This question comes to you courtesy of a most surprising place: my husband, who, apropos to nothing, asserted yesterday that "they found DNA in moon rocks, ya know".

He's not necessarily a HB, he just happens to believe they "found DNA in moon rocks". So I said, "Umm...I'm pretty sure they didn't", and he said well maybe it was organic compounds or something, precursors of DNA? and I said well maybe they did find a few, but my understanding was that those were chalked up to contamination by meteorites from Earth, that moon rocks themselves were remarkably sterile.

So I said maybe you're thinking of the organic compounds they found in a Mars meteorite in Antarctica? and he said no, he's pretty sure it was moon rocks.

So I've been sitting here Googling it, and I can't find anything that would refer to "DNA found in moon rocks". Anybody have any idea what he's talking about?

News to me. Closest thing I can think of is finding bacteria on the Surveyor parts that Apollo 12 brought back to Earth.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

One Bacterium.

Living in an Air Bubble.

Really, Really Inhospitable Environment, The Moon ...

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

Was he perhaps thinking of the Murchison meteorite? That was found to contain organic compounds including amino acids - and it's an easy mis-step from there to DNA.

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/AAO/local/w...murchison.html


(edited to include quote)

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

I'm pretty sure the Apollo surface samples were sterile.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Ah ha! I ran the Murchison meteorite past him and that was indeed "it". Thanks, Jay. =D>

You thanked the wrong person. It was AGN Fuel who mentioned the Murchison meteorite.

I guess everyone is so accustom to thanking Jay it has become a habit.

Well, one sample, not one bacterium. I don't know if there's any way of detecting one bacterium.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

That's really Cool.

Thanks for the Correction.

__________________
If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

No, just that Jay's post was directly below AGN's. Sloppy scrolling on my part...

[BAD mouse, NO biscuit]

Perhaps he's thinking about the fossilized bacteria supposedly found in mars rocks a few years ago.