We may be extraterrestrials after all

[JohnTheRevelator]

http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-37940-113.html

For some strange reason, this story has been blowing up huge and I was sent like 7 emails from my friends. Now please correct if I'm wrong, but isn't this kind of old news? I vividly remember learning this in astronomy class last year (11th grade) and I was quite fascinated by it, but why are the news articles describing it like it's a brand new theory? Some are even claiming that this indicates that Tom Cruise and his Scientology cult have been right all along...

[Beausoleil]

Amino acids were identified a while back. Zita's nucleobases are more new news. Personally, I think it's a bit like saying we find water in comets, so early life might have used water from comets, so we're all extraterrestrials. Uracil and xanthine are not that complicated, after all, and if they can form abiotically on meteorite parent bodies, they could equally form abiotically on the early Earth. (Iirc the idea is that they form from organic material in CM chondrites by aqueous alteration, but it's a while since I looked over the work.)

[JohnTheRevelator]

Does this conflict with abiogenesis in any way?

[Madalch]

We're not aliens, we're just descended from immigrants.

[skeptigirl]

Duplicate thread. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=115955)

[Spud1k]

My inherent distrust of journalists is kicking in here; I'd like to see the actual research paper that they are reporting on before I form an opinion. I'm getting the same vibe from this that I did from that story about CERN opening portals to other dimensions, which was of course complete nonsense.