Space Dinos! Prebiotic Chemistry Meets Paleozoic Commentary

Source: Columbia Giving

When I open Google News, I usually expect to see trade agreements, protests, car shows, or sports quotes. But, when I read a title like Dinosaurs from Space! (Smithsonian), or Do Intelligent Dinosaurs Really Rule Alien Worlds? (Discovery),  I'm admittedly drawn in.

Ready for the real shocker? It's a paper published in JACS! No joke - here's the ACS presser. Bonus: the paper's written by a well-respected research lion - Ron Breslow, long a veteran of Columbia's chemistry department (Aside: I couldn't recall if ChemBark had seen Breslow's professorial "portrait," (right), courtesy of Columbia's University Giving Office).

The paper, a Perspective, reads fairly well: Breslow muses about the origin of homochirality on the early Earth, a subject near and dear to researchers such as Robert Shapiro, Albert Eschenmoser, Jack Szostak - and #1 on Philip Ball's list of chemical "grand challenges." Breslow recalls that scientists measured small enantiomeric excesses in amino acids, from 2-15% of the S (also called "L-") form, found in several meteorites that fell to Earth in the last 50 years. He then demonstrates, using a clever mix of solvation energies and autocatalytic reactions, some possible prebiotic setups leading to enrichment of single-enantiomer sugars and amino acids. 

Sound good? Well, it's all fine up until the closing paragraph - again, no exaggeration on my part:

"An implication of this work is that elsewhere in the universe there could exist life forms based on D amino acids and L sugars...Such life forms could even be advanced versions of dinosaurs,  if mammals did not have the good fortune to have the dinosaurs wiped out by an asteroidal collision, as on Earth. We would be better off not meeting them."

Artist's Representation: Life Elsewhere
Source: fanpop.com

I'm actually both horribly amused, and somewhat embarrassed by that conclusion. It's playful and exciting, yes, but, as others have pointed out, it sounds suspiciously like bait to draw sensationalist reviews and lure more casual readers. 

Well, two can play at this game! Without further ado, I'd like to offer a few novel O.O.L. speculations of my own: 
- On "Earth 2," in a far-off galaxy, a preference for body hair, muscles, and heavy brows favored Neanderthals over modern humans. 

- Life on distant planets proven to be highly evolved amoebas, who had the good fortune never to form into any multi-cellular critters.

D-amino acids + L sugars = Luck Dragons?
Source: Kristen Lamb

- In the land of Fantasia, a young boy named Atreyu must find the Nothing killing his world (wait, no, that's the Never Ending Story...).


- On Planet 2G, slightly different rules of gravity and lack of water, combined with a preponderance of slightly chiral amino acids led to...really beautiful crystal gardens, but not much life. (sorry, everyone!)