Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. Imagine a comet hurtling through the
Speaker 1: nothingness of space. It smashes into a planet, causing destruction,
Speaker 1: but also bringing life. That's because hitching a ride on
Speaker 1: the surface of the comet were tiny traces of organic
Speaker 1: material or even alien eggs, explaining how life could spread
Speaker 1: across the cosmos and arrive on our planet. Pant Spermia,
Speaker 1: meaning seeds Everywhere, is the name of the theory that
Speaker 1: life on Earth may have cosmic origins, and it's been
Speaker 1: both debated by scientists and featured in works of science fiction.
Speaker 1: Now a group of nearly three dozen scientists from around
Speaker 1: the world are putting a tweak in the theory, suggesting
Speaker 1: not that Earth's earliest life had outer space origins, but
Speaker 1: that panspermia may be responsible for the Cambrian explosion. That's
Speaker 1: a point in Earth's history approximately four hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: one million years ago when most major animal groups appear
Speaker 1: in the fossil record. In their article cause of Cambrian
Speaker 1: Explosion Terrestrial or Cosmic, published in eighteen issue of the
Speaker 1: journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular biology. Thirty three scientists
Speaker 1: tie the rise of unique animals tartegrades, octopuses, and the
Speaker 1: bevy of other odd and unique animals that flourished at
Speaker 1: that time to pan spermia, suggesting that many of these
Speaker 1: relatively bizarre and never before seeing creatures descend from organic
Speaker 1: alien material. The author's right. It takes little imagination to
Speaker 1: consider that the Precambrian mass extinction event was correlated with
Speaker 1: the impact of a giant lifebearing comet and the subsequent
Speaker 1: seating of Earth with new cosmic derived cellular organisms and
Speaker 1: viral genes. But we haven't cracked the mystery of life's
Speaker 1: origins just yet. This new paper isn't built on any
Speaker 1: new discoveries or research. It's a literature review that, for
Speaker 1: the most part, references the author's own existing work. But
Speaker 1: that's by design. The authors acknowledge. They write, we are
Speaker 1: acutely aware that mainstream thinking on the or gin and
Speaker 1: further evolution of life on Earth is anchored firmly in
Speaker 1: the terrestrial paradigm. Our aim here is to facilitate further
Speaker 1: discussion in the biophysical, biomedical, and evolutionary science communities. Panspermia
Speaker 1: is at this point only a concept, but it dates
Speaker 1: back well before the last hundred years or so of
Speaker 1: modern science fiction. Way back at the turn of the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, French diplomat and natural historian Benois de May
Speaker 1: proposed that life across the cosmos could have been seeded
Speaker 1: from space, and a few scholars even interpret ancient Greek
Speaker 1: philosopher and Axagorus of Clazomenas musings along the same lines.
Speaker 1: He spoke vaguely of cosmic seeds two thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. The paper has already drawn skepticism after biologist
Speaker 1: Francis Westall, for instance, points out that while some forms
Speaker 1: of extremophile life have been observed surviving in the vacuum
Speaker 1: of space for short periods of time, this new paper
Speaker 1: suppositions would require eggs, embryos, or other cells survived thousands
Speaker 1: of years, if not more, in space. West All told
Speaker 1: Newsweek when discussing the paper, Unfortunately, it is all too
Speaker 1: easy to pull information out of the literature to support
Speaker 1: one's hypothesis. Nature is incredible, and I do not think
Speaker 1: it is necessary to call on extraterrestrials to explain it.
Speaker 1: An alternate theory for the Cambrian explosion goes by the
Speaker 1: name Snowball Earth, and it suggests that seven fifteen million
Speaker 1: years ago our planet became encased in ice for a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million years, killing most existing life forms,
Speaker 1: and that a massive thought allowed for an explosion of biodiversity.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Christopher Hasseiotis and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: life affirming topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com.