A central question in astrobiology is whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. If so, is it related to Earth life? Technologies exist that enable identification of DNA- or RNA-based microbial life directly from environmental samples here on Earth. Such technologies could, in principle, be applied to the search for life elsewhere; indeed, efforts are underway to initiate such a search. However, surveying for nucleic acid-based life on other planets, if attempted, must be carried out with caution, owing to the risk of contamination by Earth-based life. Here we argue that the null hypothesis must be that any DNA discovered and sequenced from samples taken elsewhere in the universe are Earth-based contaminants. Experience from studies of low-biomass ancient DNA demonstrates that some results, by their very nature, will not enable complete rejection of the null hypothesis. In terms of eliminating contamination as an explanation of the data, there may be value in identification of sequences that lie outside the known diversity of the three domains of life. We therefore have examined whether a fourth domain could be readily identified from environmental DNA sequence data alone. We concluded that, even on Earth, this would be far from trivial, and we illustrate this point by way of examples drawn from the literature. Overall, our conclusions do not bode well for planned PCR-based surveys for life on Mars, and we argue that other independent biosignatures will be essential in corroborating any claims for the presence of life based on nucleic acid sequences. 相似文献
Since 1988 high sensitivity semiconductor dosimeter-radiometer “Liulin” worked on board of MIR space station. Device measured the absorbed dose rate and the flux of penetrating particles. The analysis of the data hows the following new results:
In October 1989 and after March 24, 1991, two additional stable maximums in flux channel were observed in the southern-eastern part of South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). These two maximums existed at least several months and seem to be due to trapped high energy electron and proton fluxes. In April 1991 additional maximums were localized in the following geographical coordinates regions: LATITUDE = (−35 °)–(−50 °) LONGITUDE = 332 ° − 16 ° and lat.(−46 °)–(−52 °) long. 360 ° − 60 °. Additional maximums diffusion occurs inside radiation belt. Appearance of these maximums seems to be closely connected with preceding powerful solar proton events and associated geomagnetic dynamics of new belt disturbances. After the series of solar proton events in June 1991 we observed significant enhancement of this new radiation belt formation. To achieve sufficient accuracy of dose rate predictions in low Earth orbits the structure and dynamics of new belt should be carefully analyzed to be included in a new environment model.
From the inter comparison of the data from “Liulin” and French developed tissue equivalent LET spectrometer NAUSICAA in the time period August–November 1992 we come to the following conclusions: Mainly there is good agreement between both data sets for absorbed dose in the region of SAA; Different situation of the instruments on the station can explain the cases when differences up to 2 times are observed; At high latitudes usually the tissue equivalent absorbed dose observations are 2 times larger than “Liulin” doses. 相似文献