Darwinian evolutionary theory will help find alien life, says Nasa scientist

In a talk marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, a Nasa scientist said that Darwinian evolution will be the driving force of life anywhere in the universe, and we should use its predictions to decide where to look.

Dr John Baross, a researcher at the Nasa Astrobiology Institute, said: “I really feel that Darwinian evolution is a defining feature of all life.

“And so the limits of Darwinian evolution will define the range of planets that can support life – at least Earth-like life.”

Speaking at a public lecture at the Nasa Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, Dr Baross said that the Kepler Space Telescope’s mission, looking for Earth-like planets around other stars, made this an exciting time for astrobiology – the search for alien life.

He said: “I predict in the next five to ten years, we will make discoveries that will lead to theories and ideas at least as profound as Darwin’s.”

Dr Baross said that looking for alien life has always involved using the Earth as a model. While our understanding of how life began is incomplete, it seems clear that there are certain requirements.

All life on Earth needs water, carbon-based organic molecules, and an energy source, either solar or chemical. But alien life may not be entirely Earth-like. Dr Baross said: “I’d like to point out there are many different ways for non-Earth-like life to not use light or chemical energy but use some other form like radiation energy, wave energy, or ultraviolet energy.”

Similarly, the need for water may not be universal. Dr Baross said: “[Life may exist] in an organic solvent rather than liquid water on Titan, or… at temperatures of minus 100 degrees Celsius — there are a lot of ways to think of this because those conditions exist on other planetary bodies.”

So far, astronomers have found 403 “exoplanets” – planets outside our own solar system. While most of them are Jupiter-like gas giants hundreds or thousands of times bigger than the Earth, a few smaller ones have been found, and Kepler is expected to start finding many more over the next few years.

“I think all of us really believe that rocky planets, like Earth, are going to be found at some point,” said Baross.

Story via The Register.

British worms join Nasa space mission

More than 4,000 Caenorhabditis elegans worm were sent from the University of Nottingham to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral.

They will spend 11 days in orbit more than 200 miles above the Earth, travelling 4.5 million miles, as part of a study on the muscle-wasting effects of space travel, the Times reports.

Known to scientists simply as C. Elegans, the species shares as much as 80 per cent of its genetic material with humans. Such similarities make it a reasonable laboratory model for research into human physiology.

Muscles do not have to work against gravity while in space, so they become weak. With astronauts destined to spend years at a time off the planet manning long-term missions to destinations such as the Moon and Mars, scientists are keen to establish how such degradation might be prevented.

“There’s a reasonable amount of variability in the muscle mass that’s lost due to space flight, with some losing 50 per cent, though on average it’s 5 to 15 per cent,” Nathaniel Szewczyk, of the university’s Institute for Clinical Research, told the paper.

“We need to figure out how we can deal with some of the medical problems associated with space flight, how do we deal with muscle atrophy and radiation? That’s what these worms will be helping us to do.”

The worms will be exposed to a drug that has been approved recently for use in preventing muscle wastage among cancer patients. The study is likely to pave the way for testing the drug on astronauts during future missions.