• Question: Have any of you seen the film Prometheus and if you did, do you think that human life,or any other form of life, could have been or could be created as a bi product or sort of mutation of another 'alien' life form??

    Asked by supermantheory to Sarah, Will on 22 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      Hi Supermantheory. Yes I saw it last week, I was ok but there were several holes in the story that didn’t make sense to me! That said I thought it was an awesome film. On the subject of humans being alien mutations, thats not as far fetched as it seems! Evolution on earth is driven by mutations to give us the huge variety of spcies we have today, but the opinion is still divided on how this all started. One theory is that life started from microorganisms frozen on comets and meteors that hit the earth 4 billion years ago. These would technically be aliens so if this theory was proven to be correct then everything on earth is an alien mutation!!!

      Disclaimer: The others theories of life of earth starting underground where it was warm and in the ocean in a big mix of stuff are equally possible at this point.

    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      Hi supermantheory,

      My boyfriend saw it last night (but I was too busy answering IAS questions!) and he told me all about it.

      It’s not so much for me about mutating an alien life form as much as one on Earth – it’s called Synthetic Biology. Check it out! Synthetic biology is quite exciting – here’s a great video about coloured poo on vimeo, and what we might use it for!

      And we do currently use it to study cancer, and there are goats that have been engineered to produce spider silk in their milk!

      🙂

      Sarah

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