📌 TOPINDIATOURS Breaking ai: Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA

In June 2019, a Japanese spacecraft called Hayabusa2 touched down on Ryugu, a 3,000-foot asteroid some 185 million miles from Earth.

It then proceeded to fire a metal bullet at the surface, dislodging enough material to scoop up with a special “sampling horn” to take back home to our planet.

Scientists have been poring over the extremely rare samples ever since to study the near-Earth asteroid with the hope of learning about how the building blocks of planets evolved over time — and just maybe how life on our planet first came to be.

The latest findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy by a team of researchers in Japan, tell a fascinating story: Ryugu appears to contain all the necessary ingredients to make the DNA and RNA underpinning life on Earth.

The conclusion supports the theory that errant space rocks like Ryugu could have brought life to Earth billions of years ago.

“Their detection in Ryugu strongly supports their ubiquity in the solar system,” coauthor and Hokkaido University post-doctoral researcher Yasuhiro Oba told New Scientist.

Oba and his colleagues examined surface and subsurface samples brought back by Hayabusa2, coming across all five primary nucleobases, which are compounds that make up DNA and RNA when combined with sugars and phosphoric acid.

The news comes after NASA scientists revealed last year that dust samples from a separate asteroid, dubbed Bennu, collected by its OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft in October 2020, similarly contained the building blocks of life. The rich array of minerals and organic compounds in the spacecraft’s samples featured amino acids and the requisite nucleobases.

While the latest findings suggest Ryugu’s samples contain all nucleobases — including uracil, adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine — required to build life, this “does not mean that life existed on Ryugu,” lead author and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology post-doctoral researcher Toshiki Koga told Agence France-Presse.

“Instead, their presence indicates that primitive asteroids could produce and preserve molecules that are important for the chemistry related to the origin of life,” he added.

While the results “do not suggest that the origin of life took place in space,” University of Alcala astrobiologist Cesar Menor Salvan, who was not involved in the study, told AFP that we now have a “very clear idea of which organic materials can form under prebiotic conditions anywhere in the universe.”

“It is very likely that more complex organic molecules like nucleic acids are formed on asteroids,” Oba told New Scientist, suggesting the role of asteroids could be even more important in our quest to understand how life began on Earth.

More on Ryugu: Scientists Find Evidence of Flowing Water on Giant Asteroid

The post Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building Blocks appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Eksklusif ai: Massive 2,000-year-old hoards of exquisite metalwork

Until now, evidence of vehicles in the British Iron Age was almost exclusively limited to two-wheeled chariots, mainly documented in burials from the 5th to 2nd centuries BC in the Yorkshire Wolds. The Melsonby discovery radically changes this picture.

Archaeologists discovered two astonishing Iron Age hoards in North Yorkshire, one of them being the largest ever found in British history, which has changed the historical understanding of wealth and power in pre-Roman Britain.

Packed with about 950 fragments of over 300 objects, within the precious lot of damaged objects laid to rest between 100 BCE and AD 70 were horse-drawn vehicles and horse harnesses. Four-wheeled wagons, known to have existed in Europe but never found in Britain, appeared, suggesting these technological advancements had reached this region at the point of contact with the Romans.

These wealthy deposits were unearthed from ditches on modern-day farmland near a Late Iron Age “royal site” at Stanwick. They “have the potential to broaden our understanding not only of the varied forms of wheeled transport [in ancient Britain] but also of expressions of wealth, status, and elite mortuary practices in Iron Age Britain,” study authors stated.

Giant hoards of wealth

Surveys revealed that the hoards were placed within “a complex landscape of enclosures, trackways, and settlement features” associated with the nearby Iron Age Center of Stanwick, belonging to the Brigantes tribe, Heritage Daily reports.

Labeled Hoard 1 and Hoard 2, archaeologists explained that Hoard 1 held the largest collection of copper alloy and iron metalwork, while 88 items were found in Hoard 2. Most of it comprised horse-drawn vehicles and horse harnesses. “As well as the iron tyres and brackets, these include nave bands, linchpins, yoke fittings, finials, kingpins, bolts, and tubular adornments alongside ornate copper-alloy bits, strap fittings and terrets (rein rings), the latter often atypically large, and some fragments of melted silver,” study authors continued.

“The remaining assemblage includes vessels and spears, an iron mirror, box components, a shield boss, edge bindings, repoussé sheetwork, melted pieces of copper alloy, and tiny fragments of metalwork.”

A cauldron stands out with embossed with images of fish, which is extremely rare throughout Europe, and relevant in light of a current academic debate surrounding taboos surrounding fish consumption in Iron Age Britain, LBV explained. The presence of four-wheeled vehicles also changes the picture of what Late Iron Age individuals were using at the time.  

As several of these objects were carefully laid out, Heritage Daily continued, archaeologists suspect that this was intentional, not just some ancient trash can, though they hypothesized that perhaps a metalworker had deposited this collection for late retrieval. But the lack of any equipment ruled out this possibility.  

Britain on the brink of change

In a study published in Antiquity, archaeologists explained that the purpose of this massive burial remains mysterious, but that doesn’t diminish its significance in the range of artifacts these metalwork deposits contain, suggesting an organized, symbolic event, possibly linked to elite burials, linked to a culture boasting extraordinary craftsmen.

Was it a significant event? Was it related to an elite Iron Age burial? Though skeletal remains are missing, some objects had been burned or melted down. Researchers believe some kind of ritual marked this massive deposit, as the feasting and decorative objects might correspond to an event that might have propelled the stashing away of these astonishing artifacts, as per Heritage Daily.

Why these deposits exist might remain unknown; however, the Melsonby deposits showcase power and wealth, according to LBV, which might even be linked to a famous female queen of Rome, Queen Cartimandua, who ruled Brigantes in the 50s and 60s AD.

The excavation is ongoing of the Brigantes civilization, which would come under Roman rule, and these deposits of wealth reflect a world on the brink of change.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com