Scientists Claim to Revive Alien Bacteria

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

May 10 — Italian researchers claim to have found conclusive evidence that life on Earth arrived from outer space.

Bruno D'Argenio, a geologist working for the Italian National Research Council, and Giuseppe Geraci, professor of molecular biology at Naples University, identified and brought back to life extraterrestrial microorganisms lodged inside 4.5 billion-year-old meteorites kept at Naples' mineralogical museum.
"When in contact with a physiological solution, they became visible and began to move," D'Argenio said while presenting the finding at the Italian Space Agency yesterday.

The bacteria, called "cryms" (for crystal microbes) by the researchers, remained dormant for billions of years and survived extreme ambient conditions — a clear indication, according to the researchers, that "life can exist everywhere in the solar system, though in a quiescent state."

Once brought back to life, the cryms were cloned by the researchers and their DNA analyzed.

"Their genetic code is unlike any known on Earth," said Giovanni F. Bignami, scientific director of the Italian Space Agency.

In studying the bacteria, the team found that they tend to gather in clusters. The bugs are also killed easily with antibiotics.

Disputing critics who suggested that the meteorites were contaminated with terrestrial microorganisms, Bignami added that the bacteria came back to life after the samples were sterilized at 950 degrees Celsius and doused in alcohol.

The discovery, if borne out, would strengthened the "panspermia" theory, first suggested by chemist Svante Aarhenius in 1900. According to this theory, outer space seeded Earth with primitive life forms about 4 billion years ago. The theory was recently supported by Noble Prize winner Francis Crick, as well as noted scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe.

"Life would have formed as an initial seed in the protoplanetary nebula from which all the planets originated. This microorganism can be found ... in planetary bodies and in the meteors fallen to Earth," said Bignami.

The Italian researchers have also identified microorganisms identical to the "cryms" found in the Naples meteorites in 50 samples of billion-year-old terrestrial rocks from five continents.

"I'm skeptical, very skeptical," biologist Martino Rizzotti of Padua University told the daily newspaper La Stampa. "Those bacteria seem to be too similar to the terrestrial ones. I can't avoid thinking about possible contaminations."

Margherita Hack, director of the Inter-University Regional Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology in Trieste, is more positive. "It is very likely that life is spread in universe. This is an interesting result, but it requires more study to be completely accepted," she said.

Today the researchers present their findings at the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of the Lynxes) in Rome, a prestigious scholarly organization that counts Galileo Galilei among its members.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010507/bacteria.html

Picture(s): Smithsonian Institution/Associated Press