.
From the millions of genes
that we have just discovered
in environmental organisms
over the past months we
learn that a finite number
of themes are used over and
over again and could have
easily evolved from a few
microbes arriving on a
meteor or on intergalactic
dust. Panspermia is how life is
spreads throughout the
universe and we are
contributing to it from
earth by launching billions
of microbes into space.
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