Intelligent Dinosaurs May Rule Other Planets Says Scientist

Posted on April 11, 2012

Columbia University scientist Ronald Breslow, Ph.D. says advanced dinosaurs ruling on other planets are a possibility. Breslow is the author of a new research paper about the the building blocks of terrestrial amino acids. His article, Evidence for the Likely Origin of Homochirality in Amino Acids, Sugars, and Nucleosides on Prebiotic Earth, was published here in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Breslow says in order for life to arise, proteins, for instance, must contain only one chiral form of amino acids, left or right. He says that with the exception of a few bacteria, amino acids in all life on Earth have the left-handed orientation. Most sugars on Earth have a right-handed orientation. Breslow asks, "How did that so-called homochirality, the predominance of one chiral form, happen?"

Breslow believes life on Earth was seeded by meteorites. He provides evidence in his research paper supporting the idea that the amino acids carried to Earth by meteorites about 4 billion years ago set the pattern for amino acids with the L-geometry, the kind in terrestrial proteins, and how those could lead to D-sugars of the kind in DNA.

Breslow's research paper says, "Recent findings of a modest excess L chirality of α-methylamino acids in some meteorites that landed on earth have furnished an important piece of evidence. We have shown how these meteoritic components can furnish normal L amino acids, and therefrom D sugars and nucleosides, in high chiral excess under sensible prebiotic conditions."

Breslow says in a press release that an implication from his work is that elsewhere in the universe there could be life forms based on D-amino acids and L-sugars. Breslow says, "Such life forms could well be advanced versions of dinosaurs, if mammals did not have the good fortune to have the dinosaurs wiped out by an asteroidal collision, as on Earth. We would be better off not meeting them."

Smithsonian's Dinosaur blog, Tracking Dinosaurs, is sad that "Breslow did not include any illustrations or offer specific details about the sort of uber-dinosaurs he has in mind."

We agree that drawings of these advanced dinosaurs, including their habitats and vehicles, would have been very interesting. It is a very speculative idea to suggest intelligent dinosaurs may be ruling on other planets, but given the mindbogglingly huge number of planets astronomers believe exist, and the correspondingly tremendously huge number of planets in the Universe that may support life, it is impossible to rule it out.

SPACE