Yellow
for the glory of satan
I have no idea how to structure this idea in a succinct way because it's still in the "iffy" stages. I realize we aren't all bio geeks, but this isn't really too deep in the science (could easily go into the philosophy section), so everyone feel free to hop in and help me out.
The complexity of life on our planet can be attributed to five self-replicating chemicals. Adenine, Urascil & Thymine(5-methyluracil) depending on if we're talking about RNA or DNA, Guanine, Cytosine. They interact in very specific ways. Adenine pairs with Thymine (DNA) or Uracil (RNA). Guanine pairs with Cytosine. There is one exceptional instance that I can think of, but they cause deleterious effects (pyrimidine dimers).
These five self-replicating chemicals, like the rest of our bodies, like all organic molecules, are made out of some of the most common elements in the universe (outside suns). This point is important. While it is entirely possible that there is Silicon-based life out there or organisms using/breathing Phosphorous and Sulfur, it's far less likely. Those elements aren't nearly as abundant as Carbon, Nitrogen, & Oxygen. Further, Silicon is less capable than Carbon in forming complex, stable molecules. Sulfur is less aggressive than Oxygen in its chemical encounters, and Phosphorous is less flexible than Nitrogen.
It is reasonable to guess that life on other planets will most likely be made from chemicals that will be recognizable to us as "organic molecules". I.e., Carbon-based, with plenty of play from Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen, and other elements acting as supporting characters. I'd be really excited if it turned out that Ca, Fe, Na, Cl, and other major minors were equally important in extraterrestrial life, but I suspect that they will be much more prone to variance.
It would also stand to reason that our nucleic acids were statistically more likely to arise than other, equally functional, but as yet undiscovered self-replicating genetic molecules. This is my weakest assumption, but bear with me. If C, G, A, T, & U formed here, rather than similar chemicals that could arise from similar conditions, it's reasonable to guess that it happened because those particular chemicals form and pair spontaneously more often in early earth-like situations, or they replicate with better integrity over time than other similar compounds.
Based on these premises, would it be reasonable to expect life on other planets to be genetically similar to life on ours (using some or all of the same chemicals as their genetic material)? (Though how fucking awesome would it be if we discovered more molecules that behaved as DNA and RNA do?)
We've already learned how to take nucleic acids and compile them to form a virus. We've already begun to use gene therapy. We already splice genes together to create genetically altered organisms. It's only a matter of time before someone successfully tinkers around and "creates" a genetic code. This, if successful and allowed to thrive, would be more than divergence. Given a few billion years and favorable conditions, it could proliferate into a world's worth of entirely new and foreign life.
Even if life on other planets was more boring than we imagined, using all or some of the same genetic materials, then it could still be very different from life on earth. But, if the conditions that encourage such chemical reactions to occur exist elsewhere as here, how different can it really be?
Okay, that's most of it, I think. Please excuse the mess.
The complexity of life on our planet can be attributed to five self-replicating chemicals. Adenine, Urascil & Thymine(5-methyluracil) depending on if we're talking about RNA or DNA, Guanine, Cytosine. They interact in very specific ways. Adenine pairs with Thymine (DNA) or Uracil (RNA). Guanine pairs with Cytosine. There is one exceptional instance that I can think of, but they cause deleterious effects (pyrimidine dimers).
These five self-replicating chemicals, like the rest of our bodies, like all organic molecules, are made out of some of the most common elements in the universe (outside suns). This point is important. While it is entirely possible that there is Silicon-based life out there or organisms using/breathing Phosphorous and Sulfur, it's far less likely. Those elements aren't nearly as abundant as Carbon, Nitrogen, & Oxygen. Further, Silicon is less capable than Carbon in forming complex, stable molecules. Sulfur is less aggressive than Oxygen in its chemical encounters, and Phosphorous is less flexible than Nitrogen.
It is reasonable to guess that life on other planets will most likely be made from chemicals that will be recognizable to us as "organic molecules". I.e., Carbon-based, with plenty of play from Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen, and other elements acting as supporting characters. I'd be really excited if it turned out that Ca, Fe, Na, Cl, and other major minors were equally important in extraterrestrial life, but I suspect that they will be much more prone to variance.
It would also stand to reason that our nucleic acids were statistically more likely to arise than other, equally functional, but as yet undiscovered self-replicating genetic molecules. This is my weakest assumption, but bear with me. If C, G, A, T, & U formed here, rather than similar chemicals that could arise from similar conditions, it's reasonable to guess that it happened because those particular chemicals form and pair spontaneously more often in early earth-like situations, or they replicate with better integrity over time than other similar compounds.
Based on these premises, would it be reasonable to expect life on other planets to be genetically similar to life on ours (using some or all of the same chemicals as their genetic material)? (Though how fucking awesome would it be if we discovered more molecules that behaved as DNA and RNA do?)
We've already learned how to take nucleic acids and compile them to form a virus. We've already begun to use gene therapy. We already splice genes together to create genetically altered organisms. It's only a matter of time before someone successfully tinkers around and "creates" a genetic code. This, if successful and allowed to thrive, would be more than divergence. Given a few billion years and favorable conditions, it could proliferate into a world's worth of entirely new and foreign life.
Even if life on other planets was more boring than we imagined, using all or some of the same genetic materials, then it could still be very different from life on earth. But, if the conditions that encourage such chemical reactions to occur exist elsewhere as here, how different can it really be?
Okay, that's most of it, I think. Please excuse the mess.
Bio-molecules may be more abundant in space than previously thought.
I'm not yet that familiar with these molecules but it seems that they can store genetic info within six bases compared to DNA's four.