It’s called “panspermia” — the idea that life which started elsewhere migrated to earth on an asteroid or other space debris.
A new report says that many renowned scientists are seriously considering the possibility that life started on Mars before migrating to the earth, and they’re anxiously awaiting soil samples from the Red Planet to check for signs of microbial life that would support the theory.
Scientists say there is evidence that rocks from Mars made it to the Earth as the solar system formed. Martian meteorites have been found in Antarctica and across the world — an estimated 159, according to the International Meteorite Collectors Association.
Geneticists say all modern life forms descend from a single-celled organism that lived about 3.9 billion years ago, about 200 million years after the first appearance of liquid water. Mars cooled off earlier than the Earth, and could have supported life long before it evolved on this planet, scientists say.
Gary Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is a believer in the theory that life had partially evolved before getting carried to the Earth.
“Either evolution to full-on modern genomes is really easy, or the reason you see it so fast was that we just ‘caught’ life, it didn't actually start here,” he said. “I like the idea that we just caught it and that’s why it’s so fast, but I’m an outlier,” he admitted.
As far-fetched as the idea sounds, it is just the sort of question that could lead to new scientific knowledge.
‘Why Does Science Matter?’
Latif Nasser, a Dartmouth College graduate whose podcast Radiolab has developed a large following and whose new series, Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything, will be premiering on Netflix, praised “stupid questions” for leading to new knowledge during an online discussion Thursday evening as part of Dartmouth’s Great Issues, New Perspectives series.
Thursday’s episode, the first in a series of “short talks on big subjects,” focused on the importance of science, but Latif started by admitting that he was not originally interested in the subject. He came to Dartmouth with the Class of ’08 with theater in mind. Because he had to fulfill the liberal arts requirement to take a science course, he chose the multidisciplinary “Stars for Poets” class where one of the options was do a production of “The Life of Galileo.” Latif had charge of props for the play, and he learned that there was a store of old scientific instruments locked away in the science building.
“When I opened that door, and saw all that equipment, it was like the warehouse scene in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ Here was a way I could engage in science … on the level of stories, grappling with timeless questions. Seeing it as a story, I said, Now I get it,’” Latif said.
“We can all see that science has changed the way we live, but seeing the subtle ways that science has revealed these invisible connections, there’s a kind of a sociological, spiritual connection,” he said later when talking about his Connected series. “Finding the ways we’re all connected is something very powerful and beautiful.”
Latif said that, with so much real information and false information out there today, “We need to take scientifically complicated information and render it comprehensible and tangible. Right now there’s this calling and this moment that reliable information is important — with the coronavirus, it’s a matter of life and death. We need to take it to people who are skeptical or whose eyes glaze over when it gets complicated.
“We’re built for stories,” he continued. “They help shrink things down to a human scale. That’s how I engage with the world; I digest it for myself and then I can do it for other people.”
Latif said the common way science is taught — having a textbook with “answers to questions we haven’t even asked” and being tested on what’s in the book — is the wrong way to get people engaged.
“There are a lot of science shows that take the God voice, saying, ‘I Know,’ but I’m not that guy. The thing that turns me on is the intellectual stupidity, asking the stupid questions. Let’s be honest and share that question together. … The essence of creativity is combining things, matching things people haven’t quite matched yet.”
Dartmouth’s Great Issues, New Perspectives series is a virtual forum that explores contemporary issues, engaging in “conversations around the world’s great challenges.” The next one will be on the subject “What Does a Rising China Mean for the U.S. and the World?” and it will feature former former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson Jr. ’68 and Associate Professor of Government Jennifer Lind.
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