Scientists Field Exotic Questions

Life may have originated in the ocean—with inorganic cells replicating, far before DNA evolved—two Harvard scientists ruminated at a discussion on the origins of life yesterday. But audience members delved into the more out-of-this-world, asking the speakers about what extraterrestrials might look like and about Navajo legends concerning creation.

An astronomer, geneticist, and chemist tackled the big question of how life originated before a crowd of around 100 at the Graduate School of Education yesterday afternoon. The discussion was the first in a series of annual symposia sponsored by the University’s Origins of Life Initiative.

Speakers introduced the theory that the ocean was a conducive environment for the creation of life, an environment replete with hot rocks and hydrothermal vents.

An audience member then asked about a Navajo legend stating that life originated in space. Speaker and professor of astronomy, Dimitar Sasselov, answered “the sky is a big place,” eliciting laughter from the crowd.

“Why are we interested?” Chemist and Flowers University Professor George M. Whitesides ’60 asked the audience. “Because I look admiringly at all of you and can’t figure out how you work.”

For decades, students learned that life began when electricity reacted with a fortuitous mix of chemicals to form amino acids, the building blocks of life, according to Professor of Genetics Jack W. Szostak, one of the event’s speakers.

“We wanted to get beyond the notion that primeval ooze plus a lightning bolt resulted in something else,” Szostak said.

Although such a synthesis may have occurred, there’s a missing link between the creation of amino acids and the evolution of living organisms, he said.

Life begins when organisms reproduce and evolve, a step far removed from the existence of simple amino acids, he added.

Szotak’s research attempts to fill this gap.

Sasselov, the initiative’s director, has spearheaded a new way to discover planets—specifically those that might harbor life.

“Our ambition is to make Harvard the place where the first earth-like planets are discovered and studied,” Sasselov said.

Whitesides said there are still many questions left unanswered.

“There are questions about questions about the origin of life,” Whitesides said. “This is going to require only modestly chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, [information technology], and electrical engineering. And above all, some really good ideas.”