A life clue with special fragrance

Press, 31 January 1989, Page 13

A life clue with special fragrance

By

ROBIN McKIE,

in San Francisco

American scientists have created an unusual new perfume, one made with chemicals found on meteorites that are five billion years old. “With a distinctive dusty, oily smell reminiscent of an old attic, this unusual fragrance is unlikely to revolutionise the perfume industry. Nevertheless, Chanel 5 Billion is serving a useful purpose,” says David Deamer, a zoology professor at the University of California, Davis. “Its special smell is characteristic of certain complex, fatty ogranic chemicals. “The fact that they are found om .meteorites shows crucial components of life were synthesised in space.” Professor Deamer was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Francisco, where he demonstrated his new perfume to startled science journalists. He also outlined four basic types of chemical necessary for the creation of life. Such chemicals would have to provide energy, sustain or catalyse reactions, pass on genetic information to successive generations, and form protective membranes to keep the other chemicals together. “We have now found chemicals that could carry out the last two roles on meteorites,” says Professor Deamer. He and his colleagues have discovered purines — crucial components of DNA, the material from which our genes are made — in rock samples taken from meteorites. It is these purines that give off the dusty smell of Chanel 5 Billion, demonstrating that at least one crucial building block of life could have been manufactured in space — probably about five billion years ago, just as the solar system was forming. In addition, they have found chemicals called surfactants which can form membranes, protective bubbles that would have held together the other life-forming chemicals. “We are not saying life came from outer space,” he says. “We just think evidence now suggests its components were formed outside Earth. There was a massive meteorite bombardment just when Earth was being formed, and this would have spread a great 100-foot-deep layer of oily, organic chemicals round the planet “As soon as conditions cooled, these chemicals probably combined to form the first life on Earth.” Copyright London Observer