Deadspace not anymore...

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

According to this article, outer space is not as cold and lifeless as it seems...
NewScientist: Water found in stardust suggests life is universal (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24907-water-found-in-stardust-suggests-life-is-universal.html)

A sprinkling of stardust is as magical as it sounds. The dust grains that float through our solar system contain tiny pockets of water, which form when they are zapped by a blast of charged wind from the sun.

The chemical reaction causing this to happen had previously been mimicked in laboratories, but this is the first time water has been found trapped inside real stardust.

Combined with previous findings of organic compounds in interplanetary dust, the results suggest that these grains contain the basic ingredients needed for life. As similar dust grains are thought to be found in solar systems all over the universe, this bodes well for the existence of life across the cosmos.

"The implications are potentially huge," says Hope Ishii of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, one of researchers behind the study. "It is a particularly thrilling possibility that this influx of dust on the surfaces of solar system bodies has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics needed for the eventual origin of life."(...)

Here is another interesting one:
NewScientist: Hollow 'doughnut' rock appears in Mars rover's path (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24898-hollow-doughnut-rock-appears-in-mars-rovers-path.html)

Are we taking one small step after another small step toward full disclosure?

Deep inside of me, I know we are not alone :)

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Another interesting piece of the cosmic puzzle :)
NewScientist: Seeds of life can sprout in moon's icy pockets (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25031-seeds-of-life-can-sprout-in-moons-icy-pockets.html)

Ice pockets on the moon could be cooking up the building blocks of life. Simulations show that cosmic rays coming from outside the galaxy have enough energy to turn simple molecules in lunar ice into more complex organics – carbon-based compounds central to life on Earth.

In 2009, a spacecraft sent crashing into the moon's south pole kicked up water vapour – probably melted from ice trapped in shadowed craters. That water contained organics, but no one was sure how they got there.

Comets also have organics in their ices, so it is possible that the moon's carbon-laden water was delivered by impacts. But Sarah Crites at the University of Hawaii at Manoa wondered if the moon could instead be whipping up its organics from scratch.(...)

And another one :)
WiReD: Self-Assembling Molecules Like These May Have Sparked Life on Earth (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/rna/)

For Nicholas Hud, a chemist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the turning point came in July of 2012 when two of his students rushed into his office with a tiny tube of gel. The contents, which looked like a blob of lemon Jell-O, represented the fruits of a 20-year effort to construct something that looked like life from the cacophony of chemicals that were available on the early Earth.

To some biochemists, Hud’s attempts to find an evolutionary precursor to ribonucleic acid may have seemed a fool’s errand. The dominant theory to explain the origins of life — known as the RNA world hypothesis — regards ribonucleic acid as the first biological molecule. Its allure comes from the molecule’s dual nature. Unlike DNA, the molecule that provides the blueprint for all living things, RNA acts as both an information carrier and an enzyme, catalyzing reactions. That means the molecule has the potential to copy itself and to pass along its genetic code, two essential components for Darwinian evolution.

If RNA was indeed the first biological molecule, discovering how it first formed would illuminate the birth of life. The basic building blocks of RNA were available on prebiotic Earth, but chemists, including Hud, have spent years trying to assemble them into an RNA molecule with little success. About 15 years ago, Hud grew frustrated with that search and decided to explore an alternative idea: Perhaps the first biological molecule was not RNA, but a precursor that possessed similar characteristics and could more easily assemble itself from prebiotic ingredients. Perhaps RNA evolved from this more ancient molecule, just as DNA evolved from RNA.
It all fit together nicely imho :) Or i "just" see it that way?