Life may be older than Earth

[DrLeftover]

Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did and may have originated outside our solar system, scientists say.

Moore’s Law is the observation that computers increase exponentially in complexity, at a rate of about double the transistors per integrated circuit every very two years. If you apply Moore’s Law to just the last few years’ rate of computational complexity and work backward, you’ll get back to the 1960s, when the first microchip was, indeed, invented.

Now, two geneticists have applied Moore’s Law to the rate at which life on Earth grows in complexity — and the results suggest organic life first came into existence long before Earth itself.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/could-life-be-older-than-earth-itself-130417.htm

Full report from Cornell

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1304/1304.3381.pdf

 

[wirelessguru1]

Of course life is older than Earth...

 

[Sinon]

It wouldn't surprise me. "Life" is such a broad term, but a lot of people ignore the fact that it's so diverse. There may well be life in space. Just because it shares no characteristics with us, or what we believe it should, does not mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Evil Eye]

This isn't new exactly is it?
I've heard some theories about life riding on comets

 

[Crusader]

"Discovery" of the century.

 

[DrLeftover]

Well.

Yeah.

But there are still 'schoolbooks' out there that talk about amino acids coming together in that primordial mud puddle and then being hit by lightning and "ala-kazam" there's "grandpa".

Just like when I was in middle school our textbooks still had a "land bridge" between South America and Africa because "plate tectonics" hadn't trickled down yet.

Oh well.