Endless life
DNA can survive without water in the vacuum of space for hundreds of thousands of years, researchers in California have suggested. Their discovery will encourage those who maintain that life may have origi- nated in outer space. Water plays a crucial role in keeping proteins folded into three-dimensional structures. However, the resear- chers were not quite sure about how the DNA would fare without water, in a vacuum. To test this, Evan Williams and his team from the University of California in Berkeley, USA, placed the DNA in evacuated chambers. Their results suggested the DNA could keep its double- stranded structure at room temper- ature for as long as 35-odd years. " At the very low temperatures of outer space, the complexes would survive for a very long time - nearly indefinitely," Williams says (Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vo1120, p 9605).