http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/chemistry-for-life-discovered-around-baby-star-150408.htm

Scientists have found complex organic molecules in a planet-forming disk of gas, dust and ice swirling around a very young star, evidence that the building blocks for life may be common in the universe.

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How Are We Looking for Alien Life?

“We already knew that these disks are rich in water and simple organics. This is the first time we detect more complex organics,” astronomer Karin Oberg, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Discovery News.

ANALYSIS: Could This Alien Cell Thrive on Titan?

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory located in Chile, Oberg and colleagues found large amounts of methyl cyanide -- a complex, carbon-based molecule -- as well as simpler hydrogen cyanide molecules in the proto-planetary disk surrounding MWC 480, a very young star roughly twice the size of the sun located about 455 light-years away.

The molecules were found about 3 billion miles to 9 billion miles from the central star, which is distant by our solar system standards, but squarely in what would be a Kuiper Belt-like, comet-forming region for the larger MWC 480.

The scientists also noted that the ratios of these organics are similar to what is found in comets in the solar system.

ANALYSIS: Old Galaxy Holds Early Planet Chemistry Surprise

“It seems like the molecules needed to form the building blocks of life are common during planet formation. This is exciting news when thinking about the likelihood of life originating in other systems as well,” Oberg said.

The research, which appears in this week’s Nature, “demonstrates that proto-planetary disks are active engines of chemical synthesis, and that such environments are vital for building chemical complexity long before a planetary surface is created,” astronomers Geoffrey Blake, with the California Institute of Technology, and Edwin Bergin, with the University of Michigan, write in a related commentary that also appears in Nature.

“The potentially prebiotic chemistry traced by asteroids and comets in the solar system is therefore replicated, at least in part, in other young planetary systems -- suggesting that planets are supplied with these life-bearing elements as they are born,” Blake and Bergin write.

ANALYSIS: Stormy Alien Atmospheres May Spark Seeds of Life

The next step, says Oberg, is to survey different kinds of stars to see if they have similar types of organics.

“Obviously we’re very biased by what we understand of life here on Earth,” noted NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan. “But the building blocks (for carbon-based life) are not only all over our solar system, they’re all over the galaxy, they’re all over the universe. So given that the right building blocks are out there, given that there’s water out there, that’s what makes us really lean toward looking for life like it is here on Earth.”

This link was on the same page, another interesting one!

http://news.discovery.com/history/oldest-neanderthal-dna-sample-extracted-in-italy-150408.htm

Oldest Neanderthal DNA Sample Extracted in Italy

The oldest samples of Neanderthal DNA have been extracted from remains embedded in a cave in southern Italy, confirming that the so-called Altamura Man was a Neanderthal who lived around 150,000 years ago.

Consisting of a virtually complete, fossilized hominin skeleton in an excellent state of preservation, the Altamura Man was discovered by a group of speleologists in 1993 in the karstic cave of Lamalunga, near the town of Altamura in Puglia. The area is rich in prehistorical findings, including a trail of dinosaur footprints.

VIDEO: Could Neanderthals Talk Like Us?

The remains “represent one of the most extraordinary hominin specimens ever found in Europe,” Giorgio Manzi, professor of paleoanthropology and human ecology at Rome’s Sapienza University, David Caramelli, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florence, and their colleagues wrote in the Journal of Human Evolution.

“It is of great interest that mtDNA was sufficiently preserved to permit paleogenetic analysis,” they added.

Neanderthals Talked — Like Us

The Altamura Man was found by chance when cavers spotted a 26-foot-deep well. Inside was a tunnel that opened into a large cavity, with other tunnels branching out from it.

One of the tunnels, about 200 feet long, led to another cave, rich with stalagmites. There, encrusted in a corner and looking like a large piece of coral, was a skeleton lying on its back.

Only the skull, which appears upside down, and part of a shoulder were visible. The rest of the body is incorporated into calcite concretions.

Researchers assume the unfortunate hominid fell in a well and remained trapped there, dying of starvation or from lack of water intake. The skeleton was then covered with droplets of limestone that helped preserve it for millennia.

“Although other fossil samples of Homo neanderthalensis can be found in Europe and the Near East, none can equal the excellent state of preservation and the completeness of the Altamura Man,” Manzi said.

Why Humans Prevailed Over Neanderthals

The cave’s remoteness and the fossil’s condition have meant that since the discovery, the Altamura Man has remained undisturbed.

“For many years after its discovery, the only information we had on this extraordinary fossil skeleton was based primarily on on-site photographs and observations, which were biased by the presence of calcite formations,” the researchers wrote.

Beginning their work six years ago, Manzi and colleagues finally obtained permission to remove a piece of bone from the skeleton.

“The sample consists of the articular portion of the right scapula,” Manzi and his colleagues said.

“In contrast to most of the bones of the main assemblage, it was free from major concretion apart from a superficial film of calcite,” they added.

Neanderthals Lived Fast, Died Young

Morphometric examinations and bone DNA analysis confirmed the Altamura Man was a Neanderthal, the species that inhabited Europe between 200,000 and 40,000 years ago.

More precisely, the hominin is estimated to have lived approximately 150,000 years ago, in the late-Middle to early-Late Pleistocene -- an ancient phase in the existence of Neanderthals.

Indeed, uranium-thorium dating of the sample and other fragments of stalactites revealed that the calcite concretions started to accumulate on the rocks and skeleton between 172,000 and 130,000 years ago, in the middle of the second last quaternary glaciation.

“The results of the paleogenetic analysis have indicated the presence of endogenous DNA, even if highly fragmented,” Caramelli said.

“These first genetic data allow, among other things, to consider the Altamura skeleton as the most ancient Neanderthal from which portions of genetic material DNA have been extracted and, as such, a highly suitable candidate for interesting genomic analyses,” he added.

interesting article, i wish they would have provided the actual spectra and not assume all the readers are too dumb to read them.

 

will  try and get a free copy of the full published article.

Check this out although it is unrelated but also related. lol. http://nautil.us/blog/the-genetics-of-the-earth-and-moon

http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2014/05/algae-asphyxiates-evolution-principle/

Oh Shtal, you crack me up.  Did you bother to actually read the article and the responses below?  I'm thinking not, since the author of the study had a bit to say about the article:

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  Bradley Cardinale:
  May 26, 2014 at 9:43 pm

  This is an unbelievably irresponsible distortion of my research, as well as the story about it! Shame on the editors of this website for cherry-picking and misrepresenting information to support their point of view!

  
   
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  dj:
  May 27, 2014 at 1:15 pm

  Here is a post from Dr. Cardinale from the article that you referenced above. If you’d like to join the discussion, here is a link to the thread:

  http://www.livescience.com/45205-data-dont-back-up-darwin-in-algae-study-nsf-bts.html

  “Hi everyone. Thank you for the comments about this article. My name is Dr. Brad Cardinale, and this story is about my research. I want to facilitate the discussion by clarifying a few things:

  1. There is nothing in this research that refutes Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. When scientists use the word ‘theory’, they use it to refer to a hypothesis that has withstood thousands of attempts to disprove it, but yet, continues to hold true. To date, no one has been able to demonstrate Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection to be incorrect.

  2. Darwin had a lot of ideas other than just those about natural selection, and our work was focused on one of his other hypotheses. In particular, we were testing a hypothesis that is sometimes called the Competition-Relatedness-Hypothesis (CRH), which proposes that competition is stronger among closely related species than among distantly related species because the former should be more ecologically similar. We are not finding support for the CRH, which is a surprise … but again, it has nothing to do with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

  Although I worked with this reporter to comment on her story, some of the final editing of the text, and the caption “Doubting Darwin” are not things that I approved. But we need to be clear that scientific theories have withstood the test of time, while hypotheses have not yet passed that test. And we need to be clear that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that supports Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.”

travels, you actually thought that shtal read past the headline?

 

and yet again he proves the ONLY discussion he can "contribute" is his morbid obsession with darwin, no matter what the thread is actually about.

 

we know darwin existed her is a picture;

 

to prove yahew exists here is a picture;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

invisible, immaterial, imaginary